In Kibbutz Negba, a dozen Israeli teenagers attending a summer camp in the guesthouses of this Negev kibbutz were asked to model small trees, and then decorate them with photographs of themselves.
The woman in the cover illustration is called \”Mother Palestine.\” Inside, articles by controversial Israeli historians Benny Morris and Avi Shlaim, and Palestinian historian Nur Masalha, tell the tale of a bellicose colonial Israel that displaced innocent Arabs from their homes in 1948, and from then on prevented peace by provoking and murdering Palestinians.
Last year, Malka Nutkiewicz and her friend, both students at Emek Hebrew Academy in Sherman Oaks, raised more than $1,000 for Camp Simcha, a kosher summer camp for youngsters with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses in Glen Spey, N.Y. During the 2002-2003 school year, the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade girls at Emek raised more than $25,000 for their pet cause. Because of Nutkiewicz\’s passion for the charity, which is a flagship program of Chai Lifeline — a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Jewish children with serious illnesses — Nutkiewicz was selected to co-chair the campaign this year
t is Tuesday night at the University of Judaism (UJ) and lecturer Rami Wernik is going around the room asking his students what they think is the biggest concern of the Jewish community today. The answers vary — some think it is the cost of Jewish education; others, the threat of assimilation.
Dan, a teacher at Milken, feels that non-Orthodox Jewish education is lacking.
For the first time in nearly 20 years, the Reform movement has introduced a new religious school curriculum.
When Ross Neihaus exited his chemistry class three days after the start of UCLA\’s fall quarter, he saw the words \”Anti-Zionist and Proud\” scrawled in chalk on the wall of an adjacent building. Such a statement coming so early in the quarter was a surprise to the fourth-year biology major, but not a shock.
\”I expect this to be my toughest year in college,\” said Neihaus, the president of Bruins for Israel, UCLA\’s pro-Israel group. \”We are concerned that what will be said this year will be nastier, more radical and essentially more anti-Semitic.\”
Julie Sandorf recalls her immigrant grandparents telling her that they learned to be Americans at the public library, where they improved their English and learned more about American culture.
Alan Dershowitz\’s new book describes an Israel no Israeli would recognize, an impossibly virtuous country whose intentions are always pure, whose conduct is forever above reproach, and whose rare misdeeds can be explained away as accidental. Conversely, the Palestinian Arabs (and for that matter, all Arabs) are depicted as malevolent terrorists bent on Israel\’s destruction; every one of their deeds is attributed to the basest of motives, every decision a result of unremitting hostility, trickery, foolishness, or a combination of all three. No reader of Israeli historical scholarship or journalism would recognize the simple tale of good and evil, of angels and devils, described in the pages of Dershowitz\’s book.
When Iris Rainer Dart\’s cousin was diagnosed with schizophrenia decades ago, the illness sent shockwaves through her Jewish family. \”They were from the shtetl and superstitious,\” said Dart, 59, the best-selling author of 1985\’s \”Beaches.\” \”They thought that the illness was a curse, that the parents must have done something wrong and that it was perhaps contagious.\”
Dart\’s cousin was spoken of in hushed tones and kept behind closed doors, a fate that haunted the author.
A l Franken, \”Saturday Night Live\” alumnus, political commentator and satirist made headlines recently when the Fox News Channel sued him for using the term \”Fair and Balanced\” in the title of his new book, \”Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them, A Fair and Balanced Look at The Right\” (Dutton, 2003).
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