Oh the irony. The Forward tells us that Stephen Walt,

…made a presentation at this year’s 9th Annual Jewish Book Network conference. The event, which is run by the Jewish Book Council, connects authors with directors at the nearly 100 sites that host Jewish book programs, including JCCs, synagogues, Hillels, Jewish federations, synagogues and other related organizations

And what was Mr. Walt, who has a chair at Harvard funded by a Zionist Jew, peddling to this audience? Why, the book-length version of their “The Israel Lobby” paper which will be published by the prominent publishing house, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Yeah, a couple of those guys were Jewish, too. When is the book coming out? September, the month when we Jews Members of the Lobby celebrate Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur.

That is very considerate of Mr. Walt and Mr. Mearsheimer. It must be fascinating for them, who publicly proclaimed that they couldn’t get their shoddy paper published in the U.S., to receive not only endless media and academic attention, but also a publishing deal from a Jewish-founded press and a marketing engagement to the central meeting of all Jewish book-buying organizations in the country. Boy, it’s so hard for an anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist or anti-Jewish author to be heard these days. Where is Norm Finkelstein to bitch about this?

I guess the organizers of the Jewish Book Network didn’t consider the fact that Walt & Mearsheimer weren’t just speaking about AIPAC in their paper or in their upcoming book. No, no, no. You see, their shoddy paper, “The Israel Lobby,” lists the very organizations present at the book fair as well as their membership as The Israel Lobby. Anybody who supports Israel directly OR indirectly, according to the thesis of these two men, is part of this powerful group that makes the U.S. function in contradiction with its true interests and particularly in line with the interests of an unjust, unfair, war-crime committing, unsupportive-of-the-U.S., country called Israel. That is their thesis, plain and simple.

So yup, call it chutzpah or call it savvy, these guys went to the lion’s den, to sell a bunch of the very people they’ve libeled the very book which libels them. You have to wonder how many grandmas were in that room.

Some of you may enjoy reading my previous post, The Mother of All Hatchet Jobs – Farrar, Straus and Giroux to publish 21st Century Protocols of the Elders of Zion , which also includes links to some other posts about these two serious scholars who have contributed more in the past year to negative stereotyping of the Jewish community in mainstream American life than anybody has for decades. Well, Jimmy Carter is trying, but he, like everyone else seeking to justify whatever negative thing they have to say about Jews, Israel, Zionists, etc., refers to “The Israel Lobby.” After all, these guys are scholars from good universities and they claim to support Israel.

“Both I and my co-author are pro-Israel,” he said on Tuesday evening, in front of the audience gathered at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. “Our book does not question Israel’s right to exist, and we make clear that lobbying for Israel is as American as apple pie. But we also argue that some organizations advocate policies out of step with the broader community for which they claim to speak.”

Perhaps Mr. Walt should re-read his own paper?

Yup, yet another British organization is planning to hold a vote to determine whether they should boycott Israel. This time it’s UNISON, England’s largest labor union. It has 1.4-1.6 million members (to remind you all, Israel has 7 million citizens) and wields some clout with its pension funds and sheer size – it is more than ten times as large as all of the British organizations that have already voted to boycott or announced a vote on a boycott put together. Once this one goes through, I suspect even Tom will stop questioning whether all of England should be held responsible for these boycotts.

In the meantime, the British government, somewhat embarrassed, is scrambling, apparently unaware that the ship has left the harbor:

“The UK government fully supports academic freedom and is firmly against any academic boycotts of Israel or Israeli academics,” said Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education Bill Rammell. “Whilst I appreciate the independence of the UCU, I am very disappointed that the union has decided to pass a motion which encourages its members to consider boycotting Israeli academics and education institutions.”

Israel has a huge labor union, the Histadrut, which has been a force in the Israeli economy as well as political life for many decades. The head of the Histadrut wrote a letter to the heads of UNISON asking that they cancel this vote for its unfairness. He indicated that the Histadrut hasn’t boycotted Palestinians despite their ongoing attacks and told them that it’s really sad to live in Sderot as Palestinian rockets keep landing on homes, cars and people at random. He could have save the ink and the stamp because this is clearly coming to a vote with some internal momentum.

The lesson here may be that we’ve learned little since Durban when we saw how the NGO universe had been deeply infiltrated and influenced by Palestinian and pro-Palestinian forces with a clear agenda. At the time it was clear that the Jewish community was simply outnumbered and clearly outmaneuvered. While the Jews were worrying about social justice, maintaining civil rights and preventing any outbreaks of significant antisemitism, the Palestinians were focused on harming Israel. The same is happening now in England and will follow suit in some other countries. The Palestinians are using inherently biased-to-the-left organizations, namely unions, to establish Israel as a pariah. When a union doesn’t exist to do the deed, it isn’t hard to find 100 or so willing souls from a certain walk of life to band together and create a boycott.

The question is, what can be done? Well, believe it or not, Israel cannot “end the occupation” to satisfy the nebulous demands of these groups, because the “occupation” is what keeps Israel safe from guaranteed Palestinian attacks. How can I guarantee these attacks? I look at the fact that Gazan Palestinians have never stopped attacking Israel despite Israel’s unilateral and comprehensive exit from Gaza. This resembles Palestinian actions in 2000 AFTER they were offered a peace deal AND a state at both Camp David and Taba, but launched a war instead of negotiating in good faith. An “end to the occupation” would also mean Israel giving up all of the Old City including the Western Wall to a nation that is led by two parties that both deny any connection of the Temple Mount or the Western Wall to the Jewish people.

So what should Israel and those who care about it do? Well, there’s still time to lobby the relevant union members about the folly of this boycott. However, it seems to me that Britain can really be written off at this time. Instead, it’s important to study whether similar movements are afoot in other countries, particularly the US and large European countries, and engage leaders in dialogue as well as some form of interaction with Israel. Let them visit and see for themselves the complexity of the situation. Let them hear about the history of this conflict from voices that aren’t Palestinian or wacky-Lefty-anti-Israel. This is not a good time to leave a vacuum anywhere, it may be filled by those whose agenda is the destruction of Israel.

This evening, we were graced with a nice talk by Leah Stern (top right). Leah is a correspondent for the Israel Broadcasting Authority. A native of Miami, she made aliyah to Israel nearly three years ago. Prior to making aliyah she graduated from University of Miami in Journalism. Afterwards she did stints writing for Rolling Stone, Ocean Drive and other magazines in Miami and New York. Upon making aliyah, she worked making pizza, folding laundry and as an intern for the Jerusalem Post. She caught her big break when she answered a casting call for the IBA and was hired as a correspondent. Three days later, the reporter who cut her teeth doing fluffy lifestyle pieces and restaurant reviews found herself in a helmet and a flak jacket reporting from the West Bank in the middle of a firefight. Leah spoke to our trippers about her aliyah experience and what it was like for a former partier to make the transition to living in Israel.

This further exposure to one element of the people of Israel provided a nice counterbalance to our intimate involvement in the land of Israel. Our trippers underwent 2 fairly intense hikes today – one in the hills overlooking the Golan for 3 hours and another in the water, which seemed like it was fun. I missed those hikes because I had to stay back with a couple of trip participants who weren’t feeling so well. I am happy to report that they seem much better now, so no worries.

After our chat with Leah, everyone went to the hotel lobby to terrorize the Hotel staff socialize with their friends. As you can see, everyone is fine. Really.

Allow me to introduce you to my fellow staff members – Gidon on the left who is my co-madrich and Moshe on the right who is our bus driver. All three of us are Moroccan Jews and so, for once, our trippers are getting an intense dose of Mizrachi culture which manifests itself mostly via Moshe’s impressive techno music collection, which he shares with us every day as well as his collection of Israeli Moroccan stand up comedy videos. Gidon provides the translation, which isn’t hard as most of the genre deals with making fun of Ashkenazic Jews and geffilte fish.

This is a photo of the water hike I missed. See? It does look like fun! On Thursday we will spend the day bouncing around Jerusalem. Hopefully no one will be ill.

You might recall that Steven Weinberg, the Nobel laureate decided that this is a bad time for a Jew to visit the UK on an academic exchange.

Well, here’s today’s news:

The University and College Union (UCU) of Britain, the largest academic organization in the United Kingdom, voted on Wednesday in favor of an academic boycott of Israel.

The motion was passed despite the UCU leader’s appeal to members of the union to ignore the call for an academic boycott.

Of the UCU representatives present, 158 voted in favor of the motion, 99 voted against, and 8 abstained.

No big deal. Seriously. Everybody stop with the anguish and self-searching.

Israel should remember that they’re at war and that this boycott is hypocrisy at its deepest. Singling out Israeli academics is shameful and nothing more. The shame is the union’s, and frankly, this vote is not surprising considering where British (and some American) academia has taken us regarding the Middle East in the past couple of decades. I know they won’t do this, in large part because many careers will be directly impacted in Israel because of this boycott, but Israeli universities should simply put out the appropriate press releases and move on to conduct research and other exchanges with other countries. If other countries follow suit, Israeli academics should focus on the US and allow THE US TO BE AN EVEN GREATER BENEFICIARY OF ISRAEL’S EXTRAORDINARY ACADEMIA.

Really, don’t waste time and energy on this issue because it is nothing more than hypocrisy for a country that sits in Iraq as an occupier, and in many ways is responsible for the divisions in the Middle East, to boycott Israel for its war with the Palestinians.

I was visiting Pierre Tristam’s site and someone named Van commented about John Dugard’s latest report on Israel. As always, Dugard finds fault with Israel’s actions in defending itself and “Van” indicated that this was informative because Dugard was an impartial observer. I didn’t think so and responded with some detail. Since it involved some research and a lot of writing, I thought it might be of some interest to our readers. I enclose it below Hillel Neuer’s of UN Watch statement to the Human Rights Council. You should watch the 4 minute video as well, if only because at the end of the talk, the Council’s president is so displeased that he strikes it from the record.

To see my response to “Van” about the unfairness of this Council, please follow the link.

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Sure, some people get to travel around Israel meeting lots of new people, seeing beautiful places and educating young Jews about their history as part of an ancient nation and religion. But most people in Israel right now are just living regular lives, making a living, raising children, etc. This is what Arthur Damush (Du Mosch, according to the J Post) was doing as he went to bed a couple of nights ago in his home in a small Negev desert community. Arthur was in for a surprise, however, when in the middle of the night his cat brought a feline cousin into the home. Well, it didn’t quite “bring” the leopard into the home but was instead running for its life into the home. Apparently nearby residents had been noticing their cats disappearing recently but nobody knew why until Arthur’s wife woke him with the shout, “Leopard!” The leopard was in their bedroom trying to eat their cat.

Arthur did what any of us would do: he leapt over to the leopard, grabbed it, put it in a headlock and held on for dear life while his wife called their neighbor who just happened to be a Nature and Parks Authority inspector. Well, some of us would pounce on a leopard. One or two of us, I’m sure.

Fortunately, the inspector arrived twenty minutes later and by then Arthur was already giving the leopard noogies. Soon thereafter, the situation came under control.

He grabbed a leopard and held him until help came! Is he insane? Who grabs a leopard – they have sharp teeth and big mouths and muscular bodies?

“This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day,” he said, plainly. “I don’t know why I did it. I wasn’t thinking, I just acted.”

Well, crazy or not, or perhaps just enough of a cat lover that he didn’t wish to see his cat get chewed to death, Arthur Damush (Du Mosch) gets some respect from this writer.

There are a lot of people that want to be Taglit-birthright israel madrichim (trip leaders). They figure it’s a “free” trip to Israel and all you have to do is go on an all expenses paid excursion with 40 adults. Easy as pie!

So. Not. True.

It’s hard work. You must remain constantly vigilant, you are often the 1st one up in the morning and the last one to sleep at night. You have to be knowledgeable and cheerfully informative and you also have to go on every single hike while attempting to answer every manner of question. But I guess it’s worth it when you see something you say resonate with the group or an individual. And this applies even though I am very tired, beat and have 3 hikes to look forward to tomorrow. Well, today actually.

Today (yesterday?) was a pretty cool day. We visited an army base near the Syrian/Lebanese border. There we talked to a self effacing Israel reservist who acted as our guide. I know I illustrated this post with what one might think are photos meant to fetishize the military but really, there was nothing glamorous about this base. Nor was there anything macho about the soldiers we met. They emphasized the fact that they were there to do a job, namely to protect the physical integrity of the State, and but for the constant threats, they’d rather be anywhere but there.

The nature of the threat was well demonstrated on our hikes up the Golan and Har Bental where we saw just how close the enemy was in 1967, 1973, 1981, last summer and today. It was, as it always is, a rather sobering experience.

We also went rafting down the mighty Jordan River! Man was that scary! There were some trip participants who had done some extreme white water rafting in places like New Zealand and uh… Montana. And even they weren’t prepared for the ferocity of the current.

OK. So I lied. The Jordan River is not mighty at all. It was like taking a relaxing nap on a moving water bed. But still, it was fun and I hardly got splashed at all.

Yael our tour guide seems to be going crazy so we went out for a relaxing dinner in Tiberias. I had the fish fillet. It was ok. These guys however had a TON of meat. It looked very appetizing. Can you tell I need some sleep?

Arlington National Cemetery

(image source)

Photos of Hamas rally in Gaza

Fancy Hamas recruiting and propaganda video This user has 185 videos promoting a terror group in his YouTube Profile.

LGF tipped me off to this and has preserved one of the Hamas videos showing kids in a play glamorizing suicide and terror!

YouTube’s guidelines clearly state that “YouTube is not for pornography or sexually explicit content.” Isn’t this the pornography of violence?

These guidelines also state, “Don’t post videos showing dangerous or illegal acts, like animal abuse, drug abuse, or bomb making.” Wouldn’t being a member of a terror group be considered a dangerous AND illegal act?

Write to YouTube directly at press@youtube.com.
Write to Google—YouTube’s Owners at press@google.com

I can’t believe that today is only Monday. The day started with a visit to the ancient city of Acre (aka Akko). Yael our tour guide extraordinaire walked us through the history of this ancient port town, from Arabs, to Crusaders, to Ottomans, to the British. One of the easily overlooked attractions is yet another AV presentation which went over the city’s history by way of it’s bath house. I know, whacky right? But still, I’ve seen it three times already, and enjoy it every time. The trippers were enthralled, so that ought to give you an idea of how cool it was.

Afterwards, we went on a beautiful but harsh 3 hour hike to a small river in between Safed and Mount Meron. Never have I ever enjoyed dipping my toes in a stream more before. We then drove off to the center of Kabbalah – the town of Safed. They cleaned up really well after last summer’s rain of Katyushas from our Hezballah friends in Lebanon, no doubt thanks to the efforts of Leading Up North and Livnot. We visited a few of the synagogues including the one used by the Ari’zal. While the trippers bought all manner of tchochkes, I ran into Rafi, one of the participants at Jewlicious at the Beach 2.0. He’s been living in Safed for the last 5 months and while he looked all frummed out, the rakish angle of his tzitzis and his Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt were evocative of his former mischievousness. Rabbi Yonah will be pleased to know that he looks well fed and is also duly employed as a graphic artist. Just letting you know.

Now I am writing from the main lobby of the guest houses at Kibbutz Haon on the banks of Lake Kinneret. Looking forward to some good sleep – tomorrow because the trippers have been so good, Yael has allowed us to sleep in till 8 am! Why does this excite me so?

Check us out rockin’ the tri-blends! Available both in crew neck and v-neck, I challenge anyone to find me a shirt better suited for Israel’s harsh summer sun. And it is so. friggin. soft. American Apparel and Kabbalah have never gone together as well.

Hey hey! This is ck, reporting once more on the progress of our Oranim run, Jewlicious sponsored free trip to Israel, which, as you all probably know, came about as a generous gift from Taglit-birthright israel. This year, Taglit-birthright israel will send over 24,000 young Jews to Israel for a free 10 day trip. Oranim, our trip provider, is running over 264 (!!!) buses. Despite what could easily have devolved into an organizational and logistical nightmare, everyone involved has been great. Even our trippers have been well behaved, attentive and inquisitive – which makes my job easy and interesting.

So on Sunday we left Jerusalem and traveled to Caesaria. The last time I was here was on the last Jewlicious trip in January, but what a difference! They installed a new AV center and along with the usual spiel from our tour guide Yael, we also enjoyed an audio visual presentation that, at least from my perspective, helped me to really understand Caesaria and its history a lot better. Even if you’ve been to Caesaria before, go again – it’s a totally different experience. Of course the trippers loved it.

Next we headed off to Zichron Yaacov – a town built in honor of Sir Moses Montefiore’s father. We went on a fairly intense hike through these atypically well manicured gardens – a security guard yelled at me because my toe touched the grass. Then he told me about the good ol’ days when he used to be a cop and how once he and his partner gave a dude a ticket because “If he can afford a new Mercedes, he can afford to give up some cash for the good of the country.” How sweet.

Our last activity of the day saw us have a yummy dinner hosted by the members of a Druze family. Our trippers learned all about the history of the Druze, though nothing about their secret religion and rituals.

The weather all day was sunny, hot and generally awesome. I even got a bit of a tan and am pleased to see my diaspora pastiness being replaced by a golden hue thanks to the Israeli sun. Yay!

Ah, the Camera d’Or. Awarded to the best debut film, it is the best prize a young filmmaker can win at Cannes other than the top prize, the Palme d’Or. Thirty films from around the world competed for this prize in 2007, awarded to the film that the jury deems best among the three screening categories that aren’t in the main competition, namely from the Un Certain Regard, Directors’ Fortnight and Critics Week sections of the world’s foremost film festival.

This year’s Camera d’Or winner is Meduzot (Jellyfish) by Israeli author Edgar Keret and his wife, Shira Geffen. An unwieldy review of the film by Variety can be seen here. Edgar, being Israeli received the award and announced, “Everything here is so far from our lives. I haven’t worn a suit since my Bar Mitzvah.” The film was also awarded two other prizes this past week in Cannes, the Young Critics Prize and the French Artist and Writers Guild (SACD) award for best directors. At the SACD ceremony, Ynet reports that Keret said, “”This is the first time we make a movie, the first time we screen it in Cannes and the first time my wife lets me kiss such beautiful girls” (referring to the judges).

The script to Meduzot was written by Shira Geffen and directed by her together with Keret. Keret is a 39 year old writer who has achieved quite a bit of acclaim in recent years and now that he’s won this award, I’m going to have to read his latest book, an English translation of which I have sitting on my shelf thanks to my generous wife. He’s an interesting character and I found this interview with him to be informative. While I can’t find a similar interview with his wife, Shira, she is daughter to one of Israel’s finest satirical writers, poet, lyricists and translators, Yonatan Geffen. Shira is also sister to one of Israel’s top music stars, Aviv Geffen who really needs his own post to be described (these days he’s a partner in a band called Blackfield). This family is artistic royalty in Israel, and also connected through marriage to the Moshe Dayan family which has both prominent politicians and artists among its members.

Obviously Shira and Edgar are quite a talented couple and somehow they managed to make and market this film while having a first child. They deserve another prize for that. Mazal tov to them both and may they find a quality distributor so that we can actually see this movie on a cinema screen here in North America.

Photo source is Ynetnews.

Sderot resides next to Gaza. Even before the Disengagement, Palestinian rockets were being launched at the town. Accuracy was a serious problem and the number of hits was small. Then came the Disengagement, but even though every single Jewish soldier and every single Jewish resident of Gaza were moved out of Gaza, the rocket attacks continued. One day, the Palestinians also attacked an IDF position outside of Gaza, killing some soldiers and kidnapping Gilad Shalit.

The rockets have continued unabated since the Disengagement and appear to be hitting Sderot with far greater accuracy, suggesting progress in Palestinian rocket technology. Some have likened living in Sderot to playing Russian roulette. For example, yesterday, an Israeli visitor to Sderot from an area in central Israel called Hod HaSharon, Oshri Oz (see photo), was killed because his car was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A piece of shrapnel from the Qassem rocket pierced his neck and he died shortly after. He leaves behind a pregnant wife and a 2 year old daughter.

Of course, while this is russian roulette for those who reside or visit Sderot, for the Palestinians this is a strategic play. They want to keep Israel engaged with Gaza, but they also want to make it clear that they want into Israel. The rockets right now have a range limited to western Negev communities and S. Ashkelon, a larger city, but the improved accuracy and larger number being launched mean real danger and real damage for all of Israel. Anybody thinking about Iranian and Hizbullah military and economic support for Hamas – both of which apparently exist – can envision a day in 5-10 years when those Palestinian rockets will reach much farther into Israel. Hamas is also learning from Hizbullah, according to a senior defense official in Israel, to launch from civilian centers. This, of course, means that any attempt to stop the attack or retaliate against the launching crew involves the possibility of hitting Palestinian civilians. This, in turn, leads to cynical propaganda eaten up by the journalists in the West.

This is where the excellent opinion editorial by Ari Shavit in today’s Ha’aretz comes into play.

Sderot is Us, Shavit calls it, and his point is strong and important: these attacks are not only against Sderot, but are attacks on the concept of a two-state solution, on the idea that peace will be possible with the Palestinians, on the nature of what Israel’s borders are, and on the future of Israel itself. He notes that if Sderot is hit, no other disengagement will ever work. Furthermore, he adds that it is not only the Palestinians who are teaching and learning from these attacks, but the fact that Sderot has not garnered the support of Israel’s peace camp and tepid support from Israel’s politicians is also instructive.

So the basic fact remains: Sderot 2007 is a city that seems cursed. A frontier city with no home front. A frontier city with no aura of heroism. A frontier city that the government should protect, but isn’t protecting. A frontier city that the nation should be standing behind, but is not. A frontier city abandoned by the center of the country.

It should not have been like this. Sderot is not Gush Katif. There is no debate. On the contrary: Sderot is a “Green Line” city. Sderot is a post-withdrawal city. Sderot is the righteous Israeli city after the occupation. Sderot is the future. Indeed, it is the litmus test that will teach us in real time what we can expect in the future when we withdraw completely. This being the case, Sderot should have been the apple of the eye of all those preaching withdrawal in the past, and of everyone who still believes in withdrawal. Sderot should have been the city of peace writers and peace singers and peace industrialists. A “peace now” city. A city of Israeli solidarity. A city of mutual responsibility. A city where strong Israelis stand together with Israelis who are less strong in the face of Islamic zealotry.

All this is not happening.

Read the rest below the fold, it’s important!

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Hi! This is ck reporting from Jerusalem. It’s 3 am Sunday morning and me and my trip participants just got back from hitting downtown Jerusalem, so to speak. Allow me to backtrack a bit. As you may or may not know, Jewlicious, in conjunction with Oranim and thanks to the generosity of Taglit-birthright israel, is running a free trip to Israel. I left on a plane from JFK that was made up entirely of Oranim trip participants and everything went really well.

No seriously.

Anyhow, we got in an hour later than expected and so we went directly to the Kotel for cabalat Shabat. Our driver dropped off our luggage at the hotel and after our dazed but otherwise suitably moved group experienced the Kotel on a Friday night (highly recommended!) we walked back to our hotel, had Shabbat dinner and then more or less passed out.

Saturday, thanks to the hard work of Ilana Rachel, Jewlicious-trip alumna Lori and Jeff Seidel our entire group had Shabbat lunch in Nachlaot with local families. Once again, our trip participants were suitably impressed with the largesse and hospitality of our hosts.

That evening, after our Havdalah service, we went into town and these are the first pictures from the trip. We walked around Ben Yehuda street where some of our Jewliciousers popped their falafel and shwarma cherries. The night ended at a club called Laila where we were joined by Assaf, the drummer and Ohad, the lead singer of MissFlag, fresh from their US tour, where, amongst other places, they played at the Jewlicious Festival. Ohad is in the midst of tryouts for Kochav Nolad, Israel’s version of American Idol.

Tomorrow we’re headed up north where we will visit Caesaria and sleep at the banks of the Kinneret. Hopefully I’ll find the time and the juice to write a bit more about our participants who are interesting because they kind of represent a tiny microcosm of young American Jews. The Steinhardts and the Bronfmans can afford to hire fancy shmancy consultants to try and understand what makes these kid tick. At Jewlicious, all we can afford is field research… stay tuned!

Haifa Bay 1933

The Cohens were German Zionists who came on a visit to Mandatory Palestine in 1933 and captured some great images that Ynetnews brings us as part of their series of early images of Israel. This is an interesting collection, as always.

Of course, it’s ironic that in this year the Nazis came into power. If Israel had existed by then, perhaps things would have ended differently for Europe’s Jews.

Shabbat shalom, everybody.

Amphitheater at Mount Scopus,
part of the Hebrew University campus,
overlooking the Judean Desert to the Dead Sea

Ynetnews has occasional articles covering art and photographs from the early days of Israel. Recently they showed some of the art drawn in Jerusalem by Saul Raskin in the early part of the last century.

Check it out.

Some British people may or may not have supported a boycott against Israel until yesterday (boycotts and attempted boycotts in England include those by their main journalists’ union and by a large academic union that has been disbanded and folded into another union that will be holding a similar vote shortly) but today they are united in anger. And what has united them? A Jewish Nobel laureate in Physics (1979), Steven Weinberg, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has declined to visit the UK. He wrote a letter to his hosts explaining his reason. As the Guardian describes it:

In the letter, the professor said his decision was triggered by an agreement by the National Union of Journalists at its national conference to boycott Israeli products.

He wrote: “I know that some will say that these boycotts are directed only against Israel, rather than generally against Jews.

“But given the history of the attacks on Israel and the oppressiveness and aggressiveness of other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, boycotting Israel indicated a moral blindness for which it is hard to find any explanation other than anti-semitism.”

A spokeswoman for Imperial said it was “very sad” about the professor’s decision.

Prof Weinberg said the only other reason he could imagine for the boycott was the NUJ’s “desire to pander to the growing Muslim minority in Britain”.

Now do visit that article because it has a comments section at the bottom. While there are some who defend Israel and express strong opposition to boycotts of Israel, many Brits justify boycotts and attack Weinberg, falsely for accusing them of being antisemitic.

In an interview with Ha’aretz, Weinberg elaborated:

“I’m not calling on anyone else not to go to Britain…I don’t want to say I’m cutting ties with the U.K. – I love England. I just feel personally uncomfortable going with the atmosphere there at the moment. It’s increasingly hostile to Israel, especially in the intellectual world.”

…”I just felt this was too disgusting and I didn’t want to go there this summer,” Weinberg said. “I see in the British press and the BBC signs of a very strong anti-Israel bias – a kind of blind hostility that whatever Israel does, it is always in the wrong – so this is not an isolated action of a small group of anti-Semitic conspirators. This represents a widespread feeling among British journalists.”

Weinberg said he sent the letter before learning that 120,000 members of the University and College Union were asked to vote on a proposed boycott of Israeli universities at its annual congress in Bournemouth on Tuesday and before he knew about the call in March by 130 British doctors to boycott the Israeli Medical Association.

Weinberg said he is against boycotts, and specifically boycotts of Israel: “To boycott Israel today would be like boycotting Czechoslovakia in 1938 when Hilter was complaining the Czechs were being unpleasant to the Germans in the Sudetenland.”

That Haaretz article has plenty of talkback comments and they are very telling. Some British are gravely offended. I suspect, though, that they weren’t so offended when their own institutions voted for boycotts.

In the next couple of weeks in England, a 120,000 member University and College Union will be voting on an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions and academics while a group of physicians is also planning to vote for a boycott of Israeli doctors and health care facilities. Just to be clear for those who aren’t aware, Israel’s academic institutions are a bastion of free speech with numerous academics who openly criticize Israel. Also, for those who don’t know, back in 1967, there wasn’t a single Palestinian institution of higher learning while today there are several universities and about 20 community colleges. For the physicians, they would have to note that Israeli hospitals are a model of integration with Arab and Jewish doctors working side by side on both Arab and Jewish patients. Then again, it didn’t matter that Israel has a vibrant and free press when Britain’s National Union of Journalists voted for a boycott against Israel some weeks ago. If journalists who are supposed to report the news and report objectively behave this way, why would others behave any better?

Dr. Weinberg is in a position where his decision not to visit Britain at this time garners some attention. However, he isn’t boycotting England. He’s merely choosing not to visit that country because it makes him feel quite uncomfortable.

A country that has launched a war against Iraq where countless innocent civilians have been killed and where all political and social barriers have been swept away with active British participation, has prominent groups that would like to ignore their country’s own sins, other countries’ sins (think China with Tibet, Russia with Chechnya, etc.) and would prefer instead to boycott Israel, a country fighting for its survival. It is no wonder Dr. Weinberg feels uncomfortable. After all, the facts bear out a singling out of Israel that makes no sense whatsoever. Sometimes you’ll hear them say that because Israel is a democracy, it should be held to higher standards than non-democracies. That’s like saying that your priority should be to replace your worn out wipers instead of repairing the overheated engine because they’re more accessible. Others say that British support of Israel makes the British culpable and therefore responsible for its misbehaviors. Putting aside the question of whether Israel’s behavior is unacceptable or unlawful, how are the British not culpable for the many other ills in the Middle East? If anybody is, the British take the lead in the line.

What I admire about Dr. Weinberg’s actions is that he is not being vindictive or aggressive. He is merely staking a high moral position based on his personal feeling that an injustice is being done. He is not cutting off dialogue, but seeking to present it on his terms, not the terms of those who, illogically, single out Israel unfairly. This is the way to go. There are many citizens of Britain, as well as politicians, who do not see Israel negatively and who should be engaged by us. We should make them aware, however, that it cannot be on the terms set out by Israel’s haters because we won’t play along.

For an introduction to where large segments of British society stand with regards to Israel and to the Jewish people today, here is a worthwhile AJC sponsored survey. It is called Anti-Zionism in Britain and Beyond: A “Respectable” Anti-Semitism? by Alvin Rosenfeld.

Well, they don’t serve, except for a tiny number. Ha’aretz had an op-ed criticizing this unfair and unjust practice. The practice was codified into a law called the Tal Law which essentially permits Orthodox men to avoid service if they pursue yeshiva studies virtually indefinitely. If they drop out of yeshiva studies, they have to serve in the IDF. In the past several years no more than a couple of hundred ultra-Orthodox men have opted to serve in the IDF and even a new national service option gets few takers. After 5 years, rhe law is up for renewal and the Cabinet has approved a 5 year extension despite encouragement from the Israeli supreme court to change the law. It now has to go to the Knesset for passage but there’s a good chance it will be renewed. This article points out that within a dozen years, one fifth of the eligible men in Israel will not have to serve in the IDF – a conscription army. There was a comment in the discussion that followed which caught my attention and I thought it should be reproduced. It comes from Yonatan from Kfar Saba, and he is clearly biased and incensed.

I Feel Deprived

First of all, I work hard for a living. But there are many people in this country who don’t work at all, because they are to be found (I won’t use the generalization “they are studying”) in rabbinical seminaries. All at my expense, to be sure.

Secondly, I pay all my taxes. But there are many people in this country that don’t pay all their taxes, or pay none at all. This is either because they don’t work, for the above-mentioned reason, or because they hide their true income from the goyish, Zionist State.

Thirdly, all the members of my family have served in the army, one of them even in Lebanon. But there are many people in this country who don’t serve in the army at all, or serve a reduced tour of duty in some dummy unit for former yeshiva students. Let the Zionist, secular suckers get killed!

Fourthly, my children attended overcrowded classrooms of 40 children, during years when cuts in the education budget and cuts in class hours were an almost everyday occurrence. So I had to pay for private lessons, of course, on top of textbooks, fees for class outings, fees for class materials and fees for class whatnot. But I’m a “goy” (i.e. disparaging term for a non-observant Jew), why shouldn’t I pay? Yet there are many people in this country whose children attend small classes for a long school day, receive free textbooks, get two free meals a day, and don’t pay any fees at all. All at my expense, to be sure.

Fifthly, I paid my children’s tuition at the university, adding money for living expenses when necessary. But there are youths in this country who attend (again, I won’t use the generalization “study”) at rabbinical seminaries for many years for free, and get living expenses and rent money as well. All at my expense, to be sure.

Fifthly… And if the rabbinical “students” choose to get married and spawn children while at these yeshivas, I pay for that too.

Sixthly, I don’t even have freedom of religion. I worship at a non-Orthopox synagogue, which receives no support from the Ministry of Religions. So I have to pay high membership dues for the privilege of praying at the synagogue of my choice. But other, (ultra-)Orthodox synagogues are supported by the State, all at my expense, to be sure.

My rabbis are not allowed to perform weddings, conversions or grant divorces. But the rabbis of the (ultra-)Orthodox Establishment are employed by the State to perform these services, all at my expense, to be sure.

And now, after I have been deprived, exploited, extorted and oppressed, I am being asked to understand the necessity for the Tal Law? Not on your life. I`m a proud “deprivee”.

Okay, when I post these stories, Michael wants to die and Phoebe wants to puke. However, this one has a twist because it involves one of America’s largest fortunes.

Apparently, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has just married his long-time sweetheart Anne Wojcicki. Both bride and groom are 33 years old and from what I can tell seem to have some links going back years. It seems that Anne’s older sister, Susan, a VP at Google, had rented to Sergey and Larry Page the garage in which they founded Google. Some time later Susan introduced Anne to Sergey and…blah blah blah…Mazel tov!

The couple had a private wedding on an island in the Bahamas and will live in Palo Alto. Google has just invested 4 million bucks, along with some other investors, in a start-up headed by Anne called 23andMe that will try to enable people to collect genetic data about themselves. Yuck! But we’ll ignore the notion of a world where Google can track every move you make on the Internet while a Google sponsored start-up learns everything there is to know about your genetic makeup because…this is a love story.

According to Top SEO blog, which got the story from Mercury News, Eugenia Brin, Sergey’s mother, mentioned in a 2001 interview that she hopes Sergey will find someone who’s got wit similar to his and who is hopefully Jewish as well. Anne is considered quite bright and if interviews I’ve heard with her sister are any indication, super-bright. And she’s Jewish. Her father is a Stanford physics professor with 3 daughters, while Brin’s father is a mathematics professor in Maryland and his mother is a research scientist (they arrived in the US from Russia when Sergey was 6 years old). Of course, this bodes well for assistance with homework their potential children will be getting at home.

This story is receiving media coverage for an obvious reason: Google’s phenomenal success and Brin’s resulting wealth. He is worth somewhere between 14 and 16.6 billion dollars as of this writing. Well, money isn’t everything (although if Sergey would like to share, oh, about 0.1% of that wealth with me, I wouldn’t object and neither will my wife) and marriages need foundations far stronger than money to thrive. Without knowing the couple, it seems this is the case here. May the couple enjoy a fun, happy, fulfilling life together and hopefully it will include children and maybe also a connection to their Jewish heritage.

Update: Bnai Brith Magazine, of all place, did a story about Brin and Larry Page (whose mother is Jewish and whose father was an early founder and resident of the town of Arad in S. Israel). It gives some detail about Brin’s family’s decision to leave Russia.

Update for May 29: The NY Times has finally reported on this story (with a much better photo) and gives a good deal more information about Anne. Her father is the chair of the Physics dept. at Stanford and her mother, Esther, is a journalism teacher in a high school. Anne earned her biology degree at Yale where she was a competitive ice skater and played on the varsity hockey team. Her new company has raised ten million dollars in start-up capital and she co-founded it with an experienced life-sciences entrepreneur.

From their description:

Women’s Lens provides a modern take on today’s news which relate to worldwide Jewry, with a specific slant on those originating from Egypt. It is an understatement to suggest that Egypt had reached a second hey dey during the early to mid-twentieth century, when its Jewish population reached a peak of close to 80,000. The city of Alexandria was rightfully called the Pearl of the Mediterranean. Commerce thrived and creativity flowed. It is in this cosmopolitan climate that I was born, at the Hôpital Israëlite of Alexandria on January 28, 1951 at 5:30pm. Though many decades have passed since, Alexandria still appears in my dreams, betraying a longing to validate those images of a childhood grossly interrupted. There is a specificity to having been Jewish in Egypt, and it is with this particular focus that I have created this blog with the support of the Historical Society of Jews from Egypt.

The writer seems to be an Egyptian-born Jewish woman who was raised in the United States. It’s a charming blog with somewhat of a serious mindset melded with a sophisticated nostalgia for a world which no longer exists and which disappeared in front of the author’s young eyes.

We tend to dismiss the Arab Jewish victims of 1948, but more Jews ended up leaving or were pushed out of their homes in Arab lands and moving to new countries such as Israel, France, Canada and the US, than Palestinians who left or were pushed out of Israel. We tend to dismiss these victims in part because they have been integrated into their host countries and have not had an internationally supported campaign (with significant assistance from the UN in this regard) to maintain their refugee status as have the Palestinians. Still, for these Jewish families, and mine was touched by this issue as well, the loss of home, connection to a place, language, friends, communities, assets, income source or career was debilitating and heart-breaking. There is some movement now to at least begin a discussion about what was lost and to try to locate the memory of these communities. In this respect, Women’s Lens is a welcome addition to the Jewish blogging universe.

For those who haven’t seen it, the Pew Research Center has just published the results of an extensive survey of American Muslims. This is a fascinating piece of research and worth your time to explore a bit.

Some key highlights include Pew’s assessment that around 2.35 million Muslims live in the US, of which about 1.4 million are adults. They include a chart with the results of other surveys and theirs seems to be on the high side, with at least one survey claiming one third this number. The only survey refuting this estimate was sponsored by…CAIR. Of course. It is the survey that claimed 6-7 million after counting 2 million mosque-going Muslims and extrapolating (without evidence) that therefore 3 times the number would sound about right.

The Muslim American population is a bit skewed to the young. What is interesting about this is that young Muslims under 30 tend to be more devout, more identified with their Muslim identity than their elders, more likely to support suicide bombings (31% of young Muslims either accepted or partially accepted their use), and generally more assertive about their Islamic links than their elders.

Muslim Americans tend to be about average in terms of income level when compared to non-Muslim Americans; their ideals tend to lean towards the Democrats, except when it comes to certain lifestyle issues such as homosexuality; and tend to be just about as devout and mosque-going as Christian Americans and believe in the divine origins of the Koran at about the same rate as Christian Americans believe in the Bible’s divine origins.

On the other hand, almost half consider themselves Muslims first, before considering themselves American. 6 out of 10 young Muslims believe this. 4 out of ten believe that Arabs committed the 9/11 attacks while 28% reject that premise entirely and 32% (!!!) refused to answer the question. 12% accept the use of suicide bombings in some form to “defend Islam,” while 9% refused to answer that question. As I note above, 31% of young Muslims accept this proposition. 3 out of 10 Muslims over 30 years of age believe that Islam and modern life are in conflict while 4 out 10 young Muslims believe this; which translates to a full 26% who think that Muslims shouldn’t even try to find this balance.

About 65% of Muslims are foreign born and of the 35% who are native Americans, more than half are African American for a total of about 20% of the Muslim American population. The survey breaks down many questions by origin of the Muslim and this is also informative, in particular because many native-born Muslims are converts to Islam. By the way, about a quarter of American Muslims are converts and most of them come from Protestant denominations.

The survey was light on questions of foreign policy although it asked about Afghanistan and Iraq. The large majority of Muslim Americans are opposed to those wars, don’t believe the “war on terror” is fought for authentic reasons, and don’t support this Administration in general. On the question of Israel and the Palestinians, 61% believe that Israel can exist while the “rights and needs of the Palestinians are taken care of.”

American Jews are so much more Jewish than Israelis…

Our boy Noah in Chicago put up part two of the video of his date with Sarah. Noah is doing an online reality-type show called JewCompleteMe documenting his attempt to date and get into a serious relationship with a Jewish woman. He’s documented one date so far, with a woman called Sarah. She’s Catholic, but he felt that starting his show this way would demonstrate why it is he wants a relationship with a Jewish woman. Also, Sarah’s kinda hot and I guess not too many Jewish women want their dates taped and posted on the Internet.

Well… this does end up being kind of instructive. Especially the in depth discussions on Jewish identity where the Catholic makes the majority of the salient points. And why not? We have Ari Goldman, winner of Israel’s Kosher Bachelor reality show, recently dating yet another blond Catholic woman, who is also a blogger… And then we have Jared Kushner, owner of the New York Observer. He’s young, he comes from a wealthy family in the real-estate business, his grandparents were Holocaust survivors and important philanthropists to numerous Orthodox charities. Jared was reportedly President of Chabad while he studied at Harvard. And yet who was he seen canoodeling with in a decidedly non-platonic manner at Manhattan’s Bowlmor lanes? Why none other that Ivanka Trump, golden tressed daughter of the Donald and… also not a Jew. Rich people are too busy being fabulous to blog so instead, I had to read about that on Gawker.

Aaaah. Like my parents always say “Matzatem et America!” meaning, congratulations, you have truly found America. So yes, see what I mean? Noah’s video is not just instructive, it’s reflective of his generation as well. I don’t want to say any mean things because being mean seems to make Ofri sad and that makes TM cry. Instead, I’ll ask – above and beyond the examples cited previously, what’s the story? Why are Jewish men not dating Jewish women, and vice-versa? Does dating non-Jews happen that often? Is the blond thing just an added bonus? Will Noah ever find his (Jewish) soul mate? Stay tuned and find out.

In this debate, you get to hear about conspiracies where the “Israel Lobby” and “they” stifle debate and discussion about the Israel “Palestine” conflict. Amazingly, the two proponents of this view, Finkelsteing and Cockburn, who make a good living at least in part by attacking Israel in their writing, try to take the position that somehow the debate is stifled. Of course, when Cockburn is challenged on this point and asked to provide examples, he can’t provide a single one. When Finkelstein speaks, he panders to the audience but makes absolutely no points of substance. Sadly, on the other side of the debate, Martin Indyk shows himself to be a diplomat and not an academic, reporter or politician. He is simply too soft and despite ample opportunities to destroy the claims of these two jokers he cannot seem to take advantage. There is voting at the end of this broadcast where, magically, the two who don’t prove their point at all still receive the majority, but you can’t watch this debate and come away with that conclusion unless you’re pre-disposed to it.

It is tiresome to watch these vacuous points about the “Israel lobby” get traction.

I am not a preacher and not a bible-thumping street corner prophet.
I am not a courtroom judge bent on teaching morals to the fabric of society.
I am not running for congress or the white house.
I have no campaign manager and don’t write op-eds for a living.
I am not on fox news or cnn ever.
Larry king never calls me for a comment and o’reilly doesn’t read my blog.
I doubt that NPR has any idea that we exist, except for some intern in the winter that blogged our menorah contest.

They are not featuring us on the five o clock news.
We have not called a press conference.
I am not a televangelist and I am not a schoolteacher.
I am not consumed with ire for the so-called decay of society,
I am not convinced that things are getting worse.
I am not silent in the face of criticism nor content with empty victories.
I have never seen the constitution in person.
I fail to appreciate most of the music on the radio.
I don’t like most supermarkets.
I don’t find being serious too much fun.

And Thank God for the Ten Commandments.

The Commandments according to Scroopius Pips

Thou shalt not steal if there is direct victim.
Thou shalt not worship pop idols or follow lost prophets.
Thou shalt not take the names of Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer, Johnny Hartman, Desmond Decker, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix or Syd Barret in vain.
Thou shalt not think that any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a peadophile… Some people are just nice.
Thou shalt not read NME.
Thall shalt not stop liking a band just because they’ve become popular.
Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry.
Thou shalt not judge a book by it’s cover.
Thou shalt not judge Lethal Weapon by Danny Glover.
Thall shalt not buy Coca-Cola products. Thou shalt not buy Nestle products.
Thou shalt not go into the woods with your boyfriend’s best friend, take drugs and cheat on him.
Thou shalt not fall in love so easily.
Thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls’ pants. Use it to get into their heads.
Thou shalt not watch Hollyoakes.
Thou shalt not attend an open mic and leave as soon as you’re done just because you’ve finished your shitty little poem or song you self-righteous prick.
Thou shalt not return to the same club or bar week in, week out just ’cause you once saw a girl there that you fancied but you’re never gonna fucking talk to.

Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals no matter how great they are or were.
(more…)

It’s Shavuot again. Chag sa’meach!

(I lost the image source, and can’t provide a link, but it’s from some person’s family trip to Kibbutz Na’an. He called this photo Last Wheat Row).