NEARLY 63 years after the United Nations recognized the right of the Jewish people to independence in their homeland — and more than 62 years since Israel’s creation — the Palestinians are still denying the Jewish nature of the state. “Israel can name itself whatever it wants,” said the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, while, according to the newspaper Haaretz, his chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said that the Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as the Jewish state. Back in 1948, opposition to the legitimacy of a Jewish state ignited a war. Today it threatens peace.
Mr. Abbas and Mr. Erekat were responding to the call by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, enabling his government to consider extending the moratorium on West Bank construction. “Such a step by the Palestinian Authority would be a confidence-building measure,” Mr. Netanyahu explained, noting that Israel was not demanding recognition as a prerequisite for direct talks. It would “open a new horizon of hope as well as trust among broad parts of the Israeli public.”
Al Manar television reported on Thursday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had met with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah at Iran’s embassy in Beirut prior to the Iranian leader’s departure from Lebanon.
According to the report, the two discussed a range of issues, and at the culmination of the meeting Nasrallah gave Ahmadinejad a gun, which he claimed had been taken from Israeli soldiers during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
Nasrallah seldom emerges from his bunker, where he has been staying since the fighting between his Iranian-backed organization and the Israel Defense Forces in southern Lebanon in 2006.
Just tuning into Bill O’Reilly’s appearance on “The View” today. It appears that a show I can’t stand, filled with hosts I can’t bear, has become even more unwatchable.
This set the talking heads in motion, and Keith Olbermann took the chance tonight to call O’Reilly a “bigot.” (Where have I heard that before?) I don’t agree, and for the same reasons that Mediate points out. Take a look:
The source of the consternation on The View was O’Reilly saying, “Muslims killed us on 9/11″ in voicing his opposition to the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. Is that enough to reasonably call him a “bigot and Islamophobe”? Of course not. As we said before, unless you’re a truther, the statement “Muslims killed us on 9/11″ is literally technically true at a basic, and yes, dangerously oversimplified level.
O’Reilly’s sentence lacked nuance, but it wasn’t bigoted, nor did it prove Islamophobia. Behar walked out precisely because of such blanket statements – she thought O’Reilly was making one himself, but at least she didn’t level such a serious accusation as personal bigotry at him. And in doing so, Olbermann made himself more worthy of a “Worst Persons” spot than the man he gave that “Worse” title to tonight. Video of the segment below.
Spot on. It was Muslim extremists who killed Americans on 9/11, and usually a more general category—Muslims—is unfair and dangerous. It may not be Islamophobic, but it certainly can reinforce Islamophobia.
I have only done this once before and really do not plan on doing it that often, but I wanted to make note of two events that took place during the baseball playoffs. Often we see our athletes act in ways we would never wish for our children. We hear about drugs, greed, infidelity, and sometimes even worse. And just as we note the bad decisions our heroes make, we need to applaud the great ones.
The first took place immediately after the San Francisco Giants defeated, for the last time, Bobby Cox and the Atlanta Braves. Cox has been the manager of the Braves for as long as I can remember. In a game where teams go through managers every two years and teams even more frequently, Cox was a mainstay in Atlanta and in baseball. Appropriately so, the Giants (and Braves) gave Cox a standing ovation after the game. Recognizing one the baseball’s all time great managers. In Judaism we call that Kavod HaRav (respect for the Rabbi). The gesture, especially from the opposing team in a moment that was theirs to celebrate, was a great one. The Giants are a class act. Read more here http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/story/14116582/giants-give-cox-proper-send-off-no-really.
The second took place right after Ian Kinsler (Jewish) and the Texas Rangers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays to clinch a second round match up against the Yankees. To is customary for the players, managers, and others in the organization to celebrate advancement in the playoffs by spraying beer and champagne on each other. Players get drenched in the suds and often wear goggles while going nuts. It is well documented that star outfielder, possible AL MVP, Josh Hamilton has had a battle with alcohol and drugs. Hamilton made an impressive decision to sit out the festivities that involved alcohol. But his teammates expressed his importance to the team by surprising him with bottles of ginger ale. Hamilton in fact got to join the party. Read more here http://bleacherreport.com/articles/489880-texas-rangers-popping-pop-instead-of-champagne-for-josh-hamilton. The respect his fellow teammates and the organization had for Hamilton and his situation.
As Jews, we should really take note of such wonderful displays of respect. We should remember that when we treat our family, neighbors, and teachers.
And Let Us Say…Amen.
-Jeremy Fine
Check out more at www.TheGreatRabbino.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged rhetorical jabs as Ahmadinejad’s Lebanon tour came within shouting distance of Israel’s border.
“The entire world should know that the Zionists will disappear,” Ahmadinejad said Thursday in the town of Bint Jbeil, a town within two miles of Israel, in a speech that was audible to Israelis along the northern border. “Today the Zionist occupiers have no choice but to surrender to reality and return to their homes and countries of origin.”
Ahmadinejad, whose government is the principal backer of Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist group, has repeatedly expressed his desire to see Israel disappear.
Netanyahu chose to respond in the hall in Tel Aviv where David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, declared independence in 1948.
“We heard today the cursing and the language of contempt from the Lebanon border,” Netanyahu said, Ha’aretz reported.“We will continue to build our country and we will know very well how to defend it.”
It’s an excellent article on Topeka’s tense relationship with its most-reviled community members. Here’s a sampling:
Fred W. Phelps, whose operation is at the center of the case before the highest court now, arrived here a half-century ago to work as a preacher for a local Baptist church. Now a self-described prophet of God’s wrath, Mr. Phelps has solicited outrage with his venomous protesting at military funerals all over the country — including the burial of a young Marine in Maryland that prompted the case before the Supreme Court — as well as burning the Koran and enlisting his grandchildren to stomp on the American flag.
Mr. Phelps is regarded here as the ultimate example of an irritating local gadfly. But he and his sprawling family, which make up nearly all of Westboro Baptist Church, have been at the heart of decades of local debate about the proper limits of the First Amendment when speech is meant to be as purposefully inflammatory as it is here.
Even now, as they have crisscrossed the country seeking to provoke media attention, the Phelpses remain a fixture at public parks, government buildings, other churches and graveyards here carrying homemade signs intended to communicate — with their signature subtlety — the view that the acceptance of homosexuality has doomed America.
“They believe free speech tops everything,” said Mayor William W. Bunten, sitting at his desk in City Hall last week. “We do with some exceptions, and one of them would be taking signs and standing outside a funeral home and associating someone’s death with God’s hate for homosexuality. I believe it should be banned. I see it as bullying.”
Sulzberger goes on to quote the governor saying he thinks Phelps and his flock’s speech should be, at least at times, muzzled. And I guess there have been some efforts to get them to shut up or get out of town—obviously, to no avail.
Knight jumped in before his speech officially started – heck, before lunch was even served – after the Rangers’ series win over Tampa Bay was mentioned in the invocation.
“I think Cliff Lee had a hell of a lot more to do with it than the Almighty,” Knight said, after grabbing the microphone at the podium unexpectedly. “If in fact the Almighty was involved in the game, what he ended up doing was screwing the other team. And I don’t think he works that way.
“You’ve got to get up there and throw the ball over the plate and swing at good pitches. You know, He doesn’t give a damn about that. Let him help the Republicans.”
Though my in-laws are both IU grads and Bob Knight can always be counted on for a comical blow-up, I’m not too found of the guy. He has been a total homer as an ESPN “analyst,” and I really despise the lack of credit he gives UCLA basketball.
But I couldn’t agree with this statement, via the Dallas Morning News’ sports blog, more. Unless, of course, the Dodgers were still in the race for the pennant.
Palestinian officials said Israel’s announcement of construction of 240 new units in eastern Jerusalem was a further blow to renewed peace talks.
Israel’s Housing Ministry announced Friday that among 3,500 tenders throughout Israel, 240 were approved for units in Ramot and Pisgat Ze’ev, in northeastern Jerusalem, Haaretz reported.
“The Netanyahu government is determined to thwart any chance of resuming direct negotiations,” Sa’eb Erekat, the top Palestinian negotiator said in response.
The announcement was the first major building start in eastern Jerusalem since an announcement in March of plans for 1,600 units during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden. That announcement and its timing precipitated months of tensions between the Netanyahu and Obama administrations.
Israel has said it will not freeze building anywhere in Jerusalem, which Israel considers sovereign territory.
“Lila,” a young Jewish woman in Los Angeles, has been involved in a professional or volunteer capacity with a number of Jewish organizations, including Yiddishkayt Los Angeles (a culture group), IKAR (a new spiritual community), and Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA, a social justice group). “Zev,” a young Jewish man in Los Angeles, is a lay leader at AIPAC (an Israel lobbying group) and Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF, a philanthropic group) and has attended events of the Jewish Federation and Guardians of the Jewish Home for the Aging. Although both Lila and Zev are active Jewish leaders in Los Angeles with extensive social circles, they have never met.
Why do American Jews divide themselves not just by ethnicity and denomination, but also as “mainstream” and “innovative”? In the past year and a half I conducted research to find out. My findings may be of interest to anyone with a stake in the Jewish community.
Leaders of organizations in the two spheres differ in a number of ways. First, Zev and other leaders of establishment groups tend to have a mainstream orientation and be politically centrist or right wing. Many, especially Orthodox Jews and children of immigrants, feel a sense of responsibility toward Jews and take a “survivalist” or “protective” approach to Jewish issues, meaning they are concerned about the survival of the Jewish people. One Federation and AIPAC leader said he is kept up at night worrying about the security of Israel and “whether or not my grandkids will be Jewish.” In contrast, Lila and other leaders of new groups like PJA, Reboot, and JDub Records tend to have an unconventional orientation, be left wing politically, have ambivalent views about Israel, reject the taboo against intermarriage, and feel responsibility toward the most needy (regardless of whether they are Jews). A leader of PJA feels that the most pressing issue facing American Jews is public school education and finds the “conservative narrative of ‘continuity’…both alienating and offensive.” In their charitable giving, several non-establishment leaders contribute mostly to non-Jewish organizations or Jewish organizations that benefit mostly non-Jews, like American Jewish World Service. These conclusions were not surprising, given the different goals of establishment and non-establishment organizations.
A finding I did not expect was that leaders in the two spheres differ in occupation and class. Most of the lay leaders at establishment organizations are in for-profit fields like law, business, and finance, and most of the lay leaders at non-establishment organizations are public interest lawyers, educators, artists, and professionals at nonprofit organizations. For example, Zev is an entrepreneur and small business owner, and Lila has worked for a number of arts and Jewish nonprofits. How can this occupational split be explained? First, the primary mandate of several establishment organizations, including Federation, FIDF, and Guardians, is to raise and distribute funds, and they do this partly by encouraging participants with great financial capacity to take on leadership roles. In non-establishment organizations, fundraising is important but generally secondary to their activism and community building.
Another explanation for the occupational split is that Jewish communal involvements are connected to social networks (face-to-face, not just online). People spend time with their colleagues in and out of the workplace, and they make decisions about which events to attend and boards to join partly based on what their colleagues are doing. Individuals’ Jewish communal involvements help them strengthen their social and professional ties. Realtors, mortgage brokers, and real estate lawyers rely on each other to connect them to clients. Entertainment financiers, producers, and agents succeed when they know and are known by many people in their field. It is no secret that the Federation system taps into the professional need to network – and no surprise that the three most prominent occupation-based divisions in the Los Angeles Federation are Legal, Entertainment, and Real Estate and Construction. People meet each other at the events, and their stature in their field grows as they take on Federation leadership roles and make large publicly acknowledged gifts. In fact, a young man I met at a Federation dinner told me that he and his friends were there for the networking: “Older people don’t need the networking – they do it to be good. When young people do it to be good, that’s when the deals come.”
It is not only establishment leaders who benefit from occupation-based networking. Several young leaders in the nonprofit sector told me they got jobs or job-related skills and contacts through their volunteer involvements in PJA, IKAR, Reboot, Jewish Funds for Justice Selah fellowship, and Yiddishkayt L.A. Some of these individuals transitioned from lay leaders to professional leaders at a Jewish organization, and some advanced at other nonprofits. In short, Jews get involved with particular Jewish organizations partly because of their occupation, and their participation in those organizations helps them advance in pursuit of their professional goals.
Related to the occupational split, I found that establishment organizations attract Jews who are part of or striving toward the “upper class.” Leaders of FIDF and the Guardians described their target groups as “either very successful in business or very upwardly mobile” and “very Hillcrest, very Brentwood Country Club” (prestigious and heavily Jewish country clubs in West Los Angeles). Establishment organizations plan events with such a crowd in mind, finding a “Malibu mansion,” “private Bel Air residence,” or “trendy club” for their cocktail parties and summer soirées. In contrast, I rarely heard about up-scale events from non-establishment organizations. When their leaders describe their programs, words like “edgy” and “provocative” come up more than “sophisticated” and “glamorous.”
These differences were on display at the 2009 annual dinners of two groups: the Progressive Jewish Alliance (“PJA 10 Live: Advocacy for a New Era”) and the Federation’s Real Estate and Construction Division (“Gala of the Legends”). At the PJA event, guests munched on chips and dips next to a display of fair-trade basketballs and sneakers and were entertained by a hip hop dance troupe and a Korean drumming ensemble. Slide shows highlighted many under-40 Jews (and some non-Jews) who are involved in PJA. The tribute booklet was 91 pages and had an edgy cover with graffiti-like art. Speeches focused on justice and equality for all. And the most prominent cars in the parking lot were Priuses, several with Obama bumper stickers.
At the Federation event, tuxedoed servers circulated plates of beef skewers with peanut sauce while guests sipped cocktails and watched slideshows of Federation beneficiary organizations. A cantorial soloist sang the American and Israeli national anthems, and video presentations honored four octogenarian Federation mega-donors / real estate giants. The tribute book featured 224 glossy pages color-coded by amount of donation. Speeches focused on making donations, helping Jews in need, and networking with other real estate professionals. And the most prominent cars at the valet were Lexuses, BMWs, and Audis.
A takeaway message of my research is that establishment and non-establishment organizations in Los Angeles (and elsewhere) are attracting diverse crowds and filling important niches. The aesthetic differences in the groups’ events are important for furthering their missions – and for building community among a diverse population of Jews in Los Angeles.
Even though there are deep-seated differences between establishment and non-establishment groups and their leaders, there is also a good deal of overlap. Organizations like American Jewish Committee, JConnect, 30 Years After, Federation’s New Leaders Project, and Jumpstart serve as bridges between the spheres. Groups in the two spheres sometimes co-sponsor events, and some leaders and participants are involved in both spheres. An example is “Isaac,” a young Iranian-American lawyer involved with several organizations, including Federation, AIPAC, 30 Years After, and PJA. Isaac and a few others are encouraging interaction between the spheres, and partly because of them, organizations are beginning to collaborate and learn from each other’s experience. Who knows: Maybe someday Lila and Zev will meet.
Dr. Sarah Bunin Benor, Associate Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, has published and lectured widely on sociolinguistics, American Jewish language, and newly Orthodox Jews. Research for this article was conducted under the auspices of the Avi Chai Foundation’s project on young Jewish leaders directed by Jack Wertheimer.
