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December 11, 2003

Geneva Initiative Is Merely a Dream

Micah D. Halpern December 11, 2003

The Geneva initiative is a dream. It\’s unrealistic; it\’s hoopla. I suppose people need diversions in their lives.

That it was a private Israeli citizen and members of the opposition party who drafted the initiative is fine in my book. That\’s not a crime in Israel. There is no Logan Act forbidding ex-officio personalities from engaging in foreign negotiations. Israel actually has a history of similar actions.

The plan lays out borders that nearly approximate a return of Israel to pre-1967 borders. But it was the prerogative of those who composed the plan to put in it whatever they saw fit. So that, too, is OK with me.

What bothers me is that those who drafted the initiative and those who applaud the initiative don\’t realize that it is only a dream. They think of it as a reality.

Ethiopian Aliyah Dilemma

John Fishel December 11, 2003

I was in a compound in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, sitting with 500 men, women and children, all praying in Hebrew during Shabbat. I was there as part of a small group of lay and professional leaders from the United States to try to understand a complex and confusing series of issues surrounding the Falash Mura, a group of more than 20,000 Ethiopians who claim Judaism as their faith and are eagerly awaiting aliyah.

The differences between the two services could not have been more striking. In Jerusalem, we were all well-dressed and appeared healthy. In Addis Ababa, the group was dressed in threadbare, hand-me-down clothes. Not surprisingly, many looked unhealthy.

Jewish Mom for the Straight Guy

Andrew Wallenstein December 11, 2003

When my father informed me he had scheduled a business trip to Los Angeles and was taking my mother with him about a month after I moved out here, his timing seemed less than coincidental. Both of my parents had been anxiously phoning me on a daily basis since I left New York. The real reason they were coming was to make sure I wasn\’t living in a crack house, or at the very least had the decency to choose a Jewish crack house.

Two Views, One Abyss

Rob Eshman December 11, 2003

There were three acts to the small luncheon held last Sunday in a private dining room at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The first act was the only pleasant one.\n\nTen Los Angeles Jews gathered at the invitation of philanthropists and activists Stanley Sheinbaum and Alan Gleitsman to share a meal and views with Syrian Minister of Expatriots Dr. Buthaina Shaaban, an adviser to President Bashir Assad, and Dr. Imad Moustapha, Syria\’s acting ambassador to the United States, on what was their first official visit to Los Angeles.\n\nThe meeting was arranged at the initiative of Dr. Hazem Chehabi, a nuclear medicine specialist who also serves as Syria\’s honorary consul general in Southern California. The doctor attended the lunch along with his wife and two aides. The idea was to have a frank, cordial and completely on-the-record interchange of views between two groups who rarely, if ever, interact: American Jews and Syrian Muslims.

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