by shamirpower · Friday, October 31st, 2008
The Huffington Post lets the man be heard with his debut post:
The most vexing problem Israel faces is its relations with its neighbors. From the inception of the state until today, Israelis have felt besieged, surrounded by enemies who want to make them disappear. The constant security threat has made it very difficult for Israel to address the long list of problems that for the most part have been swept under the rug while awaiting peace. These include a disastrous educational system, a widening gap between rich and poor, and bitter division between secular and religious Jews. Israel desperately needs peace if it is to come anywhere close to being the “light unto nations” of Jewish dreams.
I quarrel with the oft-heard assumption that “George W. Bush is good for Israel.” He gleaned many Jewish votes on that slogan, but I take a contrarian’s position. Israel is further from peace than it was at the end of the Clinton administration. The smoldering hatred between Iraq’s Sunni and Shi’a has burst into flames as a result of the American occupation. An emboldened Iran, with its Shi’a majority, has strengthened and armed Israel’s enemies Hamas and Hezbollah. But Israel’s most immediate danger comes from a nuclear Iran. Under the Bush administration, conversations with the Iranians began only at the end of May 2007 and have been badly mishandled. The result of the Bush doctrine in the Middle East has been an America and an Israel that are regarded with hatred and fear.
The region requires an honest broker that will push both sides towards a workable solution and a two state outcome. I remember the scene at the White House when President Clinton helped Prime Minister Rabin to shake Arafat’s hand. Whether an American president is prepared to preside over another handshake–one that could build lasting peace–should not be measured by his professed love for one side or the other, but by his judgment.
How refreshing to hear from establishment Jewry in this way.
h/t to Shammai the Subversive
by RabbiBrentChaimSpodek · Friday, October 31st, 2008
When Joe the Plumber emerged as the everyman railing against Obama’s “one-step-closer-to-socialist” tax program, progressives were quick to jump. We jumped on him because he wasn’t really a plumber, he wasn’t anywhere near buying a plumbing business, and that in the life he actully lived, Obama’s tax plan would be better for him than McCain’s. We thought it was just another case of the working class voting against their own self interest.
What we failed to grasp is that Joe the Plumber wasn’t talking from who he was, but from who he would like to be. We all have internal narratives in which we locate ourselves, and in Joe’s narrative, he wasn’t an unliscenced plumber, but a man on the verge of becoming a small business owner. The fact that Republicans have been consistently better than Democrats at speaking to people’s narratives, to their aspirations to be wealthy is no small part of why they have been so successful the past 30 years (though hopefully not next week!)
The legal philosopher Robert Cover talked about law as the bridge that connects where we are to where we see ourselves. Thankfully, Obama is a democratic candidate who undstands that and has buildt a campaign around it. Hopefully the rest of us who want to effect progressive social and religious change will be able to do the same.
by Aryeh Cohen · Friday, October 31st, 2008
I have a piece over at the Jewish Journal about Alan Greenspan’s shocking revelation that greed might cloud the mind of inestment bankers who otherwise would have your best interests in mind.
The bottom line is:
Perhaps now, as Greenspan walks off into the night, a pathetic has-been idolator, we will be empowered to see justice and righteousness as the principles on which to ground our economy.
The whole story is here.
by feygele · Friday, October 31st, 2008
I recently had a conversation with my step mother about Jews using their position as immigrants to North America, and their success at integration into this society and climbing the socio-economic ladder, to mentor current new immigrant groups. We specifically discussed the merits of Canadian Jews lending their knowledge to Canada’s First Nation populations, a people near and dear to her heart. She asked if I knew of any examples of such a partnership; I was sure it existed, but couldn’t think of any off hand.
The other day, my father sent me this article:
Somalis reach out to Jewish community
Oct 29, 2008 04:30 AM
Nicholas Keung
Immigration/Diversity Reporter
A first-generation Somali Canadian immigrant, Toronto law student Ayan Hersi didn’t know whom to turn to for advice and help pursuing her career.
But an innovative program, announced yesterday, is expected to give the 27-year-old woman and youth from her 250,000-strong community – one of Greater Toronto’s and Canada’s most impoverished – a needed lift by matching them with mentors from the more established Jewish community.
“Our generation is still young and the future is in our hands. Unlike others, we can’t call so and so and ask for help,” said Hersi, who has an undergraduate degree in equity studies, political science and African studies, and is pursuing a law degree at University of Toronto.
“We always have to go outside the community for help,” she added. “I am the first in my family to have graduated from a university, and studying law.”
The unusual partnership between the Canadian Somali Congress, the United Jewish Appeal of Greater Toronto and the Canadian Jewish Congress is the brainchild of the Canadian International Peace Project, a non-partisan charitable organization that helps bring together diverse groups to work on peace, security and development projects.
Hersi is paired with James Morton, past president of the Ontario Bar Association, whose Jewish immigrant family arrived in Canada in the 1960s from Europe via the U.S.
Mark Persaud, peace project founder, said the Somali community has identified the lack of mentorship opportunity as a huge disadvantage for its young people. He hopes the program can be a model for future initiatives.
Wonderful!
Does anyone know of other examples of this type of partnership? Does it exist in your community? With which other populations? Please leave links/examples in the comments!
by Justin Goldstein · Friday, October 31st, 2008
hat tip to FailedMessiah.com for his CONSTANT vigilance in this ongoing saga.
But now, folks, it has reached a new place. Sholom Rubashkin, former CEO of Agriprocessors, has been arrested and released with GPS bracelet, charged with “conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens, document fraud, and aggravated identity theft.”
full press release can be viewed here (once again thanks to FailedMessiah.com)
by Kung Fu Jew · Friday, October 31st, 2008
Dear readers and friends,
A few of us have been working since end of Simhat Torah to get us up on a higher-load server. We’re all volunteers here and moving the site was no trivial task. Reb Yudel has been at the helm of the switchover and we’re indebted to his menschlich attributes. Make that man a tzadik. Thanks to Shamirpower and Mobius for helping also.
And those missing posts will be back up also — let’s refrain from pretending we’ve time traveled three months back. (I’d rather the election be over already, personally.) I’m sure there’s a backlog of posts and topics we’ve been waiting to cover, but at least the dark ages are over.
Thanks for your patience.
The Jewschool Editorial Team
by Eli · Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
The Associated Press reports:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave a final go ahead to the creation of a Jerusalem museum dedicated to tolerance and coexistence, rejecting appeals by Muslims who object to construction because the site covers part of an ancient Muslim cemetery.
A court statement said judges ruled that since no objections had been lodged in 1960 when the city put a parking lot over a small section of the graveyard they would not block construction of the museum on that same site now.
The Museum of Tolerance aims to bridge this contentious city’s warring tribes together. But its planning alone has sparked a fight with political, religious and historical dimensions between Muslims and Jews.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Los Angeles-based Jewish organization behind the project, welcomed the court ruling and said work on the $250 million museum would resume immediately after a two-year delay caused by the legal proceedings.
“All citizens of Israel, Jews and non-Jews, are the real beneficiaries of this decision,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Wiesenthal Center, in a statement.
Israeli Islamic movement spokesman Zahi Nujidat, however, condemned the court for what he called “clear religious and ethnic oppression”.
The court sought to reconcile religious attitudes for respecting the dead with the legal requirements and gave project managers 60 days to agree with the state-run Antiquities Authority on a method of either removing any human remains for reburial or installing a barrier between the building’s foundations and the ground below which would prevent graves from being disturbed.
The cemetery, with graves the court said dated back 300-400 years, fell out of use after the creation of Israel in 1948. But many of its headstones are still visible, crumbling among trees in what has become the heart of the Jewish side of the city. Part of the cemetery is now known as Independence Park.
Another section was sold in the 1930s, at the initiative of the top Muslim clergyman of Jerusalem, to become a hotel.
The museum’s Muslim opponents found unexpected allies in their struggle: Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who aren’t known for their sympathy for Arab causes but who care about preserving graves.
Full Story
