fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

January 12, 2011

What’s the Big Idea?

Leave a Comment / Community /

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles is convinced that someone out there has an idea that can transform Jewish life, and it is willing to pay for it.

This week, Federation launched “The Next Big Jewish Idea,” part of its centennial celebration for 2011.

“There have been a lot of great Jewish ideas that have transformed Jewish life. There has been everything from the blue-and-white tzedakah box to Hadassah to Birthright Israel, and these have all become firmly entrenched in our Jewish life,” said Scott Minkow, Federation’s vice president of partnerships and innovation. “So our thinking is the next idea is out there. What is next?”

Individuals 13 and older or organizations can submit ideas that fall into one of the Federation’s three priority areas — ensuring the Jewish future, serving Jews in need or engaging the wider community. Winning ideas will have the potential for broad and lasting impact.

Ideas can be submitted now through March 31 at What’s the Big Idea? Read More »

Capturing Life: The Tree in Photographs

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /

On car trips as a young girl, Francoise Reynaud traveled through the French countryside, captivated whenever she saw a single tree alone at the side of the road or in the middle of a field. 

“Its presence was so strong,” recalled Reynaud, curator of photographs at the Musée Carnavalet in Paris and a co-curator of “In Focus: The Tree,” opening Feb. 8 at the Getty Museum. “I always wondered, ‘What is this fellow thinking, seeing where he is?’ ”

“Cultures all around the world view the relationship between human and tree as intimate,” Reynaud notes in her new book celebrating trees, which accompanies the exhibition and appears just as Jews are preparing to celebrate the holiday of Tu B’Shevat, the New Year for Trees, on Jan. 20. For Jews, trees represent life; for some ancient civilizations, trees symbolized the origins of the cosmos.

Among the approximately 40 photographs is Andrew Young’s majestic 1879 image “Arbor Vitae” (Latin for “Tree of Life”), a dramatic Romantic portrait in which deep shade contrasts with bright light.

In Robert Adams’ “Near Heber City, Utah, 1978,” the branches of a flowering tree burst through a fence, overflowing with blossoms that appear to explode through the picture frame, “as if you cannot contain life,” said the exhibition’s co-curator, Anne Lyden, the Getty’s associate curator of photographs.

Brett Weston, “Sierra Pond,” circa 1950. © The Brett Weston Archive. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Other artists represent trees “in their vulnerability, subject to being cut down,” Reynaud said in a phone interview from Paris. Diane Arbus’ “Xmas Tree in a Living Room in Levittown, Long Island” is a tinsled pine whose top has been shorn in order to squeeze it into a spare early-1960s living room.     

The gnarled trunk in Roi Partridge’s “Mother Nature” approximates a female torso. Two pieces by the late Czech photographer Josef Sudek, who lost an arm in World War I and whose work became darker in tone after the Nazi invasion, are quasi-self-portraits — in particular a stunted, broken tree in “Vanished Statues: A Walk in Mionsi Forest,” with its truncated limbs, a stand-in for the artist himself.

“In Focus: The Tree,” Feb. 8 through July 3 at the Getty Center.

Capturing Life: The Tree in Photographs Read More »

The Billboard Debate on the Middle East

Leave a Comment / Community /

“Be on our side,” the clutter-free advertisement reads. “We are the side of peace and justice.” It shows two men smiling. One is Palestinian, the other is Israeli, and each is accompanied by a smiling young girl. The ad, which first appeared in three Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) stations on Dec. 5, is not in the least bit edgy — until you get to the tag line: “End U.S. military aid to Israel.”

Paid for by Northern California Friends of Sabeel, American Muslims for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, the ads made an earlier run on the platforms of the Chicago Transit Authority in October 2010, and they represent a new, cuddlier look for a familiar message.

“Visually, it felt like ads that you see for children’s hospitals,” Matthew G. Jarvis, assistant professor of political science at California State University, Fullerton, wrote in an e-mail after seeing the ad. Jarvis, who studies political behavior and public opinion, felt that the jump from families, peace and justice to the end of U.S. military aid to Israel was too abrupt. “It’s happy, then wrenching,” he wrote.

“It’s a deceptive advertisement,” Roz Rothstein, CEO of the Israel education and advocacy organization StandWithUs, said of the BART ads, which recently came down at the end of their four-week run. “The main impediment to peace is hate training.”

That’s the message that StandWithUs is trying to get across in its own counter-advertisement, which will hang in six BART stations around the Bay Area, including the three stations where the “Be on our side” advertisements ran.

The StandWithUs ad, which is set to start its four-week run Jan. 17, pairs a photo of hate-filled eyes framed by a red-and-white keffiyeh with a second image showing young boys in soccer uniforms running through a green field, laughing. “Stop Palestinian Terrorism,” the text reads, “Teach Peace.”

“The ad’s message is that all people of good will should urge the Palestinians to begin teaching peace to their children,” a spokesperson for StandWithUs explained in an e-mail.

Advertisements urging action against Israel aren’t new. They have been popping up in U.S. cities with increasing frequency of late — and they don’t usually include smiling Israelis alongside smiling Palestinians.

“End Israel’s Occupation of Palestine,” reads the mostly black billboard that went up last month on the north side of Milwaukee, Wis., courtesy of Friends of Palestine. In 2007, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation put up advertisements in the Washington, D.C., Metro featuring an image of a Palestinian child facing a large Israeli tank. At the time, StandWithUs responded with its own advertisements — posted right beside the anti-occupation ads — telling its side of the story. One with an image of Palestinian preteens holding automatic weapons read, “Teaching Children to Hate Will Never Lead to Peace.”

Mike Harris, spokesperson for the Bay Area chapter of StandWithUs, said that even if the tone of most “Be on our side” ads was different, the message was the same. “These are very misleading ads,” Harris said of the San Francisco campaign. “They’re not like the ones in Seattle that were extremely inflammatory. They look really nice, but the message that they’re promoting is just as anti-Israel as the Seattle ones were.”

Counter-ads from StandWithUs urge Palestinians to teach peace and will run in BART stations.

Harris was referring to an advertisement that was supposed to appear in late December on the sides of public buses in Seattle, Wash. Paid for by the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, it featured a picture of a building in Gaza reduced to rubble as part of Operation Cast Lead. The text, in all-capital letters, read: “Israeli War Crimes: Your Tax Dollars at Work.”

The Seattle bus advertisement was made public in late December, just days before its run was to begin. Jewish community groups — including the local chapter of StandWithUs — argued that running the ad could cause anti-Jewish violence along the lines of the shooting that took place at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle in 2006. King County Metro Transit decided not to allow the ads to appear, due to fears that its content might either cause a disruption to the bus service or incite anti-Jewish violence, the Seattle Times reported. The transit agency has temporarily ceased accepting noncommercial advertising.

“That’s fundamentally wrongheaded,” professor Barbie Zelizer of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania said of the decision to limit what can and cannot be said in an ad on the side of a bus. “To cut down the opinions, to cut down the display out of fear — I don’t think that’s the right way to go,” Zelizer said. “It’s not as if these opinions are not out there. They’re not cut out from the Internet. They’re not cut out from letters to the editor or online news articles. Why would we cut them out of advertisements?”

The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign is also exploring its legal options with the help of the Washington Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Rod Such, a spokesperson for the group, said.

He said his group was familiar with the “Be on our side” advertisements, but that they wanted to send a more unambiguous message. “We wanted to target Israeli war crimes,” Such said of the rejected advertisement, “and we feel that Israeli collective punishment is a war crime.”

BART chief spokesman Linton Johnson said that his agency had reviewed both the “Be on our side” and the StandWithUs advertisements and found that both fell within BART’s policy. “They did raise red flags,” Johnson said. “We reviewed them, they fell within our policies, and so we were required to accept them.”

So far, the advertisements have inspired media coverage, been met with complaints from members of local communities and have been rejected by one transit agency in a move that could lead to a constitutional fight. What’s unclear is whether any of these necessarily brief advertisements — no matter which side of this complicated story they try to tell — have convinced anyone (or will do so in the future) to change his opinion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rothstein of StandWithUs couldn’t say whether more people had visited the group’s Web site as a result of their advertising campaigns. “We saw an uptick in appreciation from people,” Rothstein said of the reactions to the 2007 counter-campaign in Washington, D.C. “We got notes from people.”

Jarvis, who called himself a “self-aware observer,” didn’t think that either of the ads appearing in San Francisco would cause people to reconsider their positions on this issue. “Those committed to one side or the other aren’t going to be swayed,” Jarvis wrote in an e-mail, “and chances are those in the middle aren’t going to be moved either.” l

The Billboard Debate on the Middle East Read More »

Letters to the Editor: Frank Gehry, Marty Kaplan, Dennis Prager, Solvable Problems

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor /

Setting Record Straight on AFHU, Gehry

David Eisner’s opinion piece (“Caveat Conlator: Funder Beware,” Jan. 7) criticizing the American Friends of the Hebrew University (AFHU) for honoring Frank Gehry was misleading and inaccurate. Let’s set the record straight. AFHU and the Hebrew University are on record opposing boycotts directed at the State of Israel.

AFHU, since its founding 88 years ago, has been central to the development of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which is one of the foundations of the State of Israel. We honored Frank Gehry, who is one of the world’s most acclaimed architects. The dinner in his honor, however, took place Jan. 16, 2010, nine months before Mr. Gehry announced he would join the boycott of the city of Ariel’s new cultural center. The dinner in part was in recognition of his contributions for his magnificent design for the proposed Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem. His involvement with that project is hardly an indication of anti-Israel bias. Mr. Gehry’s subsequent decision to join the boycott is entirely an expression of his own opinion; an opinion he is entitled to hold.

Responsible journalism, though, requires responsible fact checking. Mr. Gehry’s comments about the City of Ariel’s cultural center took place long after our dinner. No organization should be held accountable for future remarks made by supporters or honorees which may be counter to that organization’s stated position. The criticism is unfair and unwarranted.

Mark S. Vidergauz
President, AFHU Western Region
Matthew R. Ross
Executive Director, AFHU
Western Region American Friends of the Hebrew University

Time for Speaking Plainly

David Suissa is correct — Israel should indeed stop shadow-boxing and start telling the world plainly that there will be no peace in the near future because Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) doesn’t want it (“Can We Ever Admit Failure?” Dec. 15).

This is exactly the reason the PA declares a willingness to make peace, but only if there is the so-called “right of return” and an Israeli withdrawal to the perilous 1949 armistice lines — so Israel can be swamped demographically with Arab refugees of the 1948-49 war and their millions of descendants and also dismembered territorially.

It is time to drop the talk of Abbas being a peace partner. There should be no rewards or concession to Abbas until and unless the PA fulfills its 17-year-old commitments to arrest terrorists, outlaw terrorist groups, and end the incitement to hatred and murder that suffuses the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps.

Steven M. Goldberg
Vice Chairman, Board of Directors
Zionist Organization of America
New York

Aid for the Crescent City

I was intrigued by Rob Eshman’s list of “solvable problems” for 2011 (Jan. 7), in which he included “religious extremism.” Which group of religious extremists is he talking about? Militant Methodists, angry Amish, suicidal Shakers, crazy Chasidim, howling Hindus or perhaps some other group?  And how does he propose to solve this problem?

Chaim Sisman
Los Angeles

Regarding Rob Eshman’s article on New Orleans’ continuing problems from Katrina (“Solvable Problems,” Jan. 7), he states that our government “has spent about $1 trillion to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan since 2005 – that’s not hyperbole, a trillion dollars …” In fact, he is far off. We have not spent a tenth of that on rebuilding. I Googled it and could find nothing backing up Eshman’s figures. Instead, site after site, including MSNBC, USA Today and numerous others put the total at more like $83 billion, and even the $83 billion dates from 2003, not 2005. Furthermore, these articles state their source (Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction), which Eshman did not. Eshman’s point (that we should be helping New Orleans) could have, and should have, been made without fairy tale facts.

Judy Quinn
Los Angeles

Rob Eshman responds: The numbers come from costofwar.org, the Congressional Accounting Office and Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Essays Enlighten

I would like to thank you for running the continuing feature “Jewry’s Role in Human Affairs” and to thank the Commission for the Dissemination of Jewish History for providing these short essays about Jewish contributions to humanity, which are always very interesting.

Judith Goldish
Irvine

Call Senators to the Carpet

Marty Kaplan’s column “The Senators Who Dissed Baby Jesus” (Dec. 24) expressed the frustration, anger and disappointment that I feel toward our current crop of Republican “politicians” with respect to their hypocrisy, demagoguery, obstructionism and, often, stupidity.

Please continue exposing their antics, although from the results of the last election, I’m not sure it will accomplish anything. I believe we live in two Americas, i.e., politically, religiously, socially and intellectually. There’s the coastal states (termed blue), who live in the 21st century, and the heart of America (termed red), who still yearn for the good old 19th century and to whom the Republicans pander.

Gilbert H. Skopp
Calabasas

 

Prager on Torah

This should be quite a year. Dennis Prager is going to tell us in his columns throughout the year why, as he claims, the Torah is God-given and is the most important and influential book ever written. Will Mr. Prager be a strict constructionist of the Torah or will he leave out parts that contradict the moral lessons he claims the Torah teaches us?

For instance in his Jan. 5 column he calls the God of Torah “the God of morality.” Will Mr. Prager instruct us in Leviticus 26.14-39 wherein God says all the horrible things he’ll do to us if we don’t do all his commandments? Some of these things he will do are send pestilence among us, send the beast of the field among us to rob us of our children and smite us. This doesn’t seem like a very moral God to me. On the other hand, I’ll think twice before eating another shrimp. Prager says we fool ourselves and do not improve the world if we think we can do it consistently and well without an instruction manual, i.e. the Torah.

Dennis Prager, who is a conservative talk-show host, ends his column with these words: “And the greatest instruction manual is the Torah. I intend to show why that is so.” And I intend to end this letter with these words. What chutzpah!

Leon M. Salter
Los Angeles

What Makes a Jew?

Once again we find that “Jewish identity” is certainly not predicated on the practice of Judaism. Joe Straus, Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, is being attacked because he is not “a true Christian conservative.” He may have been born Jewish but obviously is not perpetuating the Jewish faith, as his wife and children are Christian.

One-eighth Jewish blood has been enough to confer Jewish roots. A case in point was former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Although brought up in a Christian household, and always an observant Anglican, he was called an “abominable Jew” by his political enemies.

Martin J. Weisman
Westlake Village

Letters to the Editor: Frank Gehry, Marty Kaplan, Dennis Prager, Solvable Problems Read More »

Dear Britain: Rein in Fox News

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

I know many Jews who, in European terminology, would be classified as “center left.” They believe that the domestic and foreign policies of the Republican Party bode poorly for America. They abhor Sarah Palin and fear the Tea Party and what they consider to be its rather simplistic worldview. Irrespective of where they live, their daily paper is The New York Times.

They depend on National Public Radio (NPR) and television’s Public Broadcasting System. Some even listen to the BBC. One news source that they rigorously avoid is Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. These centre-left Jews find Fox shrill and, contrary to its claim, unbalanced in both its news and editorial coverage.

There is, though, one situation which causes these rules to be cast to the wind: a crisis in Israel. During the flotilla affair, one of these aforementioned Jews explained why she was watching Fox: “It’s the only place where I can hear analysts who are not already convinced that Israel is wrong.” They believe that NPR, while not as bad as the BBC, rarely seems to be able to find anything affirmative about Israel or derogatory about the Palestinians.

During the Gaza war, I heard someone who has never voted for a Republican reflect that Fox News was the only channel that did not consider Hamas or Hezbollah unbiased and trustworthy sources.

In recent months, however, Jewish sensitivities have been irritated by both Fox News’ reigning talk-show star, Glenn Beck, and Roger Ailes, president of Fox News. Beck, an “infotainer,” is a station heavyweight, averaging more than 2 million nightly viewers and bringing more than $32 million annually into the Murdoch coffers.

Beck regularly professes his deep love for Israel and has a history of using Holocaust analogies to attack those with whom he disagrees — anyone to the left of him. He accuses his opponents of laying the groundwork for a fascist state. Last summer, Jewish Funds for Justice, a progressive group, criticized Beck’s opposition to the campaign for social justice. The head of the organization, Simon Greer, argued that “to put God first is to put humankind first, and to put humankind first is to put the common good first.” Beck responded that this worldview “leads to death camps. A Jew, of all people, should know that. This is exactly the kind of talk that led to the death camps in Germany. Put humankind and the common good first.”

But this was surpassed by Beck a few months later, when he ran a three-part series on George Soros, titled “The Puppet Master.” Complete with images of demonic-looking Jewish stars, Beck attacked Soros for supposedly trying to take over the world. Soros, Beck claimed, “makes predictions, and his loyal followers make sure they come true.” Soros’ goal, Beck charged, was a “one-world government, the end of America’s status as the prevailing world power.” He excoriated Soros’ efforts to change the governmental systems in Hungary, Georgia, Czechoslovakia and Ukraine, failing to point out that, in each country, Soros was trying to help democratic government gain a foothold.

Many people found Beck’s reference to Soros’ experiences during the Holocaust particularly egregious. Soros’ parents had hidden him with a non-Jew who worked for the Hungarian ministry of agriculture.

On one occasion, the man took Soros with him when he made an inventory of the contents of a home of wealthy Jews who had been deported. Apparently, Soros spent the time riding a horse on the property. This is how Beck described it: “And George Soros used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off. He would help confiscate the stuff. It was frightening …

“Here’s a Jewish boy,” Beck concluded, “helping send the Jews to the death camps.”

This charge echoes a classic anti-Semitic motif: Jews will oppress their own if it is to their advantage to do so. J.J. Goldberg of the Forward described it as the closest thing he had heard to fascism on mainstream television.

At the same time, Roger Ailes was interviewed by Tina Brown’s Daily Beast about NPR’s decision to fire one of its commentators, who also appears on Fox News. The commentator had said that, upon boarding a plane and seeing someone dressed in Muslim garb, he gets nervous. A silly comment but one that did not seem to warrant dismissal. Speaking of NPR officials, Ailes said: “They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view.” Then, when a barrage of criticism rained down upon him, he apologized, not to the people he called Nazis, but to Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League.

Rupert Murdoch recently made a stirring pro-Israel speech to the ADL but, as his attempt to purchase BSkyB is being adjudicated in the UK, it is incidents like these that should carefully be kept in mind.

Deborah Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. This essay originally appeared in the Jan. 7 issue of The Jewish Chronicle of London, where British officials are considering permits to allow Rupert Murdoch, the president of Fox, to expand his media holdings in the United Kingdom

Dear Britain: Rein in Fox News Read More »

Heroes Who Defy Status Quo Can Save Israel

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

If you know this old Jewish joke, just skip it.

Two Jews come to the rabbi to settle a dispute. The first Jew complains about the other, and the

rabbi says, “You’re right.’’ Then the other Jew makes his claim, to which the rabbi says, “You’re right.’’ The rabbi’s wife, who overhears this from the kitchen, asks, “How can they both be right?’’ The rabbi responds with a sigh, “You’re right, too.’’

It seems that everybody is right in their explanations as to why the peace process in the Middle East is at a stalemate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right when he blames the Palestinians for always looking for excuses to stay away from the negotiating table. Hasn’t he accepted the notion of a two-state solution, unthinkable for him before? Hasn’t he agreed to a settlement freeze? And what did he get in return?

Nothing but more complaints from the Palestinians, who haven’t seemed willing to yield an inch.

The Palestinians have a point as well. They claim that Netanyahu’s speech was lip service only, because it is the facts on the ground that matter. What Palestinians see in the West Bank, they say, is a constant growth of Israeli settlements, which defeats rhetoric.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the new chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is right, too. Speaking to the Jerusalem Post recently, she echoed what most Israelis — not necessarily right-wingers — think.

“This feeling that [Palestinian President] Abbas and [Palestinian Prime Minister] Fayyad are the good guys — if they’re the good guys, then we should start praying for Israel’s safety right now, because these are folks who have not wanted to be true partners for peace,’’ she said. 

Yet it is the essence of a Greek tragedy that everyone is right. While this makes a good drama on stage, in reality, this is a disaster. Especially in the Middle East, where with the absence of a real peace process, standstill is always a prelude to another round of violence.

Indeed, before our eyes, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza are arming themselves to be able to hit Israel’s rear again when the opportunity presents itself. Emboldened by Syria’s formidable surface-to-surface missile arsenal, and the looming nuclear capability of Iran, enemies of peace with Israel are feeling stronger.

Concurrently, the Palestinians are moving ahead toward declaring a state, maybe in September 2011. They have done it before, in 1988, and it came to nothing, because they had no shred of sovereignty. The situation today is different. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has done quite a good job of nation-building, and many countries have already expressed their intention of recognizing it, if the issue is brought to the United Nations.

Such a move will only make things worse. A Palestinian state where? In the West Bank? Will it be able to sustain itself? And what about Gaza, ruled by the Hamas? And what will happen with the Israeli settlements? In short, more instability, which will only empower the radicals.

A Greek tragedy, then?

Never, if you ask a sworn optimist like myself. Tragedy can be avoided by heroes who defy determinism. Ariel Sharon was one. He pulled Israel out of Gaza and was focusing on the West Bank before he went into a coma.

Salvation will not come from the Palestinians, who always delude themselves that if they keep bargaining forever, they will get a better deal. President Obama is not a savior as well, given his inexperience and the general decline in America’s world power.

We are left with the Israelis, then. Two out of three of us here want a two-state solution. Netanyahu is no De Gaulle, who pulled France out of the Algerian quagmire, and he is not even Sharon. But if he wants to stop the one-way rush to disaster, he can reshuffle his government, dump the rejectionists and bring in Kadima Party. Backed by most of the Israelis, he can then engage seriously with the Palestinians, and if this fails, turn to a unilateral step in the West Bank.

It would be a pity if only another bloody round of violence will bring us exactly to the same conclusion.

Uri Dromi is a columnist based in Jerusalem. He blogs at Heroes Who Defy Status Quo Can Save Israel Read More »

Can Gov. Brown Fix California?

Leave a Comment / Opinion, Raphael Sonenshein /

Watching Jerry Brown’s low-key but curiously dramatic press conference on the state budget Jan. 10 reminded me that the central task of Democrats, once they are in power, is to prove that government can work. Without that, all great ideas about equality and justice go nowhere. A Democratic leader has to be able to sell his or her own base on the idea that government can’t do everything in order to have a chance to prove to the rest of the electorate that it can actually do quite a lot.

Today, with hatred of government running rampant and some being goaded into violence by reckless and irresponsible public figures, governing with reason is a hard but critical task. Furthermore, the federal government has largely abandoned the states to their own devices during this economic downturn. We’re basically on our own.

Brown’s budget plan begins with truly awful cuts in spending, totaling around $12 billion. The proposed cuts, which must be approved by the Legislature, include a half billion dollars each from the University of California and California State University systems, more than a billion from the Medi-Cal program for the poor, the elimination of the adult day care program, reductions of in-home supportive services, and halving of the CalWORKS program. He would also transfer a number of programs to counties.

Because voters passed Proposition 25 in November, approval of the budget now requires only a majority vote. Republicans cannot veto the budget. Thus, Brown was able to include cuts not only to programs dear to Democratic constituencies but also to business interests as well. He eliminates the state subsidy for local redevelopment and the entire enterprise zone program and removes a corporate tax break passed in 2009.

Brown wants the legislature to pass a spending plan by March, and he needs a two-thirds majority to place a measure on the June ballot to keep in place for the next five years the temporary tax increases that areabout to expire. If voters approve the ballot measure in June, the state will keep another $12 billion in revenue, and it will be able to avoid another round of devastating cuts.

Should the tax measure not reach the ballot or fail at the polls, the other shoe drops and public schools (K-12) and others will take a massive hit. Brown has to be credibly willing to carry out the cuts if the tax measure fails. But he has built in an incentive to Democratic constituencies to work extremely hard to get such a measure passed. Democrats do not want the draconian school cuts or other reductions to happen.

Brown has clearly set out the choice. If the tax measure fails, just multiply today’s cuts by two. For a politician once known for obscure, even Zen-like statements, he has made a surprisingly clear framing of the choice for voters who have been told for a decade that they really didn’t have to make any hard choices at all.

If all the pieces fall into place, Brown will have solved the budget problem for the foreseeable future, erased the image of California as dysfunctional and restored the belief that government can do its basic job. We will have an on-time budget. All he has to do is keep his own base on board and get a few Republicans to vote to put his tax plan on the ballot and then get the public to vote for the measure. He also will have to prove to deeply concerned local officials that the restructuring plan isn’t just a way to transfer dysfunction from Sacramento onto them or they will rally opposition. The state can’t do to the counties and cities what the feds are doing to the states.

So why should Republicans help Brown make government work when their philosophy is that it doesn’t and, indeed, shouldn’t? There is going to be great pressure on them not to vote to place the tax measure on the ballot. The anti-tax folks are already arguing that such a vote would violate their pledge not to raise taxes, even though it would be the voters making the decision. They are justifiably nervous that if the voters do approve the extension, we could see a real change in the assumption that taxes are politically toxic.

But Brown’s budget cuts are bound to get the Republicans’ attention in ways that haven’t happened before. Now that the budget can pass with a simple majority, Democrats can spread the pain around to Republican districts and interests instead of just poor people. Republicans may be able to negotiate a better deal with Brown in exchange for a tax measure that they think will lose at the polls anyway. They may also get some pushing from the Chambers of Commerce and other business interests that want the state to grow and can envision its bond rating improving. A proposed business tax change will advantage in-state over multi-state businesses, showing that business is not monolithic anyway. Business interests have not been immediately hostile to Brown’s plan. And Brown has been careful not to attack Republicans in his budget statements.

If the state budget is a metaphor for government, this is a very dramatic moment for California. Democrats have done a masterful job of winning elections, capped by their performance in a Republican-dominated year. But it will be in governing that the truly memorable work has to get done.

Raphael J. Sonenshein is chair of the Division of Politics, Administration and Justice at California State University, Fullerton.

Can Gov. Brown Fix California? Read More »

Why do Jewish?

Leave a Comment / David Suissa, Opinion /

Can Orthodox Jews learn something fundamental from unaffiliated Jews? That is, can Jews who practice Torah rituals learn something from Jews who practice virtually none? This question was on my mind recently as I attended two events representing the polar opposites of Jewish life.

The first was the annual West Coast convention of the Orthodox Union, where the theme this year was “Keeping Our Values for the Next Generation.” I attended several of the events and moderated a closing panel on “Values for Our Future.” While the overall theme was values, the underlying mission of the convention was how to strengthen the Orthodox movement, and, in particular, how to keep the next generation from straying from the Modern Orthodox derech (path).

In the same way that the broader community constantly talks about “Jewish continuity,” the Orthodox community is also very busy these days with “Orthodox continuity.”

This idea of Jewish continuity played a big part of the second event I attended,  “Funding Your Passions: A Breakfast With Harold Grinspoon.” Grinspoon, a renowned philanthropist, talked about many things, but one subject in particular put a twinkle in his eyes: The PJ Library, a 5-year-old initiative that has already distributed more than 2 million children’s books to thousands of Jewish families across North America. For many of these families, who are unaffiliated, these colorful and engaging bedtime books have become their major connection to the Jewish tradition and their entrance to the Jewish community.

What I found remarkable about the books is that while they are fun to read, they don’t dumb down Judaism. One of my favorites is “The Only One Club,” a charming and intelligent primer on one of the philosophical dilemmas of modern Jewish life — how to balance the particularity of the Jewish tradition with the universality of humanism.

It is books like “The Only One Club” that made me think of how programs for unaffiliated Jews might help programs for Orthodox Jews. The Orthodox community spends a lot of time on the who, what, where, when and how of Jewish rituals, but not as much, it seems to me, on the “why.” We study Torah commandments from all angles, but rarely will we ask: “Why should I do this in the first place?”

“Because God and our Sages said so” and “because our ancestors did so” are easy and powerful answers, but they are not the only ones. For the Orthodox community to thrive, it will need to open up to the kind of “why” questions outreach groups like the PJ Library routinely ask: “Why is Judaism good for me? Why do I need it? Why is it meaningful?”

These are not the kinds of questions my grandparents asked in their cozy Orthodox neighborhoods of Casablanca, but they are questions that are sneaking up on the Orthodox world and in our Modern Orthodox shtetls like Pico-Robertson.

While outreach to the unaffiliated deals more with identity — “Why be Jewish?” —outreach to the Orthodox must deal more with activity — “Why do Jewish?” Both questions are fundamental. They both ’fess up to the reality that in today’s world of nonstop distractions, we can’t assume that Judaism of any denomination will simply sell itself.

The good news is that if we use our imaginations, we can come up with great answers. One answer I give to my kids for “Why do Jewish?” is that a mitzvah is not something that boxes you in, but rather, a gift box from God.

Open the mitzvah box and create your own personal meaning. For example, kissing the mezuzah reminds me to show love to my friends and family. Separating meat from milk reminds me to separate work from play. Making a blessing on food reminds me to show gratitude and help the hungry and less fortunate. Putting on tefillin reminds me that God is a filter between me and negative forces. Lighting Shabbat candles reminds me that I must aspire to be a shining candle in the world.

At Passover time, cleaning out the chametz from my house reminds me not to meddle with my neighbor’s chametz; in other words, not to do lashon harah. The possibilities are endless.

Every mitzvah is a gift box of personal meaning. The real gift we get when we do the mitzvah is that we start to own it. It becomes ours, not only God’s. There’s nothing like a sense of personal ownership to deepen your attachment.

This is what I learned from a program like PJ Library that is geared to non-Orthodox and unaffiliated Jews. It’s always a good idea to start at the beginning and ask, “why?” It’s a question that works for everyone — either as an entry door for the beginner or as a source of personal renewal for the observant. It’s the kind of no-nonsense approach that can only bring out the best in us.

Jewish leaders of all denominations shouldn’t be afraid to “sell” Judaism. Even an Orthodox convention can permit itself to show how Torah rituals can help make Jews better and happier people.

Seriously. If Coke Zero can sell happiness and a bank can sell meaning of life, so can we. 

Why do Jewish? Read More »

The Precious Center

Leave a Comment / Opinion, Rob Eshman /

Jared Lee Loughner is crazy. That, more than any other single fact, is to blame for why he walked up to a gathering outside a Tucson Safeway last Saturday and tried to kill Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, murdering six other people in the rampage.

Maybe the toxic political environment influenced him, maybe his copy of “Mein Kampf” did; maybe he did it because Gabby Giffords is Jewish, or because she brushed him off at a long-ago town meeting. (At press time, rumors were swirling that Loughner is Jewish — go figure.) Maybe Jared Lee Loughner hated Mexicans, health care, the Federal Reserve, the letter Q. Until we know more, I’m good with crazy.

But crazy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Crazy has a terroir as sure as grapes do: It grows in a particular soil and is nourished by peculiar waters. A violence-prone American schizophrenic can stew in a culture full of extremist Web sites (we know Loughner enjoyed those) and exterminationist political rhetoric. He can fall through any number of bureaucratic, legal and social-service cracks. Given our health care system, it is a lot easier for someone like Loughner to get 9mm bullets than Clozapine.

It also can’t be a coincidence that Loughner deliberately targeted a politician. We have acquiesced to a political culture that uses the rhetoric of war and destruction in the debate over issues and policy.

In the aftermath of the shooting, pollster Frank Luntz, who knows a thing or two about the uses of rhetoric, said that while blood and guts are not new, what’s happening to our political culture is.

“The truth, is it’s in our culture,” Luntz said. “Go back to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ — our national anthem is about a battle. It’s about rockets blasting in air, bombs going off in air. And so it’s always been a part of who we are — from the American Revolution to the Civil War. But, that said, when push came to shove in politics, as tough as it always was — we always found a way to cooperate. We always found a way to get things done when times were toughest. For the first time, we’re in a situation now where the anger on the right and the left is horrific.”

Luntz cites comments on right- and left-leaning blogs as evidence of rhetoric gone wild. The anonymity the Internet can bring out the monstrous political id in people. We have to regularly scrub JewishJournal.com’s comments section clean of nasty, threatening ad hominem attacks. At a Jewish Festival in the Valley, a thin, elderly man once approached me with a palsied handshake and said how happy he was to finally meet me. Only later did I realize this was the same man who for a year had ranted online that he’d like to “pound some sense” into me. In person he was as threatening as Don Knotts.

But the anonymous online rants themselves grow out of a larger political culture, one that is set by our politicians, leaders and pundits, and nourished by a 24-hour news cycle that profits from flame-fanning. Inside every frustrated, middle-age, right-wing man is an Ann Coulter waiting to get out. The nastier you are, the more attention you get. The more attention, the more traffic. The more viewers, the more advertisers. Where does it end?

Actually, we know where it can end.

In Israel, in 1995, rhetoric against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin reached a fever pitch. Protesters held up posters of Rabin wearing a Nazi SS uniform — the Jewish equivalent of a hunting target. They chanted, “Death to Rabin!” while politicians who sought their support looked on and said nothing.

Eventually, on Nov. 4, 1995, someone pulled the trigger and assassinated Rabin. That’s how it ends. That’s how it always ends.

The person who killed Rabin was not crazy — he is a religious fanatic. We have those types here, too. We have them and the truly unhinged. We have access to guns and deep political divisions on far more issues than in Israel, and toxic rhetoric, and media outlets that profit more from conflict than from consensus. We have politicians and pundits that fan the flames, but they are, as George Orwell once wrote, “always somewhere else when the trigger is pulled.”

All these forces pull at what poll after poll shows is still a moderate, centrist mainstream. The real majority in this country is not that silent — you can hear it in the voice of Jon Stewart, on the opinion pages of our best newspapers, in the actions of moderate politicians like Gabrielle Giffords herself.

Each year since 1992, fewer and fewer Americans define themselves at the extremes of the political spectrum, according to Gallup. Only 9 percent call themselves “very conservative,” and 5 percent self-identify as “very liberal.” That means the vast majority of us look at issues the same way we look at food — we may hate beets, but we’ll try them occasionally. We may say we don’t eat meat, but we sometimes like a good steak.

The declining extremes, the precious center, is something our politicians and our media need to support, nourish and protect. If we don’t do that, then we’re the ones who are crazy.

The Precious Center Read More »