fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

March 28, 2013

Six Israelis dead, dozens injured in holiday car accidents

Leave a Comment / Israel /

Six Israelis died and dozens were injured in car accidents during the Passover holiday.

Israel Police recorded 160 car accidents from Tuesday to Thursday. Magen David Adom emergency services treated nine people with serious injuries, as well as 13 with medium injuries and 146 people who were lightly hurt.

One accident in southern Israel claimed the lives of two mothers.

Outside Dalyat al Carmel in the Haifa area, a 19-year-old man was killed when his car slammed into an electricity pole.

Near Tel Aviv, a young man was killed after his car collided with a tractor.

Another man was killed in a fatal collision near Beit Zarzir east of Haifa and another woman died in an accident near the south-central city of Kiryat Gat.

Among the critically injured was a 13-year-old boy who was riding an all-terrain vehicle in Yavne, a city situated south of Rishon Lezion near Tel Aviv. The boy was being filmed for a video clip ahead of his bar mitzvah celebration, Army Radio reported.

Six Israelis dead, dozens injured in holiday car accidents Read More »

Steve Zimmer holds middle ground

Leave a Comment / Bill Boyarsky, Is Featured?, News, Opinion /

After surviving opposition funded by the mayors of America’s two biggest cities, newly re-elected Los Angeles Unified School District board member Steve Zimmer says his win has preserved a “system of checks and balances” in running L.A.’s huge school district.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg teamed up to pour millions of dollars into the Coalition for School Reform, a political action committee that supported the campaigns of Zimmer’s challenger, lawyer Kate Anderson, as well as school board president Monica Garcia, a Villaraigosa ally. Garcia won, but Anderson lost in a race that turned out to be the most closely watched of the election. Another Villaraigosa-backed candidate, Antonio Sanchez, is headed for a runoff in a contest for an open seat.

Bloomberg gave $1 million to Villaraigosa’s Coalition For School Reform, which put in almost $4 million to take control of the school board. The two mayors are aligned with national education advocates who generally oppose teacher tenure and seniority rules and instead favor evaluating teachers on the basis of statistically controversial student test scores. They also back charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately run schools whose teachers are often not union members. 

Villaraigosa, Bloomberg and their allies seem to believe in the old cliché: my way or the highway.

But Zimmer, whose Fourth District ranges from East Hollywood to Venice and from Westwood into the San Fernando Valley, received 52 percent of the vote in an extraordinarily low-turnout election. “Venice was the tipping point for me,” Zimmer said. “I knew the election would be determined in Venice, and it was literally these parents e-mailing for us. The voters who voted were highly informed and highly educated on the issues. This election was won by moms in virtual precincts, moms blogging, really engaged in the substance of the issues.

“What the opposition wanted was complete control,” Zimmer said. “When you don’t have a system of checks and balances, you go to extremes. As a policymaker, I think moderation, compromise and cooperation are the key ingredients in building successful.”

Zimmer, who was a classroom teacher and counselor at Marshall High School, has always tried to walk a line between the Villaraigosa coalition and the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), the teachers union that opposes the mayor.  It’s a difficult task in the highly polarized world of education politics and policy.

“He was no one’s ‘yes man,’ ” wrote former State Sen. Gloria Romero in an Orange County Register column. “That seemed to be the problem.” Romero advocates changes in school operations, but doesn’t follow the hard line espoused by some of the national reform leaders. 

Although UTLA has criticized Zimmer in the past, the union obviously considered him better than the Villaraigosa group and put almost $1 million into his and other school board races.

Now safely possessed of another four-year term, Zimmer is looking to the future.

One big question is whether he will support school superintendent John E. Deasy, who is much admired by the Villaraigosa group. Zimmer’s foes implied during the campaign that he would vote to fire Deasy.

I asked him if he would continue to back the superintendent. “Absolutely,” Zimmer said. “John Deasy is the right person. He is the best person. I have been the decisive vote to maintain the Deasy superintendency, but I reserve the right to disagree with him on policy issues. We should debate policy. We are policymakers. You get the best policy by having a healthy debate.”

Another big question is whether Zimmer will be a candidate for president of the school board — a high-visibility post, although the president has the same one vote as the six other board members.

“I think people will speculate,” he said. “And if asked by a strong majority of my colleagues, I would consider that. But I am not obsessed with title or position. I don’t wake up in the morning thinking about that.”

We discussed a subject that has long interested Zimmer — the effort to persuade parents to keep their children in public schools, particularly the middle class in middle schools. I first met Zimmer when I began writing about this for the Jewish Journal a couple of years ago, centering my attention on Jewish families on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley. Zimmer, who is Jewish, has been a leader in the effort.

“On the Westside, I am very proud of the fact that we have had the guts to deal with the complicated issue of families coming back to the public schools,” he said. How do our parents, especially in the Jewish community, invest in and support and transform our neighborhood schools without excluding anybody? That is the absolute question. Can we make the investment? Can we re-engage in our public schools?”

“There are strong examples in West Hollywood. We’re beginning to have examples on the Westside in elementary schools.”

Ethnic and class differences can make the process difficult. Zimmer talked about the difficulty of getting parents of different incomes and ethnicities to work together. “How do I as a leader guide a person through a relationship with a parent who might not even have a high school education … who is regarded as ‘the other’? That is the struggle of the moment on the Westside.”

It’s actually the struggle of the moment all over Los Angeles, and not just in the schools. I’m glad Zimmer survived the Villaraigosa-Bloomberg assault and will be around to continue to add his moderate voice to the battle. 

Bill Boyarsky is a columnist for the Jewish Journal, Truthdig and L.A. Observed, and the author of “Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times” (Angel City Press).

Steve Zimmer holds middle ground Read More »

Next mayor’s earth agenda

Leave a Comment / News, Opinion /

Delivering his inaugural address on the City Hall lawn in 2005, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa challenged Angelenos to turn Los Angeles into “… the greenest big city in America.”

Eight years later, it is only fitting that we ask ourselves how close Mayor Villaraigosa has come to realizing this lofty aspiration, and, just as importantly, what the next mayor must do to fulfill it.

I served in the first term of the Villaraigosa administration as general manager and commission president of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and have firsthand knowledge of the environmental ambitions and accomplishments of the administration.

Although it is clear that there is work for the next administration to perform, it is also indisputable that the environmental progress we have made as a city over the last eight years has been nothing short of remarkable. 

However, these noteworthy achievements have gone largely unheralded. Perhaps this is because people do not immediately sense gains such as reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, air-quality improvements, green construction, public transportation projects or the development of local water resources, whereas potholes, traffic jams and the city’s fiscal deficits are more tangible, visible issues that overshadow the positive news on sustainability. Whatever the reason, the fact is that the city’s environmental victories have been relegated to the back pages. But this does not make them any less real or any less worthy of celebration.

This article focuses on five areas: energy and climate change, water, air, green buildings and transportation.

1. Energy and Climate Change

The Villaraigosa administration can justifiably claim to have made substantial headway in addressing climate change and energy issues.

In 2007, Villaraigosa issued the GreenLA Action Plan, calling for emissions to be reduced 35 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2030. Los Angeles is on track to meet this objective. Further, LADWP has already reduced its emissions 21 percent below 1990 levels — far ahead of AB 32 mandates.

Climate change can have serious impacts for Los Angeles. Rising sea levels could threaten coastal areas; hotter, smoggier days are predicted; droughts and fire events are likely to be more prolonged; and water supplies more constrained. The mayor’s recent AdaptLA climate change plan is intended to prepare for the changes that are coming our way. This is a crucial step in adapting to a new reality.

In charting a more environmentally sensitive direction for the city, LADWP is a central player. The Villaraigosa era has seen transformative changes at LADWP, especially during the first term. Examples include the unprecedented four-fold expansion of renewable energy resources leading to the attainment of the 20 percent level in 2010; the record-breaking 19-fold increase in savings from energy efficiency programs; the completion of Pine Tree Wind Farm, the nation’s then-largest municipally owned wind farm; the achievement of steep declines in water consumption levels; and the 2008 Solar Energy Plan, which was the progenitor of the recently adopted landmark Feed-in Tariff Program.

Some critics will complain that, at the start of his second term, the mayor planned that Los Angeles would be coal-free by 2020 and that its renewables portfolio would reach 40 percent by 2020. However, this criticism ignores the fact that LADWP’s renewables were at just 4 percent, and coal accounted for nearly 50 percent of our power consumption, when the mayor took office. Today, LADWP is on track to meet the 33 percent renewables level by 2020 and has announced that it will eliminate coal well in advance of legal deadlines. Given the historical context, the administration and LADWP merit some recognition, although, clearly, the next administration must continue the effort to accelerate the retirement of coal and to expand energy efficiency, renewable energy and distributed energy programs, while ensuring a prudent balance between renewable resources and natural gas.

2. Water

During the last eight years, Los Angeles has cut water consumption by 17 percent, and our per capita use is the lowest of any big city in the United States. This is a phenomenal accomplishment by any standard.

In 2008, the mayor promulgated the Los Angeles Water Supply Action Plan, formulated by LADWP. This much-lauded document constituted, in effect, Los Angeles’ declaration of independence from imported water. Recognizing that 90 percent of our water comes from hundreds of miles away and that its cost will rise inexorably, the Water Supply Plan called for the development of indigenous resources: conservation, wastewater recycling, rainfall capture, groundwater remediation, underground storage.

This plan has been reiterated both in LADWP’s Urban Water Management Plan and in a recent adoption of principles by the LADWP commission that calls for 37 percent of Los Angeles’ water to come from local sources by 2035. These pronouncements are welcome improvements over the “ignorance is bliss” attitudes of the past. Further, in addition to the wins in conservation, incremental progress has been made especially with respect to wastewater recycling and rainfall capture. The work of LADWP and the Bureau of Sanitation (BOS) in this regard should be commended.

However, some would argue that a target of 37 percent 23 years from now is not aggressive enough. UCLA’s recent Vision 2021 L.A. study (Vision 2021) calls for the more ambitious objective of 32 percent by 2021. Certainly, both LADWP and BOS have the talent to expedite matters and would agree that certain actions (e.g., the clean-up of the San Fernando Valley groundwater basin) are urgent. However, much will depend on the ability of the next administration to garner the political will and secure the funds necessary to move forward.

3. Air

Decades of untiring work by many people have yielded significant improvements in our air quality, although we still remain one of the most polluted U.S. cities for ozone smog and particulate pollution. Still the Villaraigosa administration can fairly claim credit for contributing to enhancements in our air quality. This effort is most clearly evident at the port, where air emissions have been cut by more than half. This is due, in large measure, to the mayor’s San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan and its various components, such as the Clean Trucks Program. The port has also made considerable progress in cleaning the water there, although soil contamination continues to bedevil port officials. Again, it will be left to the next administration to fully implement the Clean Air Action Plan and to pursue a zero-emission target for the port.

4. Green Buildings

Over the last eight years, Los Angeles has emerged as a national leader in this area. Vision 2021 reports that the square footage of municipal buildings certified to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards jumped from 9,000 in 2004 to almost 1.8 million in 2010.

In 2008, Los Angeles established the Green Building Program, requiring that most structures larger than 50,000 square feet be built to LEED standards. In 2011, Los Angeles took the leap of introducing new requirements, which incorporated and surpassed the California Green Building Standards Code (CALGreen). In addition to the CALGreen mandates on water and energy efficiency measures for certain new buildings, the L.A. County Green Building Program covers not only new projects, but all alterations and additions over $200,000 in valuation, and requires “solar ready” roofs and “electric vehicle ready” features. The Department of Building and Safety (DBS) is to be complimented for its work in this regard.

In 2011, Los Angeles also enacted the Low Impact Development Ordinance, compelling new and redevelopment projects to incorporate rainfall capture designs, thus helping to abate Los Angeles’ urban run-off problem, while augmenting its water supply.

The water fixtures ordinance of 2009 (estimated to save a billion gallons of water over the next 20 years) is worthy of mention as the joint project of LADWP and DBS.

5. Transportation

The Brookings Institution recently acknowledged Villaraigosa and the team that produced Measure R and obtained the low-interest Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan from Congress to fund transportation projects, recognizing this endeavor as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Economic Development Initiatives.

Today, more transit and highway projects are opening, under construction, or are in the planning stages, than at any time in the history of Los Angeles County.

In addition, 100 percent of MTA buses have been converted to alternative fuels, and Los Angeles now boasts the largest alternative-fuel trash and street sweeper fleet in the United States. Further, in 2013, Los Angeles is set to become the first large U.S. city to synchronize all signalized intersections. Bus and rail services have increased, and CicLAvia events, which temporarily close streets to car traffic, have proven popular. The next administration must continue to pursue policies to dissuade single-passenger vehicle trips.

The gains of the last eight years in the five areas covered above have been concrete and far reaching and merit recognition. Perhaps we cannot yet claim to be the “… greenest big city in America” in every sphere of endeavor, but we are entitled to that distinction in many ways.

Still, much will depend in the commitment of the next mayor to build on these advances. The next administration must push forward to catalyze the transformation of our energy profile, reduce our greenhouse gas footprint, develop local water resources, cut air pollution and bring public transportation projects to fruition.

As the runoff campaign for mayor enters its final stages, let’s pay close attention to how the two candidates address these specific issues. Despite the solid progress we’ve made over the last eight years, the future of Los Angeles’ fragile environment will depend on their answers and their actions.

David Nahai is an attorney and consultant specializing in real estate, energy and water matters. He is the former general manager and commission president of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and former chair of the Los Angeles Regional Water Board.

Next mayor’s earth agenda Read More »

Path to peace: StandWithUs

Leave a Comment / News, Opinion /

On Monday evening, March 11, I had a public discussion with Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and president of J Street, at Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles. The topics included how American Jews should approach pro-Israel advocacy, whether peace is currently attainable between Israel and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, and what American Jews can do to help the two sides reach an agreement.

We agreed that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is dangerous and harmful to Israel. We agreed that the Palestinian teaching of hate, incitement and terrorism is an impediment to peace, and we both professed a desire for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

[Read a counterargument to this column here: Pathway to peace: J Street]

We strongly disagreed, however, on some critical issues. J Street argued that American Jews should lobby the U.S. government to pressure Israel into changing some of its policies. Referring to a statement from J Street’s Web site, I read aloud that, “J Street was formed to change the conversation on Israel and to give voice to American Jews who believe that they have a responsibility to vocally oppose Israeli government policies that threaten Israel’s future.” While Ben-Ami claimed he did not recognize this statement from his Web site, I was troubled that J Street felt it had a right to lobby the American government in order to pressure Israel — and its democratically elected government — into pursuing J Street’s agenda. 

We also disagreed about whether Abbas is a reliable partner for peace. While Ben-Ami assured the audience that “this is the time, and Abbas is the man,” I noted that just two months ago, in January 2013, Abbas honored past Palestinian terrorist leaders, including the Mufti of Jerusalem who collaborated with Adolf Hitler to bring the Holocaust to the Middle East. I questioned how Ben-Ami could trust Israel’s security in the hands of Abbas, who promotes one set of values to his Arabic constituency and quite another to Western audiences.  

Likewise, Ben-Ami and I differed on how he characterized certain facts. For instance:

Beitar soccer games: Ben-Ami suggested that Israeli incitement and Palestinian incitement are similar. I expressed that I felt this was an unreasonable comparison. For evidence, he pointed out that Israeli crowds at Jerusalem soccer matches shout, “Death to Arabs” so much that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he could no longer root for his team. In response, I noted that this is a critical point: Olmert represented the State of Israel and he condemned such views. I said that you can judge a society by the way its leadership responds when its people say or do hateful things. 

Ben-Ami then implied that there was a lack of an official Israeli government response to the hateful soccer rhetoric because Olmert is now a private citizen. In fact, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly condemned the racist comments of Beitar fans. 

Monument for Baruch Goldstein: When I cited Baruch Goldstein as an example of how Israel denounces acts of violence by Israelis against Palestinian civilians, he stated that Israel “funded a monument [to Baruch Goldstein]. See the public memorial!” In fact, Israel never funded a monument to Baruch Goldstein. There was indeed a monument erected by some Goldstein supporters, but the Israeli army demolished it after the Knesset passed a law in 1999 forbidding memorials to terrorists. My point was that the Israeli government condemned Goldstein as a terrorist while the PA government glorifies terrorists.  

Demographic threat: Ben-Ami repeated his oft-made declaration that Israel must be pressured into making peace now because demographics are such that Jews will be a minority in Israel within a generation and “will be ruling over a majority that doesn’t have rights.” I called this fear-mongering and asked Ben-Ami if he includes the Palestinian population of 1.5 million people living in Gaza in his accounting of Israeli demographic concerns. This is a critical point because Israel no longer has administrative or political control over the Gaza population. Ben-Ami admitted he includes the population of Gaza. Interestingly, if we remove Gaza from these calculations, Ben-Ami’s demographic numbers are reduced by 50 percent and no longer make the case for the demographic threat being an emergency. 

Humanitarian blockade on Gaza: Ben-Ami asserted that Israel caused a humanitarian crisis in Gaza in the 2008 war through its blockade and that the blockade was lifted in part because of J Street’s lobbying. I pointed out that Israel has consistently allowed food and medical supplies into Gaza, even during wars and blockades. At the time, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees, said that the agency received 15 trucks of aid a day and had two months of stock in Gaza to aid recipients.  

Mediation techniques: While I agreed with Ben-Ami’s statements that we need an active American role in facilitating Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, I disagreed with his desire to impose specific details about what the peace agreement should be. As an honest broker, I would hope that the American role would be to mediate a plan arrived at by the parties themselves, rather than pressuring the parties into pre-existing expectations. President Barack Obama himself echoed this sentiment when he recently said that his role should be to listen to both sides and help them work out compromises.

Looking back at the evening’s discussion, I am saddened that Ben-Ami insists that he and J Street are helping Israel, when in reality the actions of his organization are only hurting Israel and the advancement of peace. Although we all wish for a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, J Street’s work only emboldens Palestinians to continue their history of rejectionism and incitement. J Street encourages Palestinian refusal to return to negotiations because it does not require any accountability from them and does not seek to change hateful attitudes toward Israel — both of which are prerequisites for a lasting peace.  

Roz Rothstein is the CEO of StandWithUs.

Path to peace: StandWithUs Read More »

Path to peace: J Street

Leave a Comment / News, Opinion /

Opponents of J Street consistently argue that our positions are somehow radical, strange and way out of the Israeli or American-Jewish mainstream.

The opposite is true: When it comes to Israeli-Palestinian peace, the two-state solution and the inexorable demographic threat to Israel’s future as a democratic state that remains the homeland for the Jewish people, our position is the same as that of the Israeli government, the Obama administration and the vast bulk of the American Jewish community.

It is right-wing critics like StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein who are out of step.

[Read a counterargument to this column here: Path to peace: StandWithUs]

Take for example the two-state solution. Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, in a March 15 NPR interview, said he agreed with our view that the current situation is unsustainable. 

“I think it’s preferable to replace it with a two-state solution based on recognition of the Palestinian people and their unassailable right to self-determination to live in their own state and their own homeland and the recognition of the Jewish people and its unassailable right to self-determination and our right to live in an independent state in our ancestral homeland. That is the only way to end the conflict and bring about a permanent and legitimate peace,” Oren said.

Rothstein argues that Israel has no Palestinian partner with whom to negotiate. Ambassador Oren, citing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, disagreed: “He says we have someone to negotiate with. It’s President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.”

On the demographic threat to Israel’s Jewish character, this is how Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak framed it in his speech to AIPAC: “We need a daring peace initiative vis-à-vis the Palestinians. A two-state solution is the only viable long-term solution. It is a compelling imperative for us, in order to secure our identity and our future as a Jewish and democratic state; it’s not a favor for the Palestinians.”

Rothstein contends that if we take the Palestinian population of Gaza out of the equation, there is no demographic threat to Israel’s Jewish majority. But Sergio DellaPergola of the Hebrew University, who is the foremost expert on the subject, disagrees.

Right now, the total number of Jews and Arabs living under Israeli rule in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza is just under 12 million people. Already, under 50 percent of the population is Jewish. Those figures will continue to worsen over time because Palestinian birthrates outstrip Jewish birthrates.

Contrary to Rothstein’s view, DellaPergola’s figures show that taking Gaza out of the equation does not buy Israel much time. If Israel continues to occupy the West Bank alone (without Gaza), Jews will constitute only 54 percent of the population by 2030 and 45 percent by 2048 when it celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Rothstein makes much out of my contention that for negotiations to succeed, an active and leading U.S. role will be required. My view is based on common sense and informed by the views of experts in conflict resolution like Allen S. Weiner of Stanford University.

In a Feb. 28 op-ed in the International Herald Tribune, Weiner argues that, “direct talks between implacable foes, without active mediation, may be the worst possible way to try to settle the conflict. Facing one’s adversary directly across the table heightens psychological barriers even to a mutually beneficial deal.”

Weiner continues: “The parties to the conflict are prisoners to beliefs based on their history, which color the way they see both themselves and their adversaries. As a result, it is hard for them to interpret information, evaluate risk and set priorities in a purely rational way. Even when an advantageous deal is on the table, they are psychologically disposed to reject it.”

At the end of the day, J Street exists to help Israel reach the deal it needs and wants so much and which is so central to its future as a Jewish state and as a democracy. It’s also a crucial U.S. national strategic interest. As citizens of this democracy, we have an obligation to state our views and the right to be active in the political arena.

We work for a strong America and all that it represents in the world. And we work for a safe, secure, democratic Israel living at peace with its neighbors. 

Jeremy Ben-Ami is the executive director of J Street.

Path to peace: J Street Read More »

Time to end ‘Top Rabbis’ list

Leave a Comment / Dennis Prager, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, Opinion /

Kudos to the Jewish Journal and writer Danielle Berrin for a fair and balanced article about Newsweek magazine’s “America’s Top 50 Rabbis” list. Given the prominence of Los Angeles rabbis at the top of the list, one might have expected the article to cheerlead on its behalf. But the article was not only balanced; it probably left most readers with a negative view of the list.

Kudos as well to the rabbis who made the list yet were quoted as being critical of it, such as Valley Beth Shalom’s Rabbi Ed Feinstein, whose critiques of the list were scathing.

The list actually accomplishes something very rare: it has no redeeming values, yet does great damage. It weakens an already somewhat fragile institution: the rabbinate. And it applies Hollywood values to a profession that least needs them — religion. Rabbis should not be regarded as stars.

This is no reflection on the rabbis who made the list. On the contrary, my beloved friend since high school, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, with whom I wrote my first two books, was on the list five times. And I am honored to count some of the Los Angeles rabbis in the top tier as friends for decades. Rabbi David Wolpe was one of the few non-family members in my home 20 years ago for my second son’s bris. I delight in his well-deserved success. So, too, I have often worked with Rabbi Marvin Hier since he came to Los Angeles; and I’ve known his colleague on the list, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, since we were both children in Brooklyn. As a member of a boys choir that sang at my parents’ Orthodox synagogue on the High Holy Days, he slept in our home on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

But as much as some of the rabbis on the list deserve being so honored, the list is degrading to the rabbinate. It is nothing more than a function of the contemporary preoccupation with celebrity over substance, of fame over significance.

Its destructive effects are legion.

It inevitably pits rabbis against one another.

It makes big synagogues similar to big film companies — looking to sign up big names.

It will surely affect at least some rabbis’ work by having them think about how they will make next year’s list rather than how to touch Jews’ lives.

It inflicts something Judaism prohibits inflicting even on animals — gratuitous pain — on almost all American rabbis. As the article notes, Rabbi Zoë Klein, senior rabbi of Temple Isaiah on the Westside of Los Angeles, “has never appeared on the Newsweek list, which she said, can sting. ‘I would love to be in such a place of holiness that things like that [list] didn’t bother me,’ she said. ‘But it’s only human to want to be recognized, and when a list like that comes out, it does make you question yourself.’ ”

The list also places a premium on “social activism” and on “innovation” — rather than on doing the far less glamorous things that rabbis should be doing. Will there be a list of the rabbis who visited the greatest numbers of sick Jews in hospitals? Who sat the longest with grieving widows? Who brought the most joy to Jews in nursing homes? Who blew shofar on Rosh Hashanah in the most homes of Jews shut in by illness? Or, for that matter, gotten the most Jews to take God and Torah seriously? Of course not. Those things are a) immeasurable, and b) of no concern to the makers of the list.

The list Hollywood-izes a sacred profession (just as, to be fair, American Jewish University’s [AJU] foolish program “Dancing With the Rabbis” did the same thing); sets at least some rabbis’ sights on fame; puts at least some rabbis in competition with another; distorts at least some rabbinic salaries; and tells at least some young Jews that in religion, like Hollywood, fame is what really matters. (Other than her fame, is there is a reason the AJU has invited Joan Rivers to lecture there?)

Even one of the list’s compilers acknowledges that some rabbis lobby to get on it. Isn’t that enough proof of the list’s insidiousness?

The most dynamic movement in Judaism today is Chabad. Yet, other than the movement’s head, not one of the thousands of Chabad rabbis (or their equally important wives) who live their entire lives far away from every one of their relatives and friends to serve Jews and on behalf of Jews (often as the only representative of Judaism to non-Jews in a city or even a country) is on the list. If you visit Cambodia, as I did a couple of years ago, you won’t find any famous activist rabbi in the capital, Phnom Penh. But you will find a Chabad rabbi. As you will in Katmandu, Nepal; Kinshasa, Congo; Lagos, Nigeria; not to mention Madison, Ala.; Bozeman, Mont., and hundreds of other cities in every one of the other U.S. states.

But not one rabbi running a Chabad House anywhere in the world made the Newsweek list. Why would they? They are neither “social activists” nor sufficiently “innovative” to make the list.

The damage having been done, it is now time to end this list. It would be a Kiddush Hashem, a loving act to fellow rabbis, and a lesson to young Jews about what matters, if every rabbi on the list publicly demanded that the list no longer be compiled. 

Finally, to the many rabbis not on the list who have done more good than many of the rabbis on the list, I offer this rule of life derived from a lifetime in public life: 

The famous are rarely significant, and the significant are rarely famous. 

Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host (AM 870 in Los Angeles) and founder of PragerUniversity.com. His latest book is the New York Times best-seller “Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph” (HarperCollins, 2012).

Time to end ‘Top Rabbis’ list Read More »

Cyprus verdict could inhibit Hezbollah operations in Europe

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Lead Story, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, Worldwide /

The conviction in Cyprus of a Hezbollah operative plotting to attack Israelis could undercut efforts by the terrorist group to carry out additional attacks outside the Middle East.

Last week's conviction was the second confirmation in recent months that Hezbollah is active on European soil. The first was when Bulgarian authorities identified the Lebanon-based terrorist group as being behind the July 2012 bombing in Burgas that left six people dead, five of them Israelis. Hezbollah also is believed to be behind recent plots against Israelis and Jews in India, Thailand and Azerbaijan.

The Cyprus conviction makes Europe likelier to list Hezbollah as a terrorist group, and that would bring new restrictions on Hezbollah that would have immediate operational consequences for the group, says Daniel Benjamin, the top counterterrorism official at the State Department in President Obama’s first term.

“If Hezbollah has to increase its operational security in Europe, if it can't use Europe to fundraise or travel through, it will be challenged to innovate to avoid being caught by European authorities,” Benjamin, now the director of the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, told JTA.

The Cyprus court found Hossam Taleb Yaacoub guilty of a plot to attack Israeli tourists in the Mediterranean island nation. Yaacoub, who holds Lebanese and Swedish passports, was trained in the use of weapons and scouted sites in Europe, including a Cypriot airport.

Yaacoub acknowledged membership in Hezbollah and staking out areas frequented by Israeli tourists, but said he did not know his work was part of a plot to kill Israelis. The court, which has yet to sentence him, rejected the denial.

The evidence that led to Yaacoub’s conviction helps tip the balance toward listing Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, diplomats from two leading European Union member states told JTA. Hezbollah already is considered a terrorist group by the United States, Israel and several other countries.

“Our position is that we've always said that if we have proof that holds up in court, we can enter the procedure,” said Karl-Matthias Klause, the spokesman for the German Embassy in Washington. “There is a general readiness into looking into forbidding the military wing of Hezbollah.”

The other diplomat, whose country has been among those resisting such a classification, said the Cyprus conviction would make it harder not to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist group.

“Bulgaria and Cyprus changes the equation,” said the diplomat, who insisted on anonymity. “The topic becomes one of European solidarity.”

Matthew Levitt, a former counterterrorism analyst at the FBI and a senior terrorism analyst at the Treasury Department in the George W. Bush administration, said he had just returned from meetings in Europe with security and foreign affairs officials.

“No one is debating anymore whether they are terrorists,” said Levitt, who is now a senior fellow analyzing counterterrorism at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Now it’s more, will designating them as terrorist group undermine security in Lebanon? I can have that conversation; it’s a better one than 'are they terrorists?' “

The timing is propitious, said Levitt: Hezbollah is reactivating outside the Middle East for the first time in more than a decade, partly because of pressures on its two main sponsors, Iran and Syria. Its recent plots have been more hits than misses, which Levitt attributes to Hezbollah being out of practice and because Iran is rushing the group into staging attacks.

“Now you see in Cyprus what happens when they go back to tradecraft,” Levitt said, referring to Yaacoub’s careful monitoring of the comings and goings of Israeli tourists.

U.S. and Israeli officials for months have been pressing Europe to list Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Obama repeated the call last week during his Israel visit.

“When I think about Israel’s security, I think about five Israelis who boarded a bus in Bulgaria, who were blown up because of where they came from; robbed of the ability to live, and love, and raise families,” Obama told a convention center in Jerusalem packed with cheering university students. “That’s why every country that values justice should call Hezbollah what it truly is: a terrorist organization.”

The diplomat from the country reluctant until recently to list Hezbollah as terrorist said the issue is complicated by the fact that Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government. Cutting off the group would curtail European influence in Lebanon at an especially sensitive time: Lebanon is absorbing refugees from the Syrian civil war, and there are concerns that the fighting in Syria may spill over into Lebanon.

“We have to keep in mind that Lebanon is very fragile and we have to avoid what could further destabilize it,” the diplomat said.

One possible solution touted in Europe would be to designate Hezbollah’s so-called military wing as terrorist while maintaining ties with its political operation in Lebanon.

The United States recognizes no such distinction, Levitt said, but if Europe wanted to do so, there likely would be no U.S. objection.

“They want to make the distinction for convenience, they want to have leverage, so fine,” he said.

One outcome U.S. officials should oppose, Levitt said, would be to designate only individuals with Hezbollah but not the group as a whole as terrorist.

Benjamin said sparing Hezbollah’s political wing would not be a problem as long as the ban on the military wing made it harder to raise money and run agents.

“A designation worth anything will include a ban on solicitation and fundraising in Europe, and provide the legal predicate for terrorism prosecutions,” he said.

Should Europe take those steps, it could embolden other countries to do so as well, Benjamin said.

“Hezbollah being designated by Europe will embolden other countries to step up cooperation around the world,” he said.

Cyprus verdict could inhibit Hezbollah operations in Europe Read More »