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Jewish Journal

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January 28, 2009

More on Holocaust 2.0

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

Two rabbis from the Simon Wiesenthal Center have picked up on the anti-Semitic rhetoric—“Death to All Juice,” “Holocaust 2.0,” “back to the ovens”—from recent protests against Israel. Here’s a snippet:

Gone is the pretense of using the word “Zionist” in place of “Jew”.  Jews are now targeted as Jews. In Amsterdam, the streets near Anne Frank’s hiding place resounded with calls to”Gas the Jews”; from Madrid to Montreal, from London to Melbourne to Oklahoma City to Washington, DC, protesters proudly pump placards “Israelis are Nazis” and “Kill the Jews”.  Synagogues are torched in France.  Muslims walk into stores on Golders’ Green Road in London, announcing, “We will kill you.”  School principals in Denmark tell Jewish parents that their children are not welcome, because they will offend Muslims. German police removed an Israeli flag from the balcony of an apartment to appease anti-Israel protesters. Boycotts of Israeli and of Jewish businesses – are no longer the domain of the lunatic fringe. In Rome from whose streets their grandparents were hauled off to Auschwitz, Jews – not Israelis – are threatened with economic warfare.

January 27th marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the world’s largest Jewish cemetery. It is observed as the European Holocaust Memorial Day. Officials in Catalonia, Spain (a country in which more than 50% of secondary school students in a recent Spanish poll said they would not want to sit next to a Jewish classmate) canceled its participation this year because of Israel’s action in Gaza.

In Chicago, four synagogues were vandalized on the Sabbath by Hamas sympathizers. This, after a CAIR spokesman brushed aside complaints about antisemitic material, chiding Jewish leaders for caring less about the humanitarian disaster in Gaza than about words on “cardboard paper.” This was quite a dramatic departure from CAIR’s stance regarding the ink and paper of the infamous Danish Mohammed cartoons.

Here in Los Angeles, the deployment of antisemitism in service of Hamas got even less attention from MPAC.  Instead, Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs County, upbraided Mayor Villaraigosa and Sheriff Baca for their temerity in publicly defending Israel’s right to defend herself against terrorism. These veteran politicians do not understand the bigger picture, Mr. Al-Marayati insists, for such support he warns will enrage the greater Arab world.  Claiming to oppose extremism, he nonetheless offers an excuse for Hamas – and those who refuse to condemn as morally wrong the targeting civilians in rocket attacks, of using one’s own civilian population and infrastrucuture as human shields, of training children as suicide bombers. And as for missiles in mosques and booby-trapped Korans – well, no hestiation there either: “Militarism fuels extremism, and religion becomes a vehicle for resistance,” he writes.  He wrote nothing, however,  about Jew-hatred in the streets of Los Angeles.

He could have.  His counterparts in England did not shy away from the task.  There, a group of imams from every strain of Islamic thought, writers, and academics signed a letter expressing their grief over the deaths in Gaza, but at the same time condemning the rising wave of anti-Semitism: Protests against Israel should have nothing to do with violence against Jews, they wrote in a letter circulated to 1200 imams around the country.

Jews must not remain silent.

For the rest of their column, click here.

More on Holocaust 2.0 Read More »

Courtney Love Enters the Tribe

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I still haven’t forgiven Courtney Love for even being suspected of driving her husband insane, but still, there’s something I like about her. Her edge. Her brusqueness. Her scabrous profile. You have to at least admire, beyond the cursing and vulgarity and troubled psychology, that there is an utter honesty about her, a candor often overlooked and underappreciated. This blithe openness is on full display in her latest interview with Heeb. It’s engendered the usual Courtney controversy, in particular, because of this comment she made about Jews and money: “Every time you buy a Nirvana record, part of that money is not going to Kurt’s child, or to me, it’s going to a handful of Jew loan officers, Jew private banks, its going to lawyers who are also bankers, its going to sixty PAs.” 

The woman is a natural born provocateur. So while it’s unwise to accept much of what she says as credible, it’s still fun to hear her say it. There’s a cadence, a rhythm, a poetry to her ramble. Call me crazy but I find sober, sarcastic and reflective Courtney Love way more interesting and intelligent than high-on-heroin, down-on-life Courtney Love. She seems all grown up and cool. And frankly, after eight years of being led by a deceitful and secretive administration, the American psyche so accustomed to phoniness and concealed truth, listening to Love talk about herself is a breath of fresh air. Whouda thought?

On her Jewish grandmother:

She said in The New York Times Magazine that she didn’t like the way I used language. I’m a lyricist. Call it whatever the fuck you want, but don’t talk about how I use language because how I use language is my bread and butter.

On why women musicians aren’t as good as men:

This all-girl fantasy I’ve had my whole life, of you know. . .I’m going to show those Beatles, we’re going to be huge! Well, it’s not going to happen, right now, for my generation, for me. You know what I mean? Like, there are fucking riot grrrls sitting there banging on pots and pans and talking about their vaginas, and that’s all really lovely, and like the writing is great, but the music blows. I mean you have to fucking sit in your room and practice. You have to fucking learn how to play guitar, you have to learn how to play bass, you have to learn how to fucking play drums. You have to go get Zeppelin one through four, and you have to fucking sit in a fucking little room off Hollywood Blvd. for two hundred dollars a fucking month, and you have to play those goddamn drums. And for whatever reason, women just haven’t seemed to want to do that.

On motherhood:

I’m a really, really good mother, and the proof is in the pudding. She’s had some bad breaks when I was on drugs, but she never saw me on drugs. I would go to New York, or I would go to a hotel, so she never saw me in that condition.

On vanity:

I realized this the other day: I don’t have any pictures of myself. Other than a few snapshots, like with my band. I have a picture that’s on the fridge of us just getting off of the stage. I have a picture of me and Brett Ratner. I kind of don’t have pictures of Kurt around much or any images of myself. And a lot of celebrities do. I went to take my band to Paris [Hilton’s]’ house. There were images of her everywhere. I mean everywhere. And I like Paris. She’s funny. Is it the fall of civilization that Paris is famous for being famous? Not my job to speculate. I’m not a culture vulture, I’ll let Ariana Huffington fucking talk about that shit. But what’s weird is that Paris had so many pictures of herself everywhere. I mean, she has not only got a grand piano with—I swear to God—maybe a thousand pictures of herself, but I was in the bathroom, and there were, pictures of her everywhere! Everywhere! I’m just trying to pee and there’s just fucking. . .Paris.

On transaction:

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can be bought. I mean, wait: Versace, offered me $180,000. Yeah, $180,000 to go to a fashion show once, back in the day, and I thought: “This is stupid now. I could give my friend her start-up money to start a bakery, you know, I can walk down the Spanish steps, and you know, have all the supermodels climb me, and tell my daughter, you know, that I was hot enough to wear a see-through mauve caftan, right?” So, I said yes, and I did it. . . . And, you know, it really makes you think, do you have a price? And if so, what is it?

On being Jewish:

What’s funny about the Jewish thing is that I did this Barbara Walters special, and I had to watch that thing on TV, and that’s the last time I ever did drugs when I was watching that thing. Cause it Freaked. Me. Out. And, you know, I never watched Barbara Walters before. But, I remember telling her that I was Jewish, and I was really into it. . .and, she looked at me funny, and I remember she looked at me funny in the moment, and . . . being in Britain about half the year, I tend to spend about half the year there, because I really like it there, um, you know, the way that the people who are Jewish, you know, in L.A.? …I don’t know what the fuck I am. I am definitely an underdog though, so that puts me in the Tribe.

On re-entering the spotlight:

This guy interviewed me for the Advocate before Kurt died, and I was reading it, and I was like, oh my God, I was like so fearlessly hysterical. You know, I wonder if I’m the same way. . .or I’ve been scarred, or if I’ve been damaged, or deformed, or you know. . .deformed I mean like a tree that grows up gnarly, you know what I mean? Like, I wonder if all this death and tragedy and shit has really fucked with me. I can’t say I know. You know? Why do you think I have two shrinks?. . .See, my heeb side is coming out.

Courtney Love Enters the Tribe Read More »

Teresa Strasser Shines…and Bows to Robin Quivers

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Teresa Strasser loves her husband, her job, writing, recovery and Robin Quivers.  That’s the gist of what she tells LAist.com in a full-length interview today.

Strasser is the co-host of the morning drive time Adam Carolla Show on KLSX-FM 97.1.  She’s also an on-air personality for the TV Guide channel.  And she’s also a long-time, award-winning and very very popular columnist for The Jewish Journal and jewishjournal.com.  Her most recent piece for The Jewish Journal appeared last week, about her mano a mano confrontation with everyone’s favorite Jew-baiter, Pat Buchanan.

So, LAist asks, what does she like best: radio, TV or writing?  Teresa responds:

I think that writing is the thing I’m best at doing, but I haven’t really figured out a way yet to make a living doing that. When you hear about the ninth lead on the West Wing buying a house in the Hollywood Hills, and I’m getting $200 for a piece in the LA Times…

I think writing is the only one of those three where I have a knack. I’m not the fanciest writer, but I think I’m able to be honest. When I’m editing a piece, I think how can this be more true? There’s something to be said for that even though my prose is pretty mediocre.

The interview is typical Teresa: literate, funny, honest and surprising.  She talks about coming out as being in recovery for an eating disorder, about feeding the “Lion’s Mouth” that is Adam Carolla, and about which people and pieces she loves most.

And she very graciously takes time to acknowledge her debt to that other morning co-host, Robin Quivers.  Strasser credits Quivers, of The Howard Stern Show, with perfecting the role of the female radio sidekick, and tells LAist that whenever she’s unsure of what to do9, she asks herself, “WWRQD?”—What would Robin Quivers Do?

In Malcolm’s Gladwell’s book Outliers, he talks about needing 10,000 hours to master anything—chess, cello, computer programming. Robin probably started with a natural gift for radio, and has probably doubled those 10,000 hours of air time. To me, she’s a master—smooth, tough, seemingly impervious to douchebag callers who give her shit, and excellent at picking news stories that fit her show.

Sometimes, people ask themselves, WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? Occasionally, I ask myself WWRD? I look forward to having the kind of ease and experience she brings.

Congrats Teresa!  When’s your next piece?

More on Teresa Strasser

More Jewish Journal pieces on Howard Stern, including an exclusive interview with his oldest daughter.

 

Teresa Strasser Shines…and Bows to Robin Quivers Read More »

Unraveling Deceitful Judeo-Muslim Dialogue

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

French authorities are hoping that the truce in the Middle East will extend to their own territory.

Over the past three weeks, more than 60 anti-Semitic incidents have occurred throughout the country: Molotov cocktails were thrown at synagogues, a dozen youths were assaulted, Jewish institutions were tagged and two Jewish artists — TV star Arthur and emblematic Sephardi singer Enrico Macias — were prevented from performing. Meanwhile, three young Muslims were targeted by a bunch of pro-Israeli militants, presumably from the Jewish Defense League, and an imam known for his tolerant ways was assaulted by Muslims.

The media lashed out at Israel for its offensive and tens of thousands protested in the streets — often in support of Hamas — but a surprising poll showed an evolution in public opinion regarding the conflict. Indeed, 23 percent considered Hamas responsible for the crisis, while 18 percent accused the Israeli government. Twenty-eight percent said both sides were responsible and the rest couldn’t say.

The less expected effect of the war, here in France, is the collapse of the Judeo-Muslim Friendship Association founded by Rabbi Michel Serfaty. All of its Muslim officials resigned because their Jewish counterparts didn’t openly condemn Israel for its operations.

Co-chairman Djelloul Seddiki said remaining neutral wasn’t enough: His Jewish colleagues had to condemn Israel.

Serfaty said he was surprised, for he had remained silent and expressed no support for Israel precisely to please his Muslim counterparts.

Meanwhile, Seddiki and his friends protested against Israel without mentioning Hamas’ role in the flare-up. So much for dialogue….

Serfaty is an engaging figure. The tall former basketball player, with his wide black hat and Clint Eastwood stare, launched his battle for friendship after being assaulted in the street while walking to synagogue with his son in 2003. Instead of running along, the rabbi faced his attackers and asked them to explain themselves. He then created the Jewish Muslim Friendship Association to deconstruct stereotypes. Throughout the years, the rabbi has been dragging his congregation, family and fellow Jews along in his initiatives. Every summer he drives his association’s “Friendship bus” across France and neighboring countries with a number of Muslim and Jewish militants advocating dialogue. They go everywhere, from the beaches of Marseille to the rough suburbs around Paris. They don’t spare any effort. But sometimes they have to cave in and make sacrifices.

Serfaty sided with his Muslim colleagues over the Danish Muhammad cartoons controversy. The drawings had been reprinted in a couple of French newspapers, and the Muslim umbrella group, CFCM, decided to bring the issue to court in a lawsuit that it eventually lost.

At the time, several Jewish leaders — among them former French Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk — criticized the cartoons. Serfaty told me he wasn’t, like some French rabbis, against all cartoons criticizing religion. Mocking Moses or Jesus was fine with him. But he strongly opposed drawings criticizing Islam, saying Muslims are different. “The Christians and us have been living in this free-speech environment for centuries. They’ve only just arrived. We don’t care about these caricatures, but they get hurt.” When I asked him if he did not think many Muslims would be offended if treated differently from the rest of society, he responded that the important thing for him was avoiding a flare-up. “The main goal is to maintain social peace.”

It seems as if this time, condemning Israel — and Israel alone — was a price the rabbi wasn’t willing to pay, even to save his cherished association. Or was he simply taken by surprise?

Still, Serfaty is far from lost. If the crisis in the Middle East taught us anything, it’s that facade dialogue is useless. Uniting to settle kashrut and halal issues or to condemn Jerusalem gay pride is not really a breakthrough. France needs a genuine Judeo-Muslim dialogue between religious and secular leaders.

And the crisis showed us that these leaders exist and who they are.

While tens of thousands demonstrated in the streets, a number of Muslim leaders refused to join them and repeated that France had to stay away from the conflict, while respecting each others’ views on the conflict.

French minister Fadela Amara, a strong secular figure in charge of the impoverished suburbs, gathered in her ministry various associations to discuss and organize the battle against anti-Semitism and racism. This wasn’t surprising, as Amara, who had strongly supported the Geneva initiative a few years back, has been fighting for tolerance and against sexism in France for years with her women’s association, Ni Putes Ni Soumises.

Imam Hassen Chalghoumi and his family, from the suburb of Drancy, have paid once again during this outburst for their tolerant approach. The imam who advocates genuine dialogue has been assaulted again and his family threatened after he denounced anti-Semitism and called for peace.

“How far will you go? Watch out!” North African men told him as he was walking down the street. Others vandalized his car and threatened him over the phone.

Chalghoumi said nothing would alter his dialogue with the Jewish community, although he couldn’t stop thinking of the events in Gaza.

“People from my congregation ask me, ‘Why is this happening? This isn’t fair.’ And I answer, ‘That’s war. It’s never fair.’”

Chalghoumi is the imam of Drancy, a town where French Jews were gathered during World War II in a concentration camp before being deported to death camps. In 2006 the imam called on all Muslims to remember that history and pay their respects. Following his address at the Drancy memorial his children were threatened.

A few months ago he invited Jews to participate in the festivities ending the Ramadan. Chalghoumi was attacked following his initiatives. But that didn’t stop him.

Paris-based journalist Shirli Sitbon writes the “Paris Chronicler” blog at jewishjournal.com.

Unraveling Deceitful Judeo-Muslim Dialogue Read More »

Obama Envoy Embarks on Mideast ‘Listening Tour’

Leave a Comment / United States /

A rush of speculation is circulating about what answers George Mitchell, President Obama’s newly named special envoy, may bring to Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

It’s natural to wonder: Mitchell, 75, a former governor and U.S. senator from Maine who became majority leader, has a long career paved with high-profile problem-solving bids — some successful, others not. He helped broker the successful accords in Northern Ireland; his 2001 report on Israel and the Palestinians, while accepted as a basis for further negotiations by both sides, instead disappeared into the welter of other proposals.

At this stage, however, more than the answers Mitchell arrived at in the past, the questions he asks during his tour of the region this week could provide a better idea of where the new U.S. administration is heading.

Mitchell’s itinerary, as well as Obama’s comments to an Arab TV network, suggest that the new president is testing the waters of advancing a comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace, as opposed to the discrete Israeli-Palestinian agreement approach of his predecessors.

Obama made clear that Mitchell’s past was less important than his new status as his proxy when he met Monday — hours before Mitchell left for the region — with the new envoy and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Now, understand that Sen. Mitchell is going to be fully empowered by me and fully empowered by Secretary Clinton,” Obama said. “So when he speaks, he will be speaking for us. And I’m hopeful that during this initial trip, one of the earliest initiatives that we have taken diplomatically, that not only is he able to communicate effectively how urgent we consider the issue, but that we’re also going to be able to listen and to learn and to find out what various players in the region are thinking.”

Mitchell, in other words, will be taking his cues from his bosses — and right now, that means he’s on a “listening tour” of the kind made famous during Clinton’s own first 2000 run for a New York Senate seat.

Obama emphasized that approach in his first TV interview as president with the Al Arabiya network.

“What I told him is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating — in the past on some of these issues — and we don’t always know all the factors that are involved,” Obama said. “So let’s listen. He’s going to be speaking to all the major parties involved. And he will then report back to me. From there we will formulate a specific response.”

Hawks and doves in the pro-Israel community have read into the Mitchell selection the wishes and fears that have characterized their approaches in the U.S. Jewish community.

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, have fretted about Mitchell’s “evenhandedness” in the 2001 report, which faulted the Palestinian Authority for hardly attempting to rein in terrorists and Israel for not freezing settlements.

In his report, the ZOA said, Mitchell “promotes the false anti-Israel belief that Jews living in communities in Judea and Samaria [West Bank] is the biggest obstacle to peace — not Arab terrorism or Arab incitement.”

On the other side, dovish groups emphasized Mitchell’s credentials in brokering a Northern Ireland peace. The statement from the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, like those of J Street, Americans for Peace Now and the Israel Policy Forum, cited his work in that endeavor.

“His success as special envoy to Northern Ireland, resulting in the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, gives us great hope that he will be able to facilitate a peaceful resolution for Israel and the Palestinians,” the Religious Action Center said.

In that case, however, decades of British political and financial investment in the province and the resultant Catholic domestic pressures on the Irish Republican Army created a dot-the-I’s and cross-the T’s opportunity for the Clinton administration.

Several lobbyists associated with centrist pro-Israel groups were sanguine about the pick, saying that Mitchell’s past did not raise concerns.

“He’s a senior guy who had proven success on Northern Ireland,” one pro-Israel lobbyist said. “He demonstrated fairness and some creativity in the Mitchell Report” on the Second Intifada issued in 2001. “He showed pretty serious concern for Israeli security requirements and made that a big part of his plan. He’s not pro-Israel, but he’s not hostile either.”

The key to understanding the Mitchell pick, the lobbyist said, was in seeing him as a good soldier for Obama.

So far, Obama’s agenda has been less than clear. Except for committing to a more intensive involvement in the region, Obama and his aides have made clear that they are not ready to break new ground in the region. His U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, might have been echoing former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she was asked after her Senate confirmation about immediate plans.

“We will work diplomatically and through other means to try to support efforts to ensure that the cease-fire is lasting,” she said about the relative calm in Gaza this week, “and in that context for border crossings to open and be available for humanitarian, as well as day-to-day economic development imperatives.”

That echoed the Bush administration approach: End the rocket attacks, get the aid flowing and leave talk about comprehensive peace for later.

What changes may yet come were suggested in Mitchell’s itinerary: In addition to Israel and the West Bank, he also planned visits to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Those nations, especially Saudi Arabia, hope Obama will pay close attention to the comprehensive 2002 Arab League proposal that posits a comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace in exchange for Israel’s return to the 1967 borders, with minor adjustments. Not on Mitchell’s agenda, however, is any meeting with Hamas or its main regional proxy, Syria.

In his Al Arabiya interview, Obama emphasized slotting Israeli-Palestinian peace into his outreach to Arabs and Muslims. He suggested the 2002 Arab League proposal would be one way in.
“I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage to put forward something that is as significant as that,” he said. “I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace.

“I do think that it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what’s happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Obama said the tensions were “interrelated.”

“If we are looking at the region as a whole and communicating a message to the Arab world and the Muslim world — that we are ready to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest — then I think that we can make significant progress,” the president said.

Obama declined to offer a timeline for a Palestinian state, and he stressed that Israel is and would remain a “strong ally” of the United States.

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