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December 5, 2013

Is a two-state solution still possible?

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

This story originally appeared on themedialine.org.

A trumpeter playing sorrowful songs outside of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art seemed to symbolize the melancholy many of the proponents of the two-state solution of an independent Palestinian state next to Israel feel these days.

Former Israeli Intelligence Chief Yuval Diskin was speaking at a conference on the roadmap for a two-state solution called the Geneva Accord. He told an overflow crowd at the museum, that dividing the land is still feasible.

“I know that the risks are great and that our success is not guaranteed. It is a deep seated issue, and much blood has been spilled,” Diskin said. “There are economic, mental and cultural gaps between the two sides. There are many, many years of disappointment. But I still believe that a true leadership, with a true vision and path can push this forward so that we can provide hope for a new momentum in the Palestinian and the Israeli streets.”

The Geneva Accord, which calls for a Palestinian state in virtually all of the land that Israel acquired in 1967, was crafted in the midst of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising from 2000 to 2005. Palestinians killed 1000 Israelis, mostly civilians, and Israeli soldiers killed 3000 Palestinians during violent clashes.

The Accord, released ten years ago, was meant to flesh out many of the longstanding issues between the Israelis and Palestinians in order to create an agreement independent of the political process.

Secretary of the State John Kerry is in the Middle East for the eighth time since August trying to push Israelis and Palestinians toward a deal. This time, he has brought a security plan to boost Israeli confidence after a potential withdrawal from much of the West Bank.

Some international observers believe time is running out for a two-state solution.

“This is an opportunity to capitalize on the promise of regaining peace,” said Robert Serry, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process. “I also feel that the international community is becoming increasingly impatient. That is why we stand to lose much if the talks fail again. We cannot afford to remain complacent.”

Diskin said Israel is making a mistake by focusing on Iran, rather than on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I am here because I believe that the consequence of this conflict left unresolved is much more existential than the Iranian nuclear threat,” Yuval Diskin said to a thunderous round of applause. “I know that this is not popular to say, especially these days, but I believe it with all of my heart. I believe that we must reach a resolution now before we go beyond a point to reach an agreement.”

Some of the biggest roadblocks to a two-state solution continue to be the same issues that have been sticking points for the past 20 years –the future of Jerusalem, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

“These are very heavy decisions to make. These are decisions that touch upon the essence of both Judaism and Palestinian identity. For Israel to have Jerusalem, this is our Zionist ideal,” Professor Shmuel Sandler, a professor of political science and a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Institute at Bar Ilan University (BESA) told The Media Line.

Israeli and Palestinian officials each blame the other for the lack of progress toward a two-state solution.

“If the right position is taken, of course it is feasible. But the situation on the ground shows that the Israelis do not want there to be an agreement,” Xavier Abu Eid, an advisor to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) told The Media Line. “The culture of impunity that Israel has continued allows it to violate international law without paying any price for its actions.”

The ongoing split between Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and the Islamist movement which controls Gaza, is also an obstacle.

“The drift away from the two-state solution politics in Israel and Palestine is one of the problems,” Ghassan al-Khatib, a former spokesman for the Palestinian Authority told The Media Line. “Every new election in Israel is bringing more right-wing politics into power. Public opinion is moving away from the two-state solution in Israel. The political reality within Palestine is no less of a problem. The split between Fatah and Hamas and the fact that the last election was won by Hamas is a problem.”

The current round of negotiations began in July after a five-year freeze. Secretary Kerry has made it clear that he is going to push both sides hard for a deal.

“I think Secretary Kerry has been very adamant and has been trying his best in order to reach peace between Israel and Palestine. And we definitely do appreciate his commitment for peace,” Abu Eid said. “I think that our side is very serious with him. We have gone along with everything we have committed to with Secretary Kerry. The other side has continued to undermine everything that Secretary Kerry has said.”

Recent polls have also shown that while both populations want a resolution to the conflict, neither side believes that the revived negotiations will end successfully.

“To recognize the right of Israel to exist, that’s the main obstacle. They have to cross a Rubicon,” professor emeritus Avraham Diskin (no relation to Yuval Diskin) of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem told The Media Line. “Israel is not a legitimate entity for most of the Arab world, most of the Muslim world. So to sign an agreement recognizing Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state (is difficult).”

Yet many on both sides say there is no alternative to a two-state solution, and the question is not if it will be implemented, but only when.

Is a two-state solution still possible? Read More »

Nelson Mandela, 95, first democratic president of South Africa, was close to country’s Jews

Leave a Comment / Obituaries /

In the early 1940s, at a time when it was virtually impossible for a South African of color to secure a professional apprenticeship, the Jewish law firm Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman gave a young black man a job as a clerk.

It was among the first encounters in what would become a lifelong relationship between Nelson Mandela and South Africa’s tiny Jewish community, impacting the statesman’s life at several defining moments — from his arrival in Johannesburg from the rural Transkei region as a young man to his years of struggle, imprisonment and ascension to the presidency.

Mandela, who died Thursday at 95, wrote of the early job in his autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,” and acknowledged the disproportionate role that Jews played in the struggle against apartheid. Lazer Sidelsky, one of the firm’s partners, treated him with “enormous kindness” and was among the first whites to treat him with respect.

“I have found Jews to be more broad-minded than most whites on issues of race and politics, perhaps because they themselves have historically been victims of prejudice,” Mandela wrote.

South Africa’s Jews remembered Mandela, the country’s first democratically elected president, as a close friend, one with deep ties to prominent community figures and a partner in the decades-long effort to end apartheid.

“I was extremely privileged to lead the community during his presidency,” said Mervyn Smith, who was chairman and later president of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the community’s representative body. “We met with him on many occasions and the talk was direct and open.”

For Mandela, who rose to prominence as a leading opponent of the discriminatory racial regime known as apartheid, Jews were vital allies. Jewish lawyers represented him in multiple trials, and Jewish activists and political figures played leading roles in the fight.

But Mandela’s ties to prominent South African Jews were personal as well as political. The former president’s second marriage, to Winnie Madikizela in 1958, took place at the home of Ray Harmel, a Jewish anti-apartheid activist. Harmel made Winnie’s wedding dress at Mandela’s request, according to David Saks’ history “Jewish Memories of Mandela.”

When Mandela married again, in 1998, he invited Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris to offer a private blessing on the nuptials that were scheduled to take place on Shabbat.

“After a warm exchange of greetings, Rabbi Cyril spoke quietly to them and blessed them,” Cyril’s wife, Ann, wrote later. “They stood through the blessing holding hands and with eyes closed. One could almost imagine the huppah.”

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 in the village of Mvezo, in the southeastern part of the country. As a young lawyer he was active in the African National Congress, which was beginning to challenge laws it considered unjust and discriminatory.

In the 1950s, Mandela was tried for treason. He was acquitted with the help of a defense team led by Israel Maisels. Several years later, when he was accused of attempting to overthrow the apartheid regime during the Rivonia Trial, Mandela was defended by several Jewish lawyers.

Nelson Mandela salutes the crowd at the Green and Sea Point Hebrew Congregation in Cape Town on a visit shortly after being elected South Africa’s president in 1994. Joining Mandela, from left, are Rabbi Jack Steinhorn; Israel’s ambassador to South Africa, Alon Liel; Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris; and Mervyn Smith, chairman of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. (SA Rochlin Archives, SAJBD)

Mandela was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in 1964. He served most of his sentence on Robben Island, a former leper colony off the coast of Cape Town. The legendary, feisty Jewish parliamentarian Helen Suzman visited him there. Another prison visitor was the journalist Benjamin Pogrund, who worked frequently with Mandela in the 1960s.

In a 1986 visit at Pollsmoor Prison, Pogrund informed Mandela that his son would shortly be celebrating his bar mitzvah. Afterward, the boy received a personal note from the future president.

“From a man serving a life sentence — and at that stage with no idea when he might be released — it was a kind and thoughtful action for a youngster he had not even met,” Pogrund said, according to Saks.

Mandela was released after 27 years, in February 1990. Four years later he was elected president. Among his appointees was Arthur Chaskalson, a member of his defense team during the Rivonia Trial, as the first president of the new Constitutional Court; he later became chief justice.

Mandela’s deep ties to the Jewish community continued during his political career. On the first Shabbat after his election, he visited the Marais Road synagogue in Sea Point.

“Almost his first celebration was with the Jewish community,” Smith told JTA.

In 1994, at the opening of an exhibition on Anne Frank, Mandela recounted how a handwritten version of her diary had inspired him and fellow prisoners on Robben Island.

On Israel, Mandela’s relationship with the Jewish community was not free of controversy. His African National Congress cultivated close ties with the Palestine Liberation Organization and Mandela warmly embraced its leader, Yasser Arafat.

Confronted with Jewish protests, Mandela was dismissive, insisting that his relations with other countries would be determined by their attitudes toward the liberation movement.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat meeting with Nelson Mandela in an undated photo. (Palestinian Authority via Getty Images)

“If the truth alienates the powerful Jewish community in South Africa, that’s too bad,” Mandela was reported to have said, according to Gideon Shimoni, author of “Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid South Africa.”

Shimoni also recounts a 1990 encounter at the University of the Witwatersrand with a Jewish student.

“Your enemies are not my enemies,” Mandela said.

According to Saks, Mandela stressed his respect for Israel’s right to exist even as he defended his relationships with Palestinian leaders. It was perhaps illustrative of his policy of inclusivity that Mandela accepted an honorary doctorate from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 1997 when many in his party remained opposed to any ties with Israel.

On a visit to Israel in 1999, Mandela invited Harris to join him.

“He made us proud to be South Africans,” Smith said. “His presence at any communal occasion was electrifying. The Jewish community’s pride in its relationship with President Mandela will be forever enduring.”

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Jewish organizations mourn loss of Mandela

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Jewish organizations have expressed condolences over the passing of Nelson Mandela, the former South African president and anti-apartheid activist, saying that the world will miss a leader whose dedication to human rights resonated with Jewish values.

“Today, the entire world community mourns the loss of Nelson Mandela, a historic leader who transformed one of the most racist societies on earth into a democracy with a progressive constitution that respects the rights of all people,” said American Jewish World Service president Ruth Messinger.

“He proved that equal respect and treatment of every person is and must continue to be an achievable reality everywhere in the world. Nelson Mandela was a modern-day prophet for human dignity whose voice was heard around the world, and he inspired me and millions of other Jews with his message of quality for all,”

Mandela, who died on Dec. 5, was 95-years-old. Imprisoned in South Africa for 27 years before becoming the country’s first black president, he was one of “the most admired world leaders of our time, and he has been an example to all who aspire to positions of leadership,” read a statement by World Union for Progressive Judaism.

With his commitment to fighting on behalf of an oppressed minority, Mandela “came to embody courage in the face of severe injustice,” added Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Ultimately, Mandela, who has long been a source of inspiration for Jews worldwide, “will be remembered as one of the 20th century’s leading figures,” read a statement by B’nai B’rith International.

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Jews in Mandela’s South Africa

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The year was 1994; South Africa was hanging on a thread. The first free general election was about to take place on April 27.

The world was waiting with baited breath to see whether civil war would erupt and blood would be shed.

 I had just moved from Cape Town to live in the most dangerous city in the world, Johannesburg. I could not have been more excited about my upcoming wedding four weeks from that date.  

When I was 8 years old, I remember sitting next to my grandfather and asking “Why did you not take the boat from Vilna to America?” “My darling,” he said, “do you think Jews could go anywhere they wanted?”

 There was a small quota in 1927 allowing Jews to emigrate from Lithuania to South Africa. So three generations ago, my grandparents fled oppression and anti-Semitism to go to a country on a different continent where some had rights, but many did not.

In hindsight, when I read about the events leading up to the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, including the violence occurring on a daily basis in the townships and the tribal fighting, I am amazed at not only the turmoil and uncertainty in which we lived, but also how we continued with “life as normal”

I lived three minutes away from Alexandria Township, and hearing gunshots and seeing smoke from our balcony was a common occurrence.   However, since media censorship was still in place, we did not hear or see or read about most of the turmoil and violence. It was the outside world that truly had more insight into what was going on in South Africa. I remember some of our relatives and friends fleeing the country before our wedding, being convinced civil war would break out at any minute.

Instead of fearing the new political situation and its possible implications for me and the Jewish community in South Africa, I was filled with a sense of hopeful anticipation and a sense of purpose that all young people and specifically women could play in this new democratic country.

I foresaw the many opportunities in this  “New South Africa” At 25, I had started a market research company and would go into township and tribal areas to conduct in-depth interviews and group discussions with my teams of interviewers. Since no research had previously been conducted in any of these areas, and all groups had been kept separate from each other under the Apartheid system, we had very little understanding of the cultures, attitudes, needs and wants of communities.

I was fascinated by the differences in each tribe’s culture and realized that understanding a person’s culture is the foundation of respect in a new society.  When I lectured to research students on how to go about conducting qualitative and quantitative research it was many times them who taught me the appropriate terms of respect and endearment when addressing people of various ages.

From being a feared and regarded by many white South Africa as “persona non grata” whose name was mentioned in whispers, ” Nelson Mandela became our savior and leader. He assured each and every person that no matter their religious affiliations, tribal roots or the color of their skin, they had a home in the new South Africa — the “rainbow nation”. 

Despite these assurances, the many opportunities that presented themselves in the new South Africa and the adoration and respect for Nelson Mandela, I feared for the future of the Jewish Community in the New South Africa. I read about and witnessed the horrific, escalating daily crimes and the close alliances that the New African National Congress (ANC) government had formed with then Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro and Muammar Gadhafi.

For generations, Jews in South Africa had been asking, “Is there a place for us, do we have a future?”  Before Mandela was elected President, we personally, and as a community, continuously debated this topic.

Now, with Mandela’s passing, we continue to ask the same question. While the world and the political environment have changed over the past 19 years, the debate for Jews in South Africa remains the same.

Mandela was a hero because he understood each group’s and each community’s insecurities and fears.  When one suffers, it is easy to become insulated and myopic. Mandela experienced suffering, dedicated his life to the freedom struggle, having spent 27 years in prison, sacrificing his family life and enduring harsh conditions. Yet somehow, he was able not only to forgive and reach out to those who had tormented him, but also to show empathize with them at the very things they feared.

Each time I heard Mandela speak, dressed in his famous “ African shirts,” I think of a man of immense power, but with amazing humility, modesty and compassion. To South African Jews, and to people throughout the world, he has a value we will never be able to quantify.  He represents the very best of human kindness, one that always tried to build a better South Africa for all South Africans.

Today as a Jew, what concerns me most is that there is no one in the South African Government who can maintain that same level of empathy and closeness for the South African Jewish community or who understands the Jewish community’s affiliations with Israel as Mandela did. He understood that Israel is not just a country, but also a part of each Jewish person.

South Africa’s Jewish community, in particular, will be forever grateful for the influence Mandela had on their lives not just as President, but also for the respect he showed for every religion.

Leora Raikin is a South African fiber artist, author, teacher and speaker on African tribal arts and customs through African Folklore Embroidery as well as The Jews of Southern Africa- From Vilna, to Cape Town to Los Angeles.  www.aflembroidery.com She has lectured at  Skirball Cultural Museum and was guest artist at Camp Ramah. In South Africa she founded Strategic Property Research and was awarded Business Achiever of the year for her work in post-apartheid research. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Gary and son Joshua.

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Nelson Mandela, apartheid fighter and former South African president, dies at 95

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Nelson Mandela guided South Africa from the shackles of apartheid to multi-racial democracy, as an icon of peace and reconciliation who came to embody the struggle for justice around the world.

Imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against white minority rule, Mandela emerged determined to use his prestige and charisma to bring down apartheid while avoiding a civil war.

“The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come,” Mandela said in his acceptance speech on becoming South Africa's first black president in 1994.

“We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation.”

In 1993, Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an honour he shared with F.W. de Klerk, the white Afrikaner leader who freed him from prison three years earlier and negotiated the end of apartheid.

Mandela went on to play a prominent role on the world stage as an advocate of human dignity in the face of challenges ranging from political repression to AIDS.

He formally left public life in June 2004 before his 86th birthday, telling his adoring countrymen: “Don't call me. I'll call you”. But he remained one of the world's most revered public figures, combining celebrity sparkle with an unwavering message of freedom, respect and human rights.

[From our archives: A South African-born rabbi reflects
on Nelson Mandela and the Jewish community]

Whether defending himself at his own treason trial in 1963 or addressing world leaders years later as a greying elder statesman, he radiated an image of moral rectitude expressed in measured tones, often leavened by a mischievous humour.

“He is at the epicentre of our time, ours in South Africa, and yours, wherever you are,” Nadine Gordimer, the South African writer and Nobel Laureate for Literature, once remarked.

Mandela's years behind bars made him the world's most celebrated political prisoner and a leader of mythic stature for millions of black South Africans and other oppressed people far beyond his country's borders.

Charged with capital offences in the 1963 Rivonia Trial, his statement from the dock was his political testimony.

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination.

“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities,” he told the court.

“It is an ideal I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

DESTINED TO LEAD

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, destined to lead as the son of the chief councillor to the paramount chief of the Thembu people in Transkei.

He chose to devote his life to the fight against white domination. He studied at Fort Hare University, an elite black college, but left in 1940 short of completing his studies and became involved with the African National Congress (ANC), founding its Youth League in 1944 with Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu.

Mandela worked as a law clerk then became a lawyer who ran one of the few practices that served blacks.

In 1952 he and others were charged for violating the Suppression of Communism Act but their nine-month sentence was suspended for two years.

Mandela was among the first to advocate armed resistance to apartheid, going underground in 1961 to form the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, or 'Spear of the Nation' in Zulu.

He left South Africa and travelled the continent and Europe, studying guerrilla warfare and building support for the ANC.

After his return in 1962, Mandela was arrested and sentenced to five years for incitement and illegally leaving the country. While serving that sentence, he was charged with sabotage and plotting to overthrow the government along with other anti-apartheid leaders in the Rivonia Trial.

Branded a terrorist by his enemies, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964, isolated from millions of his countrymen as they suffered oppression, violence and forced resettlement under the apartheid regime of racial segregation.

He was incarcerated on Robben Island, a penal colony off Cape Town, where he would spend the next 18 years before being moved to mainland prisons.

He was behind bars when an uprising broke out in the huge township of Soweto in 1976 and when others erupted in violence in the 1980s. But when the regime realised it was time to negotiate, it was Mandela to whom it turned.

In his later years in prison, he met President P.W. Botha and his successor de Klerk.

When he was released on Feb. 11, 1990, walking away from the Victor Verster prison hand-in-hand with his wife Winnie, the event was watched live by television viewers across the world.

“As I finally walked through those gates … I felt even at the age of 71 that my life was beginning anew. My 10,000 days of imprisonment were at last over,” Mandela wrote of that day.

ELECTIONS AND RECONCILATION

In the next four years, thousands of people died in political violence. Most were blacks killed in fighting between ANC supporters and Zulus loyal to Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party, although right-wing whites also staged violent actions to upset the moves towards democracy.

Mandela prevented a racial explosion after the murder of popular Communist Party leader Chris Hani by a white assassin in 1993, appealing for calm in a national television address. That same year, he and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Talks between the ANC and the government began in 1991, leading to South Africa's first all-race elections on April 27, 1994.

The run-up to the vote was marred by fighting, including gun battles in Johannesburg townships and virtual war in the Zulu stronghold of KwaZulu Natal.

But Mandela campaigned across the country, enthralling adoring crowds of blacks and wooing whites with assurances that there was a place for them in the new South Africa.

The election result was never in doubt and his inauguration in Pretoria on May 10, 1994, was a celebration of a peoples' freedom.

Mandela made reconciliation the theme of his presidency. He took tea with his former jailers and won over many whites when he donned the jersey of South Africa's national rugby team – once a symbol of white supremacy – at the final of the World Cup in 1995 at Johannesburg's Ellis Park stadium.

The hallmark of Mandela's mission was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which investigated apartheid crimes on both sides and tried to heal the wounds. It also provided a model for other countries torn by civil strife.

In 1999, Mandela, often criticised for having a woolly grasp of economics, handed over to younger leaders – a voluntary departure from power cited as an example to long-ruling African leaders.

A restful retirement was not on the cards as Mandela shifted his energies to fighting South Africa's AIDS crisis.

He spoke against the stigma surrounding the infection, while successor Thabo Mbeki was accused of failing to comprehend the extent of the crisis.

The fight became personal in early 2005 when Mandela lost his only surviving son to the disease.

But the stress of his long struggle contributed to the break-up of his marriage to equally fierce anti-apartheid campaigner Winnie.

The country shared the pain of their divorce in 1996 before watching his courtship of Graca Machel, widow of Mozambican President Samora Machel, whom he married on his 80th birthday in 1998.

Friends adored “Madiba”, the clan name by which he is known. People lauded his humanity, kindness, attention and dignity.

Unable to shake the habits of prison, Mandela rose daily between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. to exercise and read. He drank little and was a fervent anti-smoker.

An amateur boxer in his younger days, Mandela often said the discipline and tactics drawn from training helped him to endure prison and the political battles after his release.

RAINBOW NATION

But prison and old age took their toll on his health.

Mandela was treated in the 1980s for tuberculosis and later required an operation to repair damage to his eyes as well as treatment for prostate cancer in 2001. His spirit, however, remained strong.

“If cancer wins I will still be the better winner,” he told reporters in September of that year. “When I go to the next world, the first thing I will do is look for an ANC office to renew my membership.”

Most South Africans are proud of their post-apartheid multi-racial 'Rainbow Nation'.

But Mandela's legacy of tolerance and reconciliation has been threatened in recent years by squabbling between factions in the ANC and social tensions in a country that, despite its political liberation, still suffers great inequalities.

Mandela's last major appearance on the global stage came in 2010 when he donned a fur cap in the South African winter and rode on a golf cart, waving to an exuberant crowd of 90,000 at the soccer World Cup final, one of the biggest events in the country's post-apartheid history.

“I leave it to the public to decide how they should remember me,” he said on South African television before his retirement.

“But I should like to be remembered as an ordinary South African who together with others has made his humble contribution.”

Writing by Andrew Quinn and Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Angus MacSwan

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‘Mad Men’ comes to minyan

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Never underestimate the miraculous confluence of Jews and Torah.

True story.

After minyan this morning a bunch of us minyan-aires were standing around eating bagels and lox and discussing post-Thanksgiving frequent flyer travel. That's when a woman I've never seen before came up and introduced herself. She asked, in turn, who I was and what I do. It turns out that she knows one of my colleagues, and that in the not-too-distant past, she was featured in the Jewish Journal, as part of our ongoing series on Holocaust survivors.

“And what do you write about?” she inquired.

“Oh, Hollywood, mainly,” I told her. “But I also write about other things.”

I elaborated about my non-Hollywood work. 

“My granddaughter wants to be a journalist,” she confessed, “but we're trying to discourage her. It's a difficult field.”

“Well, it can be,” I said. “The whole profession is in flux right now, but the work can be very gratifying.” 

She asked if I would speak with her granddaughter. I said of course… how old is she… we have internships… yadda yadda. I even offered for her granddaughter to attend to one of our editorial meetings. She was very grateful. She asked if I would put my contact information in her iPhone.

“Maybe I can help you too,” she said, as I punched my digits into her device. “My son-in-law works on 'Mad Men.'”

Obviously, my ears perked up.

“Oh really?” I replied, thinking that whoever her son-in-law is, he probably works in the writer's room or something like that. “What's his name?”

“Matt Weiner,” she said.

And that is just one reason why I will continue to attend daily minyan and say Kaddish for my mother with great fidelity. Never underestimate God's wonders, in Hollywood and beyond.

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The challenge of defining Charedim

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The Iranian nuclear issue and Palestinian peace talks may be dominating the news about Israel nowadays, but if discussions within the Jewish state focused on any social challenge this year, it was the question of how to integrate the Charedi Orthodox population into Israel’s workforce and military.

A new centrist party, Yesh Atid, won 19 Knesset seats in January promising to cut subsidies and draft exemptions for the Charedi community. As the government has pushed legislation cutting Charedi benefits, Charedi leaders have debated how to respond.

But observers assessing trends and responses among Israel’s Charedim first need to ask a crucial question: Whom do we count as Charedi?

This week, the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel came out with a novel way to define the community that departs from previous measures used by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. Existing studies define Charedim based on whether they attended advanced yeshivot, and whether they avoided army service or eschewed college. Families with too many college degrees or too many soldiers were placed outside the Charedi box.

This method becomes a problem when you’re trying to measure, say, a rise in Charedi college attendance or army service. The Taub Center’s methodology avoids those pitfalls by choosing metrics that set Charedim apart from other Israelis while avoiding statistics that it’s trying to track (like Charedi presence in the workforce).

Instead, the Taub Center looked at recent electoral maps and identified precincts that voted in high numbers for Charedi political parties — a traditional measure of communal loyalty. The center found that in those districts, 80 percent of families were Charedi.

But how to separate that 20 percent? Answer: TV sets. Surveys of the Charedi community have found that fewer than 10 percent of Charedim watch any television at all, and that those who do watch TV watch very little — perhaps only outside of the home. Taub’s conclusion: If you live in a Charedi-voting district but own a TV, you’re almost definitely not Charedi.

If the political and social forces pushing for Charedi integration succeed, military service, academic degrees and employment will become increasingly less relevant to the task of classifying Charedim as time goes by. But until “The Voice” becomes popular in Me’ah She’arim, the Taub Center’s methodology seems safe.

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Incoming councilwoman: Knockout attacks may be caused by black-Jewish tension

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An incoming New York City councilwoman said the wave of so-called knockout attacks may be caused by tension between blacks and Jews.

Councilwoman-elect Laurie Cumbo, who was elected to represent the Crown Heights neighborhood and will take office next month, made the statement in a Facebook post on Tuesday calling for a zero-tolerance policy toward the “knockout game” and for strengthening the relationship between African-Americans and Jews.

In the game, attackers try to knock out someone with one punch. At least ten such attacks have taken place in the Brooklyn borough of New York City since September, most directed at identifiably Jewish people, according to reports.

Cumbo said that she had many discussions with local residents during the primary season and that “many African American/Caribbean residents expressed a genuine concern that as the Jewish community continues to grow, they would be pushed out by their Jewish landlords or by Jewish families looking to purchase homes.”

The councilwoman-elect said she did not mean to bring up the issue “as an insult to the Jewish community, but rather to offer possible insight as to how young African American/Caribbean teens could conceivably commit a ‘hate crime’ against a community that they know very little about.”

Cumbo stressed her admiration for the Jewish community. However, she added, “I also recognize that for others, the accomplishments of the Jewish community triggers feelings of resentment, and a sense that Jewish success is not also their success.”

She called for the communities to “gain a greater understanding of one another so that we can learn more about each other’s challenges and triumphs despite religious and cultural differences.”

Cumbo called for a detailed investigation of the knockout attacks, leading to “arrests and legal action.”

“If one person attacks another, regardless of the motivation, there is no justification for such an action,” she wrote.

Jewish leaders reportedly criticized Cumbo for her assertations.

The Anti-Defamation League said that Cumbo’s statement “evokes classic anti-Semitic stereotypes.”

“As an organization that has worked for more than 20 years to improve Black-Jewish relations in the aftermath of the Crown Heights riots, we are troubled by the incoming councilwoman’s sentiments, particularly her comment about resentment over Jewish economic success, which evokes classic anti-Semitic stereotypes,” New York Regional Director Evan Bernstein said in a statement.

Other incidents of knockout attacks have occurred in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., The Associated Press reported.

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Jewish history: Wonderfood, death rays and monokinis

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There is nothing new under the sun,” Ecclesiastes tells us, but what about Los Angeles? In the city’s history, lost in the files of patents, oral histories and news stories, we find Jewish innovators — scientists and designers, who through their inventions, concoctions and designs have beamed lasers into our lives, fed the hungry and dressed us in both the latest and barest of fashion.

Three, in particular, have affected our lives today: 

• In the 1940s, Caltech biochemistry professor Henry Borsook and Clifford Clinton of Clifton’s Cafeteria created a 3-cent meal to feed the hungry. 

• In 1960, physicist Theodore “Ted” Maiman demonstrated the first ruby laser in Malibu.

• And in 1964, Los Angeles fashion designer Rudi Gernreich captured America’s attention with his topless swimsuit, the monokini.

Ever wonder how a hungry world could be fed? For Henry Borsook, the thought came in 1945 at Caltech when he was visited by another man also interested in feeding the hungry — Clifford Clinton, the owner of Clifton’s Cafeteria, who had come to the Pasadena campus with his wife, Nelda.

Foreseeing a food shortage in Europe and Asia with the end of World War II, Clinton proposed a remedy. According to an April 1978 interview with Borsook, conducted by Mary Terrall as part of a Caltech oral history project, Clinton wanted Borsook to “devise a food where a meal would provide one-third of the recommended daily allowances of everything, but it was to weigh not more than two ounces, and it was to cost not more than three cents,” said Borsook (1897-1984), who was born in London, England, and immigrated to America from Toronto, Canada, in 1929.

“We could provide a protein that’s as good as meat or milk,” he suggested, including all the vitamins and minerals, “at the desired weight and cost.” Borsook believed a good diet was not necessarily tied to eating specific foods, but could also be manufactured.

A can of multi-purpose food (MPF), created by Henry Borsook.

“I had a pretty good idea how to do it,” said Borsook, whose father was a tailor. He knew that during World War II, the U.S. government had invested in growing soybeans to extract their oil, and had been throwing the rest “down the sewer.”

Clinton offered the professor $5,000 to pursue the project, some of which Borsook wisely put toward hiring a cook “who would learn and draw up recipes.”

“We decided to call it multipurpose food (MPF),” Borsook said. “Neither Clinton nor I wanted to patent this food, and we agreed that we would give the information to anybody who asked for it,” he said.

In 1946, the two formed an organization called Meals for Millions (its successor organization is called Freedom From Hunger) to distribute the MPF but found the U.S. government preferred its own “food” and farming programs.

MPF, which Time magazine in 1947 described as looking like “speckled beige cornmeal” — you just added boiling water — was distributed instead by Catholic World Relief and Church World Service. It would later be distributed on the Navajo reservation, and, in the 1960s, MPF even found its way into bomb shelters. By 1963, more than 90 million meals had been distributed.

After the war, while visiting Germany with his daughter, Borsook met a man who was an orphan in Germany and had been fed “this wonder food from California.”

“It was very gratifying,” Borsook remembered.

In a city of searchlights, another L.A.-area scientist, physicist Theodore “Ted” Maiman, caught the world’s eye by beaming a new kind of light. In 1960, working at the Hughes lab in Malibu and competing against other, better-financed research groups with the same goal, he built and demonstrated the first working laser, which had at its heart a ruby cylinder. 

Although at the time, a Los Angeles Herald headline declared, “L.A. Man Discovers Science-Fiction Death Ray,” the laser — its name an acronym for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation” — has since become a fact of life. We find them in home DVD players, at the supermarket for scanning bar codes, as a tool for surgical procedures in operating rooms, and even dangling from our key chains.

The first ruby laser, invented by Theodore “Ted” Maiman. 

Growing up in Denver (Maiman was born in Los Angeles in 1927 and died in 2007), his father, Abe, was an electronics engineer who kept an electronics workshop in their home. Not surprisingly, his son got his first job at 12 at an electrical appliance repair shop and worked his way through college by repairing electrical and electronic devices.

In that workshop, as a child, “He learned how to destroy things as well. Damaging a few of his father’s instruments,” said Andrew Rawicz, a former colleague of Maiman’s at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in British Columbia, where Maiman was an adjunct professor. 

According to Rawicz, Maiman’s practical experience gave him a leg up on the competition for creating the first laser.

“Not only did Ted know how to make things, but he knew why,” said Rawicz, an SFU engineering sciences professor. “There was a simplicity and elegance to his invention,” he added.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Maiman’s invention in 2010, SFU fired up the original laser. “It will work forever,” Rawicz said.

Maiman was nominated at least twice for the Nobel Prize but never won. However, he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1984 by Israel’s Wolf Foundation, and in 1987 he won the Japan Prize.

Maiman’s wife, Kathleen, related that unlike the stereotypical scientist, “When Ted explained things, it was so understandable.” 

Another innovator, L.A. fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, readied America for the future by changing our look. Born into a
well-to-do Viennese-Jewish  family in 1922 — his father was a stocking manufacturer — Gernreich was a teenager when he arrived in Los Angeles in 1938, a short time after the Anschluss.

One of his first jobs was working at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital morgue, washing bodies. Later, reflecting on that time, he said, “I do smile sometimes when people tell me my clothes are so body-conscious I must have studied anatomy. You bet I studied anatomy.”

After a stint in a modern dance troupe and doing freelance fashion design work, in 1953 he began designing for Westwood Knitting Mills in Los Angeles, beginning a trend in knitted tube dresses.

“Rudi was radically different,” said Kaye Spilker, a curator in the costume and textile department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which owns photos of the work as well as a collection of Gernreich’s fashions and drawings. In the 1950s, “Clothing was constructed. His bathing suits had no wiring or boning, no padding,” she said. Perhaps as a result of his dancing experience, “He was interested in the body being free.”

In 1964, Gernreich would gain national and world attention with his topless swimsuit, the monokini. “Of the 3,000 women who bought the suits, at least two were worn in public,” wrote fashion writer Marylou Luther in the introduction to “The Rudi Gernreich Book,” by Peggy Moffitt, who was Gernreich’s model and muse. One was worn by Carol Doda, a San Francisco topless dancer, and the other by 19-year-old Toni Lee Shelly, “who was taken into custody by Chicago policemen for wearing the topless bathing suit at the beach.” At her arraignment, “She asked for an all-male jury,” Luther wrote.

In the book, Moffitt notes that Gernreich — whose studio was on Santa Monica Boulevard, near La Cienega Boulevard — was the first modern designer to combine bold clashing colors, use cutouts and vinyl and plastic in his designs. He developed ethnic and workmen’s clothes into fashion, as well as introducing androgyny.

In 1967, Gernreich was pictured on the cover of Time magazine under a banner that declared, “The Mini-Skirt Is Here to Stay.” Later, he would introduce a thong bathing suit, coordinated outfits and a “no bra” bra.

“He was a pioneer in the development of American fashion,” Spilker said. Gernreich designed “the kind of clothing women would wear today.” 

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