Volume 24, Number 22
Volume 24, Number 22 Read More »
July 15, 2009
Trial of religious leader Tony Alamo begins
Opening arguments were delivered today in the trial of Tony Alamo, the religious leader who was arrested last fall for allegedly taking young girls across state lines to have sex with them. From the AP:
Evangelist Tony Alamo preyed on his loyal followers’ young daughters, once taking a girl as young as 8 as his bride and repeatedly sexually assaulting her, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Fowlkes said that girl’s story and others would unwind an “elaborate facade” Alamo wove around himself as the preacher’s trial on charges that he took underage girls across state lines for sex began in earnest. Alamo’s lawyers argued that the alleged victims traveled across the country to further the outreach and business interests of a “bona fide religious group” that the government targeted out of its own prejudices.
The trial, which is expected to last two weeks, is almost the sideshow, though, to Alamo’s bizarre life. I mentioned that here. But one of the local TV stations covering Fort Smith, Ark., has a great rundown of the reasons you might want to avoid forget following Alamo.
The station mentions his decision to keep his dead wife in a glass coffin, awaiting her resurrection, and his conviction for tax evasion. But what jumped out at me was Alamo’s response to the charges filed last fall:
“I’m not the one that sets a time limit. When they reach the age of puberty, I wouldn’t recommend that any 8- or 10- year-old girl gets married. But in the event that it would be of the Lord, then I would say it would be all right, but I don’t do that, OK?”
Read the rest here.
Trial of religious leader Tony Alamo begins Read More »
Did an Israeli anesthetic cause Michael Jackson’s death?
United States federal drug enforcement officials have contacted Israeli company Teva Pharmaceuticals – the maker of the powerful anesthetic Propofol – as part of their investigation into Michael Jackson’s death.
A spokeswoman for Teva Pharmaceuticals says the Drug Enforcement Administration asked the company about a specific batch of the drug.
Teva voluntarily recalled two lots of propofol after investigators found
bacterial contamination in some samples caused up to 40 patients in Florida, Arizona and Missouri to develop fevers and chills. Read the full story at HAARETZ.com.
Did an Israeli anesthetic cause Michael Jackson’s death? Read More »
Episcopal leaders lift ban on gay bishops
Though it had been largely unenforced—see: V. Gene Robinson—the Episcopal Church still had a ban on installing gay bishops. No more.
From the LA Times:
The Episcopal Church, casting aside warnings about further alienating conservatives within its ranks, on Tuesday lifted a de facto ban on the ordination of gay bishops and is continuing to weigh a measure that would sanction blessings for same-sex couples.
Bishops, clergy and lay leaders voted overwhelmingly at the denomination’s General Convention in Anaheim to open “any ordained ministry” to gays and lesbians.
The liberalized policy represents a reversal from guidelines adopted by the church at its last convention in 2006 that effectively prohibited the consecration of bishops whose “manner of life” would strain relations with the 77-million member Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the communion.
The new approach is likely to deepen theological fissures that led some traditionalist Episcopal congregations and dioceses last month to form a rival church. And it is almost certain to trigger a backlash among conservative Anglican leaders who have urged the U.S. church to refrain from relaxing ordination and marriage standards. …
“Being an Episcopalian means you can disagree and still worship together,” said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles. “We’re going to leave the door open for all those who disagree with us to find a place here and peace here.”
Read the rest of Duke Helfand’s article for the Times here. And much, much more on the timeline here.
Episcopal leaders lift ban on gay bishops Read More »
Did Twitter Cost Bruno Millions?
We all know the power of word of mouth. Positive or negative reviews impact the success of any product. In our current age of social networking, electronic word of mouth has the ability to make a product sink or swim faster than ever. Last Friday it seemed that Sacha Baron Cohen had created another monster hit with his new film Brüno. Early ticket sales on opening day had many Hollywood insiders predicting that Brüno would gross around $50 million on opening weekend. As it turns out, sales for Brüno peaked on opening day and actually fell the rest of the weekend, finishing with “only” $30.4 million. What happened? According to Time magazine, “Brüno could be the first movie defeated by the Twitter effect”.
Although Brüno won the weekend movie battle, it fell well short of initial predictions. Brüno certainly was a hit with many reviewers but its outrageous, in-your-face humor was too much for many movie-goers to stomach. A quick review of the thousands of “tweets” about Brüno on Twitter shows many harsh comments such as “im angry, apalled”, “Do not waste your money seeing Bruno” or “Worst movie I have ever seen”. With techsavvy moviegoers tweeting their opinions to millions of followers, Twitter trends have an instant impact on the success of a movie. In the words of Time, “Instant-messaging can make or break a film within 24 hours. Friday is the new weekend.”
Sam Gliksman
{encode=”sam@mail.swsoftware.com”}
You can follow Sam on Twitter at Did Twitter Cost Bruno Millions? Read More »
Harry Potter and the “Half-Blood” Jews
As “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” opens today to mostly stellar reviews, the title itself evokes why the book and film series have so resonated with Jewish audiences. Like all the “Potter” films – based on J.K. Rowling’s best-sellers – “Prince” is rife with metaphors for racism and ethnic cleansing, including characters who refer to wizards as “pure-bloods,” “half-bloods” or mudbloods (a racist slur meaning mixed or non-magical parentage).
In the new film, flashbacks reveal how the evil Lord Voldemort grows from a troubled child into a genocidal maniac bent on annihilating non-magic folk (muggles) and those with mixed heritage. “Voldemort and his followers, the Death Eaters, are obsessed with the preservation of blood purity,” “Potter” producer David Heyman told the Journal last year. (Heyman is the British producer who bought the rights to the “Harry Potter” books in 1997 and steered the film franchise to become the highest grossing in cinematic history.) “They’re not Nazis but they recall the politics and attitudes of Nazi Germany. And aesthetically—although it’s a cliché—the [Death Eater] Lucius Malfoy and his family are blond, like Hitler’s ideal of the quintessential Aryan.”
In the new film, Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is given a potions manual inscribed with spells by the mysterious “Half-Blood Prince;” it’s well-known that the actor Daniel Radcliffe has a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father, and himself identifies as Jewish. Heyman, too, has mixed parentage— his mother is non-Jewish, while his father’s family experienced the racial hatred of the Third Reich. The producer’s Jewish grandfather, Heinz Heyman (the original spelling may have been Heymann), was an economist, newspaperman and broadcaster based in Leipzig, who was one of the last announcers to speak out against Hitler in early 1933.
“He was on the radio, the authorities came for him, and he had to bicycle out of Germany,” the producer said. “When he arrived in England, he was at first interned in a camp because he was a German citizen.” Heyman even made a 2008 film set during the Holocaust, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas;” see our interview with him.
Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the deranged Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange, also hails from an interfaith family with roots in Hitler’s Europe. “People think of me as so quintessentially English,” she told the Journal a few months before we spoke with Heyman last year. “But actually I look just like my mum—[dark-eyed] and very Jewish.”
Here is more from our story on Bonham Carter: (see the full text): While her paternal great-grandfather was H.H. Asquith, the British prime minister during World War I (and who earned an aristocratic title as a result), her maternal line hails from Jewish Vienna.
Mitzi Fould-Springer left Europe in the aftermath of the Dreyfus affair, a French treason trial prompted by anti-Semitism, the actress said.
Bonham Carter’s grandmother, Helene (a.k.a “Bubbles”), stood by her husband, Spanish diplomat Eduardo Propper de Callejon, as he illegally issued documents to help thousands of Jews flee Vichy France over three frantic days in 1940. “My mother, who was 5 at the time, said he at one point was stamping documents with both hands,” Bonham Carter said. “She thought it was the most important thing he ever did in his life.”
Yad Vashem honored Propper de Callejon—who was half-Jewish—as Righteous Among the Nations in March, as the actress was reprising her role as the mad witch Bellatrix Lestrange.
Bonham Carter describes Bellatrix as childlike, insane and hateful. “She’s a sadist,” the actress told Entertainment Weekly. “She’s very sick. She’s got problems. I think she’s been in prison a bit too long. But I suspect even before prison she had problems. She’s a racist, obsessed with blood purity. Like Adolf.”
Ironically, the most vicious of the Death Eaters, Lucius Malfoy, is played by the Jewish actor Jason Isaacs, who sports long, platinum blond hair for the role; Isaacs even appeared on the cover of the Jewish Journal in 2000, when he was all over the screen in the Revolutionary War epic, “The Patriot,” bludgeoning Mel Gibson in scenes of gruesome hand-to-hand combat. At the time, Isaacs said he had carefully considered whether he should publicly discuss his Judaism because he feared lingering British xenophobia might hurt his career.
On a lighter note, I asked Heyman whether the genial Isaacs had had to dye his hair blond to play Lucius. The producer laughed and replied that Isaacs wears a wig on set. “He wishes he had that much hair,” the producer said, with a laugh.
Here’s the profile of Isaacs I wrote back in 2000:
Once a ‘wimp,’ actor thrives on portraying villains
When Jason Isaacs auditioned for the Royal National Theatre’s production of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” he knew exactly what role he wanted. He insisted upon portraying the anxiety-ridden character of Louis, who is somewhat based on the life of the gay Jewish playwright.
The London producers raised eyebrows. They had a slightly larger role in mind for Isaacs, the rising British stage and screen actor. But the thespian was not interested.
“Look, I play all these tough guys and thugs and strong, complex characters,” he told the producers. “In real life, I am a cringing, neurotic Jewish mess. Can’t I for once play that onstage?”
Isaacs earned stellar reviews as Louis, but he remains best known, at least in the press, as an elegant brand of villain. He was Kurt Russell’s futuristic foil in “Soldier,” Dennis Quaid’s nemesis in “Dragonheart,” a sadistic ex-IRA terrorist in “Divorcing Jack” and a psychopathic soldier in the controversial BBC mini-series, “Civvies.”
Of late, he is all over the screen in the Revolutionary War epic, “The Patriot,” killing children in front of their parents, burning villagers alive in their churches and bludgeoning Mel Gibson in scenes of gruesome hand-to-hand combat.
During an interview, the actor, who is in his late 30s, was hardly villainous. He was witty, chatty and self-deprecating as he told stories illustrating how he is not a “tough guy” but a “total wimp.”
There was the time he was flying home from visiting his parents, who now live in Israel, when the soldier in the next seat recognized him as “that bloke from ‘Civvies.’ “
“He was horrified, however, when I cried all the way through the in-flight film, ‘Mr. Holland’s Opus,’ ” the actor reveals.
Then there was Isaacs’ audition for “The Patriot,” when the producers asked him, point blank, if he knew how to ride a horse. “I said, ‘Oh, Olympic standard!’ but I lied,” he admits. “I was terrified.”
“I’m a terrible coward; I’ve been hit all the time, but I’ve never hit anyone,” he says, his chatty tone turning serious. “So I think these extreme parts that I play offer some kind of therapy, some catharsis for me.
Maybe one of the reasons I do them well-ish is because I was always the bullied, never the bully.” The actor pauses, then laughs. “They are my revenge.”
Watching Isaacs in “The Patriot,” swashbuckling and dapper in his red uniform, his blue eyes glittering as he slashes his saber, it’s hard to believe he became an actor, in part, because of the residual fear of anti-Semitism he felt as a Jew in Britain.
The fear, he says, was handed down to him by his parents and by others in the closely-knit Jewish community of Liverpool, of which his Eastern European great-grandparents were founding members. The community was insular, Isaacs recalls, and young Jason attended a Jewish school and religious school twice a week.
Then the family moved to London, and the anti-Semitism Isaacs had learned about in theory became a reality. There were attacks on his local synagogue and, in the late 1970s, the National Front’s racist rhetoric spurred a rash of skinhead violence in his neighborhood.
Most of the time, however, Isaacs was low-key about being Jewish.
“I feel very vulnerable telling you this, because I’m an English actor and I don’t really want to see this in the English press, because it’s damaging,” he confides. “But there is the sense that Britain can be a very xenophobic country; it’s not just directed at Jews but at anybody who isn’t the perceived version of what ‘Englishness’ is.
While Isaacs’ parents reacted to the feelings of unwelcome by making aliyah in 1988, along with his three brothers (two subsequently returned), the actor responded in another manner.
When he entered Bristol University, he says, “There were lots of very upper and upper-middle-class British people with accents I had never heard before, and I felt very strange being a Jew from North London, completely out of sorts.”
After graduating from the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama in London, Isaacs began working in British television and, over the years, the roles kept coming.
Yet, he insists, he was shocked when he was actually hired after submitting a two-minute audition tape to “Patriot” director Roland Emmerich.
To prepare for his role, he immersed himself in research and learned that the real Tavington, actually a lieutenant colonel named Banastre Tarleton, was, like himself, the third of four sons from Liverpool.
Tarleton, known as “The Butcher” or “Bloody Ban” carried a map of the Carolinas with him, and after every victory he slightly enlarged the area he intended to claim as his property once the war was over. He also selected several wives he hoped to keep in the New World. Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin were receptive to Isaacs’ research and incorporated some of the information into his character.
Today, Isaacs’ Hollywood career appears to be kicking up a notch; recently he was in San Francisco to film “Sweet November,” in which he plays the drag-queen best friend of actress Charlize Theron.
Yet despite the steady work and the comfort level of being Jewish in Hollywood, Isaacs has no plans to move to Los Angeles. The environment is just too unstable, he suggests.
“When I was here doing ‘Armageddon,’ I had the key to the kingdom, but when ‘Soldier’ came out, I felt like I had professional and social leprosy,” he recalls. “And so I continue to live in London. I just need to look in people’s eyes who’ve known me for 20 years.”
Harry Potter and the “Half-Blood” Jews Read More »
Rembaum’s Unity, Sense in Hard Truths
Rembaum’s Unity
David Suissa’s column on Rabbi Joel Rembaum asked — and implicitly answered — a critical question about the Conservative movement and really all of the Jewish community (“Remabaum’s Unity,” July 3). Why, he wondered, if Conservative rabbis and other leaders are consistently kind, frum without being annoying, proudly inclusive, lovers of Israel, egalitarian, respectful and halachically learned, does the movement seem to be failing?
Perhaps the answer can be found in what Suissa did not say: he did not say that these leaders can connect people to God in their daily lives, that they can transform the mundane into the holy, or that they can draw on the deep wellsprings of Jewish tradition to bring transcendent meaning into our lives. As crucial as the qualities Suissa mentioned are, the other qualities form the core of religious experience.
A few years ago, my wife (who is not Jewish but observes many rituals) and I attended a Conservative Shabbat service. The congregants were kind, considerate and full of menschlikayt. But when my wife asked them, “how does prayer at this service bring you closer to God?” they were stumped, probably because they had never asked the question. It didn’t seem to be what prayer was about — but it needs to be.
My experience of Jewish leaders is the same as Suissa’s: they are unfailingly good people and I respect them deeply. But people need more from a spiritual experience. I have no idea how to give that to them, but our community needs to arrive at an answer.
Jonathan Zasloff, Professor, UCLA School of Law
Sense in Hard Truths
I usually pick up your weekly newspaper when I attend movies at the Laemmle Theatres. I am always pleased to read of the accomplishments of our unique ethnic minority.
I am one of the 22 percent of Jewish voters who did not vote for the president. I am not a looney, right-wing ideologue or even a true conservative. I did not trust him or some of the people around him, including some Jews, to see the extreme danger facing Israel.
Is it possible now to allow some measure of reasonableness to the fact that just maybe those old men at Commentary and Caroline B. Glick may be correct in their assessment of Mideast peace (“‘Hard Truths’ Just Political Convenience,” June 12)?
Mark Steinberg, Los Angeles
Getting ‘The Goldbergs’ Right
Susan Fishman Orlins says in The Journal that the documentarian Aviva Kempner, making a new film on Gertrude Berg, claims it wasn’t Lucille Ball who created the domestic sitcom, but Gertrude Berg with “The Goldbergs” (“Before Lucy and Oprah, There was Gertrude,” July 3).
First of all, in 1949, 30-minute shows like “The Goldbergs” were not called sitcoms; they were called “films made for television.” And the first Emmy, for the 1949 season, given in 1950, went to “The Life of Riley,” another domestic comedy. Orlins goes on to write how Berg won the first Emmy ever awarded in 1950 for best actress. But the one for best “film made for television” was won by the creator of “The Life of Riley,” Irving Brecher.
He was Jewish, too.
Henry Rosenfeld, co-author of Irving Brecher’s book “The Wicked Wit of the West”, Santa Monica
Wall of Honor
The Wall of honor going up on Ammunition Hill is a terrific project, but even broader than what was described (“New Wall in Jerusalem Honors Soldiers,” July 10).
The Wall of Honor at Ammunition Hill is a tribute to the heroism and courage of Jewish servicemen and women who, throughout history, have fought in defense of their countries far beyond their proportions to the general population. Individual plaques can be purchased to commemorate the military service of loved ones who served or presently serve in any country and at any time. All money raised will support the preservation and expansion of the battlegrounds and museum at Ammunition Hill, site of the pivotal 1967 battle that made possible the reunification of Jerusalem. The plaques are engraved in Hebrew and English, uniting all servicemen, no matter their country of service, to their Jewish heritage.
David Frank, president
Larry Russ, member Jewish National Fund, Los Angeles Zone
Parshat Pinchas
There are several errors in this article (“Acknowledging the Pinchas Within,” July 10). It was Pinchas, not Zimri, who responded to what could destroy the Israelite people. It was also Pinchas, who after conferring with Moshe about the pervading immoral situation, was told by Moshe, “Do what you think is right.” It was then that Pinchas took a spear, not Zimri, as stated in the article, and killed both Cosbi and Zimri. Pinchas is then rewarded by God for his act of zealotry by bestowing on him everlasting priesthood.
Mankind makes mistakes. God on the other hand does not make mistakes. Rabbi Geller refers to this parasha as a dangerous story. I beg to differ with her, as God Himself was pleased by that act which was proper and He ended the plague that prior befell the Jewish people. The Midianite people with help from Zimri were attributing to interrelations and intermarriage between Jews and gentiles against Jewish law. Rabbi Laura Geller, please note: The Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron was correct. He said that like Zimri, the Reform movement tries to bring non-Jews into the Jewish population. Furthermore, the Reform movement, by accepting patrilineal descent (that if only the father is Jewish, the person is considered Jewish), separates themselves from the other major streams of Judaism, the Conservative, Orthodox as well as in Israel.
Some years ago, I attended in Jerusalem a Reform rabbinic convention with the great founder and Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin of Steven S. Wise Temple, where a number of Reform rabbis related to me that in order to survive economically they have to fill their congregations with non-Jews. Is it not high time the Reform movement deliberate and decide to remove patrilineal descent from their bylaws, thereby joining the other ranks of Judaism for the sake of Jewish unity, so vital to the Jewish world at this crucial time.
Bernard Nichols, via e-mail
Parshat Pinchas
There are several errors in this article (“Acknowledging the Pinchas Within,” July 10). It was Pinchas, not Zimri, who responded to what could destroy the Israelite people. It was also Pinchas, who after conferring with Moshe about the pervading immoral situation, was told by Moshe, “Do what you think is right.” It was then that Pinchas took a spear, not Zimri, as stated in the article, and killed both Cosbi and Zimri. Pinchas is then rewarded by God for his act of zealotry by bestowing on him everlasting priesthood.
Mankind makes mistakes. God on the other hand does not make mistakes. Rabbi Geller refers to this parasha as a dangerous story. I beg to differ with her, as God Himself was pleased by that act which was proper and He ended the plague that prior befell the Jewish people. The Midianite people with help from Zimri were attributing to interrelations and intermarriage between Jews and gentiles against Jewish law. Rabbi Laura Geller, please note: The Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron was correct. He said that like Zimri, the Reform movement tries to bring non-Jews into the Jewish population. Furthermore, the Reform movement, by accepting patrilineal descent (that if only the father is Jewish, the person is considered Jewish), separates themselves from the other major streams of Judaism, the Conservative, Orthodox as well as in Israel.
Some years ago, I attended in Jerusalem a Reform rabbinic convention with the great founder and Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin of Steven S. Wise Temple, where a number of Reform rabbis related to me that in order to survive economically they have to fill their congregations with non-Jews. Is it not high time the Reform movement deliberate and decide to remove patrilineal descent from their bylaws, thereby joining the other ranks of Judaism for the sake of Jewish unity, so vital to the Jewish world at this crucial time.
Bernard Nichols, via e-mail
Acknowledging Israel Gets Lost In Translation
David Alpern, citing a recent speech by the Fatah/Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Salaam Fayyad, which called for “two states for two peoples,” says that we should “acknowledge when the other side takes actions, such as this speech, that are very much in good faith” (“Letters,” July 3).
The Zionist Organization of America agrees with this principle, but we strongly doubt that a speech by a PA official is an example of Palestinians taking “action” or displaying “good faith.” Only deeds, rather than words, can do that. In any case, the PA has been claiming for years in speeches (normally in English) that it accepts Israel. Unfortunately, PA officials say very different things in Arabic.
PA president Mahmoud Abbas told an Arab audience this April, “I say this clearly: I do not accept the Jewish State, call it what you will.” In March, senior Fatah official and former commander of Fatah forces in Gaza, Muhammad Dahlan, told PA TV, “We do not demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. On the contrary, we demand of the Hamas movement not to recognize Israel, because the Fatah movement does not recognize Israel even today.”
However, when the PA takes real action – like arresting terrorists, confiscating illegal weaponry and ending the incitement to hatred and murder within the PA media, mosques, schools and youth camps that feeds terrorism – we will be happy to join Mr. Alpern in acknowledging these facts.
Morton A. Klein, National President, Zionist Organization of America, New York
Questioning Palestinian Motives
Is there any evidence the Arabs in Judea/Samaria or Gaza confirming their willingness to live in peace with Israel?
Hamas, PLO and Fatah maintain charters requiring Israel’s destruction.
Hamas murders Fatah members precisely because their representatives speak with Israelis.
Hamas constantly says it will “never recognize” Israel.
Fatah demands pre-’67 land and East [holy] Jerusalem for an Arab state, and the return of “refugees” which will create an Arab majority.
Mahmoud Abbas flatly states he “does not accept Israel as a Jewish state.”
The most recent polls reflect almost 50 percent of Arabs in Gaza and Judea/Samaria agree with killing civilians as a tactic.
Not a single Arab group refuses to renounce violence.
Yet Israel is supposed to unilaterally turn over land, including their holiest sights. In return for what?
If the Arabs want something, they need to give something.
For starters — altar their charters, stop glorifying murder in mosques and on television, accept Israel as a Jewish state.
The region already has 22 Arab countries. It’s time they accept the Jews right to have one for themselves.
Dan Calic, San Ramon
Palestinian leadership says the main obstacle to peace and creation of a viable Palestinian state in Judea/Samaria [West Bank] is the construction of settlements and views Israeli presence as an “illegal occupation” of their land. Standard Muslim thinking has long been any land once occupied by them is viewed as forever theirs. This view if carried out extends far beyond tiny Judea/Samaria. Yet only the Jews get singled out as their objects of ire.
Also, I wonder how many people realize the overwhelming majority of those who do the actual construction of the settlements are Palestinian Arabs who are fine with the Jews living there and would be without income if the construction stopped. Should the PA and US government press for a construction halt, this may radicalize many of these Arabs against the PA and US since they would be viewed as responsible for taking their income away.
Dan Calic, San Ramon
Is it in the BEST interest of Israel for the Palestinians to have their own nation?
Is it better for Israel if the Palestinians have their nation in Gaza or the West Bank?
Is it in Israel’s BEST interest if the Palestinians get a nation in Gaza and the West Bank?
Is it good for Israel if the Palestinians have their capitol in East Jerusalem?
Will the Palestinians give up trying to kill Israelis if they get their own nation?
Are the Palestinians “occupied”? Where?
Are the Palestinians “oppressed”? Where?
Are the Palestinians going to give up “right of return” for the refugees?
What is a “Palestinian”?
Didn’t the Palestinians leave Israel in 1948 out of their own free will?
Is it true that the PA (PLO), Fatah, Hamas want all of Israel?
Is that their negotiating objective?
Is there going to be another intifada if the Palestinians do not get a state in 2009?
Does Obama want the Palestinians to have all of Israel?
What concessions are the Palestinians making to get a nation?
Why is Jimmy Carter so chummy with Hamas?
Do the Palestinians truly want their own nation?
Is it true that European citizens and leaders want Israel to cease to exist?
WHY?
Does Obama forcing the Israelis to give up land have anything to do with getting more oil from the Saudis?
If the Palestinians get a nation, will they give up all violence against Israel?
The Palestinians should tu mir a toiveh (do me a favor) move to Kuwait. Vos Gikher alts besser (the better, the faster) move to Kuwait.
Ron Abrams, Los Angeles
Thoughts on Parashat Chukat-Balak
Not unlike the gentile prophet Balaam who came to curse the Jewish people and God instead forced him to bless them, there is a similar such situation unfolding under our very noses here in Los Angeles (“Spare the Rod,” July 3). Namely the local Zionist Organization of America chapter has a new executive director, a Mormon in charge of a Jewish organization — strange in itself in the second most populous Jewish population city in the U.S. It appears that along the way this person has managed to fool many Jews, pretending to love Israel and be their friend.
However here like Balaam of old, “today’s Balaam” made a fatal mistake in showing his true intentions. Where the original Balaam out of frustration violently began to “strike the donkey,” this current executive director is attempting to strike out, curse and silence the voice of a Zionist Jew who is passionate about the security and well being of Medinat Israel. Even the great Moses erred “by hitting the rock,” he demonstrated that “the greatest Jew on Earth” that he could no longer lead the Jews into the Promised Land, as Rabbi Korobkin described in the article.
Similarly the aforementioned executive director demonstrated that he does not have the maturity and wisdom to lead a Jewish organization in good will with unity of purpose. Today’s precarious world situation where Israel and the Jewish people all over are under “constant pressure” makes it even more crucial for “Jewish unity.” This man who we entrusted for a so-called leader, by his unfair action and behavior has shown that he is self-centered and uncaring to be a good role model to be followed and respected. Therefore this man should be replaced as soon as possible in order to restore confidence and credibility in the good works of the local ZOA chapter. The author welcomes further inquiry into this awkward dilemma.
God bless America and Israel with peace and wellbeing.
Bernard Nichols, Via E-mail
Corrections
Maccabiah baseball player Jacob Fields is also a member of a Conservative synagogue (“SoCal Talent Dominates Baseball Picks,” July 10).
Milken Community High School is a beneficiary of the Milken Family Foundation (“Kriegsman Becomes 2009 Milken Scholar,” July 10).
Rembaum’s Unity, Sense in Hard Truths Read More »
Active Memory
Fifteen years ago this week, a bomb ripped into the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) building, a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding more than 250.
It was the deadliest attack on Jews outside Israel since World War II. But judging by the world’s inclination to forget the lessons of July 18, 1994, you’d never know it.
Many different groups were formed in response to the attack, but the one that has always moved me the most is called Memoria Activa, or Active Memory.
Started by the friends and families of those killed and run by two steadfast women, Adriana Reisfeld and Diana Malamud, the group has consistently focused on honoring the victims by pursuing justice.
That simple and obvious task has not been easy, as those familiar with the case will tell you.
Argentina is not just the land of rare beef, hot gauchos and intense Malbecs; it is also intensely complicated. Politics and hidden agendas lurk beneath every conversation. Buenos Aires has as many psychotherapists as New York City. Fittingly, then, the logo of Memoria Activa is an image of a maze with the slogan: “Always trapped in the same labyrinth. All our days are the 18th of July.”
A labyrinth symbolizes perfectly the torturous and unending course of justice since the bombing.
Argentine investigators wrecked the first and most crucial investigation into the AMIA bombing. A tribunal impeached the initial federal judge overseeing the case, Juan José Galeano, after a tape emerged showing him bribing a witness to implicate local police officers in the crime.
In October 2006, new prosecutors, Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martínez Burgos, uncovered evidence that the Iranian Special Affairs Committee had planned the attack at a meeting in the city of Mashad on Aug. 14, 1993, and funded its execution through Hezbollah operatives.
Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian agents operating in Buenos Aires and Foz do Iguaçu region — the triple border area between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina — transmitted money, recruited the suicide bomber, a Lebanese citizen, and gathered materials for the bombing.
Some skeptics, like Gareth Porter, an American historian and investigative journalist writing in The Nation, challenged Nisman’s conclusion, saying the Bush administration had drummed up the Iranian guilt on weak evidence. Nevertheless, Nisman’s 90-page detailed report (read it at jewishjournal.com) provided enough evidence to convince Interpol to issue arrest warrants for six of nine suspects, a fact Porter brushes off a bit too easily.
“No one doubts Iranian involvement in the least,” said Dina Siegel Vann, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Latino and Latin American Institute in Washington, D.C.
At the same time, Vann said, no sane person expects Iran to extradite the suspects.
Memoria Activa’s focus, instead, is on the cover-up undertaken by Argentine officials. Then-President Carlos Menem, now a senator, has yet to give testimony under oath, though many suspect his link to Syria — his family is from there — is worth investigating.
“We still ignore how the explosives were brought into the country,” journalist and Jewish community activist Diego Melamed e-mailed me. “Where the truck bomb was put together, who was the driver, how the driver escaped and who protected him from the security forces.”
Melamed said the bombing has had a deep but contradictory impact on his community — a pervasive sense of insecurity on the one hand, and on the other a growth in the profile of Jewish communal institutions among Argentines. Casual anti-Semitism is no longer politically correct, especially among the younger generation.
Fifteen years after the attack, “Jewish leaders have a more influential role in Argentine life,” Melamed wrote, “and still nobody is paying for the crime.”
Memoria Activa has held itself above the politics and intrigue. Most movingly, for the past 10 years its members have stood vigil every Monday outside the tribunal investigating the attack, each time reading aloud the names of all the victims.
For those of us outside Argentina, what should concern us, as much as the call for justice, is vigilance. It is astonishing how few of the lessons of July 18, 1994, the world seems to have taken to heart.
Since 1994, the Iranian presence in South America has only grown. One security analyst told me that Iranians flying into and out of Caracas, Venezuela, on the packed weekly flight often leave with citizenship papers courtesy of Venezeula’s sympathetic regime. Hezbollah operatives continue to operate freely in the triangle of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.
“The AMIA bombing set the stage for 9/11,” Vann said. “People didn’t take it seriously. But if the Iranian presence in Argentina is illustrative of what can happen, then it is of great concern. Fifteen years later, no one seems to care.”