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January 18, 2012

Israeli hackers bring down Arab Web sites

Leave a Comment / News, Tech /

Israeli hackers said they brought down the Web sites of the Saudi Stock Exchange and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.

The hackers, who call themselves IDF-Team, said in a post on the PasteBin Web site that the Jan. 17 attacks were in retaliation for the cyber attack the previous day on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the El Al Web site, adding that “This is only the beginning.” The Israeli hackers also threatened to paralyze Web sites for up to a month if attacks on Israeli sites continue.

Saudi hackers used the PasteBin Web site last week to publish the credit card information of thousands of Israelis.

Also on Jan. 17, the pro-Israel hacker Hannibal published a list of e-mail addresses and Facebook passwords for some 30,000 users from Arab countries, Haaretz reported. He also claims to have information to allow access to 10 million Iranian and Saudi bank accounts.

Meanwhile, a different group of Israeli hackers posted the details of e-mail accounts belonging to dozens of Saudi medical students.

The Saudi hacker 0xOmar said he would continue to attack Israeli Web sites until Israeli officials ask for forgiveness from the people of Gaza for “genocide.”

Israeli hackers bring down Arab Web sites Read More »

Jews, Arabs, dolphins

Leave a Comment / David Suissa, Is Featured?, News, Opinion /

Negative stereotypes can be numbing. One that has dulled our senses for years is that Jews and Arabs can’t get along. Many of us simply take it for granted. Read haaretz.com regularly, and you might even conclude that Israel’s Arab population is living miserably under an apartheid-like regime.

I certainly understand how reporters are wired to focus on the negative, and that good news is not really news. Reading about Israeli Arabs who might be happy under Israel’s democracy and who suffer little or no discrimination is not newsworthy. Abuse of human rights, however, is newsworthy — and that’s a good thing, because awareness is what forces a society to improve itself.

At the same time, though, reading only negative stuff can become exhausting and demoralizing.

Maybe that’s why it was so refreshing to sit with 250 people the other night at Laemmle’s Music Hall theater in Beverly Hills to watch the Israeli documentary film “Dolphin Boy.” The film was presented by The Jewish Journal’s Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival and its executive director, Hilary Helstein, as a preview to our annual festival, which kicks off on May 3.

“Dolphin Boy” tells the true story of an Israeli Arab boy who disconnects from humanity after suffering a vicious beating. The boy, Morad, was assaulted not by Israeli soldiers, but by his neighbors in his Israeli Arab village, who misinterpreted a text message Morad sent to the sister of one of the neighbors.

The beating was so traumatic that when we first see Morad, in a doctor’s office, he is zombie-like and cannot utter a word. His doctor, an Israeli Jew who is a world-
renowned expert on post-trauma care, develops a deep personal and professional attachment to the boy. Over several months, the doctor tries every treatment in the book to get Morad to speak and express himself, but nothing works.

Finally, before committing the boy to a mental institution, the doctor recommends a radical treatment: dolphin therapy (with the state picking up the costs). Meanwhile, one of the endearing stars of the film, Morad’s father, decides to leave his job and accompany his son to the dolphin reef in Eilat, where Jews — and loving dolphins — will help Morad undergo a miraculous three-year process of recovery.

The film challenges more than one stereotype. Of course, there’s the one that Jews and Arabs don’t get along. Even if that is true in many cases, in this story, all you see are Jews and Arabs treating one another like human beings.

There’s also the stereotype that Arabs live for revenge and justice. In fact, early in the film, Morad’s father is tempted to take revenge against the Arab neighbors who attacked his son. Some friends even suggest it. But in a defining scene, with a few friends playing the drums around a campfire, the father gets up, starts to dance and decides that he will devote every ounce of his being to saving his son, because, as he says, “His blood runs through my veins.”

You can’t be human and not be moved by these expressions of love — the love of a father for his son, the love of a doctor for his patient, the love of workers in a dolphin lagoon for a traumatized boy they help bring back to life.

It is this very celebration of life — symbolized by the playful and loyal dolphins — that slowly coaxes Morad back to humanity. How ironic that it takes loving animals to help him regain his trust in humans.

As I reflected on the film, I found myself wishing it would play on Al Jazeera and be seen by millions across the Middle East. That deeply divided part of the world could use an innocent reminder that the truest label we all share is our humanity. Beyond Arab and Jew, man and woman, Shiite and Sunni, Christian and Muslim, we are all part of the same species, sharing primal needs — like our craving for love — that transcend all differences.

“We didn’t really focus on the idea of Jew and Arab when we shot the film,” Dani Menkin, the co-director and producer of the film, told me during the panel discussion I moderated after the screening. “We shot a story of humans interacting with each other. We weren’t thinking of giving a special message. It was just an amazing story that I fell in love with.”

We’ve seen many Israeli films over the years that play to the negative stereotype of the big, bad Israel as the oppressor of Arabs. This stereotype is reinforced by the endless string of news stories describing discrimination against Israeli Arabs and examples of mutual animosity between the groups.

But lost in this big picture are the many little stories of Jews and Arabs peacefully co-existing and treating one another like human beings.

We can only be grateful for films like “Dolphin Boy,” which come along once in awhile to crack our cynicism and remind us that beneath the heavy noise of darkness lies the silent whisper of hope.

David Suissa is president of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal and can be reached at davids@jewishjournal.com.

Jews, Arabs, dolphins Read More »

Santorum staffer under fire for email about biblical propriety of female leaders

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

What is with Republican presidential campaign staffers in Iowa? First there was Newt Gingrich’s Iowa political director ” title=”gotten his boss in trouble” target=”_blank”>gotten his boss in trouble for sending an email over the summer that asked, “Is it God’s highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will … to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?”

That’s actually an arguable biblical question. What isn’t clear from the reports I’ve seen is the context within which the email was sent. Was it really about whether God would approve of a female president, which is what Michele Bachmann’s camp claims. ” title=”even if she hadnt done so poorly” target=”_blank”>even if she hadn’t done so poorly in the state she was born. And just because pastors called for her to bow out doesn’t mean that they did so because they don’t believe that God would support a female president. (“God endorses ____.” Interesting concept.) Needs more context.

But what about the other question that this raises? The email was reportedly sent from a personal email account and between friends, not as part of the staffer’s campaign job. Even if the staffer sincerely believed that the Bible condemns female leaders, does the fact that it has created a controversy suggest that it’s not OK for people in politics—even political staffers—to discuss such things? Or is it only relevant here because political agendas are shaped by staffers and here one of Santorum’s might hold objectionable, though biblically arguable, views?

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Are Jews trending Republican?

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Israel, Rosners Domain-mobile, United States, US Jewish Party-Identification /

Over the last several decades, Democratic identification has declined among many traditionally Democratic groups (white Southerners, Catholics and others), but for Jews it has remained fairly steady. There are many explanations for this unique political behavior of the Jewish voter, most of them focusing on the relatively liberal views of Jews on almost all social issues, while others suggesting the “rural, overwhelmingly Christian and Southern” nature of the GOP is a turn-off for Jewish voters. As the Washington Post’s conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin framed it, “They don’t sound like us, they don’t talk like us and they don’t understand us.”

Whatever the reason, in almost every election cycle of recent years, Republicans have attempted to make a new case for the “this time, it is really coming” argument — namely, to convince the public that a new wave of Jewish Republican voters is about to appear. However, as I wrote in 2009 in Commentary, “The story remained what it has been over the course of the past seven national elections, with Jews voting for Democratic candidates by colossal margins.”

Will 2012 be any different? Last August, The New York Times op-ed page columnist Charles Blow made a case that was somewhat reminiscent of the 2004 and 2008 Republican claims: Relying on data from the Pew Research Center, Blow argued that “the number of Jews who identify as Republican or as independents who lean Republican has increased by more than half since the year [Obama] was elected. At 33 percent it now stands at the highest level since the data have been kept. In 2008, the ratio of Democratic Jews to Republican Jews was far more than three to one. Now it’s less than two to one.”

Following criticism from some quarters, Blow repeated his claim a few weeks later in another column, in which he argued that “Obama’s approval rating among Jews in 2010 averaged 58 percent. This percentage was the lowest of all those representing his enthusiastic supporter groups except one, the religious unaffiliated.” Blow’s claim that Obama’s loss of support among Jews should be attributed to the president’s positions on Israel was furiously criticized (many of the critics were associated with J Street). Nevertheless, the question remains: Do Jews — as one might conclude from the Pew numbers — now trend Republican more than they have in the past? (The other interesting question — whether changes in Jewish attitudes can be linked to Obama’s policies on Israel — is not addressed here.)

To help make all this a numbers-based type of discussion, we gathered data available from four sources on the Web:  the American Jewish Committee (AJC) annual surveys of Jewish opinion, Gallup surveys, the study on Jewish Distinctiveness in America by Tom W. Smith (from 2005 — we needed those to get a glimpse of previous decades) and the Pew studies. The studies and the numbers were then put together in two tables (we separated the data into two sets following the advice of Tel Aviv University professor Camil Fuchs, Rosner’s Domain magician-in-chief. The two sets of data can’t mix, because Pew had voters divided into leaning Republican and leaning Democratic, and the other surveys include “Democrats, Republicans, Independents and Not Sures.”

The result — as seen in the accompanying graphs (both tables are shown in full) — is quite revealing: While the Pew graph might suggest that the GOP is gaining somewhat among Jewish voters (that’s the basis for the Blow post), the second graph seems to suggest that Jews don’t really trend Republican, but rather trend independent — like the rest of the electorate. In other words: The Democratic Party is losing while the Republican Party is not necessarily gaining.

Here you can see the PEW numbers:

Are Jews trending Republican? Read More »

A time for truth

Leave a Comment / News, Opinion /

It is time for another Durban Conference.

No, I’m not asking for a repeat of the U.N.-sponsored festival of Jew-hatred that took place in South Africa in 2001.

The last thing we need is to have Israel demonized by Islamists and their allies in the West.

We do not need another conference where so-called human-rights activists lament the fact that Hitler did not “finish the job” and where Arab lawyers hand out booklets with swastikas superimposed over the Jewish Star of David.

What we need is a human rights conference worthy of the name.

We need a conference that speaks the truth about the impact of Islamist ideology and Shariah law on human rights, not just in the Middle East, but also in Muslim-majority countries throughout the world.

We need a conference where adherents of the Baha’i faith describe the persecution they have endured in Iran.

We need a conference where Baha’i leaders tell the world about the destruction of their national center in Iran with pickaxes in 1955.

We need a conference where Iran’s leaders are confronted with the executions of more than 200 followers of the Baha’i faith since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

We need a conference where Assyrian Christians can tell their story of oppression at the hands of Islamists in Iraq who are trying to drive them out of their homeland.

We need a conference where Assyrian Christians can talk about the bombings, the shootings and the abductions they have endured regularly over the past decade.

We need a conference where Iraqi Christians, who numbered 1.5 million in 2003 and now number less than 500,000, can explain why they are leaving the country of their birth. They need a chance to make their case for an autonomous province in Iraq where religious and ethnic minorities can gather together against Islamists who are intent on making them disappear.

We need a conference where Coptic Christians in Egypt can describe the humiliation and acts of violence they endure daily in their homeland.

We need a conference where Coptic Christians can describe the ongoing attacks on their churches and their very lives.

We need a conference where Coptic Christians can describe the church bombings, the abductions, the rapes and forced conversions they endure at the hands of Islamists in Egypt.

We need a conference where Christians, whose churches have been destroyed in Nigeria and Ethiopia, can describe the attacks they’ve endured at the hands of Islamists.

We need a conference where activists from groups like Open Doors, Voice of the Martyrs and Christian Solidarity International can testify to the suffering Christians have endured under Shariah law throughout the world.

We need a conference where women who have endured beatings at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan can tell their story.

We need a conference where women who have been beaten and punished for refusing to wear burqas can speak of the oppression they have endured.

We need a conference where women who have been set on fire or have been splashed with acid by their relatives can tell their story.

We need a conference where victims of rape who have been charged with adultery by the police who should have arrested the rapists, can testify to the injustice.

We need a conference where Christian men from the Philippines who were castrated after marrying Muslim women can tell their story.

We need a conference where gay men and lesbians can speak of the violence they have endured under Islamic regimes throughout the world.

It is a time for truth. People of good will throughout the world have a right and an obligation to insist that Muslim leaders of all stripes take an honest look at what is happening in the countries they lead and govern. We need to ask them if this is the type of world a loving God would have us live in.

A time for truth Read More »

Americans would do well to drop the Euro-snobbery

Leave a Comment / News, Opinion /

Sitting here in Paris, where I am spending a month as a visiting professor at the Université Paris 8, Institut Français de Géopolitique, I’m struck by how, once again, American presidential candidates are denigrating their opponents simply by calling them “French” or “European.”

Americans have long been suspicious of Old World Europe. It is, perhaps, a sentiment that dates back to the Revolution, despite the fact that the French saved our bacon in the climactic battle at Yorktown in that war. In the early days, it was Britain that was the target of animosity from the precursors of today’s Democrats — the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans, who accused the Federalists (precursors of today’s Republicans) of being too cozy with the Empire. In the contemporary era, it’s the Republicans who have taken the offensive by tying the Democrats to France and the rest of Europe.

The heat got turned up when the Bush administration resented strong French opposition to the Iraq War, as compared to the full support it got from British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In 2004, Republican strategists found that they could portray Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as effete and French-like. To add to the portrait, his wife spoke in several languages at the Democratic National Convention, revealing a suspect air of cosmopolitanism. (Actually, even I thought that was a bit on the pretentious side.) Now, Newt Gingrich has taken on his fellow Republican Mitt Romney by pointing out that, like Kerry, Romney actually speaks French. Mon dieu! Meanwhile, for his part, Romney has been busy castigating President Barack Obama for trying to turn America into a European-style “entitlement state.”  

Such parochialism prevents us from learning what we really need to know about Europe, especially in the global economic arena, where we are inextricably interconnected. The fact is, what happens in Europe’s economy won’t stay in Europe. Many believe that the nascent economic recovery in America can only be sustained if Europe gets its act together and saves its economic alliance. Right now, presidential candidates need to talk knowledgeably about Europe’s economic crisis rather than encouraging us to be ignorant on the subject.

How linked we are was brought home just last week, when the rating firm Standard & Poor’s (S&P) did to France what it had done to the United States last August — lowered its credit rating from AAA to AA+.

In August, the S&P evaluation was shown by the White House to be off by an accounting error of a couple of trillion dollars, but instead of changing its rating, S&P stuck it to the United States anyway. In the aftermath of the downgrade, worldwide investors sought safety in U.S. Treasury bonds, thereby giving the lie to the rationale for the downgrade in the first place.

Now it’s Europe’s turn. Last week, S&P downgraded several European nations, including France, even as these nations are struggling to raise the capital to solve the euro zone’s problems. While some economists think these downgrades are more justified than what the S&P did to the United States, their timing is particularly unfortunate for nations trying to go into the bond market to support their weaker members.

On both sides of the ocean, we might wonder why private rating agencies are in a position to direct the fate of democratically elected governments — on both the left and the right. The downgrades hurt the Democratic president Obama but also the center-right French president Nicolas Sarkozy. 

Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Romney has been dismissing Europe as an entitlement society. Indeed, compared to the United States, especially since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, the European safety net has been much deeper and stronger than ours. Just the other day, I was explaining to my somewhat incredulous graduate student class that in the United States, a lot more than 40 million people have no health insurance coverage at all, and that only the recent health care law will prevent insurance companies from refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. I noted that because of the new law, young people can stay on their parents’ policies until the age of 26.

In France, private doctors operate and negotiate as a group with the government for the rates of care. It is not the government-run program of the U.K. and Canada, and it has features we might emulate.

Virtually everyone is covered for health care, students benefit from a specific coverage plan, and insurance companies only sell supplemental policies for those who want “gold-plated” coverage. Pharmaceutical drugs are available at low cost, and the vital ones are fully reimbursed.

Are Americans supposed to stay ignorant about this public-private partnership, which seems to be working here, simply because we might not want to seem “European”?

European nations, too, have for the last several decades debated, often in raging terms, the cost of their safety nets. It is not only American voters who worry about taxes. As Nicholas Kristof noted in The New York Times last week, Europe is a lot more conservative than American stereotypes suggest. Throughout Europe, left and right governments have come in and out of power; austerity measures have been adopted and then relaxed and then readopted. In France, for example, the highly rated health care system is getting more and more expensive to maintain, and French voters and leaders have to confront whether to cut services, raise taxes, or increase citizen co-pays.

In other words, Europe’s politics have more in common with ours than we might imagine. While the center of political gravity throughout Europe tends to be more to the left than in the United States, the big questions of austerity versus growth and how to pay for social services are fundamental on both sides of the ocean. So, with a presidential election coming up in the United States this year, I hope our candidates will do better than simply accuse one another of actually knowing something about that big continent “over there.” We need to know everything we possibly can as we try to work our way out of the economic and social challenges we all face.

Raphael J. Sonenshein, chair of the Division of Politics, Administration and Justice at California State University, Fullerton, will become the executive director of the Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, in February.

Americans would do well to drop the Euro-snobbery Read More »

Israel’s “Footnote” makes Oscar shortlist

Leave a Comment / Hollywood, Is Featured?, News /

“Footnote,” Israel’s Oscar entry for best foreign-language film, has qualified for the shortlist of nine semi-finalists, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday.

The nine selected films, culled from submissions by 63 countries, will be winnowed down to five when final nominations in all categories are announced Jan. 24.

“Footnote,” directed and written by Joseph Cedar, centers on the rivalry between a father and son, both famous Talmudic scholars in Jerusalem.  In a phone call to his Tel Aviv home, the New York-born Cedar said, “I’m absolutely happy and relieved. Now I face another week of stress [until the five finalists are named], with all of Israel breathing down my neck.”

Cedar, 43, has made four feature movies in his 11-year career, and all were chosen as Israel’s entries in the Oscar competitions. In 2007, his war film “Beaufort” was among the five Academy Award finalists.  His toughest competition this year is likely to come from Iran’s “A Separation,” the critical favorite so far, Germany’s “Pina,” and Poland’s “In Darkness.”  The latter film, by Agnieszka Holland (“Europa, Europa”) follows the fate of a dozen Jewish men, women and children, who hid for 14 months in the underground sewers of Lvov during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Also qualifying for the short list are Belgium’s “Bullhead,” Canada’s “Monsieur Lazhar,” Denmark’s “Superclasico,” Morocco’s “Omar Killed Me” and Taiwan’s “Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale.”

Some early favorites didn’t make the cut, among them China’s “The Flowers of War,” Finland’s “Le Havre,” Lebanon’s “Where Do We Go Now?” and Mexico’s “Miss Bala.”

Oscar winners will be crowned Feb. 26 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

Israel’s “Footnote” makes Oscar shortlist Read More »

Entire Letter For Beit Shemesh Response – Barry Gelman

Leave a Comment / Blogs, News /

It was suggested that I put the entire letter I wrote about responding to Beit Shemesh on the blog – so here it is.

Dear Friends,

A few weeks ago I spoke in shul about the ongoing crisis in Beit Shemesh, Israel where a group of extremist Chareidim are attempting to intimidate the Religious Zionist / Modern Orthodox community. There has been rock throwing, spitting, verbal abuse and threats.

After the sermon a number of people asked if there is anything that our community can do to support the community under attack.

In response to those inquiries I contacted leaders of the MO/RZ community in BeitShemesh.  After much discussion a conclusion was reached that the best response on our part would be to assist the MO/RZ community in strengthening their presence in Beit Shemesh by raising funds so that their youth group headquarters can be completed. I cannot think of a better way to counter the intimidation that is meant to drive this community away than to build and put down even stronger roots.

This response on our part creates a Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of God’s name) by reacting in a positive manner and in a way that will directly affect the children who have been the targets of the intimidation. The headquarters will be on the campus of the local Religious Zionist elementary schools – Orot Banot and Orot Banim, the very schools that have been targeted by the extremists. The vast majority of members of the youth group attend the Orot schools.

Checks can be made out to American Friends of Beit Knesset Feigenson” a US 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Please note on the check that the funds are for the “Ezra snif” and mail to: Marc Tobin , Rechov Hayasmin 21 A, Beit Shemesh, Israel 99591.

“But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out…”  (Exodus 1:12)

This project presents us with an opportunity to reply to intimidation with courage, to react to destruction with building, ands most importantly, to answer Chillul Hashem (desecration of God’s name) with Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of God’s name).

With hopes for peace and with love of Zion,

Rabbi Barry Gelman

Entire Letter For Beit Shemesh Response – Barry Gelman Read More »

Letters to the Editor: Neo-Nazis, Halachah, unemployment and anti-Semitism

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor /

Who Are Today’s Neo-Nazis

Rob Eshman is correct to decry the world’s double standard when criticizing the ultra-barbaric state of Syria (“Stop the Stalinists,” Jan. 13). The irony of course that Qatar, a sister Arab Muslim nation, published a cartoon depicting Bashar Assad as a Nazi goes far beyond the obvious: The Baath parties, both in Syria and Iraq, modeled their governments upon the Nazi Party for many reasons, including the German’s military opposition to British power during World War II. The friendship and alliance between Amin Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and grandfather of the Palestinian movement, and Adolf Hitler, and their shared hatred of Jews still resonates today in the Arab world. Mr. Eshman should rethink his attitude to the American take-down of Saddam Hussein, one of the foremost exponents of neo-Nazism in our time. Hopefully Syria will go the way of Iraq in the near future.

Richard Friedman
Los Angeles

When Is God Watching?

In “Judaism’s Walking Billboards” (Jan. 6), David Suissa writes, “If you look like a religious Jew, and you spit on an Orthodox girl because her dress code doesn’t meet your standard of modesty, and the incident is caught on Israeli television and goes viral on YouTube, then you are slandering Judaism and it’s a crisis.”

Basically the problem, if I understand Suissa correctly, is that this incident was videotaped and went viral. Suissa believes this slanders Judaism. However, slander means falsehood. If we observe via video an Orthodox Jewish man spitting on an 8-year-old girl, that would not be slander; that would be irrefutable fact.

In conclusion, Suissa writes: “And if there are Jews who bother you, you don’t spit on them, you invite them over for Shabbat.”

Suissa left out the rest. Once in your home, make sure all electronic devices have been turned off (it is Shabbat, of course). Then you spit on them, maybe even slap them around a little. This way no one will see it and Judaism’s image will remain untarnished. Apparently God does not see everything, according to Suissa. God only sees what we do when it makes it to video and it goes viral.

Richard S. Levik
via e-mail

Prager and Halachah

Last year, Dennis Prager told us that halachah demands that Jews support capital punishment, even if it means that innocent people might be put to death on occasion (”What About Innocents Who Are Executed?” April 1, 2011). No matter that our sages throughout the ages disagree with him, including Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Tarfon, Rabbi Akiva, Maimonides (who said that it would be better for a thousand guilty persons to be acquitted than for one innocent to be put to death), and Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, who wrote that the “rules of evidence and other safeguards that the Torah provides to protect the accused made it all but impossible to actually invoke these penalties.”  But now comes Mr. Prager to tell us why he himself doesn’t actually have to follow this same halachah (“Can Halachah Ever Be Wrong?” Jan. 13). The reason: second-day yom tov.  In other words, Prager has no problem distorting halachah and demanding that everyone follow his interpretation of it when it comes to promoting his political agenda, but he excuses himself from having to do the same when it is personally inconvenient. Put another way, it’s OK to condemn an innocent person to death as long as it doesn’t interfere with Prager’s ability to drive to the beach on the second day of Shavuot.

Robert Smith
Los Angeles

Kudos to Dennis Prager. Some rabbis are so stuck on the oral law that they forget what our great sage Rabbi Hillel considered to be the foundation of the Torah — simply put, be a mensch.

Danny Bental
Tarzana

Getting Your Foot in the Door

I was quoted in the article “Retraining Programs Get Unemployment Bump” (Jan. 6), but there was something that Ms. Wizenfeld did not include that is important for the unemployed.

If you are unemployed, find an internship or volunteer for a company where you are interested in working or are trying to transition. This will give you a foot in the door. One thing I am seeing is that the longer a person is unemployed, the more unemployable they become. It is all about employer perception.

Vicki Rothman
Faculty Leader, Career Services Center
Santa Monica College

Greenberg Cartoon Skewed on Ron Paul’s Record

Steve Greenberg’s recent cartoon suggests that Texas Congressman Ron Paul is an anti-Semitic sympathizer of extreme right views (Jan. 13). Greenberg loosely alleges that Paul has an ideological kinship with Pat Buchanan, an unassailable nationalist who supports tariffs, isolationism and, to some, an exacerbation of the culture wars that have dominated our political discourse for the past 20 years.

To suggest that Paul is a rabid, Jew-baiting isolationist with crypto-fascist tendencies escapes the imagination. What editorials is Mr. Greenberg reading? Paul has never excoriated a “Jewish lobby” in Washington, he has never spoken against minorities, and he does not despise the place of immigrants in our country.

To say the least, Greenberg’s View is skewed, and he cannot hide behind his liberal sympathies to justify such overt and unsupportable slander. We are all entitled to our opinion, but to implicate a public figure in such outrageous and outlandish allegations is just reprehensible.

Arthur Christopher Schaper
Torrance

Prager on Halachah

Dennis Prager makes some important points regarding how halachah can influence good Jews to make bad decisions (“Can Halachah Ever Be Wrong?” Jan. 13). The Rambam (Maimonides) called such actions (or individuals) “menuval b’reshut HaTorah” — disgusting within the bounds of the Torah.

But then he makes a leap to ignoring rabbinic law (such as second-day yom tov). The two rabbis he cites in his essay surely would be chagrined that he invoked their names to make such a point. Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits passed away in 1992, but perhaps The Journal could invite Rabbi Shlomo Riskin to respond?

David Waghalter
Los Angeles

In “Can Halachah Ever Be Wrong?” (Jan. 13), Dennis Prager brought up the topic of Yom Tov Sheni.  This relates to there being an extra day in some holidays outside of Israel (with there being only one day of Yom Kippur) due to calendar uncertainty.  My understanding is that, after the calendar was worked out, the second day was retained outside of Israel since, when one is not in Israel, one needs an extra day to reach the same spiritual level that one can achieve in Israel in one day of yom tov. As for Yom Kippur, since it is unreasonable to require people to fast for two days in a row, it was always one day long outside of Israel.

David Wincelberg
Beverly Hills

Boteach to Present at Limmud LA Conference

Thank you for your piece on Limmud and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (“Lord Shmuley?” Jan. 6). I attended Limmud UK in December on behalf of Limmud LA as part of the Limmud International delegation and had the opportunity to hear Rabbi Boteach’s timely, humorous and insightful lecture on the halachic approach to sex. It was both entertaining and educational. We are very excited to announce that Rabbi Boteach will also be presenting at the Limmud LA Conference coming up Feb. 17-19. Full details about this outstanding event can be obtained at our Web site: limmudla.org. Anyone who has attended previous conferences can attest to the excitement and powerful sessions, open to those from any and all backgrounds and levels of Jewish observance.

Mel Aranoff
Member, Limmud LA Board of Directors
Valley Glen

Comparing Anti-Semitism in Ancient, Modern Times

Rabbi Marc Mandel’s assertion that Pharaoh’s persecution of the Hebrews is an example of early anti-Semitism doesn’t support his important message about seeing the plethora of forms today’s anti-Semitism takes (“Déjà Vu, All Over Again,” Jan. 13). Nor is my objection to that assertion an example of wasting energy trying to classify types of anti-Semitism when the focus should be on naming it whatever its form.

First, the Egyptians also were Semites; second, the Jews were not yet a people to be hated because they were Jews. They were hated because a paranoid leader demonized them to assuage his fears. This is much more akin to the pre-emptive war program of Hobbesians Bush and Cheney.

My objection is buttressed by Dennis Prager’s explanation for anti-Semitism found in his book, “Why the Jews?” His answer is that, standing alone, any one of the three pillars of Judaism — God, Torah and Israel — has been sufficient to incite virulent anti-Semitism, let alone all three inherent in the beliefs of one people. These three pillars were not yet in place in Pharaoh’s Egypt.

Roger Schwarz
Los Angeles

CORRECTIONS

An article about a debate between Brad Sherman and Howard Berman (“Sherman Lays Into Berman in Four-way Congressional Debate,” Jan. 13) was incorrect in saying that Sherman attacked Berman for supporting a bill that Sherman had voted for. He did not; a more complete discussion of this issue can be found on the Berman v. Sherman blog at jewishjournal.com.

An article about a lawsuit filed against Eden Memorial Park (“Eden Cemetery Trial Set for May,” Jan. 11) indicated that 30 groundskeepers had implicated Eden in interviews with the plaintiff’s attorney, Michael J. Avenatti. According to Eden’s attorney, Steven Gurnee of Gurnee and Daniels LLP, near Sacramento, 14 current and former groundskeepers have been deposed, and only three testified to being aware of broken outer burial vaults. In addition, F. Charles Sands is no longer the named plaintiff in the case.

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