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August 15, 2012

Bank reaches $340 million settlement after hiding business with Iran

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The British bank Standard Chartered has agreed to pay New York’s top banking regulator $340 million for covering up transactions with Iran in order to gain fees.

Earlier this month, New York’s Department of Financial Services accused the bank of concealing 60,000 transactions worth $250 billion from 2001 to 2010 that “left the U.S. financial system vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes.”

The bank said in a statement Wednesday that that “well over 99.9 percent” of the questioned transactions with Iran complied with all regulations and that the few transactions that did not amounted to just $14 million.

Standard Chartered’s dealings with Iran are being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

Standard Chartered said it “continues to engage constructively” with the other U.S. agencies and that none of its Iranian payments was on behalf of any designated terrorist group.

In addition to the $340 million settlement, the bank will be subject to two years of monitoring at its New York branch and will permanently install personnel to oversee and audit offshore monitoring.

A department hearing on the issue scheduled for Wednesday in New York City was adjourned. The date for the civil payment, which will go to the state’s general fund, has not been set.

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ADL joins call urging Ban not to go to Tehran

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The Anti-Defamation League joined calls urging United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon not to participate in a non-aligned nations conference in Iran.

“At a time when responsible members of the international community are working together to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program by increasing its isolation, we would expect the Secretary General to express support for that effort by announcing he will not be traveling to Tehran,” said a statement issued Tuesday by the ADL. “His apparent hesitation to make such an announcement is inexplicable.”

Iran is set to host the next Non-Aligned Movement triennial summit on Aug. 30-31.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week called Ban and urged him not to attend. Other groups, including the American Jewish Committee and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, also have called on Ban and other non-aligned nations not to attend.

The Non-Aligned Movement, launched in 1961, was conceived as an umbrella for nations opting out of the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union, although many of its member nations ultimately sided with the USSR.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the movement has struggled to define itself.

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As Charedi draft begins, no problems

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The controversy had sparked a national debate, raucous protests in the streets and the collapse of a historic government. That came in the months after the Israeli Supreme Court had nullified a law exempting Charedi Orthodox Israelis from military service and giving the government until Aug. 1 to draft a replacement law. 

More than one week after the law’s implementation, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has yet to encounter any significant problems in putting Charedi men through the draft process, according to a military source with knowledge of the issue. 

The IDF had no official comment on the new process.

In previous weeks, thousands of Charedim had gathered in the streets, holding protest signs declaring that they would rather spend their lives in prison than serve in the “Zionist army.” Another protest in Tel Aviv declared that secular Israelis, who had always served, would no longer be “suckers.”

But political stalemate won out. No law was passed, and a broad government coalition created to solve this issue broke up.

The day before the Aug. 1 deadline, Defense Minister Ehud Barak sent out a news release stating that the IDF had one month to formulate guidelines on Charedi military service that would accord with the Military Service Law of 1986, which subjects Charedim to the same service requirements as all other Jewish Israelis. Charedim have been subject to the law since Aug. 1, and will remain so until the Knesset passes a new law on Charedi service. 

Under the 1986 law, 18-year-old Charedi boys — until now exempt from the military draft while studying in a yeshiva — are eligible for the draft; their summons may come even before their 18th birthday. The penalty for refusing the summons: three years in prison.

The law includes a clause on religious exemptions from military service for women who observe Shabbat and keep kosher, but they do not apply to men. Men up to the age of 26 may be drafted, Charedi or not.

Now Charedi men born in 1994 and 1995 are or soon will be undergoing competency tests in math, Hebrew and general knowledge, as would any draftee. The first language of many Charedim is Yiddish, not Hebrew, and their schools do not focus on math or general studies.

The military source could not give any details on the formulation of guidelines for Charedi enlistment, but said the month-long period was granted in part to allow the army time to prepare for absorbing thousands of Charedi soldiers.

According to Haaretz, there are 54,000 Charedi men of enlistment age who have not served in the IDF.

But even as the protests have died down, observers on both sides of the issue do not expect the controversy to be solved or a new law to be passed anytime soon.

“Right now there’s not a general feeling that something major is going to happen because of the political consternation,” said Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblum, a columnist for Mishpacha magazine, a major Charedi publication.

Rosenblum, of Jerusalem, said that when the coalition broke up, “the sense of panic diminished considerably” in the Charedi world.

Although the Military Service Law is in effect, Rosenblum was not worried that any of his seven sons, including a 17-year-old, would be putting on a uniform. Would the IDF be “subjecting them to military trial and imprisonment? No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t think the government has a plan. There was nobody who was talking about putting people in jail.”

During government negotiations on a new law on the matter last month, the major proposals suggested fines for draft dodging, while others eschewed the idea of personal penalties.

A leading official in Hiddush, an Israeli organization that advocates for religious pluralism and equality, also does not expect new legislation — and a Charedi draft with teeth — to move forward soon, despite his best hopes.

“The government won’t draft one yeshiva student,” said Shahar Ilan, Hiddush’s vice president. “The government isn’t doing anything. “This is a huge violation of the law.”

Ilan said that though most of the Knesset wants to see a new law enacted, no one is willing take the necessary political risks.

“Netanyahu does not want to hurt the Charedi parties” in his coalition, Ilan said. “There’s a majority for a mandatory draft but it’s theoretical because the parties that support a mandatory draft are not ready to break up the government for it.”

Rosenblum said that even were such a law to pass, the IDF would not have the resources or will to absorb so many Charedi youth, whose strict observance of Jewish law puts them in special circumstances.

“There’s no way in the world that the vast majority of Charedi boys are going to go into mixed units,” he said. “There’s no way in the world that the army is going to put in place Charedi-accommodating units within 30 days.”

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The Jews of Kaifeng, China

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Jewish liturgy and ritual frequently remind us that the Israelites were scattered to the “four corners of the earth,” as symbolized by the four fringes of the tallit, or prayer shawl. The extent of the geographic dispersion of the Jews over millennia has been vast, ranging from Baghdad to Burma, Marrakesh to Melbourne, Jerusalem to Los Angeles. 

But it wasn’t until I arrived in China for a two-and-a-half week stint to teach Jewish history that I realized just how dispersed these “four corners” are.

In Kaifeng, where Jews once lived — and still do — I witnessed the past and present of one of those dispersed “corners.” I also learned what it is like to teach Jewish history in China, where the field of Jewish studies is undergoing a surprising growth spurt.

The absence of a firm trail of historical evidence leads some to maintain that reports of a medieval Jewish presence in China are unfounded. I tend to agree with another group of scholars, who believe that there was such a presence — and that Kaifeng (pronounced “Ky fung”), in Henan province, is the oldest known Jewish community. This group argues that Jewish merchants, most likely originating in the Middle East, traveled along the vaunted Silk Road and made their way to and through China as early as the seventh century C.E. A document written in Judeo-Persian detailing business activity dates Jews in China to the early eighth century. Meanwhile, scholars surmise that sometime between the 10th and 12th centuries C.E., Jewish traders — likely of Persian origin — laid roots in Kaifeng. Kaifeng was no mere station along the Silk Road, and surely no backwater. It was one of the “Seven Ancient Capitals of China,” serving as the administrative center for five dynasties. Even more remarkably, Kaifeng was reputed to be the largest city in the world in the 11th and 12th centuries, with a population estimated at between 700,000 to 1.5 million. The list of other leading urban population centers in this period includes Córdoba (Spain), Constantinople (Istanbul), Cairo and Baghdad, all of which were or would become home to large populations of Jews. In fact, the Jewish romance with the city was not a modern invention. In a city, one could find a spirit of openness, new ideas and, of course, abundant commercial opportunities. In this sense, it would be no surprise that Jews made their way to medieval Kaifeng.

Kaifeng in its golden age was a masterfully designed city, with three sets of city walls, at the center of which was the elaborate Forbidden City where the emperor and his court were located. The Jewish community lived within the city walls, dwelling in close proximity to the community’s first synagogue, built in 1163, whose construction was commemorated in a stele dated to 1489. Unlike many of their medieval co-religionists, the Jews of Kaifeng, it appears, were largely unscathed by discrimination or persecution. The Song Emperors, based in Kaifeng, held the Jews in high esteem. And the Jews maintained good relations with their local Chinese neighbors. 

It is reasonable to assume that amiable relations hastened the pace of cultural integration. Within several hundred years, many of Kaifeng’s Jews, who at their peak numbered several thousand (some estimate as high as five thousand), lost knowledge of the Hebrew language. And yet, a key feature of traditional Jewish life remained throughout the entire existence of the community, even up to today: Jews in Kaifeng abstained from eating pork. Another distinctive feature of the Kaifeng community also survived: One of the Song Emperors, who could not pronounce the Hebrew names of the Jews in his realm, bestowed on them seven Chinese family names that are still in use today.

The existence of this community was unknown to the West until 1605, when the intrepid Jesuit scholar and missionary in China, Matteo Ricci, received a visit from a Kaifeng Jew in Beijing. After an initial confusion in which the two thought they belonged to the same religion, Ricci recognized that he was dealing with a previously unknown phenomenon: a native Jewish community in China. This well preceded the later communities established in the late 19th century in Shanghai and Harbin. 

A model of the Kaifeng synagogue at Beit Hatfutsot – The Museum of the Jewish People, Tel Aviv. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Some decades later, the city of Kaifeng, including its Jewish community, confronted a major disaster. In 1642, a devastating flood of the Yellow River wreaked massive destruction upon the city, killing large numbers of residents, including Jews, and laying waste to much of the city’s infrastructure, including the synagogue. The glory days of Kaifeng as a world center of commerce were over.

After the flood, the Jews did manage to rebuild their synagogue, distinguished, like the original one, by a large Chinese-style roof, along with a number of other distinctive Chinese features. But the community’s best days were past. Fewer and fewer Jews attended the synagogue or had familiarity with Jewish ritual. In 1841, another major flood hit Kaifeng, again destroying much of the city, including the second synagogue. And this time, no communal institutions were available afterward to provide support or services to Kaifeng Jews. 

One might assume, on the basis of this story, that the history of Kaifeng Jewry has come to an end, a victim not of anti-Semitism but of Chinese hospitality. My visit to Kaifeng suggests otherwise. My host in China, professor Xu Xin, one of the founding figures of Jewish studies in China (about whom more later), took me to visit Esther Guo Yan, a woman of about 25 or 30 who preserves one of the seven Jewish family names. Esther is the granddaughter of the last renowned Jewish notable from Kaifeng, and she runs a tiny, rough-hewn shrine to the history of Kaifeng Jewry. She waits for the occasional tourist to find her home, which is located in the historic Jewish quarter. Her interests are both to recall the old Jewish community and to bring knowledge about Chinese culture to what she refers to as her “hometown,” Jerusalem.

Indeed, a strong connection to Israel marks the larger group of Jewish descendants whom I met in Kaifeng. I first visited them at the end of their weekly four-hour study session of English and Hebrew with their ebullient, chain-smoking Israeli teacher, Shulamit Gershovich, who had been sent by Shavei Israel, an international group that seeks out lost Jews. She is concluding a six-month stint teaching the Kaifeng group and lives in one of the two rooms that now serve as a kind of community center under the name Beit HaTikvah (House of Hope). This name was bestowed by the center’s founder, a young American Jew named Eric Rothberg, who began to work with and teach the group two years ago. 

On a Thursday evening, I met with a group of eight students, some of them bearing the ancient names of Kaifeng Jews who, thus, are “descendants,” and others who have no Jewish blood but are married to descendants. Here in Kaifeng, as in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, the most important criterion of Jewishness is not the rabbinic standard of matrilineal descent. Rather, it is the willingness and desire to be a Jew. Against remarkable odds, the members of Beit HaTikvah are assiduously studying what it means to be a Jew. Though a small number of younger family members have been sent off to Israel or the United States to study and undergo formal conversion, the majority of the 25 or so attendees at Beit HaTikvah are on their own path of Jewish self-discovery in China, where they likely will remain. (I should add that, in the ancient and venerable ways of the Jews, there is another group of a similar size studying at a different locale in Kaifeng with a Messianic Jew named Tim Lerner, though I did not get to meet them.)

Without a doubt, the highlight of my time in Kaifeng, and a reflection of the group’s indomitable spirit, was the Shabbat I spent at Beit HaTikvah. I was brought to the Friday night gathering by Ari Schaffer, an Orthodox undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University, who is conducting research on the community. The small, nondescript room was filled with some 25 people, ranging in age from 16 to 75. On one wall was an unusual array of symbols: the flag of the State of Israel on the right, the flag of the People’s Republic of China on the left, and in the middle, the Shema prayer flanked by a pair of Hebrew words, shemesh and kamon.  

Shemesh means sun. Kamon’s meaning is a matter of dispute; some scholars believe it refers to an angel, while others maintain that it connotes moon. In any case, this pair of words seems to have served a sort talismanic function for the community.

After candlelighting, Gao Chao, the leader of the small community, began to sing “Yedid Nefesh,” the medieval poem sung at the outset of Kabbalat Shabbat. Typically enough for this community, Gao Chao is not of Jewish descent. He is married to a descendent, but has taken on the responsibility of learning Hebrew and Jewish prayers so as to serve as the prayer leader on Friday nights. He led the community through Kabbalat Shabbat, with members joining in in their Chinese-inflected Hebrew (which was rendered into Chinese characters for them to follow). The degree of ritual fluency for a community that does not include a single halachic Jew and has been studying Hebrew intensely for only two years was remarkable. The community chanted with gusto and competency many of the standards of Jewish liturgy and custom on Friday night: “Lechah Dodi,” “Ve-shamru,” and “Shalom Aleichem.” It was particularly moving when the congregation joined with Gao Chao to sing the penultimate line of the Friday night Kiddush: “For You have chosen us and sanctified us from among all the nations, and with love and good will given us Your holy Shabbat as a heritage.”

After services, the entire group sat down to a potluck vegetarian Shabbat dinner, my first with chopsticks as the utensil of choice. Dinner was tasty and spirited, but a mere prelude to the memorable post-meal singing. We sang the grace after meals and then spent several hours singing zemirot and other Hebrew and Israeli songs at the top of our lungs — aided, it must be said, by a potent Arak-like beverage native to the region. One member of the community — not herself a Jewish descendant, but married to one — had assumed the Hebrew name Netta. She seemed to know virtually every Hebrew song sung. She had an infectious smile, beautiful voice and a true sense of oneg Shabbat — the joy of the Sabbath. Other members did not know many of the songs, but added their own enthusiastic and well-timed rhythm by clapping and pounding the table.

The one song that all knew was the one whose name adorns the current Kaifeng community: HaTikvah. At a certain point in the midst of the cacophonous frivolity, the group rose as one to offer a sonorous version of “Hatikvah” — in Chinese! Those of us who knew followed in Hebrew. It was another stunning moment in an evening of stunning moments. Few of the community members are likely to make aliyah, but somehow they have managed to develop a strong bond with and sense of pride for Israel. There was also a strong sense among all of us present of the past and future shared by Jews. Assembled at a long Shabbat table in Kaifeng, we experienced, in the rawest and purest form I’ve ever witnessed, the unbroken spirit that links Jews scattered over the four corners of the world, from California to China.

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Jewish studies flourish in China

Leave a Comment / Cover Story, David N. Myers, Mobile, News, Worldwide /

The last quarter century has witnessed a veritable explosion in the academic field of Jewish studies. During that time, Israel solidified its place as the global center in the field, while in the United States virtually every university and college of note has established its own program, center or chair. In these two venues, the growth of Jewish studies has been closely linked to the presence of Jews, though in the United States an increasing number of non-Jews have entered the field. In other parts of the world where the field of Jewish studies has been expanding, such as Germany, the field is populated almost exclusively by non-Jews. 

Surely one of the most interesting sites of the new Jewish studies — and one of the most promising in terms of growth — is China.  

Jewish studies in China? Yes, there is a burgeoning Jewish studies presence in the most populous country in the world. The most established program in the country is based at Nanjing University, and it is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The founding director, professor Xu Xin, followed his banishment to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution by undertaking graduate studies in English language and American literature. While engaged in his studies in the late 1970s, he discovered the riches of American Jewish literature, particularly the work of Saul Bellow — and from there developed a wider interest in Jewish studies. Xu Xin has been at the forefront of the growth of Jewish studies in China, raising several generations of students who now direct Jewish studies programs at other Chinese universities. He is a dynamic, passionate and worldly man whose savoir-faire persuaded Los Angeles Jewish philanthropists Diane and Guilford Glazer to endow his program.


[Related: The Jews of Kaifeng]

It was the Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies (en.judaic.cn) that invited me to Nanjing to teach a concentrated seminar for its graduate students. I had very little idea of what to expect from my academic experience there before arriving. I asked Xu Xin if it would be possible to visit Kaifeng, and he answered affirmatively. When I arrived in Nanjing, he told me we would be going to Kaifeng later that day and that I’d be giving three lectures there. Little did I know that the lectures would be at a conference on Holocaust studies and Jewish history held at Kaifeng’s Henan University! And not just that, but a conference held at a relatively unknown, regional university of more than 40,000 students, housed on a new campus graced by scores of new, architecturally designed buildings. This calls to mind one of the most striking impressions during my time in China: the frenetic pace of building. There is building everywhere, suggesting not only the rapid growth of the country, but also massive investment by the government in infrastructure and higher education, in stark juxtaposition to the defunding of both in our own country.

Meanwhile, I was stunned to enter the lecture hall in Henan University to see nearly 75 master’s and doctoral candidates in Jewish studies, all of whom were Chinese. Assembling that number of graduate students in Jewish studies in the United States would be nearly impossible. How much more unlikely in China! But the students were eager, curious and attentive. About half of the lectures were given in Chinese by local professors and graduate students, and the other half were given in English by conference organizer Jerry Gotel, a London-based American and patron of Jewish studies in China; Glenn Timmermans, an Anglo-Jewish scholar of English literature and the Holocaust who teaches at the University of Macau; and me. The students whom I met all read English and had a good passive command of spoken English, though they varied considerably in their ability to speak.

Why, one might ask, do these students devote many years of their lives to studying Jewish history? As a number of them told me, they sense an affinity between their people and the Jews. Both peoples possess a noble ancient history, have large dispersions outside their homeland and are marked by an entrepreneurial spirit. Perhaps most centrally, for both, education is an almost sacred pursuit. In fact, one of the most winning features of the Chinese students is their unabashed reverence for the teacher. The Confucian ideal, parallel to the Jewish precept of “kevod ha-moreh,” is alive and well today. Unlike the consumerist approach to education in the United States, where students demand attractively presented products from their teachers, students in China feel happy to receive the pearls of wisdom that issue from their teachers’ mouths. At times, this leads to a certain passivity in the classroom on the students’ part. But the overall effect, especially for a short-term visitor from America, is wondrous.

Following the Kaifeng conference, I had the privilege of teaching a group of 25 graduate students — again, a rather astonishing number — in an intensive seminar on modern Jewish thought at the Glazer Institute in Nanjing. We spent three hours a day exploring thinkers as diverse as Baruch Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn, the Hatam Sofer, Samson Raphael Hirsch, Franz Rosenzweig and Hannah Arendt. We did close readings of primary sources together in class. This was a novel experience for most. Graduate students in Jewish studies in China write theses and dissertations on a vast range of subjects, from the Second Temple period to Maimonides’ philosophy to the Holocaust to contemporary Israeli society. But their research is based not on an analysis of archival sources in the original languages, which is the standard in the United States, but on a survey of recent secondary scholarship on a particular theme. In this sense, Chinese students are somewhat behind their American, Israeli and European counterparts. Nevertheless, they are quick learners and exceptionally hard workers. They will catch on soon.

Some already have. Lu Yanming is a postdoctoral fellow at Nanjing University who seems to know everything about Chinese history and virtually everything about modern European history as well. He understands the norms of scholarship in the West and is aiming to meet them in his current research on Jews who returned to Germany after World War II. Meng (Jeremiah) Zhenhua is a fine young professor of ancient Judaism at Nanjing, who has done extensive training in Israel and speaks Hebrew. As it happens, he is also the Communist party representative in the department of philosophy and religion, a curious reminder of the lingering presence of the old regime in new China. And Fu Cong just received her bachelor’s degree and is entering the master’s program in Jewish studies at Nanjing. She was one of the most perceptive, sophisticated and confident of all the students in the seminar, and represents the newest generation who can be expected to do outstanding work in the field, most likely in her case by continuing her graduate studies in the United States.

Encountering these students made clear how remarkable and worthy an enterprise Jewish studies in China is. It’s important for China, it’s important for the field — and, it almost goes without saying, it’s important for Jews that the Chinese develop an informed understanding of their past and present in the 21st century.

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Herzl: A visionary father of a nation

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Theodor Herzl was an assimilated Viennese journalist who became the unlikely founder of modern Zionism and a main catalyst for the creation of the Jewish State of Israel.

That much most of us know in broad strokes, but for those thirsting for a more detailed picture of the man’s background, family life, setbacks and triumphs, we recommend a visit to a Laemmle theater to see “It Is No Dream: The Life of Theodor Herzl.”

Director and writer Richard Trank (and co-producer with Rabbi Marvin Hier) of the 96-minute documentary has done a thorough job in researching and hunting down historical footage, and is aided by the professional narration of actor Ben Kingsley. The latter has been a frequent presence in pictures produced by Moriah Films, the Oscar-winning documentary arm of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Herzl is given voice by Austrian-German actor Christoph Waltz, a long way from Waltz’s American breakthrough role as the Jew-hunting SS colonel in “Inglourious Basterds.” Music is by Lee Holdridge, and bookending the film at the beginning and conclusion is Israel’s president Shimon Peres.

Herzl was born in Budapest, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and site of the largest synagogue in Europe.

As did most assimilated Jewish families in central Europe, the Herzl family conversed in German, and by the age of 8, young Theodor reportedly knew all of the writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller by heart, roughly the equivalent of reciting all of Shakespeare’s works from memory.

While Theodor was still a child, the family moved to Vienna and later he became a lawyer, while on the side writing plays that met with only moderate success.

But he made his real mark as an outstanding journalist, married into a wealthy Jewish family, and during a stormy marriage fathered three children. 

In 1890, the Neue Freie Presse (New Free Press), a leading Viennese newspaper, made Herzl its Paris correspondent, which turned out to be a fateful move for the man and the Jewish people.

He famously covered the treason trial of French army captain Alfred Dreyfus, and “Dream” focuses on that momentous miscarriage of justice to illustrate the up-and-down history of French Jewry. This included becoming the first Jewish community in Europe to receive full citizenship under Napoleon, to the anti-Semitic mob outbursts during the Dreyfus trial.

The trial awoke Herzl to the dangers facing Jews all over Europe, and he prophetically predicted that a time would come when even the powerful Rothschild banking family would be expelled from Europe.

In short order, the lawyer-journalist laid out the blueprint for a future Jewish state in his book “Der Judenstaat,” which detailed the administrative, economic and military structure of the imagined country.

No detail was too small for Herzl’s middle-European mind, and as one of the new nation’s very first acts he urged the erection of … an opera house.

At the beginning, Herzl’s fantasy vision was derided by almost everyone. Orthodox Jews told him that only the Messiah could give the Jews their own country, while the Reform movement advocated Jewish integration within the host populations of European countries.

Trank and his colleagues do a particularly effective job of tracking Herzl’s triumphs and setbacks during the First World Zionist Congress, held in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland.

The road ahead would be rocky and bloody, but Herzl, who died at 44, had laid the foundation stone while confiding to his diary the then insane belief that a Jewish state would be proclaimed within 50 years, at the latest (he was off by one year).

“It Is No Dream” will screen at four Laemmle theaters, starting Aug. 17 at the Music Hall in Beverly Hills and the Town Center in Encino. The documentary is also set for two-night (Aug. 18 and 19) engagements at the Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and Claremont 5 in Claremont.

CAMERA, the Zionist Organization of America West, AMIT and StandWithUs are co-sponsoring the Aug. 21 evening show at the Music Hall, which will include a Q&A with director Trank. For information and tickets, call (310) 855-9606.

For information on all other screenings of “Dream,” visit laemmle.com. For additional background information, visit moriahfilms.com.

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Ayn Rand … Rosenbaum?

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Mobile, News, Opinion, Rob Eshman /

The first public cause to which Ayn Rand donated her own money was the State of Israel.

I find this little-known nugget fascinating for two reasons.

One, it contradicts the idée fixe of Rand as not really Jewish. And two, it contradicts the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Rand’s followers often obscure, or quickly pass over, her Jewishness.  The official Ayn Rand Web site, aynrand.org, doesn’t mention it. Neither does the Web site of her most popular book, atlasshrugged.org, nor the hagiographical site, facetsofaynrand.com.

But none of this is exactly a secret. In her excellent 2011 book about Rand, “Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right,” Jennifer Burns tells the story. Alisa Rosenbaum was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on Feb. 2, 1905, to Zinovy Rosenbaum, a pharmacist, and Anna Rosenbaum, the high-strung daughter of a wealthy tailor, whose clients included the Russian Army.  The Rosenbaums were largely non-observant, but celebrated Passover and were by no means completely assimilated—Alisa sat out of class during religious instruction.

[Related: How Paul Ryan will motivate Jewish voters]

Intellectual, withdrawn and immersed in her fantasy worlds, Alisa yearned to leave her country behind. When she was 21, Jewish relatives in Chicago—the Portnoys, of all names—helped her arrange a visa.  Once in America, she grew tired of her relatives’ insular Jewish world, and headed for the source — you could say the fountainhead — of her fantasy: Hollywood.

In Hollywood, the aspiring screenwriter Alisa Rosenbaum became Ayn Rand. An Eastern European émigré who breaks free from the claws of tradition and family, gentrifies her name, assimilates and devotes herself to creating stories about an idealized America — if that’s not the very definition of a 20th century Jew, what is?

Rand was a classic 20th-century Jew in another way as well: she was a devout atheist. She replaced God with her philosophy, just as Freud did with psychology and Einstein with physics. She loathed religion as much as the Communists, whom she loathed, loathed religion. In a 1979 interview, Rand told talk-show host Phil Donahue that religion, “gives man permission to function irrationally, to accept something above and outside the power of their reason.”

All this matters now because Ayn Rand matters now — perhaps more than ever. Gov. Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, is a self-described Ayn Rand devotee — and not of her early screenplays.

Ryan requires all his staff members to read Rand’s seminal novels, “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.” The ideas she developed in these novels, as Burns writes, have become the ideological touchstones of the modern Conservative movement.

“Rand advanced a deeply negative portrait of government action,” Burns writes. “In her work, the state is always the destroyer, acting to frustrate the natural ingenuity and drive of individuals. Her work … helped inspire a broad intellectual movement that challenged the liberal welfare state and proclaimed the desirability of free markets.”

It is hard to read Ryan’s plan for addressing the Federal deficit and not see Rand’s ideological pencil marks.

The Ryan budget, wrote David Stockman, the conservative Republican former budget director under President Ronald Reagan, “shreds the measly means-tested safety net for the vulnerable: the roughly $100 billion per year for food stamps and cash assistance for needy families and the $300 billion budget for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and disabled.”

In other words, the Ryan budget is Ayn Rand’s philosophy made flesh. 

I understand the origins of Rand’s emphasis on initiative and ingenuity. She was an exceptional individual, an outsider who by sheer force of intellect and will forged not just a life, but a movement. 

I understand her faith in capitalism and the free market. The Bolsheviks shattered her family, and few understood better than she the failure of Communism.

I even understand her rejection of religion — in her day it was most often a force of repression and superstition.

What I don’t understand is how, given these beliefs, Rand also could urge her followers to donate money to Israel.

“Give all help possible to Israel,” said Rand, then in her late 60s, in a lecture in 1973. “Consider what is at stake.”

Rand made clear she loathed Arabs and the Soviet Union, and saw Israel as a bulwark against both — even if it was socialist.

“This is the first time I’ve contributed to a public cause,” Rand said, “helping Israel in an emergency.”

Really, how do you explain such a thing? True, she saw Arab culture as “primitive,” but she acknowledged individuals had no responsibility to help citizens of other countries. She didn’t act out of logic or rationality — she acted because she felt, in dire circumstances—part of a collective. In that time, I believe, she wasn’t The Individual, she was part of a group: The Jews.

That feeling, that impulse, may not be rational, but it is powerful. There is a very real sense, as Jews, as Americans, as people, that we are bonded to one another despite, or even because of, our essential individualism. 

Rand’s religious blind spot is also Ryan’s policy blind spot. The most successful countries on Earth do not just fund defense, police and the courts, as Rand would have it. They invest in research, education and innovation. They provide a safety net to the sick and needy. They keep defense spending in check. They protect the environment from over-exploitation. They make cuts and raise taxes, so that society’s costs and benefits are shared.

Ayn Rand couldn’t see this. I hope Paul Ryan can.

Ayn Rand … Rosenbaum? Read More »

Stage dramedy tackles interfaith marriage taboo

Leave a Comment / Culture, Entertainment, Mobile, News, Theater /

If you take Israel out of the equation, there’s little in the Jewish world that gets people as riled up as the idea of intermarriage. For most secular and liberal Jews, intermarriage, which once carried a huge social stigma, has become more acceptable. Visit any Reform synagogue in Los Angeles, and you’re bound to come across all kinds of intermarried families. Indeed, in the liberal Jewish world, intermarriage has even begun to be seen as an opportunity to bring more people into the Jewish community. But in the Orthodox world, the stigma of intermarriage is as strong as ever, and Maia Madison’s new play “Nobody Likes Jews When They’re Winning,” explores exactly what happens when a girl from a traditional family falls in love with guy who happens to be non-Jewish.

“The play is about an interfaith couple who want to get married and live happily ever after, as long as her Jewish family doesn’t find out,” said Madison, during a phone interview between rehearsals. Her main character, who draws a little from Madison’s own life story, “goes on a quest to find out the real meaning of her Jewish identity and the real meaning of family.”

Madison grew up in an observant home in New York City. Her parents were both from Orthodox backgrounds and kept kosher, to an extent, but Madison was also the first girl in her family to have a bat mitzvah.

“I’m a very strong-minded woman, I went to Northwestern University,” said Madison, noting that some in her family were disappointed she didn’t go to Stern College.

The idea that became “Nobody Likes Jews When They’re Winning” came to Madison when she watched a close friend’s relationship fall apart after her ill father moved in with her and her partner. “She picked her family over her relationship.”

The experience made Madison realize that sometimes we’re forced into tough situations where we have to choose between family and love.

“Now if you’re 30, you can’t get a job, even though you have an MBA,” said Madison of the economic situation that’s left many post-college grads living at home. According to Madison, that new dynamic has wreaked havoc with the notion of “leave and cleave” that’s presented in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined (cleave) to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

An additional topic explored in Madison’s play is how Hollywood and the world at large sees Jews. Madison recalled getting a call from a non-Jewish friend at CBS who’d just been pitched a show that he described as “ ‘The O.C.’ meets Temple Beth Israel,” and wanted Madison’s opinion as a Jew as to why it felt “off” to him. “Nobody likes Jews when they’re winning,” Madison told him.

“There are no shows where likable Jews drive around in fancy cars, live in million-dollar homes and spend a $100,000 on a bar mitzvah at the Beverly Wilshire, the same way that the people on ‘Revenge’ do, for example,” Madison said. The question of why that’s so is one that dogs her, and she explores it thoroughly in the show.

But lest anyone think the play appeals only to Jews, the director, Diana Basmajian, a non-Jew, says that’s just not so.

“No matter what a person’s background was, they were still talking in that lobby,” Basmajian said of the audience from the show’s staged readings.

Basmajian and Madison have been friends for more than 20 years. “I’m half Armenian, and I think as I got to know more of my Armenian heritage that I was drawn to plays about the human struggle, and particularly the Holocaust,” Basmajian said. “I was always teased by Maia, because my early work as a director was all Holocaust plays and plays on Jewish families.”

Basmajian jumped at the chance to work with Madison on her latest piece, because she realized it was something that was close to Madison’s heart. “It kind of bridges that beautiful gap between drama and comedy. That’s real life — some things are hilarious and some things, you’re on the verge of tears at the same time.”

Producer Laetitia Leon was also eager to work with Madison, and coming from an intermarried family, the piece was particularly poignant for her. “I felt like I wish I’d had this story when I was younger. It’s not that I don’t appreciate religion, I just wasn’t raised with it,” said Leon, whose parents raised her as an atheist. She believes the play will spark dialogue, no matter a person’s background. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I don’t think you were listening,” said Leon, laughing.

“You don’t want to write a play that only has meaning for one section of the population,” Madison said. “All of my gay friends came to me and said, oh my God, this is a coming-out story. I didn’t even realize. Every one of my gay friends had to face going to their parents and knowing that they may turn their backs on them forever.”

Basmajian, for one, is bullish on the piece, and she hopes it will touch audiences of all backgrounds who come to see it at the Open Fist Theatre Company. “We need that other voice out there that watches and listens and says, ‘Oh wait, I agree, I disagree, here’s my opinion, here’s what happened to me.’ ”

“Nobody Likes Jews When They’re Winning” will be playing at the Open Fist Theatre Company through Sept. 8. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit openfist.org.  A scene from the play will also be performed as part of the Temple of the Arts’ (www.templeofthearts.org) Friday night service on Aug. 17.

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An interview with Ayelet Shaked

Leave a Comment / Israel, Mobile, News /

With the run-up to the first-ever internal primaries for the Jewish Home Party (Ha-Bayit Ha-Yehudi) in full steam, one of the most hotly discussed issues is the candidacy of 36-year old Ayelet Shaked.

The co-founder and former chairman of the MyIsrael (Yisrael Sheli) national movement, the recipient of the 2012 Abramowitz Israeli Prize for Media Criticism and a close associate of Naftali Bennett – the two worked together in the office of Benjamin Netanyahu prior to the 2009 elections – Shaked is raising some eyebrows due to the fact that she, unlike Bennett, is a self-declared secularist.

Thus while Naftali Bennett is seen as taking on the old guard in his bid to become the new chairman of the Jewish Home Party, Ayelet Shaked is facing an equally difficult task in attempting to become the first secular member of Knesset for a party that was formerly known as the National Religious Party (Mafdal).  While no one doubts her strong pro-Israel credentials, not surprisingly the voices are divided within the national religious world regarding a secular candidate for a traditionally religious party.

After reading much about her in the Hebrew press, I decided to meet with her in a Tel Aviv café in order to get an up close impression of this up and coming star.

Yoel Meltzer (YM): You grew up in Northern Tel Aviv, not exactly the breeding ground for future right-wing stars.  This being the case, from where did you acquire your strong connection to many of the ideals of the religious Zionist world?

Ayelet Shaked (AS): I think originally a bit came from my home.  My mother was a teacher of Bible in Tel Aviv and my father was masoriti (traditional).  Every Saturday we went to synagogue and we made kiddush.  However, since the discussions at home tended to stay away from politics most of my political views I eventually developed myself.

Later on when I was in the army I served in the Golani and I became close friends with many religious Zionist soldiers.  This in turn strengthened my ideology.  I also spent part of my army time in Hebron and became friends with many people there, which also had an influence.  But overall most of my political views I just developed on my own.

YM: Was there any one person or a particular event that had a profound influence in shaping your world outlook and political views?

AS: Yes.  I remember when I was very young, perhaps 8-years old, I saw a debate between Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Shamir and I really liked Shamir.  So I think since then, even though I was just a child, I’ve considered myself right-wing.

YM: Before you announced your intention to run in the primaries of the Jewish Home party, did you expect the reaction your candidacy has triggered?

AS: I must admit most of the people are very warm and happy with my candidacy.  I receive many emails and messages in Facebook, people saying we support you and we’re very glad you’re with us.  They’re in favor of opening the divides and having real cooperation between different people in Israel.  I’ve also met many yeshiva students who have told me that their rabbis are very excited that I’m getting involved since they’ve been waiting for years for the party to stop being a closed one-sector party.  So overall I really believe that those who are opposed to my entering the party are a minority.

Having said that, I definitely expected there would be some opposition and I understand it.  I realize that my presence within the party makes some people uncomfortable.

YM: Have you been contacted by any of the rabbis or public leaders who are opposed to your candidacy on the grounds that you’re secular?

AS: No, none of them have contacted me directly.

YM: If one of them were to contact you, what would you say to him?

AS: First of all it’s his right and I respect that. Even though we may have different views we need to respect each other.  Nevertheless I would tell him that if we want to have a large party to the right of Netanyahu, one that is based on the Bible and Jewish values, then the party needs to be opened to secular and traditional Jews that identify with the values of the religious Zionist community.

I truly believe that if they open their heart and open their mind to cooperate with other people that share the same values, then we can have a big party.  Otherwise the party will continue with three mandates.

YM: Do you feel offended by their opposition or take it personal?

AS: No, this is politics.  I don’t take it personal.  As I told you I respect their view and it’s also a legitimate view.

YM: Given all of the above, why on earth are you getting involved davka in the Jewish Home Party?  Do you really need the headache?!

AS: I’m doing this because I believe in it.  I have many close friends who are religious Zionists and I think if we can be good friends, work together and serve in the army together, then there is no reason we should not be part of the same party.  Moreover, since we believe in the same values and hold similar opinions then I think we should go fight for them in the Knesset.

YM: It’s better to do this via the Jewish Home Party than via the Likud?

AS: It’s a dilemma.  I was a Likud member for many years.  The problem in the Likud is that every leader takes the Likud to the left.  It wasn’t easy for me to take this step.

YM: Okay, now that you’ve decided to go full steam ahead, what are the burning issues you’d like to address if and when you become a member of Knesset?

AS: The first item is to develop a strong Jewish identity in all of the Jews in Israel.  This needs to be part of the education system, not just in the religious schools but in the school of my son as well.  When Zevulun Hammer was the Minister of Education there was a specific department responsible for the Jewish identity in the schools. This needs to be reestablished.

I’m also already very involved, personally and via MyIsrael, in all the issues regarding the post-Zionist organizations and their attempt to change Israel from a Jewish democratic state to a “nation of all its citizens”.  So if I become a member of Knesset I want to be involved in hasbara (public diplomacy) in Israel and around the world in order to expose the intentions of some of the extreme left-wing organizations and stop their penetration into the country.  These organizations are involved in a wide range of anti-Israel activities such as the delegitimization of IDF soldiers, divestment of Israel around the world and aid for what they call African refugees even though most are in fact infiltrators.

Finally I’d like to encourage women to go out and work, to become involved in the business world, in public life or whatever they want.  Of course I’m only talking about women that want to do this.  I have friends who prefer to stay at home and raise their kids and I respect this.  But regarding those who want to work and have a career we need to find ways to enable this.

YM: Even if you should succeed in addressing these issues, what other areas of Israeli society need to be changed in order for Israel to become more in line with the type of country you’d like it to be?

AS: First of all I want to say that I believe Israel is a miracle and I think we’re a very healthy country.  We have a strong economy, a high level of mutual concern compared to other countries and overall there is a lot of good here.

The most important thing we need to do to make it even better is to reduce the socioeconomic gaps in the society.  This needs to be done through the education system so that a child in the periphery will have the same opportunities like a child in my Tel Aviv neighborhood.

YM: Let’s change the subject to Naftali Bennett.  After meeting a few years ago while working together in Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, when did the two of you decide to join forces in trying to make an impact in Israel?

AS: After both of us left Netanyahu’s office we tried to decide what is the best thing to do; to go back to the private sector or to remain in public life?  Personally I strongly admire the private sector and I told Naftali many times that if you can establish a big company that can create thousands of jobs, do it.  It’s one of the most important things in life to provide someone with a job.

For many months we continued debating this subject until Naftali decided that he wanted to devote his life to the people of Israel and that the best way to do this is through the public sector.  So he went to work with the Yesha Council and I returned to the private sector.

It was at this time, on the side from our new jobs, that we jointly created together the MyIsrael national movement. 

YM: What exactly is the MyIsrael movement?

AS: It’s a national movement of about 100,000 people that are mainly right-wing and share the same values and ideas.  There are so many people that want to be involved and give of themselves for various causes yet they don’t want to stop their lives.  So MyIsrael is a way, via the internet and Facebook, to activate these people for certain issues.  In many ways we’re like a large lobby group.  For instance we’ve pressured Knesset members to pass certain laws, we fought a campaign against Galei Tzahal (Israel Army Radio) and their predominately left-leaning agenda in order to have more balance in their programs and we stopped some boycotts of Israel.  Believe me, when 20,000 emails are sent to someone overseas who wants to boycott Israel he’s going to think twice.

YM: In addition to you and Naftali, who are the other members of your group that are trying to get in to the Jewish Home Party?

AS: First of all there is Rabbi Ronsky, the former chief rabbi of the IDF.  He actually hasn’t made up his mind if he wants to be a candidate but he’s very involved with us.  He shares the same views as us and believes it’s very important that religious and non-religious work together.  Naftali introduced him to me a few months ago and he’s actually the one who pushed me into this.  We’ve become very close and the three of us, Naftali, Rabbi Ronsky and myself, speak every day.

In addition there is Moti Yogev, the former Secretary General of Bnei Akiva, and Dr Yehuda David, the Israeli physician who fought for the truth in the Mohammed al-Dura story.

Of course there is also current MK Uri Orbach who was very instrumental in convincing Naftali to get involved and run for the chairman of the party.

YM: Regarding Rabbi Ronsky, is he a sort of spiritual advisor providing guidance to you and Naftali?

AS: He’s much more than just spiritual.  He’s working very hard, going to chugei bayit (parlor meetings), giving interviews and basically doing everything that I do.  Personally I really admire him.

YM: What does he have to say about all the controversy regarding your candidacy? Has he spoken to you about it?

AS: Sure, he’s spoken to me many times about the issue and he encouraged me to run in the primaries.  He’s so against the splitting up into separate sectors.

YM: What would happen if you receive a top spot in the primaries but Naftali loses in his bid to become the chairman of the party?  Do you think the party has a chance of making a real impact without Naftali as the leader?

AS: No, I don’t think so.  Without Naftali we’ll probably just get a few mandates.  Although personally I’ll still run it would be very sad if Naftali is not with us.

YM: On a technical note, what happens to the two candidates (out of a total of three – Naftali Bennett, Zevulun Orlev, Daniel Hershkowitz) who lose in the election for the party chairman?  Are they guaranteed a spot in the party or are they out of for good?

AS: They’re not guaranteed a spot but they can run in the list since the election for the head of the party is one week before the election for the rest of the list.  Therefore if someone wins by a big margin and there is no need for a second round, then the two that lose can run in the list with everyone else.  By the way, Orlev and Hershkowitz said that if they lose the election for the head of the party they’re not going to run in the list.

YM: I recently read that an internal committee of the Jewish Home Party decided to lower the amount of candidates that voters can choose in the primaries from five to three.  In comparison to the Likud primaries of 2008 where members were allowed to choose 12 candidates for a general list as well as a few more for regional spots and new immigrants, these numbers are ridiculously low.  They’re also lower than the 2008 Labor primaries where members chose between 5-8 candidates for a national list.

Why then, following the warmly received decision to finally open up the party to primaries, are they going in the opposite direction?  Do you think there are certain people that are trying to prevent your group from getting in?

AS: First of all I respect the tremendous effort of Rabbi Tropper to bring primaries to the party and I also respect the work of the committee.  However in this issue I think they made a mistake.  Although people were definitely pushing them, in the end it was their decision.  They said that it’s for the good of the party in that it will prevent the formation of internal groups.

Nevertheless, we asked for a revote of this decision since many voters are not happy with it.  Obviously most voters want to choose more than just three candidates.

YM: Let’s assume that everything goes as planned and one day Naftali becomes the Prime Minister of Israel.  If this were to happen, what would be your dream role?  Would you like to serve as his Foreign Minister?  Or perhaps Defense Minister or Finance Minister would suit you better?

AS: I think I’d like to be either Education Minister or Foreign Minister since both education and hasbara are close to my heart.  Then again, if Naftali becomes Prime Minister I think I can retire and enjoy life!

Yoel Meltzer is a freelance writer living in Jerusalem.  He can be contacted via http://yoelmeltzer.com.

An interview with Ayelet Shaked Read More »