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October 18, 2002 |
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Nobel
Prize for Literature BUDAPEST -- An Auschwitz survivor who recently was criticized for defending Israel became the first Hungarian to win the Nobel prize for literature. The award to Imre Kertesz, 72, was announced Oct. 10. Hungarian Jews said the prize was gratifying to the entire community, while Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy told Kertesz that because of him, "the citizens of Hungary can be proud to be Hungarians." Kertesz was deported from Budapest to Auschwitz and from there to Buchenwald, where he was liberated in 1945. His books, all of which deal with the Holocaust, have been especially popular in Germany. Among his most popular books is Without Fate, an autobiographical account of his experiences in the Holocaust, and Kaddish for a Child Not Born, in which he condemned a world that permitted the Holocaust. Kertesz has been a frequent target of the Hungarian far-right. Far-right writer Istvan Csurka condemned Kertesz for saying that "my luggage is never unpacked, waiting in my house to leave Hungary.'' Kertesz has been an outspoken critic of the far-right, often writing in Hungarian newspapers to condemn the anti-Semitism espoused by the nation's extremists. This spring, after Kertesz visited Jerusalem for a conference of Holocaust survivors sponsored by Yad Vashem, he was criticized in a Hungarian literary journal for writing a pro-Israel article. That criticism came from left-wing intellectual Istvan Eorsi, another Hungarian Jewish writer. Kertesz told Hungarian radio last week that his life will not change because of the Nobel. He currently is on a one-year scholarship in Berlin, where he is working on a new novel. Campus anti-Israel activism intensifies By RACHEL POMERANCEC Jewish Telegraphic Agency ANN ARBOR -- "We are all Palestinians," read the eco- green shirt for sale. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the US is considered Israel's last remaining key ally. Aiming to change that, the anti-Israel movement on college campuses has adopted a message rooted in bedrock American ideals. The second national student conference on the Palestinian solidarity movement, held at the University of Michigan last weekend, framed its anti-Israel arguments in the language of civil liberties and human rights. The new, slicker message showed the challenge Jewish groups will face after a conference that both sides considered a pivotal moment for anti-Israel activism on American campuses. It's still unclear whether the Oct. 12-14 pro-Palestinian conference, sponsored by a Michigan group called Students Allied for Freedom and Equality will give the anti-Israel movement a lasting boost or, instead, show that the tide has turned against it. The movement has come under increasing scrutiny in the past month after Harvard's president said the anti-Israel activism bordered on anti-Semitism. Some 300 university presidents then signed an American Jewish Committee advertisement criticizing the anti-Israel movement for allegedly intimidating its opponents. [CU President Elizabeth Hoffman refused to signed the ad.] The developments drew publicity to a movement that until then primarily had attracted campus radicals, but they also put the anti-Israel forces on the defensive. The weekend conference showed that the pro-Palestinian groups are reacting to the spotlight by crafting an increasingly sophisticated message -- and that Jewish activists are split on the proper strategy to confront it. Mainstream groups such as Hillel, sought to avoid direct confrontation so as not to give the conference more publicity. Hillel planned pro-Israel programming to highlight Israel's democratic values, placing ads in campus newspapers, bringing pro-Israel lecturers to campus and sponsoring a pro-Israel rally on Oct. 10 with speakers from mainstream organizations. One table at the student conference at the University of Michigan sold Palestinian paraphernalia such as flags and keffiyehs. Material was available from Jews Against the Occupation and the Women in Black peace group. Several groups protested US policy on Iraq and a few political campaigners were on hand, even one pushing the presidential candidacy of Lyndon LaRouche. Above the collection was a disclaimer: Not all views represented are those of the Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, the pro-Palestinian student group that sponsored the conference. Indeed, the conference was a sort of ideological grab bag whose common theme was opposition to Israel. "If they are mad about the Holocaust," then Berlin would be the "right place" for Jews to take over, said Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida professor under federal investigation for alleged ties to terrorist groups. In his speech at the conference, Al-Arian engaged the audience in an evangelical-style call-and-response where "Israel" was the only answer to a litany of accusations. For example, he asked: Which country in the Middle East has been protected from more than 30 UN resolutions by a US veto? A US official later dismissed Arian's assertion as "just rhetoric." The conference's opening speaker, Washington talk-show host Mahdi Bray, called Israel "an oppressive, racist, apartheid state," and drew parallels between Israel's treatment of Palestinians and America's treatment of blacks. It's the "same soup, just a different bowl," whether it's Nablus or Soweto, Bray said. Israel wants the Palestinians to be the "new niggers of the Middle East," Bray said, providing cheap labor while receiving few rights. Bray's speech received a standing ovation. Far-left Israeli professor Ilan Pappe, director of the International Relations Division of Haifa University, called Israel's policy the most "callous and brutal occupation" since WW II. Ethnic cleansing is at the "center of Israeli politics," Pappe said, urging activists at the conference to bypass the "evil American administration and its evil policies in the Middle East." American Jewish activist Adam Shapiro -- who gained headlines when he took shelter in Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat's besieged Ramallah compound last spring -- said he may go to Iraq to make sure Israel doesn't take advantage of a US war to deport Palestinians there. Conference attendees agreed on one thing: their mission statement, adopted at the University of California at Berkeley last year during the first such Palestine solidarity conference, and reconfirmed at this year's parley. The statement calls for "the full decolonization of all Palestinian land, including settlements, which are illegal under international law; the end of the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem and all Arab lands; the recognition and implementation of the right of return and repatriation for all Palestinian refugees to their original homes and properties; and an end to the Israeli system of apartheid and discrimination against the indigenous Palestinian population." It also "condemns the racism and discrimination inherent in Zionism." Nowhere does it mention peace with Israel. In fact, conference backers stressed that the Palestinians were right to reject the 2000 Camp David peace package, in which Israel offered to withdraw from virtually the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip and divide Jerusalem if the Palestinians declared an end to the conflict. "Had they accepted that, then we would be stuck," said Jesse Bacon, 25, representing the Palestine Solidarity Committee in Seattle. "We wouldn't be able to keep resisting. Everyone would say they have their three or four chunks of state." Speakers insisted that the anti-Israel movement was gaining steam, largely because of publicity surrounding accusations that the movement is anti- Semitic. A Palestinian professor of Islamic studies at UC Berkeley, Hatem Bazian, thanked pro-Israel forces, whose opposition had given the anti-Israel movement such publicity. The movement is "only going to grow and grow and grow because the Palestinian cause is the one for people to join," Bazian said. Andrea Fischer Newman, a university regent, seemed concerned by that possibility. "Because of the coverage of the conference, we've given worldwide credibility to this issue," she said. While organizers "cloak it in rational discussion," the real purpose of the conference is "the end of the State of Israel,'' she said. Fischer is up for re-election Nov. 5. Her opponent, Ismael Ahmed, is the executive director of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, which endorsed the conference. A new group -- Michigan Student Zionists (MSZ) -- worked with Aish HaTorah, the Zionist Organization of America and Coalition for Jewish Concerns-Amcha in crafting a more confrontational approach. MSZ activists flanked the doors of the conference building, chanting that the pro-Palestinian movement was "justifying suicide bombing" and was anti-Semitic. They also staged a prayer service, counterconference, rally and a "street theater" demonstration where students scattered on the ground simulated the aftermath of a suicide bombing. MSZ leaders filed a lawsuit trying to force the university to cancel the conference on the grounds that guest speakers -- including Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida professor under federal investigation for links to terrorist groups -- would incite violence. A judge denied a hearing on the lawsuit, saying the plaintiffs didn't have legal standing. Many of the 400 people at the pro-Palestinian conference represent extreme elements from 70 universities across the country. Wayne Firestone, director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, a coordinating body for Israel advocacy sponsored by Hillel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said he wasn't impressed by the Palestinian supporters' new message. "I believe they're very much on the defensive and they're essentially failing," he said. "They had almost no buy-in from the local Michigan population. And most of the participants were fly-ins." "To the extent that the advance publicity succeeded in bringing this to the public's attention, it galvanized the administration's opposition," he added. Indeed, the university's president, Mary Sue Coleman, denounced one of the conference's key planks -- for universities to divest their holdings in companies that deal with Israel -- in a Sept. 26 statement. But the anti-Israel message could find fertile ground among impressionable and often uninformed college students. Participants at the pro-Palestinian conference argued that university divestment would pressure Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which they say is the first step toward making peace. Those who oppose divestment really want to squelch the pro-Arab groups' free speech, they claim. "We categorically reject" the accusations of "anti-Semitism being tossed around," said Ora Wise, an Israeli-born junior at Ohio State University, who is on leave to work for the New York-based Jews Against the Occupation. "We need to go to the origins of the conflict" -- in her view, Israel's presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- to remove the barrier to peace, Wise said. Ending the occupation will also bring "Jewish emancipation," she said. At a news conference, SAFE leaders responded to the charge that they endorse terrorism by condemning suicide bombings -- along with "state-sponsored terrorism" against civilians. Palestinian supporters use such formulas to equate Palestinian terrorist attacks and Israeli counterterror operations, both of which may result in civilian deaths. Undermining a key Israeli argument -- that Israel is a democracy like America -- Palestinian supporters say America's historic subjugation of blacks and, allegedly, of women shows that democracies can be oppressive too. The Israel on Campus Coalition released a resource guide last week that offers tools to counter pro- Palestinian arguments, and describes different approaches favored by various organizations. Other groups also have produced materials countering pro-Palestinian arguments, including divestment. But if attitudes at Michigan are representative, the pro-Israel forces are having a difficult time courting some of the 6,000 Jews on campus on such a highly polarized issue. Israel and American Jewish groups have "failed to contextualize how remarkable the Zionist enterprise is for this generation of Jews," said Michael Brooks, executive director of the University of Michigan's Hillel. While many Jewish students are instinctively pro-Israel, even some of the most ardent defenders of Israel are at a loss as to how to refute the pro-Palestinian arguments. Others doubt their pro-Israel education, assuming it was biased. The competing approaches among pro-Israel activists -- confrontation or low visibility -- complicates things for many Jews on campus who feel misrepresented by both. "Most Jewish students are very confused," Brooks said. "They don't really understand the stuff they hear well enough" to respond to it, and -- unlike the Palestinian supporters -- they're "very suspicious of absolutist positions." Stacie Ain, for example, was turned off by T-shirts at the Oct. 10 Hillel rally that read, "Wherever We Stand, We Stand with Israel." Many of the 1,000 people in attendance wore the shirts. It's "almost passively aggressively attacking another side," said Ain, a junior studying psychology. Ain said a lack of impartial information has made it hard for her to assess the conflict. The information she received in her youth, when she attended a Jewish day school in Rockville, Md, was biased toward Israel, she said. "If I had to choose, I would support Israel," she said, but added, "I still have to be somewhat skeptical about what I hear." The fear of wholeheartedly embracing either side has given rise to a new Jewish group on campus, the Progressive Israel Alliance. "You can't just pick one side," said sophomore Becky Eisen, an activist with the group. "You need to look at the whole picture" and recognize that "both sides have valid points." But most Jewish students remain reflexively pro-Israel, even if they don't understand the conflict. Freshman Shelby Kaufman from West Bloomfield, Mich., said she supports Israel because Jews are a minority and "we gotta stick together in the world." Jonathan Dick, a 23-year old law student, said he attended the Palestinian conference to hear the other side's position. Yet he complained to one speaker about how one-sided the conference was. Discussion was "too much about what the atrocities have been" and "not enough about the context they've existed in," Dick told JTA. Indeed, conference speakers focused exclusively on the Palestinians' suffering, without mentioning their aggression. A key tactic to rouse the audience was to discredit their opponents. In a lecture at the conference, Hussein Ibish, communications director for the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee, jeered at pro-Israel efforts -- the "beshawled jokers" protesting outside, the "crackpot" lawyer who tried to sue the university, the AJCommittee ad against intimidation on campus and the controversial new Campus Watch Web site that lists professors deemed anti-Israel. Jewish opponents of the conference are a "desperate, desperate group of people,"Ibish said. "It's like being showered in tissue paper," he said of the opposition from pro-Israel forces. "If you treat it as rubbish, it will blow in the breeze and disintegrate.'' Thirty years later, the yearning is the sameBy HILLEL GOLDBERG IJN Executive Editor I got a call this week asking whether we would like to interview Daniel Pipes, the Middle East expert. I said yes. Our daughter is studying biology. We joke: maybe, just maybe, a scientist in the family. Goldbergs do various things; science is not one of them. In fact, no scientist has been in the immediate family for generations. Dad would have been puzzled and pleased by the possible exceptions (my daughter and one of her cousins). The other day, Channel 9 ran a series on its 50th anniversary. It mentioned Max Goldberg. He founded the station, having secured the requisite FCC license and having put together the business group that bought the station. When your father is gone for 30 years, few people remember him. As time progressively circumscribes memory and Dad is mentioned less and less with each passing year, it is good, very good, when people do mention him. We have a young son. Rambunctious. Energetic. On top of things. Dad would have loved him. Dad died so young that he knew only one of our children, and even then only when she was one year old. How he would have loved these children; how he would have cherished the grandchildren and great-grandchildren since born. He called the one daughter of ours whom he knew "the judge." She was a baby with large, penetrating eyes, soft too. Strange, the little things that heighten and sweeten the memories. We have files. Hundreds of old columns Dad wrote, manuscripts of television interviews he conducted, business plans for charitable campaigns he led, including a lot on the "General Rose Memorial Hospital Association." A few weeks ago, Rose Community Foundation somehow and somewhere discovered old scrapbooks we don't remember seeing before. Mom identified the handwriting in them as my sister's. For RCF to turn over those scrapbooks meant a lot to us. Little gestures mean a lot, after someone is gone. I once heard a Torah lecture. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik said that nothing has power over human emotions like music. If a person is going through a traumatic event while music is playing, then if that same music is played long afterwards, it still summons the same emotions associated with the original trauma. When I was called with the devastating news of my father's passing, I was in Israel. I had to spend a lot of terrible time in airports getting back to Denver for the funeral. In airports, there is background music. Many years later, in some airport, the same background music came on that played 30 years ago, when Dad died. The same emotions rushed over me. I broke down, right in the airport. There are other reminders, out of left field. Entirely unpredictable. Life can be full of odd surprises. Take the current race for the US Senate. Incumbent Allard vs. Challenger Strickland. Who to vote for? This, the reader may decide; this is not a partisan column. Just one thing -- nothing to do with the election -- Wayne Allard actually looks a little like my Dad, is built like him, talks like him. Similar mannerisms. A straw, of course, the very thinnest grasping at straws: anything to have Dad or some piece of him back. Impossible. Still, the mind does not let go of a loss just because time passes. I got a letter this week. Actually, it was written in about 1943. Mom handed me a letter from Dad's late eldest brother, Willie Goldberg. He was giving moral support to Dad, who had just taken over the Intermountain Jewish News. Uncle Willie was buying a two-year subscription for $5. "They picked the right man for the job," the objective, dispassionate, neutral older brother was writing his kid brother. Yes, they did; they picked the right man. However, the job, if I may take my uncle's comment out of context, was that of father. Thirty years later . . . well . . . it's as if the same music were playing now. Cissy's courage Editor: A few weeks ago, our friends and neighbors Albee and Gertie made a wedding for their daughter. My nephew and his wife had introduced the couple. Naturally, Albee and Gertie invited their far-flung family members to attend the wedding. Gertie was born during World War II in Shanghai. She was raised in England and then came to America as a young child. Other members of her family settled elsewhere. Many of her seven brothers and sisters traveled far distances to come to the wedding. Mozelle came from Toronto, Abe from Los Angeles and Cissy from Jerusalem. Cissy is a widow who has lived in Israel for over 25 years. Her children and grandchildren live close by. She worked as a real estate agent. That is how we first met Cissy. Gertie had recommended her to us when we sought a summer rental in Jerusalem. Every time we came to Jerusalem she was able to locate an appropriate apartment for our needs. Cissy is an articulate, energetic, friendly woman in her late seventies. She swims every day and is a vegetarian. She is knowledgeable about Israel and Jerusalem and understands the needs of visiting Americans. She made sure the phone, the air conditioner and the refrigerator were in working condition, that the apartment was clean and tidy. It was always a pleasure to talk with her and learn the mores of Jerusalemites. Cissy stands about five feet two inches tall and wears short hair. She talks English in what can only be called a Shanghai British accent. Before the wedding I met Cissy outside the synagogue in our neighborhood. We discussed the upcoming wedding. I mentioned to her that I hoped we would have the opportunity to talk at length so as to get a bird's eye view of the latest trying events in Israel. Cissy told me she was only staying a few days after the wedding. I was surprised because I knew how close she is to her large family. Cissy noticed my amazement and explained to me she would miss staying longer but she had to get back to her job in Jerusalem as quickly as possible. That surprised me even more because I knew she was semi-retired. I asked Cissy if she had a new career or had gone back to her real estate business full-time. I pressed her further and she explained her reasoning to me. "You see, Bernie," she prosaically said, "I must get back to Jerusalem soon, I have an important responsibility. I often travel by bus to the center of town and I shop at least once a week at the Machane Yehudah market." I stood there non-plussed for a moment. Then I comprehended what she meant. Arab terrorists have blown up Jerusalem buses; they have destroyed parts of the Machane Yehudah market. People from America or even Tel Aviv might be frightened of riding a bus in Jerusalem or visiting the market but not Cissy. Cissy is a soldier against terrorism much like Londoners during the Nazi blitz in WW II. She would not be intimidated by terrorists and she would not let them achieve their goals. Her very presence on a bus or in a market would convey to them and the world the courage and strength of Jerusalem's Jews. Cissy didn't need to proclaim this point or carry a sign. She only needed to ride a bus with her purse and basket in hand to demonstrate to the terrorists that they will never succeed. BERNARD KAPLAN Staten Island, New York Beware of the soft, velvet fist against Israel on the college campus Editor: On college campuses across the US there have been noisy, often ugly, anti-Israel demonstrations and other activities. Highly emotional radicals, many sporting the updated Che Guevara look, regularly spew overheated hate-filled rhetoric, comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and even Nazi Germany. At places like San Francisco State, venomous attacks against Israel have spilled over into overt anti-Semitism and assaults against Jewish students and faculty. But something much more subtle, but no less insidious is showing up on campuses this semester. Last week, the University of California at Irvine campus played host to an academic lynching of Israel, free of the incendiary rhetoric that, while infuriating, is easily dismissible as the rantings of political extremists. The forum staged at Irvine by the international studies program was an assault on the very legitimacy of Jewish nationalism, couched in the polite language of academic objectivity. The symposium, billed as a "panel discussion about life today in Israel and Palestine and visions of the future," included two Palestinians and two Israelis who, employing the softest of rhetoric, took the 200 or so people in the audience through a two-and-a-half hour indictment of Israel's existence. It was, as they repeatedly stressed, only the abbreviated version, given the time constraints of the forum. When challenged about the one-sidedness of the symposium, Mark LeVine, the event's organizer, who is an assistant professor in the history department, defended the panel's make-up by noting that while no mainstream Israeli views were represented in the discussion, there were also no representatives of Hamas! When asked later if he would arrange a subsequent forum at which the pro-Israeli position could be presented, LeVine emphatically stated that he would not, as he saw no difference between the government of Israel and Hamas. Headlining the event were Oren Yiftachel, chairman of the geography and environmental development department at Ben Gurion University, and Rema Hammami of the women's study center at Birzeit University. Yiftachel and Hammami, who work as a team, are part of a traveling road show that has more gigs booked on their current tour of America than Bruce Springsteen. In contrast to scruffy revolutionaries who stage anti-Israel street theater on the university quad, Yiftachel and Hammami, whose wardrobes were assembled at The Gap rather than the army surplus outlet, look like they could be cohosting the Today Show. Never once do they resort to the sort of hate speech that so often mars these sorts of events. Terms like "ethnic cleansing," "apartheid" "colonialists" and "war criminals" are noticeably and deliberately absent from their seemingly objective assessments of Israel and its policies. Unlike their more rowdy compatriots, Yiftachel and Hammami are a far greater threat to the image of Israel in this country because they understand the art of propaganda. They scrupulously avoid the code words that tend to turn off all but the most committed Israel-haters. They preface their presentations with a disclaimer that what they are promoting is "pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian." From there, they proceed to lay out the "facts," for those who are unfamiliar with the facts, in a such way that any reasonable person would conclude that Israel is a monstrous obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Yiftachel, the more widely published of the two, lays out the team's velvet glove assault against Israel's legitimacy in a 1998 article in the Middle East Report entitled, "Democracy or Ethnocracy: Territory and Settler Politics in Israel/Palestine." Contained in that article are all the uglier accusations against Israel, only in kinder, gentler language. Yiftachel never accuses the Israelis of "ethnic cleansing"; rather, he writes about policies that result in "the spatial exclusion of Palestinian Arabs." He doesn't call Israelis "colonialists" who have no legitimate claim to land; instead, he writes, "To be sure, the 'return' of Jews to their ancestors' mythical land and the perception of this land as a safe haven after generations of Jewish persecutions was powerfully liberating." While he claims to favor a solution that is pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli, Yiftachel subtly denies that Israel is even a legally justifiable entity. "Israel as a definable, democratic political entity simply does not exist. The legal and political power of extraterritorial Jewish bodies and the rupturing of state borders empty the notion of 'Israel' of the broadly accepted meaning of a state as a territorial-legal institution. Hence, the unproblematic acceptance of 'Israel proper' in most social science writings (including some of my own previous work) and the media has been based on a misnomer." In other words, even an Israel that returned to the pre-1967 borders would not be a legitimate political entity, in his opinion. Yiftachel also advances the notion that Israel is an apartheid regime, but avoids that highly charged term. "I argue that the Israeli polity is governed not by a democratic regime, but rather by an 'ethnocracy' which denotes a non-democratic rule for and by a dominant ethnic group within the state and beyond its borders." The dominant ethnic group to which Yiftachel refers is Ashkenazi Jews. Most college students -- even those who are ignorant of the politics and history of the Middle East (in other words, just about all of them) -- are sophisticated enough to dismiss the ugly hate speech of radicals who equate the Star of David with the Swastika. It is quite another matter to ask them to engage in critical analysis of the disinformation of two attractive academics -- one Israeli and one Palestinian -- who softly denounce Israel in measured tones. It is virtually impossible for American students to form anything but a negative image of Israel when their academic institutions exclude the "radical extremes" from the discussion -- namely Hamas and everyone in Israel who is to the right of Gush Shalom and Meretz. The blood libels of the type that appeared on the San Francisco State campus last May are horrifying and demand a response from not only American Jews, but from all people who abhor hatred and violence. What American Jewry and supporters of Israel need to be especially vigilant of, however, is the sort of activity that took place on the campus of UC Irvine and many other institutions around the country where Yiftachel and Hammami will be taking their act. In the long run, this sort of pseudo-academic assault against the legitimacy of Israel conducted in a lecture hall is far more dangerous than the crude sloganeering that takes place the quad because it is seemingly void of the hatred that even the casual observer can easily detect. It is a clever attempt to redefine the centrist position in the Middle East conflict as one that calls for the bloodless dismantlement of Israel, while defining Hamas and the Israeli government as equally extreme. When those become the accepted parameters of discussion, Israel's position will be dangerously undermined. IRA MEHLMAN Los Angeles (formerly of Denver) 5,000 Christians rally for Israel By ERIC FINGERHUT Washington Jewish Week WASHINGTON -- Five thousand Christians waved Israeli flags and demonstrated their support for the Jewish state at the Christian Solidarity with Israel Rally last week at the DC Convention Center. Christians attending the rally, part of the Christian Coalition's 2002 Road to Victory conference, say that their love of Israel is derived from belief in G-d's biblical admonition to bless Israel, as well as the Jews' status as G-d's chosen people. Some in the Jewish community, and beyond, have said that Jews should be wary of evangelical support, arguing that it is grounded in the Christian belief that Jews must return to Israel before the second coming of Jesus can occur. That would then be followed by all the Jewish people either being killed or converting to Christianity. Attendance at the Christian rally was considerably lower than organizers had predicted, and was blamed on both the rainy weather and roadblocks on Interstate 95 set up to catch the Washington-area sniper. But those in attendance were spirited, singing along with songs like Am Yisrael Chai and Hatikvah, led by Christian musician Ted Pearce. While speakers at last April's solidarity rally with Israel, organized by Jewish organizations, focused primarily on fighting terrorism and Israel's right to defend itself, the evangelical Christian and conservative political leaders who spoke last week often talked about the Jewish people's biblical connection to the land of Israel and G-d's belief that the Jewish people belong there. Many also rejected the idea of a Palestinian state. Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson -- who said that other than the Jewish community, evangelicals "make up the strongest support for Israel" in the US -- also said that "Palestine has been occupied by Yasir Arafat and his thugs" and "we cannot turn it over to them." Referring to an undivided Jerusalem, Robertson said, "I don't care if it offends the Arabs or not, we must do what's right." House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) noted that when he visited the Jewish state, "I didn't see any occupied territory -- what I saw was Israel." A number of those attending the conference oppose the creation of a Palestinian state. Robert Kellow of Waretown, NJ, said he doesn't believe in trading land for peace and that Israel should "go from the Tigris and Euphrates [rivers] to the Suez" Canal. "What can you do with people who blow themselves up?" he said of the Palestinians. But Peggy Sweeney of Chesapeake, Va., said that while she is not keen on the idea of a Palestinian state, it is OK if "that's what [Israel] wants to do." Christians at the rally seemed to be unanimous in saying their love of Israel was based on Genesis 12:3, which states that G-d will "bless those who bless [the nation of Israel], and the one who curses you I will curse," and that Christianity would not have developed without the prior existence of Judaism. Kellow also believes in the Scripture that foretells the killing and conversion of Jews after Jesus' second coming, but said that such teachings were not the basis for his support of Israel. Sweeney rejects the second coming as a basis for her advocacy for Israel, instead noting that "Scripture tells us we should pray for Israel" and that she has always had a "strong feeling toward the Jewish people." The fervency of some Christian support for Israel might surprise many Jews. Sandy Buchanan of Williamsburg, Va., wearing a tallit and a Star of David pendant, said that she has always felt "Jewish in my heart." Buchanan and her friend, Amy Vanover, strongly rejected second coming prophecy as the reason for their support of Israel, instead noting the Jewish roots of Christianity as one reason for their love of Judaism. Buchanan and Vanover said they belong to a "messianic congregation," but specifically said their place of worship was a church. The views of Christians interviewed at the rally match somewhat with the results of a poll released last week by Stand for Israel, an organization mobilizing Christian support for Israel. The poll found that 24% of evangelicals support Israel because it is a democracy that values self-government and freedom, and an additional 19 percent support the Jewish state because it is an ally in the war against terrorism. Thirty-five percent say their support results from Israel being the place prophesized for the second coming of Jesus. Asked a follow-up question about theological beliefs, 59% of evangelicals cite reasons related to the biblical promise to bless Israel and the Jewish people as the reason for their support. The survey's margin of error for its sample of evangelicals is plus or minus 4.5%. Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and co-chair of Stand for Israel with former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, said that the poll demonstrates that most, if not all, Jewish fears about allying with evangelicals on the issue of Israel are "bogus." Eckstein said the $2 million his organization raised last year from Christians for poor Jews in the former Soviet Union and Argentina should prove that Christians truly care about the Jewish people and Israel, and not just about fulfilling biblical prophecies of the second coming. Jews who attended the Christian rally said they were appreciative of Christian support for Israel. Benny Elon, a Moledet Party Knesset member who spoke at the rally, said that it was important not to take Christian support "for granted." "Their friendship is a real friendship," he said. "We have to know how to be friends." Elon told the crowd that there can be "no Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean." Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert also spoke, as did three Israeli students who were in the DC area as part of the Israel at Heart program. In his speech, singer and actor Pat Boone -- who had noted, "all my life I have felt Jewish, and it's because I'm a Christian" -- had his own viewpoint on that issue. "We would love it if every Jew became a Christian, but we know that's not going to happen," he said. "But don't blame us for wanting to share great things." Election 2002: Tom Tancredo By CHRIS LEPPEK IJN Assistant Editor CONG. TOM TANCREDO, Republican, Sixth Congressional District. "You can deal with the symptoms by simply adding more money to all of those budgets, but if you really want to wrestle with the true underlying cause of the problem, then you're going to have to take on this immigration issue. "This country has got to enter into and conclude a debate on the nature of its borders, whether they should be there, whether we should have them, whether they're going to be meaningful. There are all kinds of things that are ramifications of that decision. "Many people in the Congress, and even in the administration, believe that we should eliminate the borders -- the libertarian view that the free flow of goods and services should not be impeded by some anachronism we call borders. That is one point of view. If it holds sway, we should quickly move toward the elimination of our ports of entry, repeal our immigration law and abolish the Border Patrol. That's one way we could go. "The other way we could go is to say the borders are meaningful. They deal with issues of national sovereignty and national security. Our country ought to be able to determine actually how many people come into it, for what reason and for how long. "If you go that way, then you must begin to enforce your immigration law and you must make your borders less porous. You might even have to put troops on the border in order to make them as secure as possible. "And then you'll have a handle on issues like highways, hospital costs, Medicare, Social Security, because the population growth in this country, which will put pressure on all of those things, is directly attributable to immigration and immigration alone. It is not the national birth rate. "It leaves us in the position of being unable to say, 'Here's my cure for Medicare or the highway congestion problem,' without dealing with the real issue. Here's what it is. "Institutionally, in terms of Congress, here are my problems: The Democratic Party will not touch it with a 10-foot pole because they want massive immigration to increase their voter affiliation. Republicans don't want to touch it because they don't want to impede the flow of cheap labor. The president wants to make the whole thing into a race issue in order to gain more Hispanic votes. "Those are the three institutional problems that I have. Now I've got one thing on my side. I have the American people on my side. Poll after poll after poll tells us that the American people believe in three basic things. One, that immigration laws should be enforced; two, that immigration numbers should be reduced; and three, that our borders should be made much more secure. "I know that the people are with me. Now all I've got to do is figure out a way of getting Congress to go along." Please list America's two most pressing foreign policy issues, why you feel they are so important, and what your suggestions are for dealing with them. "Issue number one is terrorism and the real threat that it poses to the US and to Western civilization. "We need to understand that we are not just fighting a group of people that have hijacked a religion. We are, in fact, dealing with a clash of civilizations. Once you come to that conclusion,that's really what we're dealing with here -- fundamentalist Islam as the ultimate threat to Western civilization because they have employed terrorism as a method of operation -- then you can see that the need to go into Iraq becomes apparent. "Even though it is surely true that Saddam Hussein is not a fundamental Islamist, the common enemy that they have is the US. So, just like in the Second World War, when we were fighting different 'isms' like Nazism, fascism and militarism in Japan, it didn't matter that they had different 'isms' and were not connected by the same religion or philosophy. They were all our enemy. "So too, therefore, do Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida and the Taliban and a host of other organizations all combine to make up a threat to us and Western civilization. That's a big picture type of approach, but I think it's important because a lot of people think it's very difficult to connect the dots between Iraq and Al Qaida. I don't believe it's that difficult and I believe that they do pose one unified threat to the US. "It is terrorism and the best way to handle it is not only to go out militarily and defeat it, but to defeat it with ideas. The power of our ideas needs to be articulated by the President of the United States and by all Western leaders. The power of our ideas revolve around the importance of Western civilization and its bedrock characteristics. That's a pretty heavy thing and you can't condense it to a bumper sticker. "People say that that if we topple the regime in Iraq that will make things in the Middle East very unstable. Well, that's not a bad thing. I would like to destabilize Iran and Saudi Arabia and Syria. We need to create democracies where there are now dictatorships and you can't make that omelet without breaking a few eggs. "It will definitely not end in Iraq. It better not. I hope we do not do that again. I say we should take out Saddam Hussein and not stop there. I don't mean that we have to put military forces into Iran or Saudi Arabia, but I hope that the effort to create democracy where there are now dictatorships is undertaken aggressively. "It may be a military confrontation in some situations and in some cases it may be internal political change. But that's the only solution to this problem. We're not going to kill everybody who believes that it's their duty to bring down the Great Satan of the United States, but we're going to have to change the internal politics that encourage that kind of thought process, that encourages extremist Moslem clerics. "I think that's our only hope." Election 2002: Lancee Wright By CHRIS LEPPEK IJN Assistant Editor LANCE WRIGHT, Democrat, Sixth Congressional District. "On the domestic scene, I will do the best I can to improve the economic plight of the middle class. Doing that involves a multitude of conventional issues, such as: the high cost of health care, the financial stability of Social Security, a prescription drug benefit for seniors, a recovered and stable economy and an improved education system. "There are plenty of ideas out there about how best to address these well known problems. I enjoy trying to solve problems and I enjoy working with people, so I will enjoy working with you and my new colleagues in the Congress on these conventional approaches to the problems facing us today. I think we can make some progress toward solving many of these problems. "However, there is a non-conventional approach to improving the economic plight of the middle class that can yield immediate personal results for almost everyone and I intend to advocate it at every opportunity. "I believe that most Americans are caught on a treadmill of consumerism that taints our outlook on life and frustrates our happiness. It also induces us to spend more and save less than we should. "America's popular culture has become subservient to the consumer credo that more is better and that money can buy happiness; at least, that is what the advertisers tell us. "Think about all of the advertising that you see in a day or a week and try to remember what it really said. Chances are what it said was that 'this is the new style,' or 'this is the new improved/faster/bigger version' of something you already owned. "Our popular culture has no concept of 'enough' and, thus, the advertisers are able to convince us that we need more, depriving us of the ability to concentrate on the good things we do have -- the things we say we value but all too often overlook or short-change in our pursuit of the newest new thing. Things like family, friends, faith, community and country. Things I call our old-fashioned, American values. "If we reexamine our priorities in light of this unconventional perspective, we will be able to determine our own personal 'enough.' "Once we have determined what constitutes 'enough,' most of us will find that we are happier and richer than we thought. We will put our American values ahead of our commercial values and take charge of our own lives." Please list America's two most pressing foreign policy issues, why you feel they are so important, and what your suggestions are for dealing with them. "America's economy is increasingly vulnerable to a disruption of the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. Over 50% of the oil we use to keep America moving is imported. Our economy and therefore our security depend on foreign oil and that is why I think energy independence should be one of our most important long-term foreign policy goals. "It is short-sighted and dangerous to continue to annually send billions of dollars to countries whose citizens are financing terrorists. "Before 9/11, most Americans did not realize the connection, now we do. Over one-half of every dollar we spend on gasoline has the potential of ending up financing terrorists intent on attacking us or our allies. "Our national security demands that America launch a new Manhattan Project or Apollo Program type of effort that puts us on the path to energy independence within ten years. "I do not know exactly what needs to be done to achieve energy independence, but I know that a 'Drain America First' approach will only deplete the remaining American oil faster. "Increased efficiency is the only way to increase supply in the short run and it is the foundation of a sustainable supply in the long run. We simply must reduce our demand for oil today by using our current supplies more efficiently. "We need to put the genius of the American people to work perfecting the methods of renewable energy generation that will make us self-sufficient within 10 years. "We need to spend our money in America, putting Americans to work developing the energy supply and use systems of the twenty-first century instead of sending our money overseas supporting the oil economy of the last century. "A diversified, sustainable energy supply and delivery system is inherently more secure than a centralized system that depends on foreign sources and largely indefensible supply lines. "From both a tactical and a strategic standpoint, any would be future terrorist would find it much more difficult to significantly disrupt a system comprised of many smaller pieces than it would be to disrupt our current system. "Unlike the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Program, building a sustainable energy supply and delivery system can be a matter of national priority that everyone in America can be involved in. This can be our victory garden, our scrap drive. "We can do our patriotic duty of retrofitting our homes with energy efficient windows and appliances (and receive a tax credit, too). "Farmers can lease wind turbine sites and grow bio-fuels feedstock. "Americans can buy new automobiles and SUVs powered by hybrid engines or fuel cells. "Americans have the knowledge and the ability to lead the world in innovation if we will only stop clinging to the past and summon the courage to invest in the future. Energy independence will help secure our economic future and win the war on terrorism." Study debates efficacy of Jewish outreach By JOE BERKOFSKY Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK -- The fiery intermarriage debate that roiled American Jewry over the past decade is resurfacing. The latest demographic study, the most ambitious portrait of American Jewry ever undertaken, revealed last week that 5.2 million American Jews live in 2.9 million households -- along with 1.5 million non-Jews. On one side of the divide are those like Kerry Olitzky, executive director of the Jewish Outreach Institute, which promotes efforts to bring unaffiliated and intermarried Jews into the community. "These are potential partners in the Jewish community," Olitzky says of the 1.5 million. "We have the power to either embrace or exclude them." On the other side are those like Steven Bayme, national director of contemporary Jewish life for the American Jewish Committee. While Bayme believes that the latest demographic stew shows that American Jews have attained an unprecedented level of acceptance, he's also convinced that intermarriage is producing a generation that doesn't identify primarily as Jews. "If Jews are doing well by American standards, the second narrative is that Jews as Jews are not doing nearly as well," Bayme said. These arguments both echo the longtime split in the Jewish community about how to deal with intermarriage and signal how both sides are likely to grapple with the latest NJPS in the coming months. Most headlines about the NJPS last week focused on findings that the Jewish population fell 5% from 1990, that Jews are aging and that Jewish women are waiting longer to have fewer children. Yet the mix of Jews and non-Jews in many Jewish households went largely ignored. The focus shifted in part because officials of the NJPS team with the United Jewish Communities, the federation umbrella group that funded the $6 million study, released little information beyond the initial demographic numbers. NJPS officials said they are still analyzing the survey and will issue a fuller 15-page report on Jewish identity and Jewish life at the UJC's annual General Assembly in November. At the same time, NJPS officials admitted they wanted to avoid allowing the intermarriage results to overshadow other important findings, which is what happened in 1990. Vivien Klaff, a sociology professor at the University of Delaware who co-chaired the national technical advisory committee, a panel of experts that consulted on the NJPS, said the team "really didn't want to do that this time." A decade ago, the NJPS intermarriage data sparked two main reactions -- those who called for "inreach," or reinvigorating Jewish life as well as staving off intermarriage among those already involved, and those who advocated "outreach," efforts to welcome marginal Jews and interfaith families into the fold. A decade later those on both sides are still debating, though now, in the wake of the latest NJPS, the conflict is shaping up about whether outreach and identity-building programs worth tens of millions of dollars have made a difference -- and whether they should continue. Bayme, for one, remains concerned about the offspring of those intermarriages, pointing to a study released last summer of 235,000 Jewish college freshmen by UCLA professor Linda Sax. Among college freshmen with Jewish mothers only, 38% identified as Jews, while 15% of those with only Jewish fathers identified as Jews. In contrast, Bayme pointed out, 93% of freshmen with two Jewish parents identified as Jews. That Jewish identification gap appeared after a decade "where people are being raised partially as Jewish, partially as something else." And "to the extent that those 1.5 million" non-Jews living with 5.2 million Jews" fall into that category, I'm very pessimistic." The only real prospects for Jewish survival, Bayme said, lie not in encouraging some new strain of Judaism, but in strengthening Jewish identity among Jews and in encouraging conversion among non-Jews close to them. "All of our experience up to now is, the only hopes for Jewish continuity lie in an unambiguous Jewish identification," he said. Drawing an equally bleak assessment when it comes to dual-faith marriages is Sylvia Barack Fishman, an associate professor of contemporary Jewish life at Brandeis University. Fishman said this large group of intermarried couples the new NJPS identifies is largely raising its children in two religions. "What you need to understand is the religious synchronism these numbers represent," she said. In May, 2001, the American Jewish Committee published Fishman's study of 254 couples around the country, showing how the intermarried "negotiated and renegotiated the religious character of their households" rather than committing to one faith, she said. Two-thirds of the couples were in mixed marriages, while one-third were split between Jews married to converts and Jewish couples, who were surveyed as a basis for comparison. Of the intermarried, 63% said they were raising their children as Jews, she said. However, half of these couples also said they held Christmas and Easter celebrations in their homes, while another 16% attended church services and only 16% confined Christmas events to those with their non-Jewish relatives. Many of these couples "absorbed Christian themes" such as Christmas dinners, Christmas stockings and Easter-egg hunts in their lives, she added -- while doing little Jewishly to complement those activities. Those Christian traditions "may not sound deeply religious, but when you realize that nothing in their lives is deeply religious, that makes a difference," she said. Fishman, who is expanding her study into a book to be published next year called Jewish and Something Else: A Study of Mixed-Marriage Families, sees one hope for these couples and the Jewish future. "It is really important for temples and synagogues to gently encourage mixed couples to make their homes exclusively Jewish," she said. Acknowledging that her solution "is not politically correct," Fishman said it would be difficult to implement because most American Jews are liberal and pluralistic, and inclined to be inclusive. In her study, that meant many Jewish spouses did not push their non-Jewish spouses to do Jewish things out of empathy. Still, Olitzky of the Outreach Institute countered that the way children are raised does not necessarily shape the way they'll view themselves as adults. "The Jewish community would like the children of interfaith marriages to totally reject their non-Jewish side -- but these kids need to figure out how to identify Jewishly, and feel welcomed by the Jewish community, while at the same time embracing the non-Jewish side of their family," he said. Ed Case, publisher of Interfaithfamily.com, which offers resources and support for intermarried couples in an effort to encourage Jewish involvement, also said it remains unclear how many interfaith couples are raising their children as Jews. Case said not enough resources have been devoted to outreach since the 1990 NJPS to accurately assess the impact of outreach to the intermarried or of intermarriage itself. Few Jewish federations or organizations outside cities such as Boston and San Francisco target spending on outreach, such as Introduction to Judaism courses for interfaith couples, he said. That lack of attention, and the rising numbers of the intermarried, should make spending more money on outreach the Jewish community's top priority, he added. "You can't prevent intermarriage. We ought to treat these people as a growing audience and try to get them more involved," Case said. Ultimately, many of these arguments echo the same fault lines that the 1990 NJPS ignited, but some are hoping the latest NJPS will spark an entirely new debate. Rachel Cowan, who with her late husband, Paul, wrote the 1987 book Mixed Blessings: Overcoming the Stumbling Blocks in an Interfaith Marriage, urged "new leadership" on the intermarriage issue in the wake of the new study. "The solution is not to re-polarize the argument between" outreach advocates "and the one that says we're wasting money on outreach and we should instead focus on those in the fold," said Cowan, who converted to Judaism and is now a rabbi. Instead, the community should be seeking "new modalities" of outreach, she said, examining the religious lives of these families of Jews and non-Jews. "We can't discount this 1.5 million. G-d forbid they have a Christmas tree -- so what?" she said. "If you lop them off, then in 10 years we'll have even fewer Jews.'' CAJE to offer IST, 'EST' in '03 CAJE will offer a summer trip to Israel for Colorado's Jewish teens. More than 70 parents and teens attended a meeting at which the official announcement was made. "We feel confident we can offer to families an Israel trip that meets our safety standards," Daniel Bennett, executive director at CAJE, told the audience. "But these are extraordinary times. We know some of our families will not opt to send their teenagers to Israel this summer, but they will still desire a way to keep their children deeply connected through a relevant community teen travel and study experience." CAJE will offer two trips for both high school juniors and seniors. Both trips will depart on June 15, 2003. One trip -- still named IST -- will include approximately one week in Poland followed by approximately four weeks in Israel. The other trip, which does not include an Israel component, will be about three-and-a-half weeks of travel in Eastern and Southern Europe. This second trip is the "European Study Tour" (EST). Students will be allowed to change from one trip option to the other up until April 1, 2003. Students on IST and EST will be together for a week at the beginning of their trips. The groups will come together again in Colorado at the end of the summer. "We're not changing IST forever," said Bennett. "This is our best solution this year for helping kids to stay connected." "Our philosophy is to accommodate as many teens as possible," says Risa Buckstein, CAJE associate director. Parents who are considering sending their teens on either trip are encouraged to attend a parent meeting on Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. at the Boulder JCC or on Nov. 19 at 7 p.m. at HEA. Itineraries of each trip will be available then. The CAJE staff has been working closely with local rabbis, Federation leadership, parents, students and tour providers to explore the best possible options for a Jewish teen travel experience -- keeping safety a top priority. In the event that the Middle East situation changes significantly and travel to Israel is not possible, CAJE will make the European trip available to all students who registered for either option. Normally, the summer trip is for high school juniors only, but because the trip was not held last year, this year's trip is open to seniors as well. "Not going to Israel last summer was a big shock," said Buckstein. "We were profoundly saddened. We realized how important a trip to Israel is in developing teen identity." Since its inception in 1971, more than 1,700 Colorado teens have traveled to Israel with IST through CAJE. Enrollment at Hebrew High, the supplemental religious school program offered by CAJE, is a prerequisite for both trips. Information: Roni Ogin, 303-321-3191, ext. 16. Jewish Experiencec Center at JCC open, 'ready to roll'
The paint has dried, the carpet is down, and the furniture trucks will be rolling by the JCC to supply the new Jewish Experience Center in room 208 of the JCC. The new center is being equipped with resources to enable groups and individuals to learn more about their Jewish heritage. The center is already stocked with tapes on Jewish history, belief and values. "We have over 1,000 tapes on a whole range of Jewish topics, and visitors to the JCC can even borrow a walkman and tape to use while they work out at the gym," says Rabbi Raphael Leban, new to the Jewish Experience. Work has also begun on a reading nook and lending library. In addition to tapes and books, the center will house the Jewish Experience's classes and study sessions. The staff is always available to answer questions, help with a research project or find Jewish information or materials. Information: (303) 399-2660, ext. 226, or (303) 629-8200. Dennis Prager to speak at AJF Men's Event, Nov. 12 Dennis Prager, radio talk show host, author and Intermountain Jewish News columnist, is the speaker at Allied Jewish Federation's annual Men's Event, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 5:30 p.m. at BMH-BJ. The Men's Event is the Federation's annual fundraising and outreach evening for Jewish men. Prager has been called one of the three most interesting minds in American Jewish life. He is the co-author of two works about Judaism: The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism and Why the Jews? The Reason for Anti-Semitism. His most recent book, Happiness is A Serious Problem, appeared on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list for 15 weeks. His writings have appeared in Commentary, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. His column now appears regularly in the IJN. Federation President and CEO Doug Seserman says, "In only three years, this dinner has grown into one of our signature events with over 850 men attending last year. "The Federation's mission is to raise money for Jews and to raise Jews. The Men's Event is the perfect example of how we do both in an atmosphere that promotes camaraderie and stimulates thought." Andy Miller, chair of the Federation's campaign, notes: "We are honored to have a speaker of this caliber coming to our dinner. This is a time of turmoil for Jews all over the world, not just in the Middle East. "S. Stephen Selig, the 2003 national Campaign Chair for United Jewish Communities, will make an appearance at the dinner and share his perspective on the current state of Jewish philanthropy." Norm Brownstein, Gary Levine and Larry A. Mizel co-chair the dinner. There is no cost to attend. Reservations are required. Information: (303) 321-3399, ext. 205. Jane Rubenstein rises to the occasion in an hour of need By KATHRYIN BERNHEIMER IJN Boulder Correspondent Israel is of vital importance to Jane Rubenstein. It always has been. Growing up in a Reform home in Oak Park, Illinois, where there were literally two synagogues across the street from each other, Rubenstein's family joined both, but eventually settled on the Conservative side of the street. "I had a rigorous Jewish upbringing," she says. "I actually liked Hebrew School. I was proud to be Jewish. That was a value inculcated in me by my parents. The promise of Israel was really remarkable, and carried a sense of redemption and renewal for them. "That was the cauldron in which my deepest passions were formed." In 1973, Rubenstein spent her sophomore year in high school in Israel, living on a kibbutz in the upper Galilee. The kibbutz was in an exposed area three miles from the front when the Yom Kippur War broke out., Oct. 6, 1973. Rubenstein heard the incursion and ran for the bomb shelter along with the other American students and Israelis when they realized the danger. "Experiencing that crisis at that young age had a big effect on me," Rubenstein says. "It cemented the strongest possible feelings for Israel." When the current intifada started in the fall of 2000, those feelings arose even more passionately in Rubenstein, a fiercely committed woman with red hair and burning eyes. "The hair on the back of my neck stood up," she describes her reaction. "I had the same sense that Israel was in peril as in 1973." When she read that terror had broken out the day before Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, she sensed something was amiss. She says she sensed that the Intifada had already been planned and begun before Sharon's visit. "My immediate response was to find out what other people were doing, and to see if I could help in some way," she explains. "I didn't know what needed to be done but I felt a compulsion to become involved -- whether the difference would be great or small." She discovered a group in Denver, then called Jump Start, which later became ActionIsrael. It provided Rubenstein an opportunity to lend her professional skills in publicity, public relations, marketing and writing to the cause. After attending panels in Denver about the emerging crisis, she found a kindred spirit in fellow Bonai Shalom member and Boulder JCC library director Froma Fallik. Together they decided to take on the tasks of advocate training, tackling media bias and political lobbying. They formed a Boulder branch of ActionIsrael after Rubenstein was invited to prepare a presentation at the Boulder JCC. There was a good turnout for her talk. Many who attended became founding members of ActionIsrael. Charlotte Smokler, Arthur Bierman, Nancy Harding, Jessica Hersh, Nina Judd, Michael Wolin, Joe Friedman, Matt Finberg, Anne Lieberman, Mimi Ito, Larry Sturgeon and Josh and Froma Fallik are the core group. Other participants include Carl and Hana Hartman, Rabbi Doug Weber, Sylvain Yaakov, Sylvain Hayoun, Jessica Sandler, Rick Ackerman, Pete Ornstein, Jim and Sally Kornberg, Rochelle Rittmaster, Diane Rosenthal, Karyn Schad, Ken Stickney, Marjorie Miller, Howell Peiser, Raz Tel Chai, Morah Yehudis Fishman, and Tedd and Tina Harshaw (liaisons to Christian community). Although Rubenstein has remained on the Denver executive council of ActionIsrael, she felt it was vital to form a Boulder chapter that would "operate in terms of what we see as the needs in Boulder." The Boulder group immediately became active in writing op ed pieces and letters in response to media bias. Anne Lieberman now chairs the letter-writing campaign. ActionIsrael also created an active speakers' bureau that identifies venues for discussion or provides speakers to those organizations and churches willing to host discussion groups. Fostering interfaith dialogue has been a primary objective of ActionIsrael, which has formed valuable alliances with sympathetic faith communities such as Calvary Bible. Rubenstein also produced a video as a joint project of Denver and Boulder ActionIsrael called "Introduction to Israel Advocacy," featuring Israeli advocacy trainer David Olesker, based in Jerusalem. ActionIsrael shot the video in the Boulder Channel 8 studio last May. Boulder Action Israel members participated as part of the studio audience. The video has been previewed for Jewish agency heads. Daniel Bennett of CAJE is in the process of writing a strategic plan for marketing and dissemination of the video, which will be presented to Doug Seserman of the Federation in several weeks. Always working on outreach, Rubenstein is actively seeking Action Israel volunteers. Help is needed in letter writing, film festival programming, committee work, fundraising, event coordination, local media outreach, political action (such as formulating response to divestment and other issues), attending town hall meetings, manning educational booths at the Boulder Jewish Festival and the Boulder Hometown Fair, and organizing events such as the Yom Ha'Atzmaut rally in Boulder at Central Park and the Chanukah "Light One Candle" rally. In recent months, one of the specific needs that suddenly arose in Boulder was planning a response to the appearance at CU by Hanan Ashrawi. Jumping into a highly charged situation, Rubenstein organized the peace vigil that took place during the controversial talk by the Palestinian spokeswoman. Also in recent months, Rubenstein has been active in the formation of an ActionIsrael subcommittee, called the Middle East education project, chaired by Michael Wolin and Ken Stickney. MEEP is working with the city attorney, the library and other agencies to create a film festival to provide balance to the pro-Palestinian films presented in the Human Rights Watch traveling festival in Boulder in the spring. "We want to get the same benefits of free facility and free publicity as the Human Rights Watch received both at the library and the university," she explains. "The Coalition for Justice in Palestine has access to a seemingly endless supply of films that represent their side of the story," she adds, noting that MEEP's twofold task is to search for films that challenge those views and to raise funds to purchase them. The films, after being shown in the community and on campus, will be donated to the CAJE library. As MEEP's work on the festival continues, ActionIsrael has arranged the local premiere of the Israeli documentary, "Street Under Fire," during the Boulder JCC Jewish Book Month on Nov. 2 and 3. This will include an Israeli market place along the lines of the Ben Yehuda Mall. The film depicts life in the besieged Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, under constant fire from the adjacent town of Beit Jala, under Palestinian Authority control. In a similar effort to ensure balanced presentation of opinions, ActionIsrael has been monitoring the activities and programming of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center as well as CU's Conference on World Affairs. Further monitoring CU, ActionIsrael has been instrumental in the formation of a pro-Israel advocacy group on campus under the Hillel umbrella. Named EMET, the Hebrew word for truth, the group's initials are also an acronym for Education on the Middle East and Truth. Two weeks ago, EMET sponsored a talk at CU by Mitchell Bard, author of Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict. In what she describes as a major coup, Rubenstein has helped EMET and Hillel convince CU's cultural events board -- the campus group that invited Ashrawi -- to sponsor the appearance of Dennis Ross at CU on January 22. Ross, who led the peace negotiations at Camp David, was President Clinton's special envoy to the Middle East. He was chosen to tell the other side of the story. "We felt that as the preeminent expert on the Oslo peace process, with respect on the international stage, and as someone who is not a propagandist, he is absolutely unassailable," Rubenstein notes. Rubenstein and her husband Ken Stickney spent part of April and May in Israel. With Ken, Rubenstein rented a car and toured the entire country for two weeks. After Ken returned to work, Rubenstein stayed on a few weeks visiting friends in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. She left in admiration and sadness for the Israelis, who live with war and terror every day, choosing to live life normally but be ever vigilant. Adding that she'll never forget the victims of Sept. 11, Rubenstein says there's much to learn from Israel. "As much as we might like to think it's over, it's not," she observes. "The threats are many. I would hate for people to lose sight of it. There's much to be vigilant about. Everyone who is concerned about Israel should know that. "Israel is the front line on the war on terror."
Marvin Levy has assumed the chairmanship of two organizations -- Allied Jewish Federation's Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and the Colorado Assn. of Commerce and Industry (CACI), said AJF President and CEO Doug Seserman. Levy is CEO and chairman of the board of Miller International, Inc, parent company of the Rocky Mountain Clothing Co. He joined the company in the early 1970s and led it through an aggressive expansion. Prior to joining Miller International, Levy spent 10 years as a buyer and manager with Abraham & Strauss in Brooklyn. He is a graduate of NYU and holds an MS from the School of Business. He completed his BA at the University of Vermont and also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the London School of Economics. Levy serves on the ADL board and its national commission. He is an active member of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, where he has served on its board. He serves on the boards of the Foundation for Educational Excellence and the Aspen Global Forum. He is a member of the Denver Rotary, the National Western Stock School Assn. and is an honorary lifetime member of the board the Western English Retail Assn. Regarding his chairmanship of JCRC, Levy said, "I originally came to the JCRC as a delegate from the ADL. Quickly, I became aware that it was the melting pot of the broad cross section of opinions The JCRC collectively develops consensus policy positions, advocates community perspectives to elected and appointed public officials, and organizes the community in times of crisis. The JCRC consists of representatives from 30 Jewish agencies, organizations and synagogues, as well as at-large members representing the political, youth and Greg Goldberg receives Director's Award John Suthers, United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado, has announced that Gregory Goldberg, an assistant US attorney in the major crimes section, has been awarded the Director's Award by the US Dept. of Justice. US Attorney General John Ashcroft and US Attorney Suthers are scheduled to present Goldberg his award at a ceremony in Washington, DC. Goldberg was selected to receive this rarely conferred award from the director of the executive office of US Attorneys for his superior performance as an assistant US attorney. During the previous year, Goldberg vigorously tried numerous jury trials and volunteered to handle nine separate cases on appeal in front of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The trials and appeals were done in addition to his regular trial court caseload. One of the most significant prosecutions handled by Goldberg was the United States v. Dale Challoner. Challoner and four other co-defendants were charged with federal offenses resulting from a bank robbery, the firebombing of an elementary school, the home invasion and abduction of a bank officer and a car-jacking. These crimes were designed to facilitate a failed bank robbery in La Junta, Colo. Challoner received a 90-year sentence to federal prison, the longest sentence handed down in a non-fatal bank robbery in Colorado. Goldberg, 35, has been with the US Attorney's Office since August, 1999. He has been licensed to practice law in Colorado for seven years. In addition to the substantial trial and appellate accomplishments of the past year, Goldberg gives one weekend day a month to represent the US Attorney's Office on the Colorado Bar Assn.'s ethics committee. Goldberg is a graduate of Dartmouth and Columbia Universities. Andrea Bankier is new cantor at Temple Shalom Andrea Bankier, daughter of Denverites Harold and Barbara Raizen, is the new cantor at Temple Shalom in Colorado Springs. Bankier is also the director of education at the synagogue, which has a membership of 350 families. After attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison for two years, Bankier returned to Denver and received a degree as a dental hygienist from the CU Health Sciences Center. She then moved to Southern California, where she met her husband Sheldon. In the 1980s, Bankier became the director of religious education at a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles. She earned a master's degree from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles in 1989. Bankier's lifelong love of Jewish music and worship led her to study for the cantorate. She was accepted into the Cantors Assembly a year-and-a-half ago. Her mother saw Temple Shalom's advertisement for the cantorial position in the IJN and called Bankier in California. Bankier had met Anat Moskowitz, the spiritual leader of Temple Shalom, earlier in California. Temple Shalom, which is affiliated with the Reform and Conservative movements, is among the first in the nation to have both a female rabbi and a female cantor.
Whoever is killing all these innocent people in the Washington, DC area is the embodiment of evil. Utterly baseless is the thinking that blocks the passage of a law that could stop, discourage or apprehend such evil killers. This law would greatly enhance the possibility of linking a gun used in a crime to its purchaser. Such a law has languished in Congress for two years. If it were now in place, then after the very first killing in Washington, DC, police would know who bought the gun. Needless to say, such information could go a long way in apprehending the murderer. Even if the gun were purchased by one person and then stolen from him, the circumstances of the theft could help lead to the murderer. Obviously, if the purchaser himself were the murderer, a law enforcement's officer's knowledge of the purchaser's name and address would greatly facilitate his apprehension -- if the evil person were foolish enough to use his registered gun to kill, to begin with. Inexplicably, the very same president who, rightly, is so sensitive to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is insufficiently sensitive to the actual lethal harm caused by a madman in the Washington, DC area. The same president who, rightly, is not afraid to take us to war in Iraq is afraid of new technology that could match virtually any bullet to the gun that fired it. The science of guns can now match bullets to a specific gun. Not just to a type or a model, but to the actual gun that fired the bullet. Such things as grooves manufactured into the barrel of a gun, breech marks, firing pin impressions and striations enable law enforcement officers to compare the bullet in the victim to the gun that fired it. This is called "bullet tracing." The key point: Investigators would not need the gun of the murderer to make the match. The weapon used in the crime would not need to be recovered. The National Integrated Ballistics Information Network already stores the markings on bullets and shell casings as electronic signatures, but this ballistic data is based only on crimes already committed. However, according to U.S. News & World Report, gun control advocates want firearms makers to test-fire each and every new weapon and to deposit the resultant ballistics data in the national registry, along with every weapon's serial number. This way, the minute a bullet is recovered from the body, there is an excellent chance it can be matched to the gun -- also to the gun owner! This is not foolproof, but it works in most cases and could serve as a powerful deterrent to those who would commit a crime with a gun they bought. "Gun registry," to some citizens -- particularly to the National Rifle Association -- is equivalent to impalement by Atilla the Hun. "Gun registry" is the end of a free society, the worst thing since Hitler, no different from the government billeting soldiers in your home against your will. It is next to death itself. This is the typical, overwrought, socially irresponsible reaction to any suggestion that has a good chance of reducing crimes committed by guns. In fact, a gun registry that electronically records the ballistic fingerprints of every gun sold is an innocent, helpful way to cut down on crime without in any way detracting from our freedoms. A gun registry of this kind is no different from the motor vehicle registry of licensed drivers. A driver is tested before he can drive; otherwise, he might kill someone. A registry of drivers is maintained. This robs no one of his or her freedom. In fact, the registry's implicit threat to suspend a driver's license, upon bad driving behavior, enhances the freedom of all other citizens by dramatically increasing the possibility that they will not be killed by an irresponsible driver. Likewise, a gun registry of ballistic fingerprints enhances the freedom of all other citizens by dramatically reducing the possibility they will be killed with a gun -- while not restricting a law-abiding gun owner's freedom at all. A gun registry would track an instrument more dangerous than a car. A gun registry could help save lives. A gun registry is common sense -- just like the department motor vehicles is. If there were a national gun registry that included ballistics information, the killer in Washington might have been caught long before he shot anyone after his first, innocent victim. A gun registry of ballistic fingerprints would not degrade life and liberty, but protect them. Here is a case where new technology can help save lives. Let's use it . . . because bullets kill.
For some strange reason, a variety of policymakers in the Jewish community believe that if the true size of the community is inflated, even grossly so, this serves the Jewish future. Outside of Israel, the Jewish community is shrinking. This is a problem. Not, however, a problem that can be solved by exaggerating our size or counting non-Jews as Jews. Such methods merely distract us from meeting the problem. Such methods, however, are widely popular all over the world. Right here in Colorado, we are told that the Jewish community is now 70,000. Who is counted? What is the criterion of Jewishness for the count? Is this criterion universally accepted in the Jewish community? Whether the count includes people who subscribe to two religions, or who are non-Jews married to Jews, or who are not born of a Jewish mother, or who merely self-identify as Jews with no biological basis at all, should be disclosed and discussed. In another part of the world, Russian Jewry is about to take a census. Years ago, the number of Russia Jews was put at 551,000. Now, however, some of the demographers anticipate that the community will be counted as high as 1.5 million. This number is fallacious. Russian Jewry is a community from which members are emigrating, mostly to Israel. The community is shrinking or, at best, holding its own. But some demographers want it to "grow." They accomplish this by counting non-Jews according to a specious criterion: "having an attachment to the Jewish community." The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that Kerry Olitzky, executive director of the Jewish Outreach Institute, insists that 1.5 million American non-Jews who live in otherwise Jewish households be considered Jewish. She is quoted as saying: "We can't discount this 1.5 million. G-d forbid they have a Christmas tree -- so what?" Here's what: The inflation of the size of the Jewish community, besides being dishonest or delusional, achieves the opposite of its intended effect. The intended effect is strength. The real effect is weakness. For example: When the Federation in a community such as Denver raises much less funds than "comparably" sized communities, the unavoidable conclusion is that we are failing. The mood becomes depressed. The sense of worth of the community goes down. This can be so, however, only if our Jewish population inflated. Then the sums we raise are compared to the wrong communities. It is true that the Federation underperforms, but not so much as is made out to be the case. We do not believe that 70,000 is anywhere near the number of actual Jews in our community. We cannot validly compare our fundraising to that of other communities this size. Another example: If, through some legerdemain, Russia Jewry is shortly to number 1.5 million souls, then secularists in Israel will want them to come to Israel. This will only exacerbate the demographic crisis in the Jewish state, already beleaguered by a rising Israeli-Arab birthrate and a huge non-Jewish, Israeli populace of non-Jews married to former Russian Jews. The worse thing about inflating the size of the Jewish community, however, is that it detracts us from realizing our real definition: a holy people, committed to the Torah, obligated to become a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation." |
