Judea Pearl

The following email was sent to Judea and Ruth Pearl in 2003 by ledendary journalist Daniel Schorr, who died last week, on July 23, at 93. It was written in response to a request for an essay for the Pearl’s book, “I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl,” edited by Judea & Ruth Pearl (Jewish Lights Publishing). The piece was later included in that collection.

What makes fog float in midair, while raindrops fall straight down to earth? Physics teaches us that it is all a matter of “surface-to-weight ratio” — a simple parameter that determines whether soap bubbles rise or fall and how many passengers a jet plane can carry. The larger the surface, so the theory goes, the easier it is for an object to lift its weight against gravitational pull.

This month marks two monumental events in the history of the Jewish people — the Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917, the first official recognition of Jewish national aspirations, and Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations vote for the partition of Palestine, which led to the establishment of the State of Israel a year later. I have found no mention of these two miracles on the pages of this newspaper, nor a celebration, lecture or student gathering in the Center for Jewish Studies in my university. I therefore dedicate this column to Lady History, as a token of appreciation for the two milestones she has so graciously given our people in the past century.

As Jews prepare themselves for Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) and Americans recover from commemorating the Sept. 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center, many are conscious of another symbol of crisis — the Guantanamo Detention Center, whose fate is still uncertain. If the crumbling twin towers conjure vivid memories of America’s shock and pain, Guantanamo is a monument to our nation’s post-shock reaction after Sept. 11 — and the tough moral dilemmas that the shock brought to the surface.

Three years ago, in a column in this journal, I argued for the formula, “Anti-Zionism = Racism,” instead of the standard claim that anti-Zionism is a cover for anti-Semitism. My aim was to empower pro-Israel students with a more potent intellectual weapon to fight back the rising anti-Israel campaign on college campuses.