July 27, 2000

Already Divided

Leave a Comment / Israel, Worldwide / Eric Silver

A couple of Saturdays ago, some American friends called to say they were in town. We invited them over for drinks and a cold supper in our garden on the Street of the Prophets, two minutes from Zion Square, the hub of West Jerusalem. We had salmon and salad left over from the night before, but we needed nuts to go with the drinks, and the last of the challah had gone dry.

Like burst boilers or telephone disconnections, these emergencies always seem to strike on Shabbat. The stores on the Jewish side of town are closed; plumbers and technicians are at the beach. There are no buses on the roads. But no sweat. Jerusalem is not sleeping. Not all of it, anyway.

I walked down the hill toward the Old City, turned left before the Damascus Gate, and in 10 minutes from leaving home I was on Salah ed-Din Street, named for Saladin, the Saracen chieftain who vanquished the Crusaders in 1187. I was in the same city but had entered a different world.

Salah ed-Din was bustling with Arab shoppers: the young women in everything from jeans, T-shirts and designer shades to the ankle-length gray gabardine dresses and white silk head scarves of the Islamic revival, the men smoking heady Turkish cigarettes in safari suits and the occasional checkered Arafat kefiyeh.

Music stores were ghetto-blasting the Middle East rock of Amer Diab. An ageless shoeshine man, who has been there since I moved to Jerusalem in the early seventies, was polishing a local businessman’s black Oxfords on his gleaming brass stand. Streamers advertised a festival of Palestinian theater. The only Israelis to be seen were stray policemen, minding their own business as long as no one caused any trouble.I bought peanuts and pistachios from a coffee shop, rich with the scent of fresh-roasting beans and ground cardamom. I picked up a bag of bagel-shaped sesame-seed rolls, with a twist of za’ata (dried hyssop) in an old Arabic newspaper, from a couple of 12-year-old boys with a stall.

For all the mantras of Jerusalem as “the undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish people,” reiterated by every Israeli leader since the Six-Day War, the city has never been monolithic. One third of its 600,000 residents are Arabs, who stubbornly rejected Israel’s offer of citizenship and smarted under the bureaucracy of occupation. They kept their Jordanian passports, taught the Jordanian school curriculum, spoke their own language and lived and shopped in their own neighborhoods (though many of them worked in ours).The concrete sniper walls and barbed wire came down in June 1967, but Jerusalem remained a binational city. The divisions were cemented when the intifada erupted in December 1987. Israelis stayed away from the Old City bazaar, shunned Salah ed-Din Street, no longer took their cars to be repainted in Wadi el-Joz.Since the daily violence receded after the 1993 Oslo accords, tensions have relaxed. The more hardy Israelis go to eat hummus at Abu Shoukry’s cafe. But most still keep their distance. We are here, as Ehud Barak would say, they are there.

The expansion of 10 Jewish suburbs in East Jerusalem, the planting of nationalist yeshivas in the Muslim quarter, the gradual blurring of the seams that once separated communities have made it impossible to return to the pre-1967 partition of the city. Even the Arabs do not want to re-erect the barricades.But as Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian National Authority has grown in confidence, boldness and defiance, a parallel administration has taken root in Jerusalem. Faisal Husseini, Arafat’s point man, still reigns in Orient House, which fanfaring governments of right and left tried to close.

Jamil Othman, the Palestinian governor of Al Quds (the Arab name for Jerusalem), takes care of the city’s 200,000 Arabs from his office in Abu Dis, just across the West Bank border. His flock voted for the Palestinian Authority president and parliament. The Palestinians have their own police, who patrol in civilian clothes and keep their guns out of sight.

“They make their presence known in every street and alley,” Palestinian affairs reporter Roni Shaked wrote in the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot. “They handle drug wars, thefts, everything.” From time to time, Palestinian security men have detained “troublemakers” like the journalist Maher el-Alami, who protested against the rampant corruption of Arafat’s administration, or the civil rights campaigner Bassem Eid and spirited them to jail in Ramallah or Jericho.

If my gardener, Jamil, needs medical treatment, he goes to the Makkassed hospital on the ridge between Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives. Makkassed is managed by the Palestinian Health Ministry. Jamil’s children go to Palestinian schools under minimal Israeli supervision.Above all, Arafat has consolidated the Muslim grip on the Haram el-Sharif, where Solomon and Herod built their Jewish temples. Immediately after Mordechai Gur’s paratroopers conquered the mount in June 1967, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan ordered his jubilant troops to take down the Star of David flag they had raised over Al Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third most sacred shrine. Dayan didn’t want a holy war with the entire Muslim world.

Successive Israeli governments have preserved the status quo, under which Jews may visit the mount but not pray there, and the Islamic waqf controls the mosques. The Palestinians have built what amounts to a third, underground mosque in an archaeological site known as Solomon’s Stables. Despite Israeli protests, tractors are still removing rocks, soil and potentially priceless historical remains from the mount. Neither Benjamin Netanyahu’s nor Barak’s administration dared to intervene.

On the mount, as in Salah ed-Din Street, Jerusalem is already divided. As Roni Shaked acknowledged in Yediot Aharonot on the eve of Camp David, “only the details remain to be finalized.”

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Letters to the Editor

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor, Opinion / Jewish Journal

Rabble-Rousing

I appreciated the opportunity to read the articles by Rabbis Shmuley Boteach (“Dr. Laura Misguided on Homosexuality,” June 16) and Ezra Schochet (“The Torah: A Moral Compass,” July 14) as well as the article by LILITH magazine associate editor Sarah Blustain (“The Stealth Politics of Dr. Laura,” July 14); they underscored the diversity of opinion in our community.

While the allegation that Dr. Laura Schlessinger is being used as a model by extreme right-wing groups concerns me, I also feel that Blustain’s commentary is part of another, somewhat different political discussion. Though very much related, the opinions of the two rabbis focused more upon our religion’s response to those among us who are homosexual.

Boteach, in his correct attempt to heighten our sensitivity to homosexual Jews and legitimize their acceptance in our community, unfortunately made what I felt were some extraordinary leaps in reasoning his position.

Equally unfortunate was Schochet’s religiously conservative, but well-intentioned response to Boteach, which was seriously weakened when he unnecessarily added his strong support for Schlessinger. By doing so, Rabbi Schochet allowed himself to be drawn into the different political discussion, the topic of Sarah Blustain’s article.

Our intrareligious debates and discussions with regard to moral and spiritual values are important and in keeping with our Jewish tradition. But when populist preaching evolves into demagoguery, suggesting that certain individuals or groups are damaged because of personal practices which do not affect others, we begin the slide down the slippery slope toward the same type of social order which led to the persecution of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and others in Nazi Germany.

Stu Bernstein, Santa Monica

Dr. Laura Promotes Jewish Values

Sarah Blustain maintains that the message on Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s radio show, to which some 20 million men and women listen each weekday, is somehow outside the mainstream of Jewish views. Blustain confuses the views of contemporary liberalism with what she believes is mainstream Judaism. I wonder if she has really listened to Schlessinger’s show, where men and women with moral dilemmas call each day for guidance and receive common sense, religiously based answers to their questions; almost all seem satisfied with her responses.

Schlessinger believes that children do better with a full-time mother at home; that children deserve both a mother and father in a committed marriage relationship; that giving a baby up for adoption is preferable to abortion; that our society suffers from a surfeit of sexual promiscuity; that homosexuality is not a desirable alternative lifestyle; that we need to accept personal moral responsibility for our actions. These views accord very well with the essence and essentials of Judaism, which is why the Rabbinical Alliance of America and Toward Tradition have praised Schlessinger’s stance on these issues.We have seen the cumulative effect of what LILITH magazine praises as “the liberations of the last four decades”- a society in moral decay and degradation, adrift without values.

Schlessinger should be praised for stressing the importance of fundamental, religiously based values in everyday life. That is mainstream Judaism.

Carl Pearlston, Director Toward Tradition

Prager’s Liberal Attack

When I read Dennis Prager’s headline (“Defending Hillary,” July 21), I hoped that the leopard had changed his spots. But it was just another ruse to catch us in his web of sophistry.

Linking Hillary’s alleged slur uttered in a moment of anger 26 years ago to the common-speech habits of both Truman and Nixon was hardly defending Hillary. It was a ruse to hit us with hackneyed and tired attacks against what Prager sees as the great evil-doers of our world – liberals.

Liberals, according to Prager, are single-handedly responsible for high crime, unemployment, teen pregnancy, declining stock market, no smoking, poor test scores, corked bats, creeping secularism and telephone company slamming.

I had hoped, at least, some of his other villains would have been mentioned, such as trial lawyers, teachers’ unions, college professors, single moms, gays, feminists and university graduates, but no such luck. Prager continues to earn his reputation as the intellectual’s Rush Limbaugh, just not as funny.

Elsa Renee Celniker, Rancho Palos Verdes

Impacting Children’s Perceptions

Something seems seriously wrong in the picture Jane Ulman paints about her son Danny’s obsession with personal security (“Joining the NRA,” July 21).

During a very critical period in my own life, I began a session with my therapist by expressing fears about the nuclear threat hovering over the world. “Tell me what’s really bothering you,” he responded. It is tempting to project our personal anxieties onto a global canvas in order to avoid facing them.

At 9, one’s sense of the world is still filtered through parental perception and personal experience. If parents convey the message that the world is essentially a dangerous place, it is no wonder that a child’s notion of a hero is someone armed and invincible, whose mission is to save himself and his family from the lurking threat out there.

Miriam Elkins, Los Angeles

Honoring Quackenbush Unfortunate

Tom Tugend’s article (“A Kind Word,” July 7) seems to have reinforced the quoted comments, which suggests that it is okay with the Jewish community if a public official is corrupt as long as he or she is seen as assisting the Jewish community.

I think it is unfortunate to salute one who supports noble Jewish causes who, at the same time, conducts his office in a manner which violates the rights of all citizens.

Burton S. Levinson, Beverly Hills

Puppy Love

The staff at Jewish Family Service/Partners Adult Day Health Care was pleased to read Ellie Kahn’s advocating the use of pet therapy for the elderly (“For the Love of a Dog,” July 14).Everyone looks forward to pet day at our West Hollywood center for individuals who are physically disabled, frail, elderly or suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

We have discovered that when dogs and cats come to visit our program, there is more laughter and interaction among the patients than during other traditional modes of therapy. We believe in “puppy love” at Partners.

Susan Mendlowitz , DirectorPartners Adult Day Health Care

‘Remembering Melanie’ Compelling

I believe it is never too late to write. I read Herbert Gelfand’s heart-tugging, compelling story about the loss of his granddaughter (“Remembering Melanie,” May 15). Such children teach all those around them a true lesson about courage.

M. Marketa Novak Dattels ,Beverly Hills

More Dear Deborah

Please give us Dear Deborah at least twice monthly. She is your most helpful columnist.

Nancy Kohn, Los Angeles

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Dear Deborah

Leave a Comment / Dear Deborah / Jewish Journal

Daughter Unglued

Dear Deborah,
I am a 40-year-old single woman, never married. My mother was and is a self-absorbed, critical and cruel woman. Every time I speak with her, when she is not telling me how fabulous she is or kvetching about others, she first gives me the third degree about everything. Then she goes about criticizing my decisions, my relationships with men and friends, my weight, my clothes, my hair and my work decisions. I have always felt I can do no right.

She has helped me from time to time financially when I’ve accumulated debts, so she feels she has the right to judge me about my spending. I’m sick and tired of getting a stomachache every time I have to speak with her. When I shout back at her to cut it out, she gets hysterical and hangs up on me. Then I really have to pay later. I’m sick and tired of being treated like a stupid, ugly loser of a daughter.

Distressed Daughter

Dear D.D.,
If you don’t want to be treated that way, stop allowing it. The problem is you wish your mother were different – the unconditional-love-and-support type, like Marge Simpson – and it’s high time you wake up from that pipe dream. It is safe to assume that if she has been like this for the first 40 years, change is unlikely. You, on the other hand, may change. Here’s how.

First, your mother has the right to comment on your finances if she’s bailing you out of debt. If you would like her to stop, do not accept help. And by all means, do not tell her your financial concerns. Next, take away her ammo by not telling her about your love life, your work and so forth.

Finally, let her know that she may no longer comment on your appearance. Each time she blows it, and she will, at first gently remind her. Then escalate to “Mom, please stop.” If you have to hang up after three or four warnings, eventually she will get the message. Just be cool. Don’t rant back.

At this point, I hear you sputter in the deafening silence: “But-but-but we’ll have nothing to talk about.” Au contraire, D.D. You have her favorite subject to discuss. You guessed it – her.

The lesson: Share your news with no one who activates the critic button in your brain, especially when she may have had a hand in installing it.

As you peel yourself from the Crazy Glue that binds you to your mother, her power to unnerve you will slowly shrink to the normal range of mother-daughter aggravation. The possibilities of mutual respect, acceptance and, dare we conceive, appreciation, are in your hands.

Punished By Past

Dear Deborah,
I need help with my relationship with my 30-year-old daughter. She is happily married and pregnant with her second child. I adore her and think she’s doing a wonderful job as mother and wife.

She recently dumped a pile of bitter complaints on my doorstep about the parenting mistakes I made with her when she was young and about how I damaged her. I certainly recognize that I made many mistakes, some of them pretty big. I was a young, counter-culture, wild woman, and by the time I grew up and became responsible, she was already an angry teenager.

She and I have been through all this in the past on several occasions, and we’ve argued and cried and gotten closer – or so I thought. She says that now that she’s been a mom for 2 1/2 years, she realizes just how incompetent I was. She’s angry all over again and remembers only the neglect and deprivation.

I would appreciate any advice you have. I feel helpless in trying to make it up to her because no matter how many times I apologize, and no matter what I do, in her eyes it is not enough.

Hurting Mom

Dear Mom,
Could be worse. She could be a bad mother, not speak to you or worse. The facts are you adore your daughter, listen to her hurt feelings, take responsibility for past mistakes and continue to attempt to make amends. Many mothers and daughters never get that far. So take some credit here.

Most important, know that the past is over. There is nothing either of you can do about that, so beating yourself up or allowing her to do so is senseless. A thousand apologies can do no more to change the past than the first one. All you can do is try, in the present, to be as good a mother as possible.

Ask your daughter what she needs from you in the present; however, if her demands are unreasonable or impossible, let her know. You were who you were then, and you can only be what you are now. It will have to suffice. When the blaming stops, the doors of healing swing wide open.

Gossip Monger

Dear Deborah,
My friend of 40 years gossips constantly. It is an old, tightly knit group of friends, so I don’t want to confront her or lose her friendship, because I’d end up out in the cold. Is there anything else I can do for her to get the message?

Nervous Nelly

Dear Nelly,
Uh, let’s see. No. Not really.

Confiding in a gossip is like inviting a viper into your bed. So don’t. But if you insist upon being indirect about your feelings, try changing the subject or acting disinterested when she gossips.

Know, however, that these wobbly, circuitous gestures could backfire. She won’t think you’re much fun anymore. Then she’ll probably start speculating to your friends about what on earth happened to old “Nervous.” I can hear the phone lines sizzle with scandal: “She’s not herself. Could her marriage be on the rocks? I’ll bet that momser husband of hers …” You get the message.

The only surefire way to stop gossip is to stand up for what you think is right and risk losing friends. It can be a gentle confrontation, such as: “I value our friendship, but when you discuss others, I feel uncomfortable, and I would prefer not to hear it.” Surely your initial loneliness will be mitigated by the relief of a viper-free bed, and head.

Deborah Berger, Psy.D., is a West Los Angeles psychotherapist.

All letters to Dear Deborah require a name, address and telephone number for purposes of verification. Names will, of course, be withheld upon request. Our readers should know that when names are used in a letter, they are fictitious.Dear Deborah will appear once each month. She welcomes your letters. Responses can be given only in the newspaper. Send letters to Deborah Berger, 1800 S. Robertson Blvd., Ste. 927, Los Angeles CA 90035.You can also send e-mail:deardeborah@jewishjournal.com

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The Fire This Time

Leave a Comment / Israel, Opinion / Rob Eshman

Late last June, Avi Linden went to Johannesburg, South Africa to visit family. By his own admission, he carried with him the smug attitude of an Israeli immigrant who had left an insecure existence in a crime-ridden city for the safety and security of the Jewish homeland.

He returned a few days later to find that his synagogue, Ya’ar Ramot, north of central Jerusalem, had been torched.

On Saturday night, June 24, an arsonist’s flames destroyed chairs, pews, prayer books and holy texts at the Conservative synagogue. Fortunately, the fire department’s quick response saved the ark, the Torah scrolls and the rest of the building. The damage to the building shook Linden far less than the idea that, in all likelihood, the person who set fire to his synagogue is Jewish.

Linden, a business manager for an Internet company, was in Los Angeles last week, combining a business trip with a round of interviews and speaking engagements about the fire. He visited Temple Beth Am, Adat Ari El, and The Jewish Federation, among others. Direct and engaging, he briefly entertained the idea that the arson was the work of, say, an Arab terrorist or a youthful hooligan. “Look, we don’t know who did it,” he said. “But we know who didn’t condemn it.”

A day after the attack, legislator Meir Porush of the charedi United Torah Judaism bloc accused the Conservative movement of being responsible for the blaze. Other Orthodox leaders and newspapers insinuated the attack was part of a smear campaign against them.

Linden scoffs at the thought that the thriving 100-family shul, founded 16 years ago, would offer itself up as a kind of paschal sacrifice in the country’s religious wars. “There is prejudice against the Orthodox,” he admits. “It cuts both ways. But the fanaticism generally comes from one side.”

The Monday following the arson, Linden was witness to a hopeful sign. Some 200 Israelis gathered at the shul to denounce what took place. Among them were rabbis from neighboring Orthodox shuls and Israel’s Minister of the Interior, Michael Melchior. The evening of speeches was called “Put Out the Fire,” referring to Israel’s ongoing ideological conflict among Jews of varying beliefs. Of course, that fire has been burning for years and may only get hotter as non-Orthodox movements gather strength among Israelis. “There are a lot more attacks on synagogues than you might think,” Linden said. “A lot go unreported.” It didn’t hurt that among Ya’ar Ramot’s members are numerous journalists.

Another heartening sign for Linden was the response of Jews outside Israel. Messages of concern poured in, as did many donations.

Some of the donations will go to outreach programs with Orthodox Jews, though Linden admits they often end up bringing together the converted. He doesn’t believe these attacks are the result of some conspiracy. But whatever loose cannons go off are undoubtedly primed, he said, “by the atmosphere of charedi leaders despising us.”

One key might be changing the education in the yeshivas. An Orthodox friend of Linden’s who was appalled by the attack was even more distressed that her children thought it no big deal. She was educated in the States, her children in Israel.

In any case, Linden took the opportunity to thank supporters for their concern and donations. While the actual fire and smoke-related losses will be covered by insurance, the small congregation has had to hire full-time night security guards and is considering installing a perimeter fence. These are expensive, but they might just become the cost of being a Jew in the Jewish state.

For more information or to make a tax-deductible donation, contact Ya’ar Ramot at yramot@actcom.co.il or write The Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel, P.O.Box 23250, Jerusalem, Israel 91231.

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Mother Ruth

Leave a Comment / Books, Community, Entertainment / Tom Tugend

“I’m glad you caught me now,” says Ruth Gruber, talking by phone from her Manhattan apartment. “Tomorrow at 7 a.m. I’m leaving for Toronto, where CBS is doing a four-hour miniseries based on my book ‘Haven.’

“Then Random House is sending me on a 20-city tour to publicize the re-publication of four of my books.” In between, she’ll stop off in Beverly Hills on Aug. 9, proclaimed Ruth Gruber Day by the mayor, to accept an award from the Israel Cancer Research Fund.

Not too bad for a lady of 88, whose participation in the defining historical events of the 20th century, as eyewitness and chronicler, can be equaled by few living contemporaries. Even a bare outline of her accomplishments boggles the mind: Born in Brooklyn, she was a Ph.D. at age 20, foreign correspondent in Nazi Germany, explorer in the forbidden and forbidding Soviet Arctic, and researcher in Alaska.

All that was only a runup to her biggest assignment. In June 1944, then-Interior Secretary Harold Ickes called in Gruber to tell her that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had authorized the admission of 1,000 European refugees, predominantly Jewish, into the United States as a one-time gesture.

The refugees, men, women and children from 18 countries, had already been selected out of some 3,000 desperate applicants and were waiting at the Italian port of Naples, earlier liberated by U.S. forces.Someone was needed to allay the refugees’ fears, prepare them for their new lives in America, and in general function as their hand-holder and housemother, Ickes said. Gruber, given the temporary rank of general, accepted the assignment.

Aboard the troopship Henry Gibbins, the refugees shared facilities with wounded GIs and airmen returning to stateside hospitals, and the relationship between the two groups gave Gruber a chance to display her diplomatic skills.

As the Henry Gibbins, part of a convoy of 29 ships and 16 destroyers and cruisers plowed through the Mediterranean Sea, a squadron of 30 Luftwaffe planes appeared overhead.

When the escorting warships opened fire, the reaction on board was twofold. The Jews were jubilant that “somebody finally has guns shooting for us.”

But many of the wounded soldiers, convinced that Hitler had sent the planes because he knew that the ship was loaded with Jews, cursed that after surviving battles, “we’ll now sink because of the goddamn Jews.”After the Nazi planes were driven off, Gruber realized that she had to do something to bring the two groups together. Ignoring non-fraternization orders given the GIs, she picked out the best singers and the prettiest girls among the refugees and, in the finest Hollywood tradition, put on a show. The GIs loved it.Today, “Mother Ruth,” as she was dubbed by the refugees, stays in touch with the survivors and revels in the thought of the approximately 5,000 grandchildren and great-grandchildren they produced.

At the request of John Gray, director of “Haven,” Gruber has been traveling to Toronto, where the film is being shot, to meet with Natasha Richardson, who portrays the young Gruber, and even to essay an extra’s role as a refugee.

The wartime experience bound Gruber “inextricably to the survival of the Jewish people,” she says. A second defining moment came when she managed to be the only correspondent to cover the voyage of the ill-fated refugee ship Exodus.

Her writings and photos of the voyage were splashed across the world’s front pages, and her resulting book, “Desti-nation Palestine” influenced Leon Uris’ writing of the novel “Exodus,” and the making of the subsequent film.

Gruber has continued to work as an author, with 14 books to her credit, including one on the rescue of Ethiopian Jews, and as a journalist (although she is not to be confused with Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent Ruth E. Gruber).

Gruber’s books now being republished, with added material, are “Haven,” “Destination Palestine,” “Raquela: A Women of Israel,” and “Ahead of Time: My Early Years as a Foreign Correspondent.”Gruber is a mother of two and grandmother of four and enjoys being 88. “I somehow like putting down 8 and 8, but I’m not looking forward to writing 89,” she says.

How does one reach a vigorous old age? “I’ll tell you in four words,” she responds. “Never, never, never retire.”

The noon luncheon honoring Ruth Gruber will be held Aug. 9 at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The stars of “Haven,” including Natasha Richardson, Anne Bancroft and Martin Landau, have been invited to attend. Tickets are $100 per person.

For informa-tion, call the Israel Cancer Research Fund at (323) 651-1200.

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Deconstructing Cheney

Leave a Comment / Politics, United States / Sharon Samber

When American forces were sent to the Middle East in 1991 to fight the Persian Gulf War, some unit commanders suggested that Jewish soldiers could change their dog tags to eliminate their religious identification.

When approached by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney made it clear that such suggestions were not official policy and that any such policy would be “unacceptable.”

The story, according to ADL national chairman Abraham Foxman, shows that George W. Bush’s choice for his Republican running mate is “sensitive to Jewish concerns.”

On matters of foreign policy and experience, many Jewish officials share the assessment of Foxman, whose group honored Cheney with its Distinguished Statesman Award in 1993.

But on domestic issues, Cheney’s record could prove troublesome for some Jews. Critics cite his staunch opposition to abortion rights, gun-control measures and gay service in the military.

Whether Cheney will prove to be an asset or a liability in the Republican quest for Jewish votes is not clear. Cheney, 59, is a known quantity to American Jews, having served as defense secretary from 1989 to 1993 under President Bush, chief of staff under President Ford and in Congress for 10 years.

His voting record and his actions in the Cabinet show him to be a strong conservative who consistently supported Israel.

As head of the Pentagon under Bush, he helped direct the operations of the Persian Gulf War, one of America’s largest military campaigns, and sent U.S. Patriot missiles to defend Israel from Scud attacks Iraq.

There was debate at the time over the U.S. insistence that Israel not retaliate and let the U.S.-led international operation defeat Iraq, but there was general agreement that the U.S. effort in the Persian Gulf responded to Israel’s needs.

After the war, Israel enjoyed a new level of military and strategic closeness with the United States – for which Cheney gets high marks, said Marshall Breger, a professor at Catholic University’s law school, who was a former special assistant to President Reagan and held senior positions in the Bush administration.Based on his experience, Cheney may attempt to reach out to Jewish voters. Breger recalls that as a congressman during the early 1980s, Cheney attended lunches hosted for Republican Jewish leaders by the House leadership.

Cheney was very interested in outreach and engaging the Jewish community, Breger said.

Though Cheney was critical of specific Israeli policies – such as the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the Jonathan Pollard spy case – he appears to have earned the respect of many Jewish leaders.

“He was not automatically supportive of every action that Israel took,” said Jess Hordes, the director of the ADL’s government and national affairs office in Washington. “But his overall record as a congressman and as secretary of defense is generally viewed as positive.”

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, called Cheney “very friendly” to the Jewish community.

Cheney is “excellent” on issues of U.S.-Israeli security cooperation, according to Shoshana Bryen, director of special projects for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

At a 1991 JINSA event, Cheney, who serves on the group’s advisory board, thanked Israel for destroying an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, an act that the United States had denounced at the time.

In a statement, Howard Kohr, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC), said Cheney was a “committed internationalist” who generally supported foreign aid to Israel.Cheney also played a “leadership role” in securing support for the joint American-Israeli Arrow missile defense system, according to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby.

But AIPAC also noted that throughout his tenure, Cheney supported U.S. arms sales to Arab states, including the 1981 sale of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia, a sale the Jewish community had actively opposed.

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Finding Fault

Leave a Comment / Torah / Rabbi Daniel Brenner

“And these were the journeys of Israel from the time they left the land of Egypt at the hands of Moshe and Aharon.” (Numbers 33:1)

From that opening verse, the Torah then proceeds to list the 42 separate legs of our journey through the desert, identifying each of Israel’s 42 desert encampment sites by name.

When you scan the list of these places, you can’t help but be struck by their obscurity. The great majority of them have never appeared in the Torah up to this point, and even here the Torah makes no effort to further identify them or to explain their significance. It’s just a list of relatively meaningless place names. Which is precisely what prompts Rashi to bluntly pose the question on everybody’s mind: “Why were these journeys recorded?”

It is fascinating and instructive to contrast Rashi’s response to this question with the response offered by Rabbi Ovadia Seforno of 16th century Italy.

For his part, Rashi posits that the list of 42 is recorded “to tell of the loving kindness of the Almighty.” How so? Well, Rashi analyzes the list, using the handful of familiar names as his guideposts, and comes to the following conclusion: Of the 42 journeys, 14 took place all within the first year or so after the Exodus. Of the remaining 28 journeys, eight took place after the death of Aharon, which places them in the final year in the desert, as we were literally en route to entering the promised land.

All told then, over the course of the intervening 38 years that we wandered in the desert, God caused us to pick up and travel a mere 20 times. This fact is a very significant one in Rashi’s estimation. It demonstrates that although we were condemned to wander in the desert for 38 years as punishment for the sin of the spies, God really spared us the brunt of our sentence. God didn’t keep us constantly on the move so that our weary feet would never know rest. We spent months or even years at some of the encampments to which the cloud of God led us. This was the “loving kindness of God.” And every time we – the descendents of the wanderers – read this Torah section, we express gratitude.

Seforno, on the other hand, sees the purpose of the listing as being something else altogether. “God desired that the journeys of Israel be recorded to tell of the merit of Israel.”

What merit is that? The merit of faithfully following God regardless of the hardship of decades of wandering with no place ever to call home. We did it because we believed in the promise and wanted our children to inherit that promise. And every time that we – the descendents of those faithful wanderers – read this Torah section, God expresses gratitude.

Rashi’s and Seforno’s interpretations are the precise opposites of each other. The list is either intended to remind us to appreciate God, or to remind God to appreciate us. I wonder, though, whether the two interpretations need to be seen as contradictory. Perhaps they are actually complementary.

In the combination of the two interpretations we find the secret of the successful love relationship. We all know from experience how easy it is to find fault in the conduct of someone whom we love. And we know that the response to our doing that is often the reciprocal finding of fault. The key to success in love is to train ourselves to turn that pattern inside out.

Sure, we children of Israel could have reviewed our catalog of desert wanderings and criticized God for having troubled us so. But instead, with Rashi’s urging, we choose to see the kindness and the compassion that was manifest in God’s minimizing our travels relative to what the letter of the law actually called for.God could have read the same list and recalled all of the occasions on which we doubted Him, and the various points at which we even spoke of returning to Egypt. But God chooses instead to see the long stretches in between, during which we displayed a faithfulness unmatched in the annals of ancient societies. It’s all a matter of what you choose to see.

What do we choose to see in our loved ones? What do we want them to see in us? The two are as intertwined as Rashi and Seforno, as God and Israel.

Yosef Kanefsky is rabbi at B’nai David-Judea in Los Angeles.

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After the Summit

Camp David Fallout

Leave a Comment / Israel, Opinion, Rob Eshman / Gene Lichtenstein

The sudden early-morning conclusion of the Camp David talks last Tuesday were expected, and yet came as something of a shock. The odds of a breakthrough agreement on Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem seemed impossibly high, even though we had come a long way to understanding that some kind of Palestinian state was now implicit. And yet, there was always the hope (or fear depending upon one’s political views) that the two leaders might drive themselves beyond their accepted boundary lines. There were, after all, some powerful inducements: A Palestinian state for Chairman Yasser Arafat in his lifetime; the presumed end of war and violence for Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

But failure and the morning after – a great relief to hard-liners among both Israelis and Palestinians – has made realists of us all. We now can see that the talks were probably doomed from the beginning. A dream, worth the effort for some, to be denounced by others, is now behind us. What is going to happen next?It is always sensible to start with some of the realties, some of the facts on the ground.

Arafat apparently has returned home a national hero – for standing up to the Americans and standing fast against Ehud Barak on Jerusalem. Leaders of the other Arab nations have also been lavish in their praise of him. And he has avoided an assassination by an Arab – a fear that he took with him to Camp David, according to an Israeli press report.

From one vantage point, it looks as though he is speeding straight ahead without brakes towards Sept. 13, the Oslo deadline for an agreement, when he appears intent upon declaring the birth of the Palestinian state. If it turns out to be a unilateral declaration, then the likelihood is he will be met with a firm Israeli military response. We can all sketch in the scenario from there.

Barak has returned home something short of a national hero. Politically, his majority within the Knesset has been shattered; he commands support from about one-third of the 120 members. The opposition is intent on bringing him down on Aug. 3 when there is a call for a vote. This occurs just before the Knesset’s summer break. If successful, it will mean the dissolution of the Knesset and new elections.

Political analysts believe Barak can finesse this move and buy himself three months. It is also unclear that the disavowal by the legislature mirrors public sentiment. Israeli public opinion is uncertain where it stands at this point in time. But some pollsters say that it is evenly divided in support of an eventual deal for peace with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, there is also talk of a new political merger; that is, the formation of a unity government with Likud, which would mean Barak and Likud’s Ariel Sharon sharing power together. That outcome suggests a path which parallels the one Arafat looks to be taking. Its outcome seems all too predictable.And that may well be what each side needs – more violence and more deaths – before peace negotiations can begin again.

I am counting, however, on the reality “that is not on the ground,” the one that begins to make its presence felt a week to 10 days after the return of Arafat and Barak. The point at which the negotiations are part of a shared past and in which the price that each must pay for a shared future becomes all too readily apparent.Officially, Israel removed from the table all negotiated agreements and concessions when the Palestinians pulled out of Camp David. But the desire to achieve peace led to some remarkable changes during the 15 days the parties met. The Palestinians were offered a real state in nearly all of the West Bank as well as in all of Gaza. To the astonishment of many, a generous solution for the Palestinian refugee issue was offered by the Israelis, and some budging on Jerusalem itself was placed on the table; albeit not all that the Palestinians wanted.

Arafat also took some steps forward (though to this observer not as many or as daring as those of his Israeli counterpart). There were security guarantees for Israel as well as some shifting to accommodate the bulk of the Israeli settlers living on the West Bank. For all of the failure of the negotiations, there was an extraordinary amount of change contemplated and (reluctantly) accepted.

None of these supposedly remains as an offer… unless each side recognizes the desperate necessity to continue moving forward. Not incautiously to be sure, and with the brakes always accessible. The peace negotiations are over. Q.E.D. But I wouldn’t bet against backdoor meetings starting anew by the aides who were present at Camp David. I’d give it about three weeks or so.

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Conventioneer Confidential

Leave a Comment / Cover Story, Politics / David Evanier

They are a grass-roots activist, a lawyer, a professional Democratic Party leader, and a grandmother who got her law degree at 62. They are all going to the Democratic National Convention. Some have gone to conventions for 50 years, and some are going for the first time. For all of them, it is a moment of high expectations and keen excitement.

Alan Friedenthal, Rosalind Wyman, Mollie “Lee” Welinsky and Joyce Rubin are disparate people with certain common goals. They have a bedrock commitment to such core Democratic Party issues as reproductive choice, education, equal opportunity, reasonably priced prescription drugs, the rights of seniors, and unequivocal support of Israel. They are all particularly concerned about the future composi-tion of the Supreme Court. One of the four would have preferred Bill Bradley as the nominee; three have been for Al Gore from the start.

Alan Friedenthal, 44, was a Bradley delegate who now supports Al Gore “wholeheartedly.” An attorney and juvenile court referee, Friedenthal has been active in Democratic Party politics since he was 16. This is his first convention. Why is he going?

“I’m very issue-oriented,” he explains. “I’m concerned about the composition of the Supreme Court. The choice issue is very important. I want to see that the platform on Israel is not just some canned, pre-rehearsed, focused-study-to-death platform.”

But what does a delegate actually do? Friedenthal is candid about it. “A delegate just listens to a lot of speeches,” he says, “votes in the nominating process for the nominees, and votes the platform up or down. I have a feeling that’s basically a package deal that’s approved almost by acclamation just for a show of unity. And of course a delegate parties, shmoozes and networks a lot.”

Dubbed by some “the doyenne of the Democratic Party,” Rosalind W. Wyman is currently co-chair of the Dianne Feinstein reelection campaign and served as co-chair of the 1992 and 1994 Feinstein campaigns. She has attended every convention as a delegate since 1952 (except 1968). Wyman, now 70, entered the Los Angeles City Council at the age of 22 and was the youngest elected legislator in a major U.S. city. She served for 12 years (1953-1965), earning particular renown for her drive to bring the Dodgers to Los Angeles. She was on the site selection committee this year and was instrumental in the selection of Los Angeles for the convention.

“The Supreme Court is at stake,” Wyman says. “How do you dramatize that for people? The masses don’t realize how the Supreme Court affects their lives. We are at a real crossroads.

“The Democrats must take back the House,” she continues. “I want my dear friend, Congressman Nancy Pelosi, to become the first woman to become whip. And I want Jane Harman to return to Congress for sure. Yes, I’m Jewish, but by God I care about the Supreme Court, and I care about choice and equal pay for equal women.”

Wyman has vivid memories of past conventions. “I was a city councilperson in charge of arrangements in 1960 when we nominated John Kennedy,” she recalls. “I was part of a decision to take the convention outdoors to the Coliseum – the first time since FDR. I was sitting with Bobby Kennedy and Larry O’Brien in a room. The Coliseum held 100,000, and they were dubious. ‘This will be great, we’ll let everybody come, instead of making it so closed,’ I said. Bobby turned to me and said, ‘If we don’t get the people, I don’t want to talk to you again.’ But we did. I called every labor union, every Democratic club I ever knew in my life. And it turned out really phenomenal, a great moment.”

I came to Mollie “Lee” Welinsky through her son, Howard, founder and leader of Democrats for Israel. She was hesitant to talk at first: “I really need to say that my son is not an objective person. I’m his mother!” Now 72, Lee Welinsky is a lifetime Democratic Party activist. She speaks with a sweet, simple directness. She has been a delegate to the state Democratic Party convention for the past six years but has never been to a national convention before.

Welinsky, who retired from the Santa Monica Rent Control Board in May, received her law degree from West Los Angeles School of Law in 1990. She is a member of the labor caucus, the women’s caucus, and the Afro-American Caucus. About the latter, she explains: “The 47th Assembly District committee is 60 percent Black, 40 percent white and mostly Jewish. They asked me to join them. I said, ‘Hey, I don’t exactly fit into your idea of an African American.’ But they wanted me, and I’ve been a member for six years. We have an excellent relationship.”

Welinsky was elected as a delegate on a labor community slate in the 32nd Congressional District. “It was really very thrilling to have wound up as the top woman’s vote getter,” she says. She is excited but realistic about the convention: “I know that everything is going to be decided before we go. It’s not like it used to be, I realize that. But I am a tried and true Democrat. I never wanted to be anything but a Democrat. I’m looking forward to the feeling we’ll take away from the convention, buoyed up by the knowledge this is the best ticket for the country, and we have to work to make it happen, to reach out. You know, the Democratic Party is such a melange of people. We hug each other and we know each other. We don’t look like the Republicans do.”

Joyce Rubin, a TV film producer and articulate speaker, is going to her second convention in a row. She defines herself as a “grass-roots activist” and is very proud of the fact. “The Jewish community gave me an opportunity to take something I had an interest in and go through all these stages of being nurtured and mentored: going through the process with Jewish eyes in the political system.”

Rubin went from being a guest with a visitors’ pass to a state Democratic convention ten years ago to being a delegate on the national level in 1992 and 1996. (This year she beat Gloria Allred for the honor). In 1992 she was first elected to the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee, and she has been re-elected to it ever since.

The benefits of going to a convention in 1996 far exceeded what she had anticipated and explain her high excitement about this year’s proceedings.”There were so many events you don’t know about in advance,” Rubin says. “The National Jewish Democratic Council had a breakfast which was the hottest ticket for activists, with all the Jewish cabinet members. Then at night it was the George party, the hottest ticket of all. I watched Tom Brokaw trying to talk his way in. And there as I walked in there was the Kennedy clan. I shook hands with John. You would go into a room and there was Arianna Huffington sitting around with Barney Frank. You’re seeing these people partying. We wound up at Michael Jordan’s place. You see the newscasters weaving their way through the aisles, like Leslie Stahl. Right behind us in a box we saw Chelsea and Tipper and Hillary. And Chelsea will sometimes come down and walk through the floor, and you get to meet her. You get invited to all this, you get wonderful thank yous from everyone.”Rubin pauses and speaks of Roz Wyman and Lee Welinsky with admiration. “The women you’re writing about have been very important to me. I’ve looked at them both as inspirations. Roz has been a mentor to me. To still see her at a convention, while she continues to come to Federation and JCRC meetings – she’s not putting aside her Jewish community concerns by any means. Then you’ve got someone like Lee, who’s also very important in her local club affiliations in the Democratic Party, her total commitment. There are a lot of these ladies. There are treasures out there. It’s important to be aware of what they’ve done. We’re all going to be there on the convention floor, and we’re all going to be there as Jewish women.”Howard Welinsky, a three-time delegate who is a member of the platform committee this year, sums up the pros and cons of being a delegate. “To be brutally candid,” he says, “a delegate is just a prop for TV.

And yet, he adds, “I’ve had some of the most exciting weeks of my life as a delegate. The media is all over you. A lot of the delegates are average grass-roots people. They’re not professional politicians. They’re never going to run for office. But they enjoy participating in politics. This is like their Super Bowl.”

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