It always sounds bad, prima facie, when you refuse to go to a conference called “World Conference on Racism” – who doesn’t want to help get rid of racism? – but when it’s Durban II it becomes much more forgiveable if not mandatory. The US pulled out of Durban II (following Canada, the UK and others in Western Europe, as well as, shocker, Israel!) after much objection to the text. From Politico:

White House aides told Jewish leaders on a conference call today that the United States will boycott the United Nations’ World Conference on Racism over hostility to Israel in draft documents prepared for the April conference.

The aides, including an advisor to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Jennifer Simon, and longtime Obama advisor Samantha Power, said the administration will not participate in further negotiations on the current text or participate in a conference based on the text, sources on the call said.

They left open the option of re-engaging on a “much shorter, much different text,” a source said.

The draft outcome document, typically negotiated in advance and available here (.pdf), contains sharp and specific criticism of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, and Western European nations and Canada have also signaled that they may boycott the conference in Geneva.

The conference is known informally as Durban II after a 2001 conference in South Africa that included a heavy focus on Israel and calls to reinstate a U.N. resolution equating Zionism and racism. Libya is chairing the preparatory meetings for this year’s conference, one of several factors prompting boycott calls.

Obama is expected to issue a statement on the subject later this afternoon, and the participants were asked not to discuss the call until a formal statement is released.

Just shows that you can’t always trust the pronouncements of Caroline Glick with as much confidence as she has in them:

Second, through its behavior at the Geneva planning sessions this week, the US has demonstrated that State Department protestations aside, the administration has no interest in changing the agenda in any serious way. The US delegation’s decision not to object to the Palestinian draft, as well its silence in the face of Iran’s rejection of a clause in the conference declaration that mentioned the Holocaust, show the US did not join the planning session to change the tenor of the conference. The US is participating in the planning sessions because it wishes to participate in the conference.

Wrong.

Man, we’re working here like pig dogs – meetings, preparations, decorating, organizing, etc. – We can’t believe that in 24 hours 800 people will stream through the doors of the Alpert JCC and the Jewlicious Festival 5.0. Things are all over the place and yet… already we’re getting the nice press. Thank you kind members of the Fifth Estate. Dan Brown over at eJewishPhilanthropy gave us a very kind shout out in a blog post about Jewish LA – he called Jewlicious “largest youth festival of its kind…” We are? Really? Golly, that’s kinda scary…. Also, LA Blueprint, run by the recently wed Miriam-no-longer-Eljas (Mazel Tov! Oooood yishama, beh harei Yehuda….) ran a nice story about the Festival where it was described as follows:

Whatever flavor of Jewish-ness you consider yourself, you’re likely to have a rockin’ time at the Jewlicious Festival 5.0, Feb 27 – March 1 2009, in Long Beach, California, dubbed “an event unlike any other weekend in Jewish history”. Will it compare to the splitting of the sea? I can’t say for sure, but from the music lineup and endless list of activities and programs, it does stand a good chance. Essentially, a Jewish Woodstock, Jewlicious Festival is a three-day gathering to unite Jews from all backgrounds to share a gigantic Shabbat sleepover complete with inspiring discussions and yummy food, rock out with the biggest names in the Jewish music scene, and celebrate all things Jewish.

Finally, the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles wrote a pretty in depth piece about the Festival that included interviews with our staff, presenters and entertainers:

When the first Jewlicious festival, Jewlicious @ The Beach, launched in April 2005, co-founder Rabbi Yonah Bookstein and his team rented out a few rooms at the Alpert Jewish Community Center in Long Beach to host about 100 participants. Four years later, they are booking the entire facility to hold Jewlicious 5.0, which is expected to attract 800 Jewish students and young professionals… At the Saturday night concert, Y-Love, a black Orthodox rapper, will be spitting rhymes on the same stage as Moshav, a Los Angeles-based alternative folk-rock band, and Rav Shmuel, a 6-foot-5 Chasidic rabbi who is popular in New York City’s anti-folk scene. On Sunday afternoon, Inbar Bakal, a secular but traditional Sephardic Jew, will sing her own versions of biblical texts set to old Yemenite melodies. The fact that the bands have very different backgrounds, but all perform over the same weekend, speaks to the festival’s goals of promoting Jewish unity and celebrating Jewish diversity.

So to repeat the common themes – Jews, music, inspiration and unity. Thanks for the kind press – I trust the Festival will live up to the expectations!

Speaks for itself.

Jews for Jesus Vandal Pleads Guilty

A Jewish student who vandalized a Jews for Jesus branch in Sydney pleaded guilty.

Jaron Hoffenberg, 19, a graduate of Moriah College, was required to post a one-year good behavior bond after pleading guilty to malicious damage to property for throwing a brick through the window of the missionary center in Bondi on Jan. 29, according to a report in the Australian Jewish News.

Hoffenberg, a university engineering student, also urinated on the property during the offense, which was caught on closed circuit television.

Terence Abrams, Hoffenberg’s friend, also 19, also was charged with malicious damage to property and will appear in court on March 18.

Magistrate William Brydon said in court on Feb. 20, “There’s no doubt [Hoffenberg] is remorseful and contrite for his behavior. I accept that alcohol was a part of this, but people have to be responsible for themselves.”

Hoffenberg has apologized for his behavior and paid for damage to the property.

Jews for Jesus national director Bob Mendelsohn said he accepted Hoffenberg’s apology.

“I’m not vindictive. He’s sorry. No need to keep shaming him,” Mendelsohn was reported as saying.

The Jews for Jesus branch, which opened in 2004, had been vandalized previously several times.

Dov Rosenblatt, who will be performing at Jewlicious Festival in Cali this weekend, plays his amazing arrangement of the prayer, “Velamalshinim” on the Shemspeed 40 Days 40 Nights Tour in Gainsville Florida. The tour is being co-sponsored by Pioneers for a Cure, a charity organization and project which raises funds to support organizations pioneering new methods in cancer treatment and research. PFAC has been working with some of todays top Jewish musicians including the 40 Tour core and Jewlicious Fest performers, Y-Love, Diwon & Dov as well as David Broza, Pharaoh’s Daughter & Frank London.

follow the tour at http://www.shemspeed.com/daily & http://www.twitter.com/shemspeed.com

Irwin Cotler is Canada’s former minister of justice and attorney-general and is widely respected as an authority on international law. His recent editorial in the Jerusalem Post is worth reading.

Some 125 parliamentarians gathered together last week for the historic founding conference of the Interparliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism (ICCA), brought together by a new sophisticated, globalizing, virulent and even lethal anti-Semitism reminiscent of the atmospherics of the 1930s, and without parallel or precedent since the end of World War II.

The new anti-Jewishness overlaps with classical anti-Semitism but is distinguishable from it.

…

In a word, classical or traditional anti-Semitism is the discrimination against, denial of or assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal members of whatever host society they inhabit. The new anti-Semitism involves the discrimination against the right of the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations – the denial of and assault upon the Jewish people’s right even to live – with Israel as the “collective Jew among the nations.”

…

There are three manifestations of this genocidal anti-Semitism. The first is the state-sanctioned – indeed state-orchestrated – genocidal anti-Semitism of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran, dramatized by the parading in the streets of Teheran of a Shihab-3 missile draped in the emblem “wipe Israel off the Map,” while demonizing both the State of Israel as a “cancerous tumor to be excised” and the Jewish people as “evil incarnate.”

A second manifestation of this genocidal anti-Semitism is in the covenants and charters, platforms and policies of such terrorist movements and militias as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah and al-Qaida, which not only call for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews wherever they may be, but also for the perpetration of acts of terror in furtherance of that objective.

The third manifestation of this genocidal anti-Semitism is the religious fatwas or execution writs, where these genocidal calls in mosques and media are held out as religious obligations – where Jews and Judaism are characterized as the perfidious enemy of Islam, and Israel becomes the Salman Rushdie of the nations.

In a word, Israel is the only state in the world – and the Jews the only people in the world – that are the object of a standing set of threats by governmental, religious and terrorist bodies seeking their destruction. The London Declaration – again in a significant clarion call – recognized that “where there is incitement to genocide signatories [to the Genocide Convention] automatically have an obligation to act.” This promise must now be acted upon.

….

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Good lord. Talk about hyper connected. I have to remind myself NOT to pick my nose…. So the Jewlicious Festival starts February 27th and we’ll broadcast the prep as well as much of the Festival as we can, including the live show Saturday night (9:30 pm PST). You’ll see frazzled organizers, delirious attendees and lots of cool stuff I am sure. I’m probably going to regret this… enjoy!

Free video streaming by Ustream

Pearls Before Swine definitely ranks among my favourite comics, so I’m delighted to have found this gem.

The WTA, holding the next championship in Dubai, fined the organizers 300000$ for not including Israeli Player Shachar Peer and compensated Peer. To Muffti’s mind, the people who should be paying the 300000$ are the government of Dubai – they are the ones who denied her a visa in the first place.

But the real story in Andy Roddick who is holding a small personal boycott of the WTA championship over Peer’s exclusion:

I really didn’t agree with what went on over there. I don’t know if it’s the best thing to mix politics and sports, and that was probably a big part of it…

In other news, Tennis watching is still boring as hell, so Muffti will be glad to boycott watching and following the WTA in Dubai (even if they put it on TV!).

Source: Boston Herald

It is extremely unfortunate that the Obama White House has reneged on Bush’s policy of avoiding and not attending the upcoming Durban II conference in Geneva where Israel will be attacked, ostracized and vilified by an international community led by stalwarts of human rights such as the Arab and Muslim nations of the world, as well as their helpmates, NGOs such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.

Whatever has driven the current Administration to revisit this policy and attend the summit, it is probably one of the most shameful decisions it will have made when its tenure is up in 4 or 8 years.

I don’t always agree with Caroline Glick, but she is one smart, sharp writer and political commentator. Her editorial about this decision by the Obama team is powerful and difficult to swallow, perhaps slanted to the right to a degree I reject, but it gives a fair assessment on the meaning of this development. Here is part of it but I suggest you read it all.

SINCE IT came into office a month ago, every single Middle East policy the Obama administration has announced has been antithetical to Israel’s national security interests. From President Barack Obama’s intense desire to appease Iran’s mullahs in open discussions; to his stated commitment to establish a Palestinian state as quickly as possible despite the Palestinians’ open rejection of Israel’s right to exist and support for terrorism; to his expressed support for the so-called Saudi peace plan, which would require Israel to commit national suicide by contracting to within indefensible borders and accepting millions of hostile, foreign-born Arabs as citizens and residents of the rump Jewish state; to his decision to end US sanctions against Syria and return the US ambassador to Damascus; to his plan to withdraw US forces from Iraq and so give Iran an arc of uninterrupted control extending from Iran to Lebanon, every single concrete policy Obama has enunciated harms Israel.

At the same time, none of the policies that Obama has adopted can be construed as directed against Israel. In and of themselves, none can be viewed as expressing specific hostility toward Israel. Rather, they are expressions of naiveté, or ignorance, or – at worst – deliberate denial of the nature of the problems of the Arab and Islamic world on the part of Obama and his advisers.

The same cannot be said of the administration’s decision to send its delegation to the Durban II planning session this past week in Geneva. Unlike every other Obama policy, this is a hostile act against Israel. This is true first of all because the decision was announced in the face of repeated Israeli requests that the US join Israel and Canada in boycotting the Durban II conference.

Some could chalk up the US’s rejection of Israel’s urgent entreaties as an honest difference of opinion. But what lies behind Israel’s requests for a US boycott is not a partisan agenda, but a clearheaded acknowledgement that the Durban II conference is inherently devoted to the delegitimization and destruction of the Jewish state. And by joining in the planning sessions, the US has become a full participant in legitimizing and so advancing this overtly anti-Jewish agenda.

…

OBAMA’S SPOKESMEN and defenders claim that by participating in the planning sessions in Geneva, the administration is doing nothing more than attempting to prevent the conference from being the anti-Jewish diplomatic pogrom it was in 2001. If they are unsuccessful, they will boycott the conference. No harm done.

But this claim rings hollow.

As Bayefsky and others argued this week, by entering into the Durban preparatory process, the US has done two things. First, it has made it all but impossible for European states like France, Britain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, which were all considering boycotting the conference, to do so. They cannot afford to be seen as more opposed to its anti-Israel and anti-freedom agenda than Israel’s closest ally and the world’s greatest democracy. So just by participating in the planning sessions the US has legitimized a clearly bigoted, morally illegitimate process, making it impossible for Europe to disengage.

Second, through its behavior at the Geneva planning sessions this week, the US has demonstrated that State Department protestations aside, the administration has no interest in changing the agenda in any serious way. The US delegation’s decision not to object to the Palestinian draft, as well its silence in the face of Iran’s rejection of a clause in the conference declaration that mentioned the Holocaust, show the US did not join the planning session to change the tenor of the conference. The US is participating in the planning sessions because it wishes to participate in the conference.

Yes Matilda, there is a Palestinian draft:

the Palestinian delegation proposed that a paragraph be added to the conference’s agenda. Their draft “calls for implementation of… the advisory opinion of the ICJ [International Court of Justice] on the wall, [i.e., Israel's security fence], and the international protection of Palestinian people throughout the occupied Palestinian territory.”

Apparently the American delegation kept quiet and did not object to the phrasing or intent of this language.

Watching Netanyahu get squashed by Obama should be interesting. Not good for Israel, but interesting.

I feel sorry for this man who helped Israel for so many years.

At the same time, this is a fascinating look into how the Mossad operates sometimes. It really is both daring and quite clever.

Here’s the story:

An automobile dealer is in custody in Lebanon on charges of planting satellite tracking devices for Israel in a fleet of vehicles he provided to Hizbullah members.

The Lebanese newspapers Al-Balad and The Daily Star named Marwan Faqih of Nabatiya as the alleged spy, who gained the trust of Hizbullah and became its chief supplier of vehicles.

Arrested by the Lebanese Army’s Intelligence Service last week, he reportedly was a generous donor to Hizbullah and had lent a gas station to Hizbullah in 2006 during the Second Lebanon War.

According to media reports, Faqih’s cover was blown after a Hizbullah member took his car to an auto electrician, complaining of problems. The technician found an “unfamiliar device” hooked up to the electrical system, which he initially believed had been installed by Hizbullah.

The technician “had a discreet word with the vehicle’s owner,” reported the Daily Star on Friday, “pointing out that the device was interfering with the car. But whatever it was, it had not been placed by Hizbullah, and a search of the party’s fleet of vehicles revealed dozens of the mystery devices. Investigations revealed that they were satellite wiretap devices and they were only present on vehicles supplied from one particular car dealer in Nabatiya: Marwan Faqih.”

According to Hizbullah sources cited by the Lebanese media, Faqih had been recruited into the Mossad in France during the mid-1990s. He was provided “with specialist software that allowed him to establish secure Internet connections so he could send the intelligence he gathered,” the Daily Star said, while “selling bugged cars to Hizbullah that helped Israeli agents to build a picture of movements and conversations of the party’s officials.”

“Human rights cannot interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises”

— Hilary Clinton

sorry guys!

Soldier

Oriana from Italy is the photographer

I got it from here but have no idea who the original artist is.

With apologies to the two respective newspapers, I am going to quote at length from two articles. The first is by Nick Cohen and the second, by David Horovitz, amplifies the first:

One:

The Jewish side of my family is my father’s (which is not a help, I gather). My great grandparents fled from the Tsarist Empire at the time of the pogroms, but their son, my grandfather, revolted. He became a Communist and married outside the faith. My father was brought up with no connection to Judaism and, inevitably, so was I.

My sole interest in Jewish concerns came from being a left-wing opponent of the far Right, and the blood-soaked antisemitic superstitions which turned Europe into a graveyard. When I was young, such attitudes seemed unproblematic. You did not have to be a Jew to oppose fascism; everyone I knew did that regardless of colour or creed.

Today the old certainties have gone because there are two far-right movements: the white neo-Nazi parties that the Left still opposes; and the clerical fascists of radical Islam which, extraordinarily, the modern Left succours and indulges. I am not only talking about Ken Livingstone, George Galloway and their gruesome accomplices in the intelligentsia. Wider liberal society is almost as complicit. It does not applaud the Islamist far Right, but it will not condemn it either. From the broadcasters, through the liberal press, the Civil Service, the Metropolitan Police, the bench of bishops and the judiciary, antisemitism is no longer an unthinkable mental deformation. As long as the conspiracy theories of the counter-enlightenment come from ideologues with dark rather than white skins, nominally liberal men and women will not speak out.

Fight back and you become a Jew, whether you are or not. Mark Lawson recently described an argument at the BBC over the corporation’s decision not to screen the charity appeal for Gaza. His furious colleague declared that the only reason Lawson supported the ban was because he was Jewish. Lawson had to tell him that he was, in fact, raised a Catholic.

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A farce or a protest erupted at New York University this week, when about 7 dozen of NYU’s more than 20,000 students occupied the third floor of a building and made demands of the university. Several hundred supporters demonstrated outside of the Kimmel Center on Thursday, and some scuffled with NYU and New York City public safety officers. The protest is being led by TBNYU, or Take Back NYU, which has called for tuition freezes, budget transparency, greater rights for teaching assistants, pubic access to the main university library, and more respect for NYU employees. Ironically, while calling for more respect for NYU employees, the students injured two public safety employees, one of whom had to be taken to a local hospital for treatment.

So why do I post this on Jewlicious? Because the protest forced students to avoid the Kimmel’s highly trafficked cafeteria? Because two female protestors removed their blouses to get attention? No and No. Come on, you know why… , well, of course, this protest and melee also involves the Middle East. TBNYU, as part of its protest, is demanding that NYU provide 13 annual scholarships for Palestinian students, investigate all investments in genocide profiteers, as well as companies profiting from the occupation of Palestinian territories (they don’t mention if that is pre-1948), and that NYU donate all excess supplies and materials in an effort to rebuild the University of Gaza.

Hurray for student activism ?

Israel is Jewlicious

Number 10 reason to go to Israel for Free with Jewlicious:
All our staff have extensive Israel experience. You will not be lead by someone who has only been to Israel once. On a Birthright Trip.

Number 9 reason to go to Israel for Free with Jewlicious:
We travel around Israel for kicks during the year. We know the country, the people, the politics, the culture, all the off the beaten path “secret” spots and we love all of it.

Number 8 reason to go to Israel for Free with Jewlicious:
We always have a really good time in Israel. I mean a REALLY good time. We want to share that with you.

Number 7 reason to go to Israel for Free with Jewlicious:
By the time the trip is over, you will know how to make Arabic coffee over a bonfire, you will understand the importance of and pleasure derived from quality tahini, you will experience world class Halva and Rugelach, you will enjoy the healing properties of the citrusy etrog juice, the flaky goodness of borekas AND you’ll also probably have a felafel.

Number 6 reason to go to Israel for Free with Jewlicious:
Our trip provider, Amazing Israel, is actually pretty darn amazing! They are both very experienced AND small and intimate. How? They’ve run trips for other organizations both large and small and for the past 2 years have run their own trips as well – YOU get the best of both worlds.

Number 5 reason to go to Israel for Free with Jewlicious:
We’ll blog and tweet the trip so that your friends and family can follow your progress. The blog posts, photos and videos will make for a great memory for you and make everyone else jealous! Yay!

Number 4 reason to go to Israel for Free with Jewlicious:
Jewlicious rocks! Sure we’ll see all the usual stuff – Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Massada, the Dead Sea, beaches, hikes etc. but we’ll also do other fun stuff like attend a live show by a leading Israeli indie band. Don’t just party in Israel – party like an Israeli!

Number 3 reason to go to Israel for Free with Jewlicious:
Not only will we have mifgashim – Israeli soldiers who will join your bus, but we’ll introduce you to young Israeli writers, journalists, students, musicians etc. who will talk to you about THEIR Israel in a way that you’ll be able to totally relate to.

Number 2 reason to go to Israel for Free with Jewlicious:
Do you really want to have your first Sabbath experience in Israel in a hotel dining room? Heck no! Shabbat with Jewlicious is a fun and raucous event spent at the Kotel and later with funky Israeli host families. Yes – this includes home made food!

And the number 1 reason to go to Israel for Free with Jewlicious:
Uh… it’s a free 10-day trip to Israel. Why are you even thinking about it? Sheesh. Go to Amazing Israel’s Web site right now and register for your free trip. Or tell your friends. Or both. And we’ll see you in Israel this summer!

You can also call 1-800-606-0416. Fun!

This trip is a gift from Taglit-Birthright Israel.

LimmudLA was a terrific success and the organizers and their sponsors should be thanked again and again. LA brought out its best and brightest for this weekend retreat. The program was alive, the vibe good, and the entertainment first rate. Sunday’s concert featured a variety of Jewish performers for a PBS style showcase. It was a unique feat, created by Robbie Helperin. Kudos to Linda Fife & Shep Rosenman, conference co-chairs, & Ruthie Rotenberg, Executive Director of LimmudLA, and all the dozens of volunteers.

The LA Times covered the Limmud LA conference, where Rabbi Yonah, Festival Director and Rachel, Program Director, taught sessions this past Presidents Day Weekend. Jewlicious Festival presenters MATISYAHU and Adam Weinberg brought the crowd to their feet with an inspiring acoustic set on Saturday night, then invited everyone to join them at Jewlicious for another round. The LA Times interviewed another JF5 presenter, Avi Averbach, of Jewish World Watch:

“It’s been an amazing weekend. It’s very relaxed, and you’re meeting all these new people from different areas and different parts of Judaism,” said Ari Averbach, 25, who works with Los Angeles-based Jewish World Watch, an organization focused on ending genocide…. Most of the conference sessions were rooted in Jewish traditions with modern adaptations and messages. Read More,,,

Thanks LimmudLA — it was a great weekend.

I just flew from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles. I’m now in Long Beach trying to reign in this juggernaut called the Jewlicious Festival. Blogging is hard work man… so David Kelsey has offered up another one of his patented guest posts, sure to stimulate lots of conversations. Once again, the disclaimer is that while I may not necessarily agree with what he says, I support his right to say it and this is an issue that we may need to address and acknowledge. So, without further ado, take it away Duvidle:

The American economy continues to devolve, with massive unemployment and underemployment furiously ravaging the American working landscape. But while much of the rest of the U.S. is wondering how they will pay their bills, our far-Left co-religionists have decided that this is a perfect time to demand that the U.S. cease and desist raids on law-breaking employers and employees who seek to skirt the labor laws our ancestors fought so hard to enact. The name of this Jewish coalition demanding (essentially) amnesty for illegals, and for giving a free reign to employers to avoid pesky details such as security checks, minimum wage, and benefits of any sort, is named, “Progress By Pesach.”

Raids on illegal worker sites are targeted for “progress,” i.e., suspension. Raids are undesirable because they create “fear,” and are “aggressive.”

But what are the purposes of these raids, and what do they accomplish, if anything? Are they indeed “failing,” as Progress By Pesach asserts?

The purpose of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids is to improve,

immigration enforcement through … focused enforcement efforts that target the most dangerous illegal aliens, worksite enforcement initiatives that target employers who defy immigration law and reducing the pull of the “jobs magnet” that draws illegal workers across the border in search of employment.

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A 10 minute play is being performed at the Royal Court theatre in London. And it might be heading to an off Broadway venue in NYC. “Seven Jewish Children,” by Caryl Churchill, is a very short play with seven scenes. There are nine adults around a table. In the scenes, grandparents, parents, and relatives discuss and debate what the kids should be told and what they should not be told about how Israel was founded in 1948, the Holocaust, various Israeli wars and the current issue with Gaza. Each line opens with “Tell her…“ or “Don’t tell her…”

Should the kids be told that “..they want to drive us into the sea.” or that “…they don’t.” Should they be told that Israel is an “…iron fist,” or that errors happen in the “…fog of war,” or that “…we won’t stop killing them till we’re safe.” In one scene, a character says, “Tell her there are still people who hate Jews.,” Another says, “Tell her there are people who love Jews,” and a third says, “Don’t tell her to think Jews or not Jews.” In a final scene it is said, “…Tell her I laughed when I saw the dead policeman, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out, the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? Tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.”

The show, as many dramas are supposed to do, is creating a debate in London. Is it anti-Zionist? Is it anti-Jewish? Is it hubris? Is it dramatic propaganda? Are Israelis being demonized on the London stage instead of just in British universities? Should the play’s author, knowing full well that most Israelis do not call themselves the “chosen people” or teach kids to hate, put outrageous lines in their mouths? Is that responsible? The play’s author, a Patron of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, is allowing the work to be performed for free, as long as admission is free, and as long as audience members make donations to the Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP): Emergency Appeal for the People of Gaza.

I for one will stick to the more enlightened London shows and characters: Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice,” and Fagin in “Oliver.”

Good grief. We are victims of our own success and grass rootiness. Right now, advance ticket sales for the Jewlicious Festival are running at 33% above what we sold at this time last year. However, given the various plagues uh… plaguing the world of Jewish philanthropy, our usual funding sources are waaaay down. Of course we can always just stop selling tickets and limit the number of participants, but doing that would literally break our hearts – we really don’t want to deny anyone access to what has become the most exciting weekend of kick ass Jewish programing – often imitated, never reproduced.

Another problem of course is that I kind of suck at serious fund raising from large Jewish organizations. Often times, but not always of course, folks just don’t “get” what it is that we do. Usually my response to someone making that assertion is that I don’t care if they don’t get us – they’re not our target audience. One person associated with an organization that actually gave us some money thought we were a Chabad thing. So yeah. Me and suits. It’s always been a contentious relationship. Luckily, in the desperate scramble for funding this year, I hooked up with a couple of really smart and presentable individuals who have volunteered their fundraising prowess to future Jewlicious Festivals. So… great, right?

But we still have young Jews that need to be taken care of this year. Thus we came up with this idea… we’re going to give away cool Jewlicious swag in exchange for your generous donations that will help us get more people to the Festival! So… donate whatever you like using the Google donate button below. If you donate $36 (+$5 for Shipping and Handling) you get a complimentary t-shirt with the design above on the front. The t-shirts are by American Apparel and made with soft organic cotton. Donate $72 (+$5 for Shipping and Handling) and you can get a Jewlicious Festival hoodie, also by American Apparel and super comfy with the big logo on the back and a small logo on the front breast.

Alright. The button is below. Give till it hurts. All major credit cards accepted and do make sure to specify your size!

$

Aharit HaYamim is Israel’s #1 Festival Band. Aharit’s Israeli reggae, dub and ska groove and sensibility is rooted in a longing for peace and love of Zion they share with their Rastafarian brethren. Aharit proclaim their love for “Yerushalayim” and “Holy Mount Zion” with tight four-part harmonies, layered over thumping bass lines, lush arrangements and extended play instrumentals. They embody the Grateful Dead and Bob Marley rolled into one.

Check them out on MySpace — Please buy your tickets today at BrownPaperTickets.com

NEW TICKETS ON SALE – SUNDAY DAY PASS AND CONCERT TIX details after the break. . . (more…)

Best watched in High Quality Mode.

Festival Tickets are selling very fast for our amazing weekend of music, feasts, and thoughtful investigations into anything Jewlicious. You can buy for the whole weekend, or for just a Saturday night concert, or a Sunday day pass. Anyway you go – you love it.

Buy tix now at BrownPaperTickets.com before they sell out.

Jewish students at York University in Toronto were forced to take refuge in the Hillel office last Wednesday night as anti-Israel protesters banged on the glass doors, chanting, “Die, bitch, go back to Israel,” and “Die, Jew, get the hell off campus.”

The students had taken part in a press conference held to call for an impeachment of the student government at York, because of a long strike by teachers’ assistants.

Hillel at York partnered with other campus groups in a campaign called Drop YFS (York Federation of Students), aimed at impeaching the student government for its support of the 12-week strike at the university, which ended on February 2.

Daniel Ferman, president of Hillel at York, said that after the number of people attending the press conference exceeded 40, organizers barred additional students from entering, citing fire regulations.

Students outside the meeting room banged on the doors and chanted “Let the colored people in,” even though students from a variety of backgrounds were present, which led to the cancellation of the press conference, according to a first person account by student Orit Tepper.

In the hallway of the student center, students attempting to exit the meeting room were greeted with cries of “Zionism equals racism!” and “Racists off campus!”

After having my account suddenly killed, I thought that perhaps it was an isolated case.

Then my email box filled with dozens of emails from rabbi listserves all with the same story.

Without warning. Without notice. Anyone who had the name Rabbi in their name had it removed.

But more damaging was that rabbis like me who are know only by one name – first or last – had their accounts disabled.

Today there are tens on thousands of people who have lost connections to their spiritual mentors and friends over some seemingly innocuous infraction of the Facebook laws.

We rabbis and priests and ministers and imams have many options- boycott Facebook over their anti clergy actions, perhaps just switch to other networking sites, maybe to submit to the discriminatory laws of Facebook.

What do you think?

The UAE denied an Israeli tennis competitor, Shahar Peer, access to their country to play in Sony Ericsson World Tennis Association Tour. This is contrary to WTA rules, and a quick inspection of the WTA site reveals no mention of poor Shahar (other than her player page — she seems pretty damned good!). See CNN for more details. This is the same Israeli who competed in Qatar in 2008.

Muffti finds tennis SUPER boring, but he feels pretty bad for Shahar. So do a good number of current and former tennis pros from France, Russia and elsewhere. If you want to contact the WTA and tell them how you feel, their contact page is here. Tell them the Muffti sent ya.