by John Brown [➚] · Wednesday, August 31st, 2005
BBC News reports:
“Families of Israeli Arabs shot dead on a bus in Galilee are not considered terrorism victims because their killer was Jewish, the defence ministry says.
Under Israeli law, only attacks by “enemies of Israel” are considered terrorism, the ministry said.
The ruling means families of the four victims will not be entitled to the lifelong monthly payments given to Israeli victims of Palestinian attacks. “
Further coverage: JPost, Ha’aretz, AP
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, August 31st, 2005
Richard Marker is a Senior Fellow at NYU’s Center for Philanthropy and a co-principal of Marker Goldsmith Advisors, which advises foundations and independent funders on strategic philanthropy. He was previously the Executive Vice President of the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, Vice President for International Affairs of Hillel, and has taught at Hofstra, Brown and Loyala Universities. Rick is also an advisor to Matzat, my non-profit startup which oversees Jewschool and its related projects.
Relating to my recent post on Mazal Tov Cocktail, he offers the following insight:
***
There are two converging trends in Jewish communal life – which together suggests that the nature of connections, identification, and association are profoundly changing from that which we have seen in the past several generations:
- Self directed, non-affiliational, and non-denominational Jewish identification. Individuals have a moving-target range of influences and associations – no longer can it be said that one is exclusively identified as a “reform†or “conservative†or “orthodox†or “Reconstructionist†or “secular†or…; and on the whole, those institutional identities do not describe the ideological beliefs of their affiliates. With some very real but statistically minimal exceptions, when those affiliations do exist they are coincidental, social, or convenient. Moreover, identifies are fluid – American Jews – function within a number of overlapping spheres. Some of these may be Jewish, others may be professional, some may be geographic, and others may be social. At any given moment, the balance of which governs one ’s self- understanding and connections may lead to one’s identity looking and being quite different. And over time, these may look very different, even within the same family and same individual. Thus by definition, institutional identification simply doesn’t describe enough American Jews to be meaningful.
- At the same time, there is a profound disillusionment or frustration with established institutions. They are [accurately] not perceived as agile, responsive, or innovative. And because they typically have a broad agenda, requiring consensus decision making, involvement within them runs counter to the most current behavior among the most creative or passionate. Once upon a time, patience was sufficient; today, few people are willing to be long term apprentices in Jewish communal life when the rest of life requires and rewards other attributes. Thus, the most interesting and interested younger Jews would much rather associate with a start up or special interest group which reflects them rather than with an established, multipurpose organizations.
- Thus, what is emerging is a functional anarchy which is slowly and incrementally changing the way in which Jewish behavior functions. For many, it is more exciting and gratifying to be a part of a special interest start-up than to wait one’s turn in a wealthier and older institution. For many, the idea that some external institution defines who and what you are or believe is simply problematic.
- Is this development good or bad for the future? If one believes that Jewish life is in need of genuine and endemic change, it is a very healthy and indispensable trend. Change requires outside challenges – some of which will prevail and some will fail but all will reflect the limitations of Jewish life as currently constituted. If one the other hand, one believes that only a well oiled and structured community can respond to external challenges effectively, then this development is self defeating. It depends how one understands the existential challenges before us today. I am among those who feel that our future strength and vitality require that we err on the side of deconstruction and anarchy.
by sarah [➚] · Wednesday, August 31st, 2005
Once again, disaster is hitting home for this Jew. The trauma in New Orleans is very personal, as my family lives there – or I suppose I should say, lived there.
My folks are safe and sound in a crappy hotel room in Jackson, Mississippi, but as anyone who has checked the news in the last 24 hours has seen, everything else is lost. As I go to sleep tonight here in California, floodwaters are rising at about 5 inches every half hour – the levees have been breached and the Army Corps of Engineers has of yet failed to fix anything.
Happily, our Esteemed President has cut short his vacation to take some meetings on the matter tomorrow. Great. By then, our house will be underwater.
Anyways, Jews are Jews, and they’re helping out.
Three Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries remained in New Orleans to help residents who couldn’t leave the city.
Among them was Rabbi Yossi Nemes. Nemes had received a panicked phone call from a visiting Jewish family that had been evicted from their hotel, which was shuttering up against the storm, a Chabad spokesman told JTA.
The family couldn’t make it to the Superdome quickly enough to miss the storm and was concerned for its safety. Nemes decided to stay in his own home and take in the visitors.
Nemes could not be reached by telephone. Thirteen people are now staying on the top floor of his home, where water is running through the roof. The first floors have been flooded and toxic water is coursing through the taps, the Chabad spokesman said.
Jewish Federations, the Union for Reform Judaism, Bnai Brith and tons of other orgs are taking donations already for the relief effort.
Full story (the Jewish part of it anyway)
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
Christopher Hitchens — <sarcasm>a nice Jewish boy if ever there was one</sarcasm> — writes in Slate:
I can never read the name “Michael Bloomberg” without an automatic free-association that flashes up in my mind. “Little putz,” is what my internal prompter always cues to me. Obviously this and other intuitions must be prompted by whatever grand intelligence originally designed me, because here’s what I read on page B5 of the New York Times on Friday, Aug. 26:
A circumcision ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews has alarmed city health officials, who say it may have led to three cases of herpes—one of them fatal—in infants. … The practice is known as oral suction, or in Hebrew, metzitzah b’peh: after removing the foreskin of the penis, the practitioner, or mohel, sucks the blood from the wound to clean it.
The continuing scandal of this practice, which most Jews abandoned many years ago, is newly illustrated by the death of one little boy from type-1 herpes, and the infection of two others, in Staten Island and Brooklyn, after they had been subjected to this ritual by the same mohel. Let’s be clear what’s involved here. The Times refers to an article published last year in the journal Pediatrics that argued that metzitzah b’peh carries a serious health risk and is, for that reason alone, a violation of Jewish law. (“We suspect … that this entity is underreported for cultural reasons and that the studies described here are only the “tip of the iceberg” of the true incidence of the disease,” the authors note). None of this should be hard to comprehend: If it risks the life or health of an infant, then no religious allegiance is or should be required for its condemnation. Q.E.D., as you might say.
Continue reading…
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
Former DOJ prosecutor and author of The Secret War Against The Jews, John Loftus, was fired from his job as a Fox News commentator for wrongly identifying the home of a California family as the address of a terrorist hiding in the United States.
Randy and Ronnell Vorick thought La Habra was about as far away as one could get from terrorism. They were wrong.
For the last 2 1/2 weeks, the lives of the couple and their three children have been plunged into an unsettling routine of drivers shouting profanities, stopping to photograph their house and — most recently — spray-painting a slogan on their property.
Newshounds reports,
Loftus, whose “Inside Scoop with John Loftus” is a feature of Fox Network News television every Sunday at 11:20 AM, gave the family’s address on the air, saying that a terrorist connected with the July 7 London bombings lived at the address. Directions and satellite photos were briefly available on-line until police intervened and had them taken down.
Loftus claims he gave the information out on national cable to help the local police locate a terrorist. He said that “mistakes happen” and it was “the best information we had at the time.”
Loftus was subsequently fired from the network.
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
The Scotsman reports,
A former Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.
The retired officer – of assistant chief constable rank or higher – has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.
[...]
The first suspects in the case were the Syrian-led Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), a terror group backed by Iranian cash. But the first Gulf War altered diplomatic relations with Middle East nations, and Libya became the pariah state.
[...]
A source close to Megrahi’s defence said: “Britain and the US were telling the world it was Libya, but in their private communications they acknowledged that they knew it was the PFLP-GC.
Full story.
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
Oh Cindy Sheehan… What to make of you and your ill-tempered remarks?
Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the army to protect America, not Israel.”
While Sheehan claims she did not make the remarks, there is evidence to the contrary. As a result she has, on the one hand, become a whipping-post for the right-wing, and on the other, a champion of the extreme right.
The question is, with assholes like Phil Zelikow shooting his mouth off, Senator Fritz Hollings’ inanity, and even el presidente Bush himself directly linking his “War on Terror” to Israel’s safety — let alone the idiots on the left Sheehan’s taking her cues from — how can this woman be blamed for making such a foolish assertion?
***
Frankly, I would agree with the contention that this war was driven by the PNAC and a neocon agenda. However, Israel is no more than a pawn in this game. The neocon agenda has naught to do with Israel’s security — which as always, is a great cover. This is the same game the Arab world plays, keeping people distracted from the hand in their backpocket and the boot on their neck by pointing at the Jews. The question of the Jewish neocon’s dual allegience is no more than a classic anti-Semitic canard. The neocons are interested in only one thing — securing the continued success of the military and energy industrial complexes which are the backbone of the U.S. economy. In order to maintain the United States’ “global preeminence” as the PNAC calls it, it must remain the global economic leader. Thus, in other words, these folks are just concerned with staying the richest people in the world. The war in Iraq was not fought for ideological purposes, nor for Israel at all. It was fought for the almighty dollar, which is all any war is ever fought for.
See: Cheney’s energy task force meeting notes reveal maps of Iraqi oil fields and lists of potential suitors.
And on that note, two years into the war, speculation about an Iraqi pipeline to Israel has yet to yield any evidence let alone progress in that direction. Not that it wouldn’t be great to see the price of gasoline in Israel drop down from $4.83 per gallon.
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
Crazy neighbor Natasha Lyonne is in some serious shit. The Miami Herald reports,
American Pie star Natasha Lyonne is fighting for her life in a Manhattan hospital, after being found with hepatitis C, a heart infection and a collapsed lung, reports TV Guide Online.
The New York Post says that Lyonne was also found with track marks, and is undergoing methadone treatment, typically used to help heroin users.
However, we shouldn’t know about any of this:
According to the New York Daily News, her father Aaron Braunstein is planning to sue [Beth Israel Medical Center] for $180 million after an article appeared in the New York Post detailing the 26-year-old actress’ medical condition and alleged methadone therapy.
Braunstein says, “They broke the patient-doctor confidentiality rule. It’s my child, my little girl. Why would someone do something like that?”
Because people are gossip whores?
(c/o Andy)
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
Eric S writes,
Banias, Timna, Dothan, Yonah and Merom – no, these are not found on random pages of an Israeli tour book, they’re names for computer processors developed by Intel – the worldwide leader in microchip technology! So what gives? Are they jumping on the Madonna hip-to-use-Hebrew bandwagon? No – these chips were all either developed at an Intel facility in Israel, or by an Israeli named Mooly Eden, who works for Intel development at their headquarters in Santa Clara. Yonah seems particularly appropriate – it’s a dual-core chip made for mobile use – just like Jonah – the most mobile of prophets, whose own core was pulled in two directions – to serve or to flee? To forgive or to punish?
More info here.
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
by Mobius [➚] · Monday, August 29th, 2005
Leave your comments about our two latest features — our interview with Ronni Shendar & Till Rohmann and Kitra Cahana’s snapshots from Gush Katif — here.
by Chorus of Apes [➚] · Monday, August 29th, 2005
Political Zionism, Cultural Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, Socialist Zionism, and now… Sexual Zionism
Well, at least we have our priorities in order, more Jewish babies! Forget about creating meaningful Jewish communities, if Jews are fucking other Jews all is well with the world.
As Alex Sharone, the 24-year-old national director of Habonim Dror, says:
Somewhere along the line, major Israel providers figured this was a good way to appeal to the youth market…. It’s about sexualizing a love for Israel. You’re 15, going through puberty and visiting Israel for the first time. While you’re learning the history and culture of the land, you’re simultaneously scoping out potential mates. It’s about forging a positive association with Israel, and for teens and young adults that often means sex. Zionism always has had a sexualized aspect to it. The strong, bare-chested men working the land. All that talk of ‘blooming’ and ‘bearing fruit’ is so Freudian. And today, all the soldiers protecting the motherland. It’s definitely sexy.
The goals may be a bit vapid, but I can’t argue with her analysis of the gendered implications of Zionism. Full story.
PS: In case you are wondering, I’m a new JewSchool contributer, currently living in Jerusalem.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Monday, August 29th, 2005
It depends on how you define the word occupation.
In an article entitled Legal Acrobatics: The Palestinian Claim that Gaza is Still “Occupied” Even After Israel Withdraws, former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold, claims the Palestinians are abusing the term for political ends.
The fact that a wide variety of Palestinian spokesmen will charge that the Gaza Strip is still “occupied” even though the Palestinians exercise self-government and the Israeli civilian and military presence in this territory have been removed is revealing. It means that the charge of “occupation” is less a rigorous legal definition and more a blunt political instrument to serve the PLO’s diplomatic and military agenda against Israel.
He makes some good points. Even if the borders and airspace remain under Israeli control, claiming that ‘nothing has changed’ is ridiculous. What really hasn’t changed is the Palestinian awareness that an end to the occupation means an end to world sympathy and, therefore, the diplomatic free ride they have enjoyed for years.
From the looks of things, the only thing the PA leaders hate more than occupation is having to take responsibilty for their own people.
by komai [➚] · Monday, August 29th, 2005
New on the Jewschool ‘board of posties’, this one is beamed from Cambodia. And no, there isn’t a synagogue yet; actually even Hebrew menus are yet to be etched on the tourist trail… I wish to thank Mobius for the invitation to this circle. It is quite possible that my views are off-beat for some of the regular attendees (though by no means I hold them in solitude – thanks God for that), so I hope any argument or discussion born herewith will stream in good spirit and generous celebration of differences, and want to profess I only mean to get to the bottom of things to the best of my ability and that I come in peace and for peace of mind. To err is human, and to argue is Jewish no doubt.
“Things that you see from there, you cannot see from here†was a song I grew up with, never thought it would be my daily reality. I spent my later teens and army service as part of the great Zionist expansion of the late 70th and 80th. During my army service, my Nachal Gar-in was destined to one of the two kibbutzim later uprooted from Sinai; and we were one of the first groups to set up the settlement of Bdolach near Rafah (of course, we called it by the Hebrew name – Raffi-ach and saw no irony in that). We used to go down, quite casually armed and dressed (part of the unit’s pride those days) and stroll like the Paritz downtown on our way to buy a falafel, or a baklava. 18 year old royalty in full and shabby regalia: what I find most baffling, in light of the years and the distance travelled since, is not that it did not occur to me I should question my right to stroll thus, but that it did not occur to me I had the right to question at all.
This picture has landed in my cyber door step few days ago. These are young monk-novices, most likely in Thailand, and the Hebrew poster says – “We are against the eviction as well”. (better translation anyone? – I can’t find a good word for âéøåù). It is probably a little too late to comment. Water under the bridge, or maybe sand under the bulldozer’s tracks is more appropriate a phraze. But to me it is a symbol of one of the tenets of this later fundamentalism setting into our collective spirit. We could, should and would use anything to justify our position. We don’t ponder to deeply, and never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
The Buddhists monks in the picture are unsuspecting partners in this autosuggestion of persecution and strife. I doubt that any of their Buddhist values would have prompt them to take the Israeli side in justice, though their training would have emphasized compassion to all those who are troubled, be their angst real or construed. From here, the one that really stood out as incongruent and abusively false, were the teenage girls, orange patches pinned to chest, walking with raise hands and shrieking hysterically.
by Mobius [➚] · Sunday, August 28th, 2005
Media Matters for America reports,
Recalling the controversy surrounding his December 3, 2004, comment that a Jewish caller who objected to “Christmas going into schools” should “go to Israel” if he is “really offended,” Fox News host Bill O’Reilly once again used his radio show to attack Media Matters for America and Anti-Defamation League (ADL) national director Abraham H. Foxman. On the August 23 broadcast of The Radio Factor, O’Reilly accused Media Matters, which first documented his December comments, of being “a left-wing website [that] couldn’t care less about, you know, Israel or the Christians, but … wanted to get me.” O’Reilly referred to the ADL, which had condemned O’Reilly’s “go to Israel” comment, as a “pressure group.” He then stated, “I know the evil that the pressure groups will resort to.” He added that Foxman “played right into them [Media Matters], you know, because he wanted publicity.”
Bill, shut up and eat your falafel.
by Mobius [➚] · Sunday, August 28th, 2005
A suicide bomber detonated himself outside Be’er Sheva’s central bus station this morning. Full story.
I’ve been avoiding buses and cafés in central locations since the hitnakud began. When you have a majority of Palestinians running around believing the Gaza disengagement is a victory for their violence, you can only expect things to get hairier…
I fear we’re looking towards a messy season.
by Mobius [➚] · Sunday, August 28th, 2005
Ynet reports,
A woman who set herself on fire to protest the disengagement program has died of her injuries.
Yelena Bosinova, 54, of Kadumim, was rushed to the Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva with third degree burns on 75 percent of her body. She was placed on a life support machine, and remained unconsciousness after sustaining her injuries, and suffered system failures on all levels throughout her body.
Full story.
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