Terrorism in Israel notwithstanding, CAJE's Israel Study Tour came back to life this year. Twenty-six students from Denver and Boulder took off from DIA last Sunday, June 15.

In a surprisingly relaxed atmosphere near the south security checkpoint, the students' families and friends gathered to wish them a safe trip. Though this year's trip is much smaller than past IST groups, it is the largest community trip to Israel from the US.

CAJE made the decision to send the trip despite the continuation of violence that forced the cancellation of last year's trip -- the only time the trip has been cancelled in 33 years.

Before going to Israel for four weeks, all of the students will spend six days touring concentration camps in Poland. In previous years, participants were given the option of going to Poland first.

Most of the students have either never been to Israel before or were too young when they went previously to remember. "I don't really remember anything," said Elke Webb, who went to Israel with her family when she was seven years old. Webb said she looks forward to "getting spiritually connected."

Megan Nathan, another one of the participants, said she is excited to be going to Israel "at a time when I think we need to support it the most." Though she admitted that she was a little nervous about her safety, she said her "desire to go outweighs any concerns [she] might have."

"I know they'll take all the [safety] precautions," Brad Kraus said.

Sari Blum, whose older brother, David, went on IST in 2001 but did not go to Poland, said she is "intrigued" to go. "It's something that every Jewish person should go do," she said, "it's part of our past."

"I just hope I come out of the trip a better person," Nate Allen said.

The students and their families and friends joined in a short service before the students went through security. After the service, the students gathered with the other participants from their synagogue for a final farewell from their rabbi or other synagogue representative.

The IST students are Nate Allen, Hannah Berkowitz, Sari Blum, Melanie Boscoe, Ashley Cook, Bryan Epstein, Calen Feero, Craig Gutman, David Heit, Adam Jones, Kelly Jordan, Brad Kraus, Douglas Krause, Melissa Loeb, Sarah Miles, Megan Nathan, Andrew Paryzer, Benjamin Raznick, Benjamin Rosen, Sarah Sievers, Jenya Sonkina, Adrienne Suson, Aaron Taenzer, Elke Webb, Justin West and Ian Zucker.

Rabbi David Zucker, Nina Sundell, Yaniv Salzberg and Ronnie Grinberg will be the American counselors, assisted by three Israeli staff members. The group will return to Denver on July 22.

Late Friday afternoon, three days before the ISTers left, CAJE Executive Director Daniel Bennett was still answering calls from apprehensive parents.

"Most parents are both excited and anxious about their kids going to Israel," Bennett says. "Some are more than anxious, and a handful are really frightened."

One family did pull their teen from the trip a few days prior to Sunday's departure.

Bennett's stepson Andrew Paryzer is one of this year's 26 ISTers.

"My wife and I have had this conversation" about Drew's safety "endless times," he says. "But we decided -- and this applies only to our family -- that we were comfortable with the risk versus the benefits.

"We're not thrilled. We would love it if Drew were going to the secure Israel that my oldest stepson went to on IST 2000. But we felt the risk was small enough that we were willing to proceed, because the benefit is so great.

"But for me, this year is like any other," Bennett says of Drew's participation in IST. "Every kid on IST is precious to me."

He says Israel is quieter than it was a year ago, when CAJE made the difficult decision to cancel the trip for the first time in its history.

"Last year there were so many suicide attacks that it was almost like Jerusalem was under siege. The situation was untenable. But the streets of Israel are a lot safer now than last year."

For IST 2001, CAJE implemented stringent security measures -- no more visits to malls, public beaches or congested public areas; bypassing Arab villages when traveling; staying in hostels a safe distance from central Jerusalem; and more. Security for IST 2003 includes the same prohibitions.

In June 2001, just a couple of weeks before the group of 69 ISTers arrived, a suicide bomber killed 21 Israelis at the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv. Then in August, not too long after the ISTers had returned to Denver, a suicide bomber killed 15 Israelis at a Jerusalem pizza parlor.

"I don't have a crystal ball," Bennett says.

"But it's not terrorists who scare me. It's teenagers doing teen-aged things and getting injured. I worry about that much, much more than terrorism."

The week leading up to Sunday's departure was a tough one for Sharon Berkowitz, mother of ISTer Hannah Berkowitz, 17.

"I'm very nervous," Berkowitz tells the IJN Monday.

Last week, she asked her husband Larry whether they should let Hannah proceed with the tour. He answered, "This is Israel." In other words, danger is part of the equation.

The Berkowitz's older son Henry went on IST 2000. "He loved IST, and I knew what his opinion would be," says Sharon. "He said Hannah must have this experience, under any circumstance."

But it was their daughter's intense desire to see the Jewish state that finally convinced her mother to allow Hannah to board the plane Sunday.

"CAJE told us we needed to make a parental decision," Sharon says. "But it's not that simple. Hannah is a young adult. She knows right from wrong. She is committed to Judaism. And she really wanted to go."

CAJE officials assured Mrs. Berkowitz that the ISTers would be buffered by tight security. "That's all well and good," Sharon says, "but there are no guarantees. Even in America there are no guarantees. I guess there are no guarantees anywhere.

"In the end I felt I had to step up and let this young woman go."

Although Hannah is currently in Poland with her fellow ISTers, Sharon's eyes are glued to 24-hour news programs on the TV and the radio has become acceptable background noise.

"The phone is right by our bed -- and Hannah isn't even in Israel yet!"

Despite last-minute preparations and a heart singing with excitement, Hannah remembered to honor her parents' courage.

When the family returned from DIA Sunday, Sharon found a note taped to her pillow. "It was so sweet. Hannah thanked us for letting her go to Israel, and promised to call frequently.

"Then she wrote, 'Be happy for me, not sad.'"

RETURN TO THE TOP

When I was in tenth-grade at Rocky Mountain Hebrew Academy in Denver, the school principal, Bryan Hay, came up with a crazy idea. He took the class (all five of us) to Washington, DC for a week to participate in "Panim el Panim," a national youth conference on Jewish political activism. We toured the city, listened to lectures, met with public officials and discussed such pressing issues as homelessness, education and the US-Israel relationship. By all accounts it was a terrific success, and the trip has since become an annual tradition.

In retrospect, I think that trip had a greater effect on me than most participants. I started to live and breathe politics, to read the paper more often and more critically, and to develop my own sense of where I thought the country ought to be going.

After college, I immediately set off for Washington, DC, where I wound up as a 23-year old Press Secretary for a senior Democratic member of Congress. It was a terrific job for a great boss, but life in the minority isn't pretty. For the most part, Democrats in the House yell and scream while the GOP rams terrible legislation through Congress.

I eventually decided to leave Capitol Hill in order to prepare for law school, but in the meantime, I couldn't get politics out of my system. So I looked to the biggest field of all: the 2004 presidential election.

Of course, there's a wide array of Democrats to choose from. The big joke in Washington right now is finding a Democrat who's not running for President. But in the end, my choice was easy. I am supporting Joe Lieberman for President. In a way, it all goes back to that tenth-grade visit to Washington.

I remember the trip well. It was a rainy winter in DC. One of my classmates forgot to pack socks and wore the same wet pair every day for a week. But the thing that stuck most was the idea that as young American Jews, we could do and be anything. The sky was the limit. A Congressman? Sure. A Senator? You bet. President? Why not!

Of course, in the back of our minds was a gnawing doubt. We placed meaningless bets with one another in our hotel room. A Jewish president in our lifetimes? Ah, probably not. A Jewish politician is like Moses, we reasoned. You can climb a relatively tall mountain and gaze into the Promised Land, but you can't go yourself. A Jewish president? Yeah, right.

But then Joe Lieberman came along. When Al Gore chose him as his running mate in 2000 - and the ticket won by popular vote - suddenly the sky really was the limit. Maybe, just maybe, we would see a Jewish president in our lifetimes. Well, now's our chance. Joe is running for president. And he's leading in the polls.

But the irony is that many Jewish Democrats are still tentative about supporting Joe. This drives me nuts. A recent article in the Hartford Courant put it succinctly enough. On the one hand, some Jews are so immobilized by fear of some national pogrom that they are quietly rooting for Joe, but that's as far as they'll go. On the other hand, some younger Jews are so thoroughly assimilated that they feel no reason to support the Senator, even though his campaign is perhaps the most courageous political act a Jewish public official has undertaken in American history.

As Jews, we need not be confined by real or imagined prejudices. We need not content ourselves with the second tier of public service, or the second tier of anything. Right now, a proud Jewish American is running for President. He is strong on defense, fiscally responsible and socially progressive. He's the only Democrat in the race with the credentials and name-recognition to beat Bush in a general election. But it's going to be a hard-fought Democratic primary.

By now my pitch is pretty clear. And since I have already tried guilt and nagging, I will close with a gentle Jewish nudge. Joe Lieberman is running for president. Joe needs money.

Cody Harris is a former student at Hillel, Herzl and RMHA. He may be reached at www.joe2004.com or codysharris@hotmail.com

RETURN TO THE TOP

Nothing is more disturbing to me about the last half century than the inability of "civilization," especially its leaders, to stop the genocide.
The Holocaust Museum has not done the job. In fact, I shudder with anger when I think of the annual "Days of Remembrance," especially those conducted by former President Clinton. He was conducting a remembrance of the Holocaust while 800,000 people were being killed in Rwanda! All the phrases -- "Never Again" -- all the museums -- all the Holocaust memorials -- all the tears and righteous anger and genuine, deep passion to prevent another Holocaust has not stopped the genocide.

What was Bill Clinton's worst moment? If people allude to Lewinsky, I shudder -- that, over 800,000 dead in Rwanda? Where is our proportion? Where is our outrage?

Have we become so inured to mass killing that we don't even notice, or that, if we do, it registers merely as numbers?

Something deep, so deep, so evil, in humanity needs to kill. Hitler did not shame humanity into ceasing this; if anything, he unleashed every demon.

I am ashamed as a human being to have lived through Cambodia -- remember the pictures of the skulls, piled atop each other in the thousands? Remember Pol Pot, the Hitler of Cambodia, in the late 1960s and early 1970s?

I am ashamed of the obscene discussions as to whether this or another mass killing does, or does not, qualify as "genocide." One million innocents dead in Cambodia -- was it a Holocaust? The question is obscene.

Sierre Leone: there, amputation joins murder as the favored expression of this deep human need to kill. Is this genocide? I am ashamed to be in the presence of people who consider the question important.

Remember Biafra? The swollen stomachs? The enforced starvation?

All this in my lifetime.

Remember Bosnia? It was only about 11 years ago. The US went to war in the area many years too late. We salve our conscience, saying we did something; and we did. How conveniently we overlook the tens of thousands of people who were massacred before we acted.

The world, with or without the UN, has not yet devised a method to intervene in genocide in timely fashion.

Item: In 1998, Rwanda and Uganda invaded Congo. To take just one small segment of this conflict, Uganda (writes the Economist) "has armed both of the large local tribes, the Hema and the Lendu, pitting each against the other . . . On a recent visit, your correspondent saw the burned villages and freshly scattered graves of both tribes" -- tens of thousands of graves.

Not big enough numbers to get our attention? OK, altogether, just since 1998, the death toll in Congo is between 3.1 million and 4.7 million people. Have you heard of this? Has either President Clinton or President Bush devoted a single press conference, let alone any concerted action, to Congo?

Is this what we have come to -- memorials, ceremonies, remembrances, but when between 3.1 million and 4.7 million people die, we see nothing, do nothing, hear nothing?

Even from our leaders?

Item: In WW I, the Turks slaughtered the Armenians. A few weeks ago I was subjected to a long discourse by a representative of a Jewish human rights organization. He insisted that the number is exaggerated ("1.5 million Armenians didn't die; it was closer to 600,000 or 700,000"; whew, was I relieved), or that no genocide even took place, or that it is more important to protect Israel's relationship with Turkey than it is to ask the Turks to acknowledge their past, the past that Hitler said showed him he could get away murdering the Jews (on that, my human rights representative countered that there is no proof Hitler really said this because, after all, the only known source is a report in a . . . newspaper!).

This complementary human need to ignore, dismiss or overlook genocide, or to tie it up in semantic knots, is disturbing beyond words. Disturbing -- and shaming.

Which is why, in part, genocide continues.

Another example: Since the recent Iraq war, no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Underplayed in the controversy over this is something far worse: the mass destruction itself. The mass graves. Saddam Hussein's mass killings. If it is not legitimate to use power to stop mass killings, then what, pray tell, is power legitimate for?

Item: Since 1983, a war in southern Sudan has killed between one million and two million people. On this front, at least, the US has threatened. By the way, the blacks in southern Sudan include a lot of Christians, and a lot of slaves. This year, a ceasefire was finally achieved. There is a bit of hope. It has taken 20 years and between one and two million dead to get there.

What is wrong with us?

RETURN TO THE TOP

JERUSALEM -- The violence that threatened to scuttle the nascent "road map" peace plan last week seems to have had quite a different result.
It has redoubled the resolve of American, Israeli and Palestinian leaders to prevent terrorism from wrecking the reconciliation process launched in Aqaba, Jordan just a fortnight ago.

In a desperate effort to salvage the process amid deadly violence, the Americans, Israelis and Palestinians have been exerting pressure on Hamas, third parties and each other. It now seems possible that that pressure could lead to a cease-fire.

In an ironic twist of fate, the lethal post-Aqaba wave of terror might finally get the road map on the road.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon maintains that Israel's decision to target Hamas leaders like Abdel Aziz Rantissi yielded two dividends: It forced Palestinian terrorist groups to consider a temporary cease-fire with Israel more seriously, and it pushed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas closer to taking immediate responsibility for security in some of the Palestinian areas.

Abbas had hoped to wait several months before taking over security responsibility, allowing the PA to rebuild its armed forces. Abbas also had hoped waiting would enable him to convince Hamas and other terrorist groups to declare a cease-fire in the meantime, thereby ducking the sort of confrontation with those groups that taking over security responsibility might entail.

But the strike against Rantissi, and Israel's strikes against other leading Hamas members in subsequent days, truncated the timetable. Feeling their own lives threatened, Hamas leaders resumed talks on an immediate cease-fire.

Abbas wanted to see the military strikes stopped quickly, too. If they continued, Abbas risked being accused of failure and forced out of office.

On the other hand, the US said it would underwrite an Israeli pledge to halt the strikes if Abbas took security responsibility for some Palestinian areas. Such a move could save not only Abbas' job, but also the peace process he has been charged with pursuing.

Palestinians and some members of the Israeli opposition maintain that Sharon, in trying to kill Rantissi, Hamas' No. 2, deliberately was trying to scuttle a peace plan he ultimately distrusts.

Sharon sees things very differently. Immediately after the Aqaba summit, he dreaded a repeat of the Oslo conundrum: Terror groups supposedly beyond the PA's control attack Israel, the PA does little to stop them and Israel is pressured not to respond to avoid allowing the "extremists" to undermine the "peace process."

At first, the pattern appeared to be repeating: Just days after the summit, an unprecedented joint attack by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aksa Martyr's Brigade, the terrorist wing of Abbas' own Fatah movement, left four Israeli soldiers dead June 8.

When Israel responded by targeting Rantissi on June 10, President Bush took the international lead in criticizing Israel for ostensibly undermining the new peace process.

Quickly, however, the tenor changed: After a Hamas bus bombing in Jerusalem on June 11 that killed 17 people, Bush called on the international community to join together against Hamas.

Israeli strikes against Hamas members in the ensuing days made it clear that as long as terrorist groups were allowed to operate in the Palestinian areas, there would be no peace and quiet.

Sharon believes that by attacking Rantissi he turned the tables on Hamas: He signaled to the Palestinians and the world that until the Palestinians can make good on the pledge to dismantle terrorist groups, Israel will not allow its hands to be tied.

The strong American desire to see the road map succeed seemed to have made Hamas leaders legitimate targets.

Israel's military brass fully backs Sharon's approach. The Israel Defense Force chief of staff, Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, is convinced that despite international criticism of the strikes, the assault on Hamas' leadership has fundamentally changed the situation.

During a 50th anniversary celebration this week for the paratrooper brigade in which he began his army career, Ya'alon declared that Hamas was "on the verge of surrender and already negotiating a cease-fire."

If the cease-fire doesn't work out now, Ya'alon intimated, he might have to send ground forces into Gaza to finish the job of disarming the Hamas threat.

Avi Dichter, head of the Shin Bet security service, told the Cabinet on Sunday that Israel should not fear pushing Abbas into a confrontation with Hamas that he isn't ready for. On the contrary, Dichter said, with 20,000 men under its command in the Gaza Strip, the PA should be more than a match for a few hundred Hamas and Islamic Jihad fundamentalists.

The Americans, too, have been playing a pressure game aimed at isolating Hamas and achieving a cease-fire, while retaining the confidence of both Israelis and Palestinians. This has taken the form of pressure on:

* Israel to suspend targeted killings if a cease-fire is declared.

* The PA to use a cease-fire to assert its authority over Hamas.

* European leaders to publicly denounce Hamas and cut off the flow of funds to the group.

* Arab states to stop funding Hamas and pressure both the PA and Hamas to accept a cease-fire.

More than anything else, it is this American pressure that has created the conditions for a possible cease-fire.

The American pressure also has succeeded in getting Egypt to again actively mediate between the PA and the terrorist groups.

The Egyptians sent intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and his deputy Mustafa al-Buheiri to lean on PA President Yasir Arafat and Hamas leaders.

Suleiman threatened Arafat with public condemnation if he doesn't stop trying to undermine Abbas; al-Buheiri showed Hamas an Israeli commitment to the US to stop targeted killings if Hamas adheres to a cease-fire.

Abbas' key slogan is "one political authority and one armed force,'' which effectively means disbanding Hamas and the other terrorist groups as rival military powers.

He hopes a cease-fire will enable him to do just that, while Hamas hopes to use a 'hudna' to rebuild and retain its militia, enabling it to challenge Abbas politically and militarily.

To a large extent, the outcome of that internal Palestinian struggle will determine the fate of the road map and the peace process it seeks to revive -- and Sharon's aggressive strikes at Hamas last week kept that issue squarely in the spotlight.

RETURN TO THE TOP

Anybody in Denver still remember Karmiel?
Twenty or so years ago, this new and fair Israeli city, nestled between the upper and lower Galilee regions, had a lively and ongoing sister city relationship with Denver. Students, politicians, musicians and artists went back and forth, various forms of assistance were offered and received.

But time and neglect have changed all that. The cities are still paired to each other, as part of Sister Cities International, but the relationship has grown distant.

That's precisely what Donn Spector, chairman of the Denver Karmiel Sister City Commission, wants to change. A supporter of the AJF and AJCommittee, Spector recently returned from a 10-day trip to Israel, including several days in Karmiel.

"My objective was to learn more about what we can do and be a better advocate for them," says Spector, active in the mortgage and sales business.

Before this month's trip, Spector had had been in Karmiel three times, but they were all brief stops, not enough to take in much detail but enough to be convinced that "Karmiel is the most beautiful city in Israel."

The town is "literally built on the hills," he says, and is based on an innovative metropolitan plan that features self-contained but integrated neighborhoods -- each with its own community center, schools parks and shopping areas.

Of Karmiel's 50,000 people, some 20,000, or 40%, are immigrants, Spector reports. Of those, 17,000 are from the former Soviet Union, and 3,000 from Ethiopia.

Karmiel's sister city relationship with Denver dates back to 1974, when the city was only a decade old. The relationship was supported by Denverites quite energetically for a period, largely because of the influence of the late Bess Laderman, who took a special interest in it.

"It has been neglected for the last few years," Spector acknowledges.

It takes two communities, of course, to allow a relationship to languish, but Spector finds it more understandable from Karmiel's point of view. "They have other things on their mind," he says.

Those "other things" were also on Spector's mind during his fact-finding, bridge-building trip. He was pleasantly surprised, however, to find that the violent effects of the intifada have largely spared Karmiel.

Security remains of utmost importance, but the city has escaped the worst of the strife. Although it is surrounded by nearby Arab villages, the only tense incident to date was near the beginning of the intifada, when residents of a neighboring village put up barricades along the local road. The IDF removed the obstacles shortly thereafter, but the action nonetheless fueled tensions.

"It strained the relationship but now, after two years, it's beginning to get better," Spector says.

In the Karmiel region, Israeli Jews are outnumbered four-to-one by Israeli Arabs. Still, the relationship remains largely positive, Spector says. Arabs regularly visit Karmiel, both to work and to shop, and it's not unusual for Jews to buy food or gasoline in the Arab towns.

In a conversation with Karmiel security personnel, Spector learned that the Israelis try to preserve the sense of "surface quiet" in the region, but insist that they are always on their guard against worst case scenarios. Using a combination of police, private security personnel, neighborhood watch programs and civilian volunteers, the city emphasizes coordination and rapid response, whether to terrorism, military attacks (the city is now in range of Hezbollah's longer-range Katyusha rockets in Lebanon) or natural disasters.

In discussing the city's emergency response system, security officials told Spector about backup water supplies, lighting systems, blankets, even directional signs to inform citizens where to go in the event of a crisis. "They say they can put that whole thing together and have it operating in an hour or so."

An example of the city's preparedness are the regularly scheduled calls police make to the local kindergarten -- a means of determining that the facility has not been attacked by terrorists. If the kindergarten takes more than 10 seconds to respond to the phone call, police are immediately mobilized and sent to the school, in the assumption that something is wrong.

"The difference between here and there is that they're prepared for any kind of emergency," says Spector.

Karmiel emergency personnel do respond to a lot of false alarms, the officials told Spector, but they explained that they consider such incidents "warnings," and serve the valuable function of training.

Karmiel has not been as harmed by the tourism downturn as many other Israeli locations. Because of its proximity to such popular centers as Haifa, Tiberias and Safed, it has never been a big tourist destination.

There are no outward signs of poverty or hardship, Spector says. "I never even saw a piece of paper on the streets."

But he discovered that there are needy people here. They include those who receive help from social service agencies, including abused or neglected children. The number of people receiving government assistance is approximately 7,500.

There are also people in need of nutritional help, especially older Russian immigrants. Spector worked at a community kitchen which provides free daily lunches, obtaining its food as surplus or leftovers from nearby Israeli military facilities. He helped serve over 200 people.

The most valuable thing Denver Jews can do for Karmiel right now is provide economic assistance, says Spector. Although significant financial assistance already goes to Karmiel through its federation partnership with the Jewish community in Pittsburgh, Spector feels there is room for Denver to pitch in.

Some $4,000 has already been raised and sent to the city's social service authority through the Israel solidarity fund at BMH-BJ. This supplements $10,000 in emergency funding which the Federation recently forwarded for bomb shelters and "clean rooms" (sealed against chemical weapons) in Karmiel. Spector is already working on fundraising plans.

He predicts that there will also be more traditional sister city interaction, including cultural and educational exchanges.

Spector hopes to sign up Denverites to attend Karmiel's dance festival in July. The festival, which had its best attendance ever last year, is gaining international respect, but it entails extensive and expensive security arrangements.

Spector has amassed a lot of data on the city, and it's clear that he takes the Denver-Karmiel relationship very seriously. He says he hopes the community will follow suit.

For their part, he says, the residents of Karmiel seemed very enthused about renewing and expanding their friendship with the Mile High City.

"I was treated like a king," he says. "You'd think I was a visiting dignitary from another country."

Which, of course, he was.

For information on how to participate in Denver-Karmiel sister city activities, contact Donn Spector, (303) 756-4765.

RETURN TO THE TOP

The Women's Center of Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado has announced that Marsha Gardenswartz is the recipient of the 2003 Golda Meir award.

She will receive her award at the annual Golda Meir luncheon, Wednesday, Aug. 27, at Green Gables Country Club.

The award is given annually to an outstanding woman in the Jewish community who has accepted a wide range of volunteer responsibilities and inspired others to become involved.

Gardenswartz joins a select group of 23 women who received this award since its inception in 1980.

A committee of past and present leadership from the Women's Center along with past Golda recipients selected her.

Gardenswartz has been a leader in Denver's Jewish community for over 20 years. At the Federation, she served as the women's department secretary.

She also helped create the Federation's young professional division and served on the planning and allocations committee.

She is involved in the Federation's missions committee; she served as chair and currently is a committee member.

Gardenswartz is also a Ruby Lion of Judah.

In the community at large, she is a lifetime member of Hadassah, has served on the board of BMH-BJ, as president of RMHA, on the Loup JCC Israel festival committee, co-president of EDOS ladies auxiliary and current board member of The Jewish Experience.

She is a founding board member of CHAI (Community Help and Abuse Information).

Doug Seserman, Federation president and CEO, said, "In the Jewish community, we are fortunate to have a few unique and exceptional individuals who dedicate their lives to the building and betterment of the Jewish community and the community-at-large. It is these individuals who provide the leadership and inspiration to carry on our beliefs and values into future generations. Marsha is one of these people."

Gardenswartz comments, "I am proud to follow in the tradition of all the Golda Meir recipients who have preceded me and consider it a daunting responsibility. I am thrilled to join such outstanding philanthropic and community dedicated women who have been awarded this honor."

Julia Epel Sherry and Amy Toltz Miller are chairing the Golda Meir luncheon.

Information: (303) 321-3399.

RETURN TO THE TOP

BEERSHEBA, Israel -- "Any Moroccans from the 'hood here tonight?" Ilan Babylon belts into the microphone, strutting onstage.
Standing squarely in front of an Israeli flag hanging from his disk jockey equipment, he shouts, "Raise your hands and make some noise, Moroccans!"

Close to half the crowd hollers enthusiastically, and a sea of hands shoots skyward.

Welcome to hip-hop, Beersheba style.

"We brought a new rhythm and style of music to Israel," says Chemi, a former rapper for the now-defunct band Shabak Sameh, the first Israeli group to perform and record hip-hop.

"It took us 10 years, and only now is it entering the mainstream."

Today there are Israeli hip-hop artists from all sectors of Israeli society -- Ethiopian, Arab, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi, or Eastern -- with each band sharing its own lyrical message and blending its own signature musical style.

"The messages of hip-hop are very individual," Chemi says.

Some believe hip-hop has gone bad in the Jewish state.

"Because hip-hop comes from the States, it got a bit lost in Israel," says Sivan, who was one of 250 people at a Remedy/Killah Priest show in Beersheba three weeks ago.

Israeli hip-hop artists, she says, "are trying to do black music, and they lost a bit of the message."

Chemi disagrees.

"Hip-hop is a tool," he says. "Everyone uses it to say what they want. The subjects that we choose are things that we are close to. I don't live in New York. I grew up in Yavneh. I live in Tel Aviv."

The experiences of Israeli youth, he continues, are different than those of African Americans.

"My father is from Iraq, my mother is from Romania," Chemi says. "It's a totally different history and reality."

Jeremy, an Ethiopian rapper, fuses traditional Ethiopian music and hip-hop.
"Ethiopian youth are attracted to hip-hop as the new expression of our identity," he says, explaining that it is only natural to turn to African-American culture for cultural cues.

"We dreamed of Israel, reuniting with our Jewish brothers and sisters, but the dream was broken when we got here," he says. "We got hit in the face. These were not the brothers and sisters we expected."

Many Ethiopian hip-hop artists address feelings of betrayal and alienation in their songs.

"What happened in the 1960s in New York is happening now in Israel," Jeremy says, citing racism and poverty.

Seeing "black people succeeding" in hip-hop, he says, "encourages and strengthens us, helps us deal with issues facing Ethiopians in Israel."

An Israeli-born Canadian, Shi -- both his name and an acronym for his rap handle, Supreme Hebrew Intellect -- got into hip-hop through his Haitian friends in Montreal.

"I took what I felt they were talking about: a lot of positive messages, a lot of conscious hip-hop, political stuff. I took that and told my side," he says.

He connected to hip-hop, he says, the same way he connected to Mizrahi music. "It's a symbol of the people; it's the music of the street," he says.

Now living again in Israel, Shi incorporates his Moroccan heritage into his music.

"I bring my Mizrahi identity through the beats, the sounds, the rhymes, the accent," he says. "When I rhyme in French, you can hear a Moroccan accent. I even weave Moroccan words in and out."

Tammer, an Israeli Arab rapper, also draws on Middle Eastern musical motifs.

As with hip-hop in America, however, ethnic identity is just one of the issues to croon about.

"The idea is to develop your own language," says Sha'anan, a rapper from Hadag Nahash, a popular Israeli band with several hits.

His band sings about racism, violence against women and the economic situation in Israel.

"I write about being a woman in society," says Shiri, Israel's first female rapper.

"There were people who supported me," she says of her entrance into hip-hop, "but there was a lot of discrimination because I was a woman in the hip-hop community. People tried to stop me."

Sha'anan says male dominance of Israeli hip-hop may be an outgrowth of general male dominance in Israeli society.

"There are less women CEOs, less women in Knesset, and so on. It's hard for women here," he says.

American hip-hop artist Remedy, an Ashkenazi Jew, headlined at a Beersheba concert to perform his hit song "Never Again."

He says the song, which has sold more than a million copies worldwide, was inspired by the plight of family members who were deported to Nazi concentration camps, never to be seen again.

Given the threat of terrorism, Israelis appreciated his decision to perform here, Remedy said.

"A lot of people came up to us, said how grateful they were that we came now," he recalls.

"We came to spread hip-hop from New York to Israel," he says. "It's how the new generation communicates."

Hip-hop, he notes approvingly, "is getting big in Israel now."

Israeli rapper and producer Shulu, who has created several hip-hop compilation CDs, explains that hip-hop is popular in Israel because it provides an opportunity for people to say what they think.

"Israelis like to talk; Jews like to talk," he says with a laugh. "It works.''

RETURN TO THE TOP