January 1, 2004

Where Are High EI Guys?

Leave a Comment / Orange County, Singles / Sharon Lynn Bear

Dating is not brain surgery, but for some men it is more difficult. I think I’ve discovered why. The current thinking on intelligence is that people have several types of intelligence, which may not be equally developed.

Psychologist Daniel Goleman coined the phrase “emotional intelligence” or EI. He defined EI as “knowing one’s emotions, managing emotions, motivating oneself, recognizing emotions in others and handling relationships.” Goleman and others have found that EI has little correlation with IQ. They are on to something.

Arnie, a Jewish doctor, and not an “ordinary” one — rather a professor of neurosurgery, tumor specialist and brain surgeon (I am not making this up) — contacted me through Advanced Degrees Singles. Oh, he also is a pilot and owns a plane. My grandmother would be kvelling. But after speaking with him, I do not share her enthusiasm.

Among all the men I have spoken to on the telephone or dated, Arnie has the lowest EI. Like all Internet daters, we exchanged the perfunctory pleasantries by e-mail and then exchanged telephone numbers. After a round of telephone tag, he found me at home. Immediately following the “How are you’s?” he suggested that we meet for dinner.

Gosh, doesn’t he believe in foretalk?

I explained nicely that I would feel more comfortable if we spent a little time getting to know each other. He then told me that he is not a “telephone person” and that, having recently arrived from London, where he held a number of prestigious positions, he had only a cell phone and it would cost him 65 cents a minute to talk to me. Last I checked, neurosurgeons were fairly well paid.

There’s more: Besides my wanting some foretalk, I also was up against a project deadline, which I explained to Dr. Doctor.

In response, he said, “I am sure that you can spare a half hour to meet me at the marketplace for coffee.”

I thought, well maybe I can; the marketplace is only a mile from me. But then it occurred to me that he was talking about the marketplace close to him, which is nearly a half-hour from me.

Math was one of my best subjects, so I figured this out: 30 minutes to drive there + 30 minutes for coffee + 30 minutes to drive home. That equals an hour and a half. Of course, he couldn’t know this. He didn’t bother to even ask where I live.

So, I said to him nicely (I’m not sure why I was so nice), “I would rather meet you when I can give you my full attention and not have my mind on my work or my eye on the clock.”

There’s even more, but I think we have enough here to score Arnie’s EI. Here’s how it works. EI is scored similarly to IQ, with 100 as the norm. Every 15 points represents a standard deviation above or below the mean. Two standard deviations above the mean (130) is “emotionally gifted” or “socially sensitive” and two standard deviations below the mean (70) is “severely socially challenged.” For EI, everyone starts with 100. You can earn 7.5 points for each socially sensitive statement and lose 7.5 points for each faux pas or socially insensitive statement.

Let’s do the math: 100 — (4 x 7.5) = 70 or “severely socially challenged.”

The next day, I opened my e-mail to find Dr. Doctor’s CV. He wrote, “Hi, here is a little overkill on meeting me. Maybe it will save some time.”

Well, I’m no physicist, but I do know that Einstein believed that time is relative. Relatively speaking, I’ve wasted enough time but, in the process, I have done research on Goleman’s concept of EI. My findings indicate that, among some highly intelligent men, IQ and EI have an inverse correlation: as IQ goes up, EI goes down. It’s another form of “Women Are From Venus” and “(Some) Men Are From the Dark Side of the Moon.”

Sharon Lynn Bear is a researcher, writer and editor living in Irvine. She can be contacted at BearWrite@AOL.com.

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Schwarzenegger’s Kindest Un-Cut

Leave a Comment / Community, Personals / Ron Solomon

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t know it, but his recent
gesture to reverse planned cuts for the disabled was the greatest memorial
tribute to my brother, Danny. This week, we observed Danny’s shloshim, the
traditional 30 days after the death of a loved one.

Danny didn’t have a political bone in his body. No lawyer
ever represented him. He wasn’t a member of any union, wasn’t even able to
work. He had no wife and no children to care for him. He was just one of the
faceless, nameless disabled you walk by on your way to work or at the grocery
store. But to us, and now to our governor, my brother was not faceless or
nameless. He was a man with “special needs.”

Danny didn’t arrive in the City of Angels brimming with
optimism like so many. He was forced here four years ago when our ailing mother
in Connecticut could no longer care for him. It was an insurmountable
adjustment for a 46-year-old with epilepsy, kidney cancer, malignant melanoma,
some brain damage from prolonged use of anti-seizure medications and many
social issues from periods of isolation. But Danny was able to live a life with
dignity in our Golden State benefiting from many of the programs that escaped
the guillotine recently. And we cannot settle for anything less for the
thousands with special needs like Danny or worse.

Danny attended the Valley Storefront Adult Day Health Care
Center in North Hollywood, a full-day care program where he received a
nutritious and kosher lunch and badly needed medical attention and physical
therapy.

He was a client of the North Los Angeles County Regional Center,
which provided him with a devoted counselor and advocate and all the basic
human services that the Lanterman Act says he has a right to.

He lived in an assisted-living facility, where he was given
a private room and treated with respect. Prior to that, when he was physically
able, he lived in a group home with five other men like him and a devoted
caregiver.

Danny had the best medical care this city has to offer,
including a top general practitioner, neurologist, nephrologist, oncologist and
other specialists. And he could not pay for any of it.

He achieved a great deal of mobility with Access Paratransit,
which thereby increased his contact with the outside world.

It was back in April that we received the news that Danny
would finally encounter the ultimate disability, inoperable cancer of the
liver. His death sentence was carried out seven months later. But, even in the
process of death, he received fine medical care by the Cedars-Sinai Hospice
Program, which is following up with counseling for my family to try to deal
with this tragedy.

Danny Solomon died at the age of 50, with $20 in his pocket
— part of the $50 I had given him a few days earlier. That was the sum total of
his estate. But the level of care that he received and the dignity that marked
his final days are something every California resident should be proud of.
Thank you, governor, in Danny’s name and in his memory for the compassion you
showed. Â

Ron Solomon is executive director of the West Coast Friends of Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

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The Circuit

For the Kids

Leave a Comment / Kids & Teens / Abby Gilad

Looking for Letters

It’s almost back to school for many of you. Oh well — let’s
keep having holiday fun anyway. Answer one or more of these puzzles that have
to do with the calendar and win a gift certificate for Baskin-Robbins Ice
Cream.

Search for the letters that aren’t there. Each letter
appears once, but four do not appear at all. Find the missing letters, and then
arrange them to spell a word that appears in these pages.

Mitzvah (Im)Possible — Guide Dogs
For The Blind

Justin Skootsky and Mathew Wunderlich have won our Mitzvah
Contest.

They will each receive $10. Congratulations and great work,
guys.

We learned about the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind
(IGDCB) from a flier our temple publishes. We thought that raising money would
be worthwhile because it combined helping Jews in Israel with the appeal of
people’s love for puppies. We were able to get See’s Candy to donate lollipops.
We sold the candy at temple after Sunday school.

We were in contact with Norman Leventhal, president of the
IGDCB and sent him $1,000 to sponsor two puppies.

He asked us to help him develop a program for bar and bat
mitzvah kids.

For the Kids Read More »

Your Letters

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor / Jewish Journal

L.A. Housing Crisis

Thank you for printing the “Q&A With David Grunwald,”(Dec. 5) about the housing crisis in Los Angeles. The current housing crisisdemands a multiplicity of responses, including advocacy, grants, loans andservices. Our city desperately needs individuals and organizations such as Grunwaldand L.A. Family Housing, who are on the front lines of the battlefield everyday providing critical services to thousands of homeless and low-income Angelenos.The article implies that while his endeavor is not seen as “Jewish” per se, hiswork has a profound impact on all of us.

As members of the Shefa Fund’s Los Angeles Tzedec AdvisoryCommittee, we welcome Grunwald’s “agitation” and “frustration,” along with hispassion and expertise in our shared endeavor. Tzedec, Shefa’s lending program,provides a venue for Jews and Jewish institutions in cities across the countryto respond to the tremendous need for more affordable housing and communityservices.

The loans that we are currently raising from our localJewish community will be used for home ownership, affordable housingdevelopment and job creation in Los Angeles’ low-income communities. Tzedec isa way for Jews to move from NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) to WASTSBY (We All ShareThe Same Backyard).

Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, Chair Los Angeles Tzedec AdvisoryCommittee The Shefa Fund

Apologize to Seidler-Feller

Now that Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller has agreed to anofficial recommendation that he participate in an anger management program andwrite a letter of apology to his alleged victim, our community must demandsimilar forms of teshuvah (repentance) from other sources.

Rachel Neuwirth and her supporters owe Seidler-Feller andthe entire Jewish community an apology for their repeated, incendiaryreferences to Seidler-Feller as a “kapo” (a Jew who collaborated with Nazis inexterminating other Jews). Neuwirth’s own “worse than a kapo” epithetreportedly instigated this unfortunate incident.

During the last two months, this same reprehensible labelhas been attached to Seidler-Feller (whose grandparents perished in the Holocaust)by Neuwirth’s supporters on various inflammatory Web sites and anonymousanswering machine messages. Finally, apologies must also be demanded from thosewho have cynically used this incident as a pretext for castigating Seidler-Fellerbecause of their ideological disagreement with his avowed and principled”pro-Israel/pro-peace” stance.

It’s time to put this sorry episode behind us and to demandcivility — in word and deed — from all sectors of our community.

Douglas Mirell, Executive Committee Chair

Daniel Sokatch, Executive Director

Aryeh Cohen, President Progressive Jewish Alliance, Los Angeles

Love the Do!

Jewfro is a fabulous column (“Hair Club for Jews,” Dec. 19)!I always enjoy reading Carin Davis’ humorous and insightful words and usuallywind up nodding in agreement. Kudos, kudos, kudos.

Judy Wolfberg, via e-mail

Armenian Tragedy

I was eager to read your paper’s coverage of the Istanbulbombings as I hoped your article would give some insights into the currentsituation. As an Armenian living in the Diaspora, I have close ties with peopleliving in Istanbul and was concerned about their welfare, the state and psycheof its citizenry, as well as the overall geopolitical shifts happening in thenear/middle east. After reading Engin Ansay’s [Turkish consul general in Los Angeles] opinion article, I was disturbed by his blanket statement, “Forcenturies, Turkey has enjoyed a richness of diverse cultures and religionsliving side by side, a testimony of peaceful coexistence and tolerance.”(“Attacks Bolster Turks’ Will To Fight Evil,” Nov. 21). Not wanting toovershadow the tragedies that have inflicted Istanbul, this statement isproblematic, especially to the Armenians, Kurds, Assyrians, Greeks and Alleviswho have suffered unjust and inhumane treatment presently and in the past 100years.

Perhaps The Jewish Journal can educate readers by running anarticle on Turkey’s current track record on human rights and the complexpolitics of denial of the Armenian/Greek genocides, and how the Israeligovernment has given in to pressure from the Turkish government to be complicitin the denial the Armenian genocide.

Gabriel Azizian, Los Angeles

Two Roads One Path

I read with interest your Dec. 19 cover story on interfaithmarriage, “Married to It?” Julie Gruenbaum Fax covered the issue in a verybalanced way, culling information across denominational lines. Although shewrote that “outreach-oriented groups are more likely than in the past to acceptnon-Jewish partners who want to learn about Judaism,” unfortunately, a goodlocal resource for interfaith couples was overlooked.

Two Roads One Path (www.tworoadsonepath.com), supported bythe Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation, reaches out to such couples in apositive and nonjudgmental fashion. We have counseled couples from all over the United States, particularly in child-rearing issues. These individuals accessour welcoming Web site and respond through our online chat service. We justwant to make the Jewish community aware of its existence.

Rabbi Aaron Parry, Director Two Roads One Path EducationDirector Jews for Judaism

Reality of Right

In “Republican Redux: Jews Going Right?” (Dec. 12) James Besseradvances a couple of misconceptions about Jews and the GOP.

First, he attributes the potential shift of the Jewish voteto the GOP as confined only to the top Jewish leadership strata and, even then,only swathed in support for Bush’s pro-Israel positions.

The reality is that the Bush administration’s unparalleledsupport for the Jewish state may be pulling some top Jewish donors and voters –as it should. But Jewish support for the Republican Party has been a growing,grass-roots affair, and it has emerged from every economic echelon and for avariety of reasons.

But the biggest myth perpetrated by Besser is that Bush’s”aggressively conservative domestic policies” may be “hardening” the liberalfury of some Jews. The question that needs to be asked is: Which aggressivelyconservative domestic policies?

There are numerous recent examples of the president’smoderate domestic policy positions. The president co-sponsored the educationbill with [Massachusetts] Sen. Ted Kennedy and recently signed a comprehensivenew Medicare bill that enacts the largest transformation in Medicare since itscreation in 1965. The historically liberal AARP, the nation’s most influentialretiree lobby with more than 35 million members, called the passing of the billa “historic day for seniors.”

Of course, polls guarantee nothing for the Republican Party,but these trends are not “perceived,” they are concrete indicators that a shiftamong Jews is taking place.

Matthew Brooks, Executive Director Republican JewishCoalition

Beautiful Melodies

In November, you had a review of the CD, “Abayudaya, Music Fromthe Jewish People of Uganda” (“An Afro Judeo Beat” Nov. 14). The staff reviewersaid, “But the harmonies remained African, and this collection celebrates themelding of the songs and prayers you know with music you can only dream about.Give it to a cantor today.”

This music is so beautiful, I think that it should not bereserved for cantors. It’s like “Lion King” meets Jewish prayers. One of thesongs has a musical sound in the background, and the liner notes tell you thatis crickets in the background as the sun sets on the village. The liner notesare extensive, and describe this community’s conversion to Judaism and theirstruggles to maintain their Judaism despite Christian and Muslim attempts toconvert them. When I read that all royalties are sent to the Abayudancommunity, I decided to give this as a gift to my friends as their Chanukahgift. I am sure this CD would be appreciated by many, many people.

Judy Lederich-Mayer, via-e-mail

Painting Through Pain

With regards to Leora Alhadeff’s “Painting Through the Pain”(Dec. 26) article: Orville Wright Middle School is located in Westchester, amiddle-upper class suburb in Los Angeles. Although many students from nearbyunderprivileged areas attend, it is incorrect to refer to this ocean-proximateschool as “inner-city.”

Sonya Neweissman, Former Westchester resident OrvilleWright Junior High School alum Culver City

Pointing Fingers

It is so refreshing to hear another point of view about theIsraeli/Palestinian conflict (“Who’s To Blame for Palestinian Despair?” Dec.26). I sometimes wonder if our nascent Jewish guilt makes some of us believethat Israel is responsible for this crisis. We consider ourselves acompassionate people, wanting justice for the Palestinians even to the pointthat we often forget how this whole problem began. I only hope and pray thatour Arab cousins will one day see the light for they have so muchmore to gain by peaceful coexistence than by animosity.

Gila Shabanow, Oceanside

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Italy Jewish History Richer Than Gelato

Leave a Comment / Travel / Ruth E. Gruber

Twenty years ago, an Italian television channel hired Annie Sacerdoti,
a Jewish writer and editor in Milan, to produce a documentary about Jewish
history in Italy’s northern Lombardy region.

At the time, Sacerdoti had long been an active member of the
10,000-strong Jewish community in Milan, the Lombard capital.

But what she found while researching the program changed her
sense of identity as an Italian Jew and in many ways changed her life. In small
provincial towns around the region, she found Jewish cemeteries abandoned to
the elements and deserted synagogues standing empty or used as carpenter shops
or other places of business.

“It was then that I realized that the story of Italian Jewry
was not just written in the big ghettos, such as Rome or Venice,” she recalled.
“It was also written, just as richly, in numerous hidden places, little centers
and hamlets almost totally forgotten by Italian Jews themselves.”

Those first discoveries sent Sacerdoti on a quest to
discover and publicize the wealth of Jewish heritage in Italy, which has
continued to the present. They enabled her, she said, to follow a subtle thread
that reconnected her with the past. Sacerdoti wrote a Jewish guidebook to Italy
in 1986 and, throughout the 1990s, edited a series of separate guidebooks
dedicated to Jewish heritage in individual Italian regions.

In fall 2003, Sacerdoti — the editor of Milan’s monthly
Jewish magazine, Il Bollettino — published a new, revised and updated “Guide to
Jewish Italy,” which combined tourist itineraries with an overview of
contemporary Jewish life throughout the country, including addresses of kosher
restaurants and other useful information.

“This book really caps 20 years of work,” Sacerdoti said at
a launch for the book in Rome. “Discovering Jewish history and culture this way
became something of an addiction — you find something, then keep going on and
on, trying to discover more, and one discovery leads to another, then another.”

Some 30,000-35,000 Jews live in Italy today, out of a total
population of 60 million people. More than two-thirds of Italy’s Jews live in Rome
and Milan.

Jewish history in Italy dates back to ancient Roman times,
however, and at one time or another over the past two millennia, Jews lived and
often left their traces in hundreds of towns, cities and villages up and down
the peninsula. Synagogues and Jewish quarters were abandoned when Jews were
expelled from cities and regions over the centuries, but also — as in the United
States — when Jews moved from small towns to big cities as part of
demographic shifts. About 8,000 Italian Jews were deported to their deaths in
the Holocaust.

Richly illustrated with color photographs, Sacerdoti’s book
— which will appear in English early in 2004 — looks at 2,000 years of Jewish
heritage and culture from top to toe of the Italian boot.

The aim, Sacerdoti said, was to present a real tourist
guide, including only sites that could easily be visited. It covers sites in 45
towns and cities, ranging from ancient catacombs in Rome to a medieval mikvah
in Sicily and more than a dozen glorious baroque synagogues in the northwest
region of Piedmont, most of them in towns where few or no Jews live today.

“Piedmont is unique. I don’t think that there is any other
region in Europe with such a wealth of well-preserved synagogues,” Sacerdoti
said.

“Italy has about 70 synagogue buildings, including the ruins
of two from ancient Roman times,” she said. “In addition, there are Jewish
museums throughout the country that display precious ritual objects, books,
documentation and other items from all epochs.”

As Sacerdoti points out, however, most Jewish heritage sites
in Italy, despite their splendor, are little-known to outsiders, or even to many
Italian Jews.

“It was really quite an experience for me to travel up and
down the country and to photograph them in depth,” said Alberto Jona Falco,
whose pictures illustrate the book. “I feel it was a mitzvah to photograph
them.”

Sacerdoti’s book falls within her activities over the past
few years in actively promoting Jewish heritage sites as attractions for
mainstream tourists and bringing knowledge and appreciation of Jewish culture
into the mainstream.

Among other things, Sacerdoti has been one of the organizers
of the annual “European Day of Jewish Culture,” which promotes awareness of
Jewish heritage in two-dozen European countries. It was started in 1999.

The initiative has a particularly high profile in Italy and
annually draws more than 40,000 visitors on a single day to Jewish museums,
synagogues, cemeteries and special events in several dozen locations around the
country. There also have been several other Jewish heritage promotional
initiatives in various parts of Italy in recent years. These include the
establishment of specific Jewish heritage itineraries sponsored by local
tourism authorities in the northeast region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

In Rome, a new foundation is working to expand the Jewish
community’s museum, and plans are under way for celebrations next spring to
mark the 100th anniversary of Rome’s Great Synagogue, an ornate structure with
a distinctive square dome that towers above the Tiber River at the edge of the
old Jewish ghetto.

The Rome synagogue, along with the old ghetto in Venice,
which comprises several restored synagogues and a fascinating museum, and the
magnificent Moorish-style synagogue in Florence, are Italy’s three best-known
Jewish heritage sites. All three draw tens of thousands of visitors each year.

Recently, the Jewish Heritage Grants Program of the New
York-based World Monuments Fund awarded the Florence synagogue, built between
1870-1882, a $50,000 grant toward structural work to help repair its roof.

“I hope that my work will spark interest in other Jewish
sites in Italy and enable them to open to the public,” Sacerdoti said. “Tourism
can bring new life to these places — even in places where there is no longer a
Jewish community.” Â

Italy Jewish History Richer Than Gelato Read More »

Vocal Musicians Make a Joyful Noise

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Music, Orange County / Lauren Korduner

Human voices converge on the same note, echoing a haunting harmony — arousing complicated emotions.

This has been the buzz surrounding an award-winning Jewish a cappella group, Shir Appeal, a group of college students from Massachusetts, who will bring their hypnotizing harmonies to Orange County’s Temple Bat Yahm (TBY) for Shabbat evening service, Jan. 16. The group was named after Tufts University’s mascot — Jumbo the Elephant. The Hebrew phrase shir hapeal means "song of the elephant."

A cappella, Italian for "in the style of the chapel," is a term used to describe a type of music composed of entirely human voices.

A student-run organization, Shir Appeal receives no funding from their student government, and sustains their costs with CD sales, which feature Jewish folk songs, Israeli pop songs and liturgical music.

This year marks the group’s return to TBY in Newport Beach, also home of operatic cantor Jonathan Grant. The 15 members of Shir Appeal have been invited to stay with TBY congregants and will sit in a place of honor among the temple’s choir.

"Where ever there’s a sizable Jewish population [at a college], you’re bound to find an a cappella group," said Rebecca Bromberg of Shir Bruin, UCLA’s Jewish a cappella ensemble, who also co-founded a Jewish a cappella group in 1997 at Emory University in Atlanta.

Bromberg cites Columbia University’s Pizmon, which formed in 1987, as popularizing American Jewish a cappella on college campuses. As secular a cappella gathered steam in the 1990s, marked by the formation of major a cappella societies, Jewish a cappella also became more popular, especially among youth on college campuses. Techiya of MIT formed in 1994; Shir Appeal in 1995; Shircago, of the University of Chicago, in 1996; as well as a slew of others on university campuses whose participation waxed and waned over the decade — including Harvard, Brandeis and Boston and New York universities.

During the spring of this year, the University of Chicago hosted "Striking a Chord," the first-ever, all-Jewish Midwest a cappella festival, attracting groups from around the Midwest.

The San Francisco-based Contemporary A Cappella Society, a loose association of amateur, semi-pro and professional a cappella artists, recognizes groups that have produced a commercially available body of work with a Contemporary A Capella Recording Awards (CARA). Like the mainstream recording industry’s Grammy Awards, a CARA is given to artists in many categories. Groups with limited distribution also qualify for recognition, said Jessika Diamond, former vice president of the Contemporary A Cappella Society, however, they are less likely to have the resources to create a recording with high production values.

"This year is the first time in the history of the CARA competition that any religious group did as well as Shir Appeal," Diamond said.

Shir Appeal took home the award for "best collegiate song" and runner-up for "best collegiate album."

This year, approximately 60 volunteer a cappella aficionados judged the CARAs. Among them was the society’s representative, Greg Bowne, of Massachusetts.

"[Shir Appeal] used their voices in such a great way that really conveyed power and emotion in the song," Bowne said.

After the competition was over, Bowne said he kept listening to their recording, impressed with the group’s strong sound.

Two of the group’s songs were also featured on the "Best of College A Cappella" CD, a production of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA), which Diamond directed from 1999 to 2003. The ICCA attracts a cappella groups worldwide and encourages them to submit recordings of their best songs for a competition. Out of thousands of submissions, 18 songs are selected for a compilation CD, "The Best of College A Cappella," released every year. Shir Appeal won coveted spots on the 2000 and 2003 collections.

Before their Newport Beach appearance, Shir Appeal performs in Los Angeles with Shir Bruin, the Scattertones and another UCLA-affiliated a cappella group on Jan. 11.

Cantor Grant said he expects the group to sing a 17th-century selection by Solomone Rossi, called "Eftach Nai S’Fatai" (God Please Open My Lips), and a unique arrangements of "Shalom Aleichem" and "Shalom Rav."

"I also look forward to the Israeli popular selections they will sing at our Shabbat dinner program," he said.

For information about the Jan. 16 appearance at Temple Bat Yahm, call (949) 644-1999.

Vocal Musicians Make a Joyful Noise Read More »

Is History Repeating Itself?

Leave a Comment / Orange County, Worldwide / Stanley William Rothstein

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me"? — Rabbi Hillel

Can we learn from history? Is the past a succession of meaningless, unrelated events? Does the rise and fall of nations in the past have

anything to do with today’s world? Are people that much different than they were then? Do they strive after different things, have different desires?

These questions came to mind recently as the similarities between Israel’s geopolitical situation increasingly resembled that of the Jews during the first Roman War. (Some would argue that it more closely resembles 20th-century Czechoslovakia, but that’s another article.)

Huge armies were assembled in ancient Judea. Pitched battles were fought throughout. Great plunder and destruction followed, and Jerusalem was destroyed, its people brutally murdered or sold into slavery. The dispersion of the Jews among their enemies began.

There were those who counseled moderation in those days: These were collaborators, wealthy men and nobles who benefited from the Roman occupation and wanted it to continue. They preferred expansion and trade to a foolish rebellion that could only end in disaster.

The war began in spite of their efforts. Menahem the Galilean conquered the Roman fortress at Masada and then entered Jerusalem in triumph.

Other nationalist movements began to stir throughout the Roman Empire, and Jews in the Diaspora were also moved to send material aid.

But the resources of these Jewish rebels were infinitely smaller than their oppressors, and they were tragically disunited. Their greatest energies were used in fighting one another, further weakening them against the powerful Roman army that had conquered Galilee and stood poised to attack Jerusalem.

The city was now the center of the rebellion, with Jews from all over the country rallying there. Zealots, an extremist organization adamantly opposed to Roman rule and the high priesthood, occupied the Temple precinct and forced the priests to withdraw into the sanctuary.

Things were made more confused by the arrival of many Idumaeans in the city. These men were great fighters, but they were not accepted as Jews, because they were converts. The three principal factions — Zealots, Idumaeans and the elitist collaborationists — now used their time to terrorize one another, creating the contagion of civil war.

Vespasian, the Roman general, twice prepared to attack Jerusalem but hesitated when the Emperor Nero died suddenly. Besides, it was evident by then that the Jews were destroying themselves by their extraordinary disunity. And indeed, the three basic factions in the capital were reduced to two by their fierce internal struggles that persisted, even though a Roman army was just north of the city and poised to attack.

Significantly, the remaining Jewish forces in Jerusalem had a misplaced confidence in their military capabilities. Partly, this was due to religious beliefs; partly it was because of Vespasian’s failure to attack the holy city for three years, even though its gates had been wide open and defenseless. As a result, when the long siege of Jerusalem began, there was no real hope for the defenders.

Ancient Judea lost its bid for freedom when it divided itself into factions and fought one another, instead of the common enemy. Its forces were caught up in their visions of the world, its fighters too certain the real enemy was within.

The result was the fall of the city, followed by a massacre and burning of the Temple and the city. The numbers of Jews killed or taken prisoner was astounding. Thirty-thousand prisoners of war were sold at auction, while many others perished in gladiatorial games.

Writing of those times, Josephus spoke thus: "…. Weary of slaughter, Titus issued orders to kill only those who were found in arms and offered resistance … troops slew the old and feeble, while those in the prime of life and serviceable they drove together into the Temple and shut them up in the court of the women."

Israel today stands imperiled much as she did in Roman times, surrounded by enemies that again threaten her existence. Jews everywhere have formed themselves into factions, unable to see any good in the policies of their political opponents.

There is little uproar over the left’s blindness, no outcry about the right’s dreams of a greater Israel. None of these factions sees anything good about the other, and some would rather demonize or talk down the elected government of Israel than present a united front against the nation’s enemies.

Should we be concerned that history is tragically repeating itself today? Should these happenings frighten those who value liberty and the survival of the Jewish state most?

That is the most important question for Jews to think about in these perilous times.

Stanley William Rothstein is professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton.

Is History Repeating Itself? Read More »

Who’s to Blame for Terror?

Leave a Comment / Opinion, Orange County / Loolwa Khazzoom

Like many hothead progressives around the world, I preach antiracism, teach multiculturalism and recognize the United States to be a politically and culturally imperialistic society.

Proper revolutionary that I am, I have no problem with guerrilla warfare against oppressive regimes, and I fully recognize that "terrorism" can be a political term used to invalidate the violent behavior of one group and justify that of another.

One might say I’m an all-around, groovy radical. And yet, I’ve got a major problem with compassion for Palestinian suicide bombers blowing up Israeli citizens.

Sure, progressive folk cluck in sympathy when the leg of an Israeli girl flies clear across a pizzeria or when the spine of an Israeli boy gets sliced by shrapnel. This sound of distress, however, often is accompanied by an undertone of accusation: It is Israel’s fault, the narrative goes, that these tragedies happen; by creating Palestinian desperation, Israel has created Palestinian terrorism.

Clearly, Palestinians are suffering, and their situation must be remedied — the sooner the better. The question is, who was responsible for creating their situation and who is accountable for remedying it?

The Arab world is called just that for a reason: Beginning in the Arabian Peninsula about 1,300 years ago, Arab Muslims launched a brutal campaign of invasion and conquest, taking over lands across the Middle East and North Africa. Throughout the region, Kurds, Persians, Berbers, Copts and Jews were forced to convert to Islam under the threat of death and in the name of Allah.

Jews were one of the few indigenous Middle Eastern peoples to resist conversion to Islam, the result being they were given the status of dhimmi — legally second-class, inferior people. In the best of circumstances, Jews were spared death but forced to endure an onslaught of humiliating legal restrictions — forced into ghettos, prohibited from owning land, prevented from entering numerous professions and forbidden from doing anything to physically or symbolically demonstrate equality with Arab Muslims.

When dhimmi laws were lax and Jews were allowed to participate to a greater degree in their society, the Jewish community would flourish, both socially and economically. On numerous occasions, however, the response to that success was a wave of harassment or massacre of Jews instigated by the government or the masses.

This dynamic meant that the Jews lived in a basic state of subservience: They could participate in the society around them, they could enjoy a certain degree of wealth and status and they could befriend their Arab Muslim neighbors, but they always had to know their place.

The Arab-Israel relationship and the current crisis occur in the greater context of a history in which Arab Muslims have oppressed Jews for 1,300 years. Most recently, anti-Jewish riots erupted throughout the Arab world in the 1930s and 1940s.

Jews were assaulted, tortured, murdered and forced to flee from their homes of thousands of years. Throughout the region, Jewish property was confiscated and nationalized, collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars at the time.

Yet the world has never witnessed Middle Eastern and North African Jews blowing themselves up and taking scores of Arab innocents with them out of anger or desperation for what Arab states did to the Jewish people.

Despite the fact that there were 900,000 Jewish refugees from throughout the Middle East and North Africa, we do not even hear about a Middle Eastern/North African Jewish refugee problem today, because Israel absorbed most of the refugees. For decades, they and their children have been the majority of Israel’s Jewish population, with numbers as high as 70 percent.

To the contrary, Arab states did not absorb refugees from the war against Israel in 1948. Instead, they built squalid camps in the West Bank and Gaza — at the time controlled by Jordan and Egypt — and dumped the refugees in them, Arabs doomed to become pawns in a political war against Israel.

Countries such as Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Lebanon funded assaults against Israeli citizens instead of funding basic medical, educational and housing needs of Palestinian refugee families.

In 1967, Israel inherited the Palestinian refugee problem through a defensive war. When Israel tried to build housing for the refugees in Gaza, Arab states led votes against it in U.N. resolutions, because absorption would change the status of the refugees. But wasn’t that the moral objective?

Israel went on to give more money to the Palestinian refugees than all but three of the Arab states combined, prior to transferring responsibility of the territories to the Palestinian Authority in the mid-1990s. Israel built hospitals and educational institutions for Palestinians in the territories. Israel trained the Palestinian police force.

And yet, the 22 Arab states dominate both the land and the wealth of the region. So who is responsible for creating Palestinian desperation?

Tragically, the Arab propaganda war against Israel has been a brilliant success, laying on Israel all the blame for the Palestinian refugee problem. By refusing to hold Arab states accountable for their own actions, by feeling sympathy for Palestinian suicide bombers instead of outrage at the Arab propaganda creating this phenomenon, the "progressive" movement continues to feed the never-ending cycle of violence in the Middle East.

Loolwa Khazzoom is the editor of “The
Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern
Jewish Heritage” (Seal Press), and she is an Israel correspondent for the Jewish
Telegraph Agency. You can find Khazzoom on the web at Who’s to Blame for Terror? Read More »

Egypt Displays Split Personality on Israel

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Leslie Susser

Israeli leaders were heartened in late December, when Egypt’s
foreign minister announced that he would come to Jerusalem for talks on
promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace.

At the same time, however, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
was moving in Cairo to galvanize international pressure on Israel to dismantle
the nuclear weapons it is presumed to possess.Â

These seemingly contradictory thrusts in Egyptian policy
highlight the deep ambivalence that has characterized Egypt’s attitude to Israel
since the two countries made peace in 1979.Â

On the one hand, Egypt has been keen to encourage other Arab
countries and the Palestinians to follow its lead in making peace with Israel —
partly to prove that it was right in pioneering accommodation with the Jewish
State, partly to reinforce its position as a major power broker in the Middle
East and partly to satisfy Washington.Â

Some believe that Egypt still is undecided about whether it
really wants peace with Israel. Others believe Egypt simply sees Israel as a
major rival for regional hegemony. In either case, while seeking a wider,
regional rapprochement, Egypt also strives to weaken Israel and keep it
isolated.Â

Egypt therefore makes peace overtures but keeps Israel at
arm’s length. It fashions a model of “cold peace” — some might call it a war
everywhere but on the battlefield — and implies that other Arab countries
should adopt it. It carries out war games in which Israel is the named enemy,
presses every possible button to pressure Israel to dismantle its presumed
nuclear stockpile and often leads the diplomatic charge against Israel in
international forums.Â

For more than 20 years, this ambivalent policy has not
changed. Nor, from Egypt’s perspective, should it, since the policy has paid
rich dividends.Â

First and foremost, it paved the way for Egypt to build
close relations with the United States, including a huge annual aid package
that Egypt has used both to advance domestic goals and to undertake a massive
military reconstruction effort over the past two decades. It also has put Egypt
in a position to help other Arabs, such as the Palestinians or Syrians, forge
negotiations with Israel. Egypt has been trying to play the “honest broker”
over the past year, searching for ways to stop Israeli-Palestinian violence.Â

Since the Palestinian intifada was launched in September
2000, Egypt has worried about violent repercussions at home. Radical Islamic
groups in Egypt could harness anti-Israeli feeling to attack the Mubarak regime
for not doing more to help the Palestinians, conceivably sparking violence
directed at the regime, itself.Â

Last June, Egypt was able to get Palestinian terrorist
groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad to agree to a temporary truce with
Israel. But the truce quickly collapsed after a rash of targeted killings of
terrorist leaders and a new wave of Palestinian suicide bombings.Â

Now the Egyptians are trying again, holding meetings in
Cairo on a new cease-fire and sending Egypt’s intelligence chief, Omar
Suleiman, for talks in the Palestinian territories, so far without concrete
results.

Syrian President Bashar Assad also is seeking Egyptian aid
in paving the way for a renewal of peace talks with Israel. After Saddam
Hussein’s fall in Iraq and Libyan leader Muammar al-Quaddafi’s agreement to open
his weapons programs to international inspection, Assad fears he could be next
in line for special treatment by a U.S. government that has shown little
tolerance for Arab sponsors of terrorism.Â

Assad announced through the pages of The New York Times that
he wants to start a new negotiating process with Israel, and in late December,
he flew to Egypt to ask for Mubarak’s aid.Â

Israel has been skeptical of Assad’s intentions — most
officials believe Assad merely is trying to duck U.S. pressure — but says it is
exploring Assad’s statement. Still, Israel is demanding strong Syrian action
against terrorist groups in Damascus and Lebanon before any talks can begin.Â

While playing the “honest broker,” however, Egypt also has
been leading diplomatic moves against Israel in various international forums.Â

Egypt was active in getting the security fence issue
referred to the International Court at The Hague and, following Libya’s
startling commitment on weapons of mass destruction, Egypt worked closely with
Syria to force a Security Council debate on ridding the Middle East of all
weapons of mass destruction — a debate that is bound to focus primarily on
Israel’s presumed nuclear arsenal.Â

For years, the campaign against Israel’s nuclear capability
has been a cornerstone of Egyptian foreign policy. In 1995, Egypt threatened to
scuttle international reaffirmation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by
persuading Third World countries not to sign unless Israel did.

Five years later, Egypt repeated the same gambit. In both
cases, however, strong U.S. pressure forced the Egyptians to back down.Â

There is a huge disparity between Egypt’s self-image and the
reality on the ground: The truth is that Egypt no longer seems to have the
clout of a great regional player.Â

For example, when Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher
visited the Al Aksa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in late December,
Palestinian radicals bombarded him with shoes, a display of contempt. And on
that same trip, Egypt heeded Israel’s demand that Maher not meet with
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, whom Israel seeks to sideline.
Earlier, Palestinian terrorist groups disdainfully rejected Egyptian advice to
accept a cease-fire with Israel.Â

The duality of Egyptian policy leads to suspicion and
anxiety on the Israeli side. One of Egypt’s sharpest Israeli critics is Yuval
Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who
asked why Egypt needs such a huge, modern army when it has no apparent
enemies.Â

Steinitz noted that Egypt has used huge amounts of U.S.
money to transform its army into one of the strongest forces in the Middle
East, that it has many of the same weapon systems as Israel and that it even
has U.S. instructors to teach the Egyptians how to use the weapons. Of all the
Arab armies, Steinitz said, Egypt’s is the one Israel has to take most
seriously in the future.Â

Perhaps the case that best highlights the ambivalence of
Egyptian policy is the abortive Camp David summit with the Palestinians in July
2000. Fearing that their regional influence would be diluted, the Egyptians
blocked the resumption of multilateral peace talks with Israel on regional
cooperation in the runup to Camp David.Â

Then, as the Camp David summit was about to collapse,
Mubarak turned down a request from President Bill Clinton to do him a personal
favor and pressure Arafat to sign an agreement with Israel that would postpone
disputes over sovereignty of Jerusalem’s holy sites.Â

At the time, U.S. and Israeli officials found Egypt’s
spoiler role unbearable. Yet when fighting erupted two months after the collapse
of Camp David, Egypt played a major role in containing the violence and
preventing a full-scale regional war.Â

Though he pulled Egypt’s ambassador from Israel — a
violation of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel — Mubarak declared early on that
Egypt “wouldn’t fight to the last Egyptian” for the Palestinian cause. More
than anything else, analysts believe, Mubarak’s levelheaded attitude prevented
the spread of violence across the entire region.

Though Egypt continues to fire diplomatic broadsides at
Israel and refuses to return its ambassador, trumpets its friendship with the
United States while ignoring U.S. calls to democratize and plays the regional
superpower without regional respect, the bottom line is that most feel that
Egypt’s pragmatism remains a powerful,Â pro-Western force for regional
stability.

However, that stability rests, in large degree, on the
person of Mubarak, a 75-year-old whose health has raised concern recently.
Mubarak had to interrupt a televised speech last month when he suddenly fell
ill.

After 22 years in power, Mubarak has not chosen a successor,
and analysts worry that if Mubarak dies suddenly — he came to power after Anwar
Sadat was assassinated — Egypt will fall into disarray. That could give
Islamists, Mubarak’s most powerful domestic opponents, an opportunity to seize
power and upset the regional stability Mubarak has been so keen to maintain. Â

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