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Jewish Journal

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February 24, 2015

Foreign Aid: 7 Practical Ways to Reconsider our Inter-Connected Existence

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Opinion /

I was asked to join with other voices from the Abrahamic faith traditions to think about the ways we all share comfort, energy and prayer, especially with the world beyond our borders. How can each of these attributes, in turn, help people lead a more faithful, fruitful life? Seven ideas were shared, and I am pleased to share my Jewish perspective.

Judaism has long held a commitment to pursue justice and the notion of tikkun olam – “repairing the world.” The Jewish people believe that history teaches us to respect and fight for the rights of others. Our sacred texts demand this: “And what does the Lord require of you?” We are asked, “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” [Micah 6:8]  But sometimes we find ourselves asking, “How do I actually live a more faithful life? What are some of the paths to a greater fulfillment of my faith?”

By spending  only several moments each day thinking about the ways to participate in our world over the next seven days, I believe by week’s end you will be moved to action and in it find a richer, more faithful life.

1. Spread optimism, not gloom

Cynicism is anti-Jewish. Maimonides teaches that we should very our next action as if it will lead the world toward redemption or destruction (Hilkhot Teshuvah).

There is great suffering in our world, but behind the headlines is a story of hope that needs to be told. Currently, we are witnessing the healthiest generation of children the world has ever known. According to UNICEF, 6.3 million fewer children under the age of five will die from illness and disease this year than in 1990. Infant mortality is declining and disparities between rich and poor are closing faster than ever.  Diseases are being eradicated at the greatest rate in all of human history:  smallpox is gone, and the scourges of polio and Guinea worm are on the verge of disappearing forever. More families have safe water to drink, more girls are getting an education, vaccines are preventing millions of deaths, and farmers are growing better harvests.

Yet, we all know that much remains to be done, but our work is clearly moving in the right direction. And the Jewish community all over the world has been a part of this success. We have faith in progress and remain active in bringing a brighter tomorrow.

2. Understand our global commitment

Faith communities play a crucial role alongside civic groups, corporations, philanthropic groups, governments, non-governmental organizations, and local communities. Faith-based development organizations, like the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), are often on the front lines of the global battle to turn vulnerable families and at-risk communities into strong, self-reliant villages with a hope…. and a future.

AJWS is the leading Jewish human rights and development organization, committed to the notion of tzedakah: empowering people throughout the world to achieve justice and self-sufficiency through the promotion of human rights, education, economic development, healthcare and sustainable agriculture.

AJWS supports more than five hundred grassroots organizations in Africa, Asia and the Americas that promote the rights of women, girls and LGBT people; rebuild societies torn apart by war and natural disasters; and seek to secure access to food, land and water. In the U.S., we advocate for policies that help create a just and equitable world.

You can become a part of this investment. Whether you contribute financially or in person, you are a part of furthering good work and righteous success. Consider joining a service-learning trip — there is no better way to truly understand what others face than to see and serve.  Those experiences in developing villages with AJWS changed my perspective and my moral commitments forever.

Cultivating a unified powerful voice, for all God’s children is a theological imperative, for Jews and other traditions, because, “By the breath of children, God sustains the world,” (Talmud Shabbat 119b).

3. Understand how the U.S. government fits into our work

Successes would be few without government’s funding and influence. Leadership in the upper echelons of governmental power does what we can’t:  it launches global initiatives to eradicate diseases, underwrites global health innovations, coordinates international strategies, and provides critical levels of funding directed to the most penurious nations and peoples.

Some 55 percent of American foreign aid goes, not to overseas governments, but to American non-profit organizations working around the globe. Many well-established faith-based organizations implement these foreign aid dollars. It’s important to understand that supporting U.S. government funding for foreign aid also supports our international efforts that save and improve lives.

The ancient Jewish sages taught that people have a responsibility, not just to “our own” as it were, but to all people of the world to foster peace (mipnei darkhei shalom).

4. Challenge the myths that hold back greater success

American foreign aid is one of America’s great-untold success stories, but success gets hidden under a blanket of myths – “It’s a playground for corruption” some say;  “we send missiles to dictators”; “the US spends a bloated 25 percent of the federal budget on foreign aid” and on and on it goes.

We have to fight back and respond with the facts: American foreign aid is less than one percent of the entire federal budget. It works to alleviate poverty, disease and hunger for the long term; creates self-sufficiency; and provides humanitarian aid during pressing crises. American foreign aid is vaccinations, it’s safe water, it’s the dignity of sanitation; schools, nutrition, farming education; it lifts up women and whole families and villages; it gives desperate people hope.

The mighty prophet Isaiah might well have agreed that when we better understand the facts rather than the worn-out myths, “then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday” [Isaiah 58:10].

5. Respond to the neediest, not just the nearest

Foreign aid is never a choice between us and them. Domestic issues may need to take priority, but the modest amount of funding that goes overseas reaches the neediest, not only the nearest.

The Aruch HaShulchan, the great 19th century Jewish legal authority, taught: “the actual ruling is that every homeowner or rich person who gives tzedakah is obligated to give a portion to the poor who are not his relatives,” (Yoreh Deah 251:4). We can’t merely take care of our “own” (family, friends, local, Jews, etc.); rather we must also reach those with the greatest needs (Responsa Hatam Sofer, YD, 234).

In Exodus 12:49, there is a biblical mandate that there be laws for the native and the treatment of the stranger. These laws not only spell out the rights of the poor, the orphan, the widow and the stranger. Indeed, they enumerate that these people are positive elements in society. They are distinct beings, not refuse.  And this protection is backed up the greatest guarantor: God.

6. Strengthen American Well-being

American investment in global health is also an investment in American health. Pandemics as rapid and devastating as the recent Ebola outbreak, or the recent spreading of measles, although rare, serve as an important reminder of the critical security and humanitarian work the United States does – not with drones and air bases – but with medical tents and syringes. Pathogens do not recognize political boundaries; fear doesn’t save lives. It is impossible to close off a border to a disease. If we want to prevent epidemiological devastation from crossing American borders, the way to do that in today’s global economy is to stop them where they begin.

Investment in development also helps our economy. 43 of the top 50 consumer nations of American agricultural products were once American foreign aid recipients. This is why balancing Defense, Diplomacy and Development has been a bipartisan-supported national security foreign policy since World War II. The Mishnah, an ancient Jewish text supports this notion: “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5; Babylonian Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin 37a). If we really believe that every human being has infinite dignity, what are we willing to sacrifice to honor this truth?

7. Share you moral voice with Congress

Our voices must not be silent because our work is not done. 17,000 children around the world continue to die every day mostly from preventable causes. That is a daily pandemic. “You are not required to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it” Pirkei Avot [2:21].

Congress needs our support. Congress needs your voice, especially at pressing budget time. Members of Congress who support U.S. foreign aid do so as quietly as possible because, too often, they come under fire politically by opponents who exploit ignorance about foreign aid. Reach out to your Representatives and Senators (call or e-mail) and let them know your thoughts about the value of global health and development programs. If you’ve been on a mission, share your personal story, both about the needs and the successful results of our good work.

 

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Executive Director of the Valley Beit Midrash, the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Founder and CEO of The Shamayim V’Aretz Institute and the author of seven books on Jewish ethics.  Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America.”

Foreign Aid: 7 Practical Ways to Reconsider our Inter-Connected Existence Read More »

Obama should send high-level rep to AIPAC conference

Leave a Comment / Opinion, United States /

 The Obama administration reportedly will not be sending a senior representative to address next week’s annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Snubbing AIPAC will help lock in the caricature of a president who dislikes Israel and disrespects the pro-Israel community. By contrast, sending a high-level representative would reflect the reality of strong relations, especially at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been the one angering and undermining many in the pro-Israel community, AIPAC included.

Substantive concerns over the current negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program have been eclipsed by Netanyahu’s insistence on proceeding with a speech to Congress, despite the objections of the normally supportive FoxNews, Commentary magazine and the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman. In his Jan. 21 statement announcing the speech, Republican House Speaker John Boehner framed Netanyahu’s address as a direct rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech.

“There is a serious threat that exists in the world,” Boehner said, “and the president last night kind of papered over it.”

AIPAC and the administration apparently were equally surprised by the arrangement between Netanyahu and Boehner. But only AIPAC has seen its own strategy — new sanctions against Iran before any nuclear agreement is reached — collapse as a result. Even if the president had vetoed the bill as he has promised, a strong bipartisan showing could have spooked the Iranian leadership enough to prevent a deal.

By making the issue more about his defiance of Obama than about stopping Iran, and by alienating sympathetic Democrats, Netanyahu has essentially made any early sanctions bill radioactive. Mossad briefings also reportedly convinced a few key Republicans to let talks play out instead of derailing them.

AIPAC isn’t the only ally Netanyahu left out in the cold. He and Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Ron Dermer, have each blamed Boehner for misleading them. Netanyahu’s address to AIPAC will come across as an anti-Obama victory lap and an awkward afterthought to his self-styled Churchill moment on Capitol Hill.

This leaves the door open for Obama to find some common cause with AIPAC, the Republicans and hawkish Democrats. No, he won’t sweep away doubts about the Iran talks, and it’s inconceivable that he’ll diminish Netanyahu’s clout among the AIPAC faithful. But at least he can help show the way forward on U.S.-Israel relations. Everyone agrees that’s worth pursuing, including Netanyahu.

To be effective politically and diplomatically, the administration needs to demonstrate that differences with a specific Israeli government don’t mean that Barack Obama and other Democrats have given up on Israel.

It’s been known for weeks that Vice President Joe Biden won’t be around for Netanyahu’s highly charged speech to Congress, where as the Senate’s presiding officer he would normally sit next to Boehner on the dais. Convenient.

An appearance by another prominent administration official, perhaps National Security Adviser Susan Rice or United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, would signal to AIPAC as well as Israelis that American Jews have not been sidelined in the relationship and that, regardless of GOP and Likud efforts, neither has the late-term Obama administration.

In late 2013, feeling betrayed by Obama’s overture to Iran, AIPAC went to war with the administration, privately expressing anger and publicly pushing for new sanctions legislation in Congress. This time, the Mossad warning against new sanctions has cut into Republican support, while the full-throttle challenge from Boehner and Netanyahu has scared off Democratic skeptics of the Iran negotiations. And unlike last year, AIPAC has kept out of the latest acrimony between Netanyahu and Obama.

The Obama administration failing to send a high-level representative to AIPAC will be seen as a lack of concern — for the Iran issue, for U.S.-Israel relations and for the American Jewish community. It will be taken as confirmation that the dispute really is between Obama and Israel, not just between two rival leaders. It will back up the stereotype, believed by anti-Semites and many Israelis, that all Diaspora communities are merely extensions of the State of Israel. And it will be needless.

The administration’s relationship with AIPAC must not depend on who sits in the Oval Office or the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem. The more Democrats can show they still respect Israel and are among its best friends, the more the president and any possible Democratic successor can hope to find common ground with Republicans — and American Jews — regarding Iran and other international challenges.

(Shai Franklin is senior fellow for United Nations Affairs at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy in Washington.)

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Germany sued for return of medieval collection sold to Nazis

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The heirs of four Jewish art collectors filed suit against Germany to regain a medieval gold treasure they claim was forcibly sold to the Nazis in 1935.

Alan Phillip and Gerald Stiebel filed their claim on Monday against Germany and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. They are demanding the return of a collection known as the Welfenschatz, or Guelph Treasure, whose value
they estimate at approximately $227 million.

The treasure, which a consortium of collectors bought in 1929 as an investment, originally included 82 pieces. The plaintiffs are seeking the return of the portion sold to Hermann Goering, Hitler’s deputy, in 1935.

In a statement issued Tuesday in Berlin, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation President Hermann Parzinger said he was “astonished by this step” after his foundation had done extensive research that he believed showed “the property at issue was not confiscated by the Nazis. Nor was it part of a forced sale or transfer under duress or coercion by the Nazis.”

Furthermore, he said that the plaintiffs’ attorneys had said they would abide by the advice of the Limbach Commission, a German advisory board for Holocaust-related claims, which one year ago rejected a claim by Phillip and Stiebel that the 1935 sale had been forced.

“We are confident that any court ruling on the merits would reach the same conclusion that we and the Advisory Commission have reached,” Parzinger said.

On Saturday, Parzinger announced that the state of Berlin had formally entered the Welfenschatz into the national registry of valuable cultural assets, which prevents it from leaving the country without permission from the minister of state for culture.

The Linbach Commission recommended that the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation retain the treasure, which is on display at Berlin’s Bode Museum.

“Germany feels itself to be and is regarded as a moral compass in the field of looted art,” Markus Stoetzel, another attorney for the plaintiffs, said Monday. “But it is not.”

In their suit, the plaintiffs called the 1935 sale a “sham transaction” carried out by the Dresdner Bank acting for Goering and Hitler. They claim the price paid for the collection, 4.25 million Reichsmarks, was at best 35 percent of its value at the time, and perhaps as low as 15 percent.

“The transaction relied on the atmosphere of early Nazi terror, in which German Jews could never be arms’-length commercial actors,” the suit claims.

Germany sued for return of medieval collection sold to Nazis Read More »

Obama vetoes Keystone XL pipeline bill

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President Barack Obama on Tuesday swiftly delivered on his vow to veto a Republican bill approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, leaving the long-debated project in limbo for another indefinite period.

The Senate received Obama's veto message and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately countered by announcing the Republican-led chamber would attempt to overturn the veto by March 3.

Obama rejected the bill hours after it was sent to the White House. Republicans passed the bill to increase pressure on Obama to approve the pipeline, a move the president said would bypass a State Department process that will determine whether the project is in the U.S. national interest.

“Through this bill, the United States Congress attempts to circumvent longstanding and proven processes for determining whether or not building and operating a cross-border pipeline serves the national interest,” Obama wrote in his veto message.

Republicans, who support the project because of its job-creation potential, made passing a bill a top priority after gaining control of the U.S. Senate and strengthening their majority in the House of Representatives in November elections.

The bill passed by 270-152 in the House earlier this month and cleared the Senate in January. Despite their majority in the Senate, Republicans are four votes short of being able to override Obama's veto.

They have vowed to attach language approving the pipeline in a spending bill or other legislation later in the year that the president would find difficult to reject.

Obama has played down Keystone XL's ability to create jobs and raised questions about its effects on climate change. Environmentalists, who made up part of the coalition that elected the president in 2008 and 2012, oppose the project because of the carbon emissions involved in getting the oil it would carry out of Canadian tar sands.

TransCanada Corp's pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels a day of mostly Canadian oil sands petroleum to Nebraska en route to refineries and ports along the U.S. Gulf. It has been pending for more than six years.

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How much does it cost to watch a suspected militant? Lots.

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In 2011, U.S. intelligence informed French authorities that a French citizen had slipped into Yemen, probably for terrorist training. In November, the French security services placed the man, Said Kouachi, under surveillance. They wiretapped his mobile phone, as well as that of his younger brother, Cherif. By the end of 2013, French intelligence had dropped its surveillance of Cherif, and Said's was terminated in mid-2014. After three years, the brothers, born to Algerian immigrants, were judged to be no longer dangerous.

On Jan. 7, however, the brothers, heavily armed and dressed in black, stormed the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, and massacred 12 people. It happened at least partly because the French security services are unable to monitor all of France's suspected jihadists, even those considered high risk because they returned after fighting in Syria or Iraq.

The French experience demonstrates that tapping cellphones of terrorist suspects is not enough. Physical surveillance by humans is crucial. Because terrorists have learned to avoid phones. “The phone tapping yielded nothing,” Marc Trevidic, the chief terrorism investigator for the French judicial system, told The New York Times. “If we had continued, I'm convinced it wouldn't have changed anything. No one talks on the phone anymore.”

But physically monitoring suspects is an expensive and complicated proposition – in both money and manpower. A former French anti-terrorism official stated, “The system is overwhelmed.”

U.S. intelligence experts are well aware of the problems of mounting a 24/7 round-the-clock surveillance on suspects. “It's a manpower eater,” said Phillip A. Parker, a veteran former FBI counterintelligence agent, “and it takes away from other cases.”

To keep a target under continuous surveillance, according to one experienced FBI source who asked to remain anonymous, could require three eight-hour shifts or perhaps two 12-hour shifts, with four special agents each shift. Several cars would be needed, sometimes even airplanes. If only one car was used, the person might quickly realize he was being followed.

“If you are just sitting around in the street, somebody's going to notice you,” Parker explained. “If it's a real sensitive case, you just cannot be made. You would run five or six cars, maybe seven or eight. If you don't want any chance of the target making you, the average is three shifts, four guys to a shift, two cars – that's a minimum. Three shifts, so 12 agents. If it's a really important case, you could easily double that.” That minimum translates into 24 agents in three shifts of eight agents to keep watch on a single target.

Parker, who spent much of his career tracking Soviet and Russian spies, noted, “Most surveillance subjects are not moving more than a few hours a day. So you may also have to set up an OP [observation post],” often a house or apartment overlooking the target.

Just as the French services wiretapped the cellphones of the Paris terrorists, the FBI does not limit itself to physical surveillance of a subject. “You would also have technical means,” one surveillance specialist, who asked to remain anonymous, said. “If you run 24-hour surveillance, you have telephones, both cell and land lines, MISUR [microphone surveillance] and stationery lookouts.”

Agents might also lock onto the GPS of the suspect's car, to see where he or she is going. In one high-profile espionage case, the FBI placed radio receivers at fixed points around the Washington area and was also able to plant an electronic device in the suspect's car. When the target car passed by one of the receivers, the time and location were recorded. This setup was similar to the E-ZPass system, which is used by commuters to breeze through toll plazas without stopping.

With so much manpower required to monitor just one suspect, FBI supervisors often resist mounting a 24/7 surveillance. It takes away agents who might be working other cases. A smaller field office might not have enough agents.

Even FBI headquarters might need to scramble to find agents for a surveillance. One senior FBI official involved in the surveillance and eventual arrest of Aldrich Ames, the CIA officer who spied for Moscow, told me, “I was constantly asking for more resources.” Spies, he observed, “often use SDRs,” or surveillance detection routes. “They might drive around for four or five hours 'dry-cleaning' themselves” to try to lose their FBI pursuers.

Because of the FBI's reluctance to assign large numbers of agents to surveillance operations, the bureau also uses a Special Surveillance Group, known as “the G's.” These are not special agents, but members of a unit whose sole job is to track suspects. They are trained to look like anything except FBI agents. The G's may be dressed as joggers, cyclists, pizza-delivery men, mothers pushing strollers or street-repair workers wielding jackhammers. That scruffy guy on a skateboard, that hard-hat repairman up on a telephone pole, the street vendor selling hot dogs – all may be G's. They look, in other words, like ordinary citizens going about their business.

How much does a round-the-clock surveillance cost? Because FBI agents and G's are already on the FBI payroll, measuring the actual cost of a particular operation can be complicated. Though there is clearly a cost in manpower assigned to surveillance duties and so unavailable to other investigations.

Still, it is possible to estimate 24/7 surveillance costs by looking at the salaries of FBI agents and the number of hours involved. FBI salaries range widely, depending on grades and years of service. But a typical mid-range special agent earns roughly $64,000 a year, which translates into $1,230 a week. On a round-the-clock surveillance with 24 agents, that adds up to $29,500 a week in agent time – or almost $128,000 a month. Add in three rental cars, used in rotation to avoid notice, and it comes to roughly $30,700 a week. A major surveillance like this might last weeks or even months.

In 2011, the database had 420,000 names

More experienced agents can earn around $120,000 a year, so the totals could be a lot higher. As a result, it is not surprising that round-the-clock surveillances are not routine. Statistics show why. The FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, for example, maintains a “watch list” of alleged terrorist suspects. In 2011, the database had 420,000 names, according to a New York Times story, including some 8,000 Americans. About 16,000 people, including 500 Americans, were prohibited from flying. That list has been widely criticized for errors. But obviously – given the numbers – the FBI could not watch all the people on the database. And, thankfully, it doesn't.

Surveillance is a double-edged tool. Catching terrorists is vital to protect the country. But we also want to live in a society where liberty and security are balanced, and the government does not follow people around without good reason. From that perspective, the high cost and difficulty of maintaining a continuous surveillance on a suspect may not be entirely bad in a democracy.

David Wise writes frequently about intelligence and espionage. His most recent book is “Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War with China.”

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Jewish dealers’ heirs turn to U.S. to recover German art trove

Leave a Comment / Culture, Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

The heirs of Jewish art dealers who say their families were forced to sell the Nazis a trove of medieval church treasure worth some $250 million today have turned to a U.S. court to reclaim it, after failing in their attempts in Germany.

The collection, known as the Guelph Treasure, consists of 44 gold, jewel and pearl encrusted pieces which have belonged to the city of Berlin's art collection since their purchase in 1935, on the orders of leading Nazi Hermann Goering.

Germany says an expert committee established last year that the sale was not forced, following a 2008 claim by the heirs.

The reliquiaries dating from the 11th to 15th centuries were once owned by northern German aristocrats and kept in Brunswick cathedral. Today they are on show in Berlin's Bode Museum.

Lawyers for the heirs of the dealers, who bought the collection from the Duke of Brunswick in 1929, said on Tuesday they filed a civil suit with a district court in Washington DC, appealing to the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).

They say the court has jurisdiction because the FSIA covers violations of international law, such as forced property sales.

A Jewish refugee from Austria, Maria Altmann, used this law in 2000 to recover paintings by Gustav Klimt. She successfully fought the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and was then awarded ownership by an Austrian court of arbitration.

“The fingerprints of Goering and Hitler are on this sale, the dealers had no chance,” restitution lawyer Markus Stoetzel said.

The Jewish dealers sold the works to the state of Prussia for 35 percent of its value, lawyer Nicholas O'Donnell said.

Ingolf Kern, a spokesman for the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, said he was surprised by the move, given that the advisory commission had found the price was reasonable.

The consortium of dealers bought 82 pieces in 1929 for 7.5 million Reich marks and then sold 40 for 2.5 million marks. The Prussian state paid 4.25 million marks for the rest in 1934-35.

The commission said the market was depressed in the early 1930s, Prussia was the only interested buyer and the works were stored in Amsterdam at the time, although the dealers were based in Germany.

This month Berlin designated the Guelph Treasure of national cultural value, making it impossible for it to leave the country without the approval of the culture ministry.

“If they were so sure they owned it, they wouldn't need to do this,” said O'Donnell.

Kern argued, however, that this was a logical move for Germany's most precious artefacts.

Germany has faced criticism for its handling of artworks looted by the Nazis, with some museums accused of reluctance to research the provenance of suspect works.

Jewish dealers’ heirs turn to U.S. to recover German art trove Read More »

Doing downward dog in Ramallah

Leave a Comment / Culture /

Inhale your arms up into warrior one. Exhale and extend your arms into warrior two.

I followed the instructor’s soft but firm voice as she led me and five other women through the yoga poses, and the deep breathing helped to calm my nerves. The large tiled room was gently lit through white curtains that masked the busy city life outside Farashe Yoga.

Farashe is Arabic for butterfly, and the busy city outside the studio’s walls is Ramallah.

Exhale into your reverse warrior, the instructor guided us. I complied, letting out a long-held breath.

Ramallah is just six miles north of Jerusalem. But to get there from Jerusalem requires passing through the Kalandia checkpoint, which can take anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours. A red sign outside the checkpoint reads “This Road leads To Area ‘A’ Under The Palestinian Authority/ The Entrance For Israeli Citizens Is Forbidden, Dangerous To Your Lives And Is Against The Israeli Law.”

Area A is under Palestinian jurisdiction. Cars like the one I was in, rented in Israel, are not insured there. But my American passport pacified the Israeli soldier manning the checkpoint and we were waved through without delay.

Farashe is near the center of Ramallah, through a lively marketplace, where fruit and vegetable vendors shout out the prices of persimmons, dates and the largest cabbages I have ever seen. Past the famous stone lions of the Al Manara Square and across the street from the Stars & Bucks Cafe (its motto, according to a server, is “Let Starbucks come to Ramallah and sue us”) sits the stone building that is home to the studio. Behind a green door, up a stairway littered with cigarette butts and fast food wrappers, is the yoga studio. The class cost 20 shekels, or about $5.

When I initially reached out to Farashe, I was told by a man named Ibrahim that I would be “more than welcome to attend.” But when I told them I was a journalist from a Jewish publication, Ibrahim responded, “Farashe has a very strict policy about which media channels to talk (sic), as we are an organization that abides by BDS regulations,” referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which attempts to place political pressure on and economically isolate Israel.

My request for an interview, he told me, had been denied.

Knowing I was not welcome, I kept a low profile as I inexpertly made my way through the Vinyasa yoga practice.

But the atmosphere inside put me at ease. The instructor was accommodating and generous, and she and my fellow yogis — a mixed-age group dressed in linen or yoga pants, hair uncovered — were oblivious to my failed negotiations with the studio’s media representative. The instructor asked my name and if it was my first time at Farashe.

“Batya,” I told her, and yes, it was.

Farashe opened in November 2010. Everything — the space, the mats and the five instructors’ time — had been donated by volunteers and benefactors “within Palestine and from abroad,” according to the studio’s website.

Yoga has long been trendy in Israel among urban sophisticates and religious Jews. And the practice has been found to improve mood and enhance productivity among Israeli schoolchildren impacted by war. There are dozens of yoga studios and yoga practices in and around Tel Aviv, including classes offering vocal yoga,which involves singing, and Acroyoga, which incorporates acrobatics.

And now yoga is increasingly popular among Palestinians, too. In Gaza, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society offers yoga classes to help with stress and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are also some private yoga enthusiasts, like a woman from Gaza City whose Twitter feed @WhateverInGaza has 13,000 followers. But there are no known designated studios in the Hamas-led strip.

Yoga can provide great benefits for war-torn areas. Robin Carnes is co-founder and executive director of Warriors at Ease, an organization that brings yoga and meditation to military communities. Carnes in a phone interview explained the effects of traumatic stress on the brain — how it can impair judgment and internal monitoring of emotions.

“With a good trauma-sensitive teacher, you can slowly begin to re-enter, re-inhabit your body in a way that isn’t overwhelming and feels safe again,” Carnes said.

To meet the growing demand for yoga in the Palestinian territories, Anahata Grace International, a nonprofit based in Washington, partnered with Farashe to organize a training session in 2013 for 20 women in Ramallah. The same year, a Canadian organization, the Olive Tree Yoga Foundation, offered two 200-hour teacher-training sessions in the Ayda refugee camp in Bethlehem.

“We see it as a form of empowerment and a way to create space in your own life for possibilities,” said Paul van Wijk, the president of Olive Tree, which has trained instructors who now teach classes to Palestinians in the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron.

Olive Tree has separately trained Israeli instructors.

Most recently, two Palestinian women are in the process of opening a yoga studio in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, called Beit Ashams, or House of Sun. The studio has already started offering classes — some gender segregated (including prenatal yoga), some coed and some geared to children.

Eilda Zaghmout, one of the founders, was trained by Olive Tree.

Her family fled Beit Jala for Amman, Jordan, in 1967 following the Six-Day War with Israel. Her father always dreamed of returning home. But when they finally came back in 1999, they were faced with what Zaghmout called the “ugliness” of the deadly Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising. Like other Palestinians, the family faced restrictions on movement, curfews and long lines when they were permitted to leave their homes.

Zaghmout, who comes from a “Christian background,” sees yoga as particularly beneficial in a land marred by a seemingly endless cycle of violence.

Indeed, she had long intended to begin practicing yoga. But with two young children at home, life kept getting in the way. But, she said, “there’s a point in your life when you’re like, ‘hallas,’ that’s it, I’m going to ask for help.” Her husband was supportive, and within a year she had her yoga teacher’s license.

Eager to share her newfound practice with her community, Zaghmout was faced with a common “misperception” in her community — that anything associated with the Far East was shunned for being atheist or Buddhist. Zaghmout had to find the right language to introduce yoga to Bethlehem. She invited members of her community to come and experience yoga for themselves, and she spoke about yoga as a tool for releasing stress.

She believes that the reason yoga is taking off now has to do with increased awareness about the awareness of self-care.

“People are getting more aware of stress, high blood pressure, breast cancer,” Zaghmout said, noting that especially women and activists struggle with finding time and allowance to take care of themselves. Doing so “challenges perceptions about women in my community, where women are supposed to sacrifice,” she said.

She added: “This land has suffered heavy blood. It’s time we start realizing peace inside of us so we can realize it outside.”

Meanwhile, back inside at Farashe, the class ended with the instructor calling for Shavasana, or the “corpse pose,” which has practitioners lying flat on their backs, arms to the sides, palms up. As I lay there, I found myself wishing for fewer corpses in this troubled land, and for warriors on both sides of the checkpoint to reverse direction and find a new practice.

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A statement from UCLA’s chancellor on recent incidents of bias

Leave a Comment / Los Angeles, Mobile /

To the Campus Community:

I have been troubled by recent incidents of bias on campuses across our nation. Sadly, UCLA is not immune to these occurrences.

At a recent Undergraduate Students Association Council meeting, a few council members unfairly questioned the fitness of a USAC Judicial Board applicant because of her Jewish identity. Another upsetting incident occurred last weekend when inflammatory posters on our campus implied that Students for Justice in Palestine was a terrorist organization.

We should all be glad that, ultimately, the judicial board applicant was unanimously confirmed for her position and that the posters were taken down by members of our community. We are pleased that the students who initially objected to the Jewish student’s appointment apologized, and we are reassured that the UCLA Police Department is vigorously investigating the matter of the posters.

Yet we should also be concerned that these incidents took place at all. No student should feel threatened that they would be unable to participate in a university activity because of their religion. And no student should be compared to a terrorist for holding a political opinion. These disturbing episodes are very different, but they both are rooted in stereotypes and assumptions.

Political debate can stir passionate disagreements. The views of others may make us uncomfortable. That may be unavoidable. But to assume that every member of a group can’t be impartial or is motivated by hatred is intellectually and morally unacceptable. When hurtful stereotypes — of any group — are wielded to delegitimize others, we are all debased.

A first-rate intellectual community must hold itself to higher standards.

Even in the heat of debate, we must cultivate the skill and sensitivity to express opinions without belittling others or losing sight of their humanity. Speech that stigmatizes or tries to intimidate individuals or targeted groups — even if it is constitutionally protected — does not promote the responsible debate essential for a healthy democracy. It is insufficient to reserve empathy only for those who look or act or think like we do. We must do better than that.

As Bruins, we need to be thinkers and leaders who can see one another without prejudice and can engage one another in a manner that goes beyond slogans and is above slurs.

While any incident of bias against any member of our campus community saddens us, and we understand that these incidents may occur again, we will always take appropriate action if the UCLA Principles of Community or any laws are violated. And we will do everything we can to support a healthy environment for everyone in our community. If you feel you have been subjected to an incident of bias or hate, resources are available.

UCLA will not be defined by intolerance. We will strive to create a community that will honor the dignity of all its members even if we struggle with one another’s ideas. We will strive to create a community in which all of us can fully take part in campus life and express our views and identities, safe from intimidation, threat or harm. Let us all work together to do the good work of creating that community.

Sincerely,

Gene D. Block
Chancellor

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Premieres of Holocaust films in Germany show strong interest in Nazi past

Leave a Comment / Culture /

Two starkly different images: a woman wrapped in shimmering gold, a man whipped and bleeding on a cold cement floor.

The first, a 1907 painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, is the centerpiece of “Woman in Gold,” a film starring Helen Mirren that had its world premiere last week at the Berlinale International Film Festival.

The second, of activist Georg Elser, who sought to assassinate Hitler in 1939 and paid for the attempt with his life, has been retold in a new German production, “Elser: 13 Minutes,” that also had its world premiere at the festival.

Neither film was up for an award at the Berlinale. But the fact of their premieres in Germany shows how the Nazi past remains a subject of intense interest here nearly 70 years after the end of World War II.

Watching these films at the Friedrichstadt Palast theater, it was easy to forget that, according to a recent poll, 58 percent of Germans think it’s time to put the past behind them.

“Woman in Gold” tells of the struggle for a small measure of justice decades after the genocide of European Jewry and the plundering of their property. The title refers to the art nouveau painting “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” which hung for decades in the Belvedere Palace museum in Vienna before it was restituted to Maria Altmann, Bloch-Bauer’s niece.

Mirren adopts a nearly flawless Austrian-accented English in her portrayal of Altmann, who fled the Nazis with her husband only to return decades later seeking the restitution of Klimt’s portrait of her aunt.

Maria faces stony refusals from Austrian museum authorities and nearly gives up, but her lawyer, Randol Schoenberg (played by Ryan Reynolds), and a young Austrian journalist, Hubertus Czernin (Daniel Bruhl), urge her to fight on. Eventually the painting is returned to Maria, who admits that her “mistake was thinking it would make everything all right, make it better.”

The return of great works of art to their rightful heirs has not been a frictionless process for Austria or Germany. Given that the film begins with Klimt applying gold leaf to his portrait of Bloch-Bauer, one might think that it would feed stereotypes about greedy heirs seeking to rob Austria of its cultural heritage.

But the screenplay by Alexi Kaye Campbell confronts these notions directly. In a wrenching flashback scene of the family’s final parting, Fredrick “Fritz” Altmann (Max Irons) reminds the young Maria of how his Jewish family started in Austria with nothing.

“We did everything we could to contribute and belong,” he says, asking one thing of his daughter: “Remember us.”

Remembrance is also a theme of “Elser: 13 Minutes,” which reconstructs the life and death of Georg Elser (Christian Friedel), a young Bavarian carpenter who became convinced that the top Nazi leadership had to be eliminated to end the war. The film is to open in German cinemas in April.

Elser involved no one else in his plot. He built and tested a bomb, and on Nov. 8, 1939 — two months after Germany invaded Poland — placed it behind Hitler’s lectern at a Munich beer hall. Hitler left the building 13 minutes earlier than planned, a gap that gives the film its title. Seven others in the hall were killed after Hitler was already out of range.

Bungling his escape, Elser was captured and tortured before confessing. But the torture did not end there. His interrogators — among them Arthur Nebe (Burghart Klaussner), chief detective in the Reich Security Head Office — were ordered to find out who else was involved in the plot and continued the beatings until they become convinced that Elser had acted alone.

Ultimately, Nebe himself, who is considered to have been sympathetic to Elser, though he was also commander of a Nazi death squad, is hung as an alleged member of the 1944 Claus von Stauffenberg plot against Hitler. In a grueling scene, we witness his hanging from behind. For more than a minute Nebe twitches, suspended from a piano wire in the Plotzensee prison in Berlin, while an official Nazi cameraman films the scene for later propaganda use. Some 5,000 filmed executions actually took place there.

After last week’s screening, director Oliver Hirschbiegel defended the graphic scene as a statement against the death penalty. He also said that the extensive depictions of Elser’s beatings were intended to demonstrate how torture “turns a human into an animal.”

But his main aim was to elevate Elser, whose act of defiance had been put on the back shelf after the war.

Elser was “less interesting than the noble von Stauffenberg, but he was the first true resister who said this has to be stopped,” said Hirschbiegel, whose 2004 film about Hitler, “Downfall,” was nominated for an Academy Award.

Screenwriter and producer Fred Breinersdorfer, who came of age in the 1960s when German students were angrily challenging their parents’ generation over Nazi crimes, said the film grew out of that conflict.

“It’s a confrontation that will not end,” Breinersdorfer said. “People from the resistance were still considered to be traitors after the war, and this is still the case today.”

“Woman in Gold,” on the other hand, needed no scenes of savagery; the violence is implied through its contrast with the beauty of the painting. In the huge movie theater in the former East Berlin, many wiped away tears during the scene of final parting. Applause began with the first rolling credits and did not end until the lights went up.

Even though he found some of the characters to have been caricatures, one audience member told JTA that he wants to see the film again – this time with family and friends.

Alexander Ferwer, 40, a Cologne businessman, said he “can’t understand” why some Germans say they have heard enough about this history.

“That’s really bad,” he said. “I think there can’t be enough films about this time. … It has to never be forgotten.”

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More than half of U.S. Jewish college students encountered anti-Semitism

Leave a Comment / United States /

More than half of today’s American Jewish college students have witnessed or experienced an anti-Semitic incident, according to a new study.

Some 54 percent of the participants in the survey released Monday by the Louis D. Brandeis Center and Trinity College said they had experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism within the past academic year. The survey was conducted in the spring of 2014, prior to the outbreak of hostilities last summer in Gaza.

The online survey of 1,157 students, conducted by Trinity College professor Barry Kosmin and associate professor Ariela Keysar, found that the percentages of students reporting encounters with anti-Semitism were relatively consistent across gender, religious outlook and geographical region.

Students who affiliate with the Conservative and Reform movements were more likely to report such experiences than Orthodox students, with 69 percent of Conservative students, 62 percent of Reform students and 52 percent of Orthodox students responding that they had reported anti-Semitic encounters. Those who said they were always open about their Jewishness on campus were about as likely to have encountered anti-Semitism as those who said they were never open about their Jewishness, at 58 percent and 59 percent, respectively.

The data in the report came from the 2014 National Demographic Survey of American Jewish College Students as part of a broader series of questions. The students who took the surveys were volunteers, and the study’s authors found that the students roughly matched the broader demographic outlines of other surveys of Jewish college students. What constituted an anti-Semitic incident was self-defined by the participants.

The findings were broadly consistent with a 2011 survey of college students in the United Kingdom, which found that 51 percent of students reported experiencing or witnessing an anti-Semitic incident.

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