Called Tu B’shvat, the 15th of Shevat, it marks the time of year in Israel when sap begins to flow, giving new life to the trees. Awareness of our dependence on the environment, as represented by Tu Bishvat and other Jewish laws, is an underlying theme in Jewish law and customs all the way to ancient time.

This year, Tu B’shvat, also called by the Mishna the New Year for the trees, falls on Tuesday night, Feb. 7.

In the 16th century, the kabbalist Rabbi Yitzchak Luria of Tzfat and his disciples created a new ritual called the Tu B’shvat Seder, based on the Passover Seder. The Tu B’shvat Seder created an order of eating fruits with specific properties, and many that are indigenous to Israel. (Download a PDF of the Seder below.)

Each fruit eaten during the ceremony corresponds a kabbalistic spiritual level: Asiah, the world of action; Yetzirah, the world of formation; Briah, the world of creation; and Atzilut, the world of emanation and Godliness.

Kabbalist’s believe that eating 12 specific fruits and drinking four cups of wine in a specific order while reciting the appropriate blessings would bring human beings, and the world, closer to spiritual perfection.

The Talmud discuses the importance of Tu B’shvat holiday to the redemption of the world:

Rabbi Abba taught: There is no more revealed redemption — no greater indication of the impending redemption — than that which the verse (Ezekiel 36:8) states: “And you, mountains of Israel, you shall give forth your branches and you shall bear your fruit for my people Israel, for they shall soon come.

The medieval commentary Rashi explains: When the Land of Israel will give fruit bountifully, this is an indication of the impending redemption, and there is no greater indication than this.

Tu B’svhat is considered an important day to learn and spread the inner dimension of Torah, wherein is found, according to the Seder, “the greatest sweetness and pleasure of Torah.” The fact that the full moon coincides with Tu Bishvat reflects “the fullness and joy of Tu Bishvat.”

One can also draw a lesson on spiritual and personal growth from Tu B’shvat. Just as a tree is constantly growing so must we. A tree produces fruit and so must we. On Tu Bishvat we must renew personal growth, just as the trees on Tu Bishvat begin to draw moisture from the earth.

I have compiled a comprehensive and easy-to-use Seder for a kabbalistic interpretation and celebration of the holiday, download the Kabbalist Feast-TuBshvat Seder 2012 Edition. Feel free to copy and reproduce.

This week’s top stories from the Jewish world: An Israeli murder victim’s face is blurred out of a photo in the name of gender segregation; a little girl’s tragic death unites a community; we interview the filmmaker of the Oscar-nominated “In Darkness”; Janeane Garofalo plays a Russian Jew off-Broadway; and more.

Of course not! This photo is obviously fake! For starters, the IDF does not issue AK-47s to it’s soldiers. Secondly, no elephant serving for the IDF has ever reached the rank of Sergeant Major. It’s unbelievable how low enemies of Israel will stoop in order to cast aspersions on our beloved institutions. Even after being confronted with the obvious fakeness of this photo, many critics charge that it doesn’t change the fact that Palestinians have been harmed by the IDF. Perhaps, but how many were harmed by IDF Elephants? Sigh.

Masterful photoshop hat tip to this guy. I think.

Events such as the firebombing on January 11 of Temple Beth El in Rutherford, NJ, along with the home of its Rabbi; a similar attack on a synagogue in Paramus, NJ a week earlier on January 3; spray painted swastikas on synagogues in Maywood and Hackensack, NJ in December; cars burned with anti-Semitic graffiti such as swastikas and KKK markings on cars, sidewalks and benches in Midwood, Brooklyn on November 11 (the day after the commemoration of Kristalnacht); and other such incidents in Manhattan and Long Island are beyond disturbing.

And who are these Jew haters?  Well, the four men who were convicted of plotting to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx in 2009 were reportedly radicalized Muslims. No surprise there.  As for the Rutherford synagogue firebomb, not much is known about the 19 year old suspect, Anthony Graziano, of Lodi, NJ, aside from the fact that a classmate was quoted by CBS news as saying  “For the past two months he’s been talking about how much he hates Jews because they were going to take over the country. This kid is crazy. He’s insane.”  And regarding the suspect of several of the Brooklyn incidents, and this is the real kicker, he’s a 56 year old Jewish man named David Haddad.

So what are we to make of all this?  So much for all my preconceived notions of Jew haters, for they truly come in all shapes and sizes, and religions too.  I’m not going to get into the dynamics of why a Jew would do such things, but my father frequently went on about how some of the worst anti-Semites were Jews.  And while in my youth I may have looked at him like he had three heads, as an adult I’ve experienced his point more times than I can count.  Psychologists refer to this as ethnic self hatred, and maybe on some future date I’ll blog about it in more detail.

As for the broader question, I’m reminded of that old Tom Lehrer parody, National Brotherhood Week, listing the many prejudices between groups of people, and ending with the lyric, And everybody hates the Jews. Not so funny.

Now, back to where I began.  My synagogue in Great Neck, NY recently spent a lot of money putting steel barriers by the front entrance to prevent a car from driving into the building, and new security systems for all entrances and throughout the building.  My daughter’s high school, a Jewish school in Riverdale, is a fairly new building with no signs or markings on the outside to identify it as a Jewish school.  As I said, I now understand what Jews in some other countries have been experiencing for years.

So, is anti-Semitism worse or better than in the past?  If by “the past” one means Nazi Germany, than the answer is obvious – nothing can compare to that.  But things are pretty bad out there, and overt antipathy towards Jews is definitely on the rise.  Sometimes it’s dressed up as “anti-Zionism,” a subject of yet another future blog, and sometimes it’s not dressed up at all.  In any event, our vigilance must be constant, our voices must be heard, and our heads must never buried in the sand.

Andrew Kane is the author of the critically acclaimed and controversial novel Rabbi, Rabbi and the new book Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale. He holds a PhD in psychology from Yeshiva University and is a clinical psychologist in private practice. He lives in New York with his wife, Debbie, and their two children. To purchase a copy of his new book, please visit amazon.com.

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Lady Cora, as played by Elizabeth McGovern

Downton Abbey, the award-winning British television series that is a hit and obsession in the United States and UK, may have a Jewess hidden in the upstairs rooms. The series is set in the fictional North Yorkshire estate of Downton Abbey during World War One, and tells the story of upstairs aristocrats, the downstairs staff in service, village life, and the changes taking place due to war, electricity, women’s right, Irish nationalism, and the automobile.

The upstairs stories center on the lives of the Earl and Countess of Grantham – the Crawleys – and their three daughters. Lady Cora, the Countess of Grantham, is played by the American actress, Elizabeth McGovern, and her character is an American from a wealthy family who has married into an aristocratic British family. The series uses Highclere Castle in Hampshire for exterior and most of the interior filming.

Lady Cora’s backstory is as follows: Cora is the beautiful daughter of Isidore Levinson, a dry goods multi-millionaire from Cincinnati. She arrived in England with her mother in 1888 at the age of 20, and was engaged to Robert by the end of her first season.

Isidore Levinson? Yes.

Is Cora therefore Jewish? Perhaps.

None other than Brandeis University Professor Jonathan Sarna, author of “The Jews of Cincinnati” (1989), weighed in on Lady Cora’s Jewishness on Tablet Magazine, last week. Sarna’s conclusion is that Isidore Levinson, even though the daughter of Charles Fleischmann (of dried yeast fame) married Christian R. Holmes and one of Rabbi Wise’s daughters also eloped with a non-Jew, most likely would have married a Jewish woman and Miss Cora Levinson would have been Jewish prior to her journey to London.

But I would like to go a step further.

Highclere Castle, where the series is filmed, was actually the home of Lord Carnarvon prior to World War One, who in addition to being an explorer of Egyptian antiquities (King Tut), married Lady Almina, the illegitimate daughter of Alfred de Rothschild (Lady Almina was therefore the daughter of a Jewish man, as is Lady Cora).

Lady Almina was officially the daughter of Marie and Fred Wombwell, but, unofficially, Alfred de Rothschild was “fond” of her mother, Marie, fathered the daughter, and supplied her with funds. Lady Almina turned the castle into a rehab hospital during WWI, just as in Season 2 of the television series.

So maybe, just maybe, future seasons will make mention of Lady Cora’s childhood? One wonder if her parents will visit England from Ohio in Season 3?

BREAKING NEWS: SHIRLEY MacLAINE HAS Been cast to play Lady Cora’s American mother. The good thing about casting MacLaine is that she probably was her mother in a previous life.

It is rare enough that a filmmaker has their film accepted by the Sundance Film Festival. It is even more rare for the filmmaker to have his thoughts published as an Op-Ed during the festival in The New York Times. And rarer still to be awarded a Grand Prize. But Israeli film director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz achieved all three.

Alexandrowicz, director of the crowd pleasing James Journey to Jerusalem, and The Inner Tour, returned to Sundance with his documentary, The Law In These Parts. It received the World Cinema Grand Prize in Documentary Film on Saturday evening in Park City, Utah.

The Law In These Parts

The Law In These Parts, said Alexandrowicz, “is not about the people who broke the law, but about those entrusted with the law.” The film, which received the prize for Best Documentary at the 2011 Jerusalem International Film Festival, is a film about what the director sees as a moral quandary in Israel, a country founded on democratic principles, that must administer justice in the occupied territories for Palestinians. Divided into five chapters, the film is filled with candid moments that elicit discomfort as it considers the repercussions of the complex legal frameworks created in the territories following the June 1967 War. The film asks whether administering the law leads to “justice.” Alexandrowicz includes interviews with the men who created the military laws that administer the occupation, including Alexander Ramati, Dov Shefi, and Justices Amnon Strashnov and Meir Shamgar. The film implicates the viewers and all residents of western democracies and asked them how long democratic values can endure when laws are administered to occupy others.

The film began in mid 2004, when the director received a phone call from the family of a boy who had just turned 16 who was in “The Inner Tour,” an earlier documentary in which Palestinians take a tour of Israel and the towns they left. The teenager had been removed from his home in the middle of the night by masked Israeli soldiers and charged with throwing stones at a military Jeep. He as held a maximum security prison, and the director was asked by his family to join them for his court hearing. Alexandrowicz said, “It was enlightening. I had never been in a military court and for the first time in my life, I was in an Israeli military court room, and I was witnessing the mechanism with which my country, my society, purports to administer justice to Palestinian residents of the occupied territories. This event changed my understanding of the situation in which I live.”

Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi at Sundance 2012

Another Israeli film, “5 Broken Cameras,” a co-production directed by Emad Burnat, received Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Directing Award. Co-Written by Guy Davidi and co-directed with Burnat, it is a co-production of Palestinian, Israeli and French funds. A resident of the village of Bil’in, the documentary follows Burnat, a farmer, as he and his family struggle non-violently against the erection of Israel’s separation wall. Why the title? It refers to the five cameras that were broken, or actually destroyed, by Israeli soldiers and authorities during the making of the film. Burnat purchased his first digital camera in 2005 to film the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. As each camera is destroyed, young Gibreel’s innocence is also slowly ruined. Davidi and Burnat’s earlier film, Interrupted Streams, premiered in 2010 at the Jerusalem International Film Festival.

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Advance Ticket sale extended by one week until February 3rd! This amazing weekend of music, food and culture is not to be missed. Limited Sponsorships available for residents of San Diego County, The Valley, Soref Campuses, Long Beach.

Learn More on the Facebook Event.

Hey all you entrepreneurial “change the world” folks out there! Disappointed that you missed the boat on applying for a local PresenTense Fellowship? The second coming is at hand! You can apply for the PresenTense Global Summer Institute.

PresenTense’s 6th Global Summer Institute will bring together 16 people from around the world with new ideas or projects that are focused on bettering the Jewish people (areas like Jewish Ed, community building, social action, the arts, green, tech). Over an intense 6 week period (June 10-July 28), they teach fellows how to start a new venture or grow one – fancy Harvard-and-Stanford-inspired tools and techniques on building a marketing plan, social media, raising money, recruiting volunteers. Participants get matched up with mentors and coaches, hear from experts in a variety of fields, and get to network quite a bit. And at the end of it all, the Institute hosts a launch night – a science expo/networking party where fellows pitch their projects to locals and bigwigs from near and far.

“But Jewlicious,” you say, “you just told us about this PresenTense Fellowship thingy last month. What makes this Institute different from all 11 other PresenTense Fellowships?”

The other 11 fellowships are local programs, located in specific cities – so if you’re from Seattle, Sydney, or Timbuktu, sorry, no local PresenTense fellowship for you this year. The Global Summer Institute is, ahem, Global – bringing together people from all around the world, and based in our favorite city, Jerusalem. Past fellows have come from Argentina, Australia, China, England, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Russia, Uruguay, and the US.

And, while the other fellowships are five months long, the Global Institute is a jam-packed 6 weeks – a bootcamp to get your flabby idea into shape. Plus, this is the sixth year of the Institute – so unlike the guinea pigs from the pilot program in 2007, you’re getting a quality, time-tested program with a proven record of success.

So enough whining to your friends about how messed up Israel/the Jewish people/your community is. If you have an idea about how you can actually help the Jewish people, make it happen and apply now – the deadline is January 28th!

WATCH THE VIDEO, GET THE SINGLE AND BUY THE ALBUM DIRECT AT www.shemspeed.com/shalom

SHI 360 is anything but your typical hip hop artist. With the credo “Don’t be afraid to think,” SHI 360 combines deft rhymes and fresh, genre-shifting beats with bold social and political messages that spread harmony and peace worldwide. His newest album, “Shalom Haters”, arrives on the global hip hop scene at a time when the media has been astoundingly silent in response to recent rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

Much of the records songs are a desperate plea for truth in media reporting as well as a cry to stop the seemingly endless violence in the Middle East. The record is a mix of various hip hop styles including American underground and Israeli club. The album’s lead single, “Forgive & Forget” reaffirms both sides’ shared human suffering, acknowledging “I see your pain/I know you see my pain” and urges people to rise up against media-perpetuated lies – “How do you think/The cameraman is close to the fire? The work is for hire/Showing what they want to inspire.”

SHI 360’s hard-hitting lyrics are balanced by a piano-driven beats and guest features from global emcees including the much anticipated return of one of Israel’s most celebrated rapper, Booskills. Booskills is responsible for the biggest Israeli club hits through his collaborative work with Subliminal. Surrounded by controversy, Booskills highly anticipated album, “Two Worlds” was never released which left the Israeli market waiting for more from this talented artist. Booskills feature on SHI 360′s “Shalom Haters” title track has been a long time coming and finally puts an end to a 7 year wait

Bringing information strikingly missing from today’s headlines to the forefront of attention, “Shalom Haters” challenges media consumers to reassess what they’re being told and instead to focus on our shared goal to “build a stronger tomorrow” and to finally “put our hands out, and our arms down.”

SHI 360 has sold platinum records in his collaboration with rapper Subliminal and TACT. Significantly influencing the modern Israeli hip hop scene, his appeal is international. His collaboration with the TACT All-Stars album was a ground-breaking, commercial triumph that captivated Israel’s music world, selling gold in its first day of release – making music history in Israel.

Thursday JAN. 26th 8pm
Nessah Educational & Cultural Center
142 South Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills, CA
(310) 273-2400 ‎

8PM $15 at the door

What do readers of GayCities.com consider the number one gay city in the world? Would it be New York? Rio? San Francisco? Portland? Paris? No! Would you believe it’s Tel Aviv? Well, probably yes because you already read the title, but still… Tel Aviv garnered a whopping 43% of the vote in a recent survey co-sponsored by American Airlines, while second place New York City got a mere 14%. Third place Toronto got 7% and 4th place Sao Paolo got 6%.

GayCities described Tel Aviv as ‘the gay capital of the Middle East is exotic with a Mediterranean c’est la vie attitude’… Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai hailed his ‘free city’ and said he is proud of the survey results… He wrote on his Facebook page: ‘Victory in this competition further highlights the fact that Tel Aviv is a city that respects all people equally, and allows all people to live according to their values and desires… ‘This is a free city in which everyone can feel proud, and be proud of who they are.’

Now I know that by bringing up this news, some might accuse me of “pinkwashing” – a term currently in vogue among the “Israel Can Do No Right” brigade. They claim that Israel makes cynical use of the generally horrible treatment gays receive in the region in order to excuse, justify (pinkwash) or ignore the “occupation.” But to them I ask simply, is it really pinkwashing if it’s simply a recitation of the facts? Tel Aviv is great for the gays. Really great apparently. Get over it.

Cross-posted at Huffingtonpost.com

If you want your restaurant to prosper, give free food to the homeless. This is according to the anecdotal evidence put forward by my homeless friend Yehuda. Yehuda has been on the streets for five years in Los Angeles and can can’t shake a heroin addiction. He lives on small change from kind souls … and restaurants. Yehuda once had a thriving window dressing business and a million friends. Today he depends on people’s leftovers and meals from generous restaurants for his fare.

Yehuda taught me this important lesson when a recently opened, kosher-certified, national franchise shut down, much to the surprise of the neighborhood. The story followed an arc that Yehudah had seen before.

Yehudah began approaching the new fast-food sandwich shop that had opened on his regular stretch of road. They were generous with Yehuda, offering him a sandwich as much as once a day. The food went a long way to sustaining him, and a few other homeless Jews who call Pico-Robertson home.

The new gleaming store was packed the first few months. But as time went on, the crowds became thinner. Eventually, the free sandwiches became less and less frequent. The worse business got, the more they resented him. Soon they stopped giving him food. Within months the restaurant had closed its doors. A successful national franchise, on a popular restaurant block, with special kosher certification, was now a thing of memory.

If this were one isolated case, it would not prove anything. But it was not.

Over the course of these five years, Yehudah has seen other restaurants come and go. The same pattern of generosity followed by hostility accompanied the downfall of all those restaurants. There was one place that chased him out with a broom — they were closed within a month. It didn’t matter that Yehudah warned them against treating the homeless this way. He warned them that their tight fist, would be their downfall. But who is going to listen to a junkie homeless man for business advice? Nobody it seems.

One of the businessmen that didn’t treat Yehudah well, who subsequently opened a new shop after his latest one failed, began to see that Yehudah had a point. He started giving Yehudah food every day. Whenever Yehudah stopped by, he was sure to walk away with something fresh to eat. Yehuda said the business was booming.

I went to check this out for myself.

Passing by this establishment for the last six months, I can attest that the place is thriving. Customers line up for food. They run out of product all the time. The owner is happy, and the business, even in these times when small restaurants are really hurting, is thriving.

Restaurants often chase the homeless away, instead of inviting them to the backdoor for a warm meal. We, the customers, loathe their pan-handling when we are trying to have a coffee with friends. We resent them for interfering with our plans to go and get something to eat, and for making us feel guilty. Let someone else give them a hand, I have heard said too many times.

Prosperity is not deserved, but is a blessing bestowed by God. The Torah teaches that when a person puts out his or her hand, it is a commandment to fill it. Therefor it is not surprising that the Torah’s economic principles can be a lesson to us all. Generosity begets blessing.

Hopefully, someday soon, our MBA students will learn about the economics of generosity, and restaurants that want to have a fighting chance, will adopt Yehuda’s simple business plan.

Follow Rabbi Yonah Bookstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RabbiYonah

SOPA legislation could infringe on Jewlicious’s attempt to bring a hip, clever, and diverse look at the Jewish world. Jewlicious notes that while some Jewish members of the Senate and Congress are supporting SOPA, surveys of American Jews nationwide would likely show widespread opposition to SOPA.

In response to the debate about SOPA, Jewlicious Director of Media and International Projects, David Abitbol, commented, “We blackened the masthead of Jewlicious in solidarity with 40 of the largest Internet sites that oppose SOPA. We hope that sends a message to Congress.”

Rabbi Yonah Bookstein, Jewlicious Executive Director remarked, “What would Moses do about SOPA? I think that Moses would be against this particular way of regulating the piracy of content on the Internet. Judaism strictly forbids theft, but it also has clear definitions of liability which could be circumvented by overly zealous authorities.”

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For more information contact info @ Jewlicious.com

Gilad Shalit has been back home for a while and the Israeli press has been pretty chill about giving him his space. The Paparazzi have left him alone and everyone has acted honorably in allowing him to reintegrate at his own pace outside the glaring lights of the media. Now we have seen Gilad’s first tentative steps into normal life – he has opened a Facebook account:

The Shalit family reported that several days after returning to his home in Mitzpe Hila, Gilad began to catch up with technological innovations and learn about the immense popularity gained by the social network during his years in Hamas captivity… At this stage, other Facebook users cannot add his as a friend, send him messages or write on his wall. In addition, he has yet to install the social network’s latest addition – the Timeline, which tells a person’s life story through photos, friendships and personal milestones… Shalit currently has only few people on his friends’ list, including his sister and close friends. He appears to have a sense of humor, as he has joined a group calling for his release. The group, which has more than 300,000 members, is naturally no longer active… Shalit also recommended a link to a video titled, “The best basketball shot of 2011,” from American college basketball.

We’re also pretty sure that despite being new to Facebook, Gilad already hates the Timeline feature. For obvious reasons. And while I am on the subject, I know you’ve been through a lot, but… No. I do not want to join your Mafia family. Sorry.

One of the most notorious newspapers ever published in America was The Spotlight, founded in 1975 by white supremacist Willis Carto. For many years the country’s premier hate rag, it peaked at 330,000 subscribers in the early ’80s. Alongside support for South African apartheid and exposes of the Bilderberg group, the paper was a regular purveyor of Holocaust denial, with stories like “Jewish Groups Can’t Defend Position on ’6 Million’ Debate” and “Anne Frank Fable Losing Credibility; Establishment Continues to Push ‘Diary’ as ‘True Story.’”

The Spotlight, which thankfully ceased publication in 2001, wasn’t just concerned with falsifying history. When not questioning the existence of the gas chambers, it focused on the “Jewish lobby.” And its writers had two terms for describing U.S. Jews and their activism on behalf of the Jewish state: “dual loyalists” who were for “Israel first.”

When Zaid Jilani was recently informed that his use of the latter term had anti-Semitic implications, he professed ignorance. Jilani, a blogger at the Center for American Progress (CAP ), claimed to be “unaware of all the connotations it carried.” That a young blogger at a prominent liberal think tank would see nothing wrong with such language is understandable. It’s an indication of just how deep the rhetoric of the far right has seeped into the discourse of the mainstream left.

Jilani is one of several individuals who have come under fire for their commentary regarding Israel and Jews. The controversy started in early December, when Politico detailed how two “core institutions” of the Democratic Party – CAP, a farm team for the Obama administration, and Media Matters for America, a self-described “progressive research and information center” – “are challenging a bipartisan consensus on Israel.”

Rather than addressing the substantive criticism raised, CAP tried desperately to change the subject, turning its guns on those airing concerns, particularly Josh Block, a lifelong Democrat and former American Israel Public Affairs Committee spokesman whose criticism of the groups was quoted in Politico. The episode approached the status of Washington “scandal” when liberal website Salon published a dossier Block had disseminated documenting a series of blog posts, articles, and Twitter messages in which CAP and Media Matters employees batted around rhetoric and accusations as if “it’s now just natural to talk about Jewish money in politics, about treasonous politicians.”

To judge from Block’s collection, the worst perpetrator is Media Matters’ “senior foreign policy fellow” M.J. Rosenberg, whose “analysis” largely amounts to name-calling. Newsweek reporter Eli Lake is an “agent of influence.” Playwright David Mamet is an “Israel first Likudnik.” Indeed, any U.S. Jew to his right (including Democratic congressmen ) is an “Israel-firster.” When one journalist complained about Rosenberg’s calling her a “dual loyalist,” he responded by saying, “I say DUAL which is generous.” No wonder he best expresses himself in the Twitter medium of 140 characters.

Block took considerable professional risk in challenging these two influential liberal organizations. The Truman National Security Project, a once-promising initiative to promote a hawkish sensibility in the Democratic Party that has since become little more than another greasy pole for young D.C. opportunists, expelled Block from its fellowship program.

In the Forward, Sarah Wildman attacked Block, writing that “When we debase the term [anti-Semite] by using it as a rhetorical conceit against those with whom we disagree on policy matters, we have sullied our own promises to our grandparents.” But it is those who use the term “Israel-firster” who are debasing the debate by accusing anyone who disagrees with them of treasonous impulses. Wildman also argued that the offensive comments had been “taken out of context” – as if there were ever a context, other than that of, say, Jonathan Pollard, in which it would be appropriate to label an American Jew an “Israel-firster” or “dual loyalist.”

Ultimately, however, Block was vindicated. While CAP publicly denied that its employees were trafficking in anti-Semitism, an e-mail from the organization’s vice president, obtained by The Jerusalem Post, deemed “Israel-firster,” to be “terrible, anti-Semitic language.”

The left is constantly complaining that the debate about Israel is restricted, that one can’t criticize Israel without “risking” his career. Reality is in fact the opposite. Figures ranging from University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer to journalists Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan have all seen their careers blossom as a result of their harsh and unrelenting criticism of Israel. Indeed, obsessively attacking Israel is a bona-fide way to resuscitate one’s career, not destroy it. As a measure, consider the fact that employees at mainstream liberal institutions feel comfortable using the sort of language popularized by white supremacists and Holocaust-deniers.

It isn’t just figures on the medium and lower rungs of think tanks using such foul rhetoric: “Israel-firster” and “Likudnik” are favorites of Time’s Joe Klein, as well as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, one of America’s most popular liberal bloggers, who refers to “the many Israel-firsters in the U.S. Congress.”

Since the 1950s, liberals have routinely accused conservatives of “McCarthyism.” Now the tables have turned, and it is leftists questioning the loyalties of American Jews. Judging what’s in a country’s “interest” is highly subjective; it is the very reason why there exists such passionate and necessary debate about the purpose and tactics of American foreign policy. So-called “progressives” should stop mimicking the far right and engage in that debate without questioning the allegiance of their fellow Americans.

James Kirchick is a fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a contributing editor for The New Republic.

Of course it is equally probable that a bunch of fearless real spies on motorcycles carried out the attack.

The ethical question about targeted assassination aside – the Iranians are hell-bent on getting a bomb. These scientists are critical leaders in the regime’s efforts.

TEHRAN — A scientist linked to Iran’s nuclear program was killed in his car by a bomb-wielding assailant on Wednesday, a bold rush-hour attack that experts say points to a further escalation in a covert campaign targeting the country’s atomic officials and institutions.

The precision hit in a northern Tehran neighborhood killed the 32-year-old chemical engineer employed at Iran’s main uranium-enrichment facility and brought to four the number of Iranian scientists killed by bombs in the past two years. No one asserted responsibility for the bombing, which prompted a swirl of accusations and denials as well as renewed concerns about worsening tensions between Iran and the West.

And this one occurred on the yarhtziet of another scientist:

The killing bore strong resemblance to two 2010 attacks on nuclear scientists and came on the same day as a ceremony for the second anniversary of the killing of another professor, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, in an explosion.