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Jewish Journal

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June 11, 2015

Award-winning journalist thrashes U.S. mideast policy

Leave a Comment / United States /

Whether it’s President Barack Obama’s take on nuclear negotiations with Iran or his stance on Israel’s relationship with Palestine, the commander-in-chief’s foreign policy errors will have lasting repercussions with American allies, according to Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens, who visited Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills on June 7.

“One of the interesting things when you go around and talk to the rest of the Arab world, they are looking at the administration’s behavior toward Israel. And they are saying, ‘If this is how the Americans behave toward their good friend Israel, how are they going to behave toward us?’ ” Stephens said during the event called “Has Washington Given Up on the Middle East?” 

“This is deeply damaging to the United States. Whether it’s Hillary [Clinton] or whoever else becomes the next president, they are going to have to somehow persuade these allies or former allies that we are a dependable superpower. The president is on a personal, almost nihilistic mission to demonstrate that he does not care what the reputation of the United States should be on Jan. 22, 2017.”

Stephens, a Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign affairs columnist, focused on the president’s remarks made last month at Adas Israel, a Conservative synagogue in Washington, D.C. He said Obama’s speech revealed what he sees as various double standards the administration utilizes in its public commentary of Israel’s actions. 

“The president has enunciated the position that he expects everything of Israel, and so should they fall short even by an inch or a foot, he will forgive them nothing,” Stephens said. “Whereas the view of the Palestinians is that they can transgress again and again and again and yet somehow be treated as entitled to international respectability, receptions at the White House and statehood.”

At Adas Israel, Obama admitted he holds Israel to an exalted sense of duty and feels compelled to call the Jewish state out when it does not measure up. 

“And it is precisely because I care so deeply about the state of Israel — it’s precisely because, yes, I have high expectations for Israel the same way I have high expectations for the United States of America — that I feel a responsibility to speak out honestly about what I think will lead to long-term security and to the preservation of a true democracy in the Jewish homeland. And I believe that’s two states for two peoples, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people on their land, as well.”

The president also recalled images of Israel in its infancy: “I came to know Israel as a young man through these incredible images of kibbutzim and Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir and Israel overcoming incredible odds in the ’67 war.”

Stephens asked what would happen if a previous president had spoken about the African-American community the same way Obama speaks about the Jewish-Israeli community. 

“Imagine if George Bush had said, ‘When I think of the African-American community, I think of people like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Martin Luther King Jr., and when the Black community doesn’t live up to those standards, then I’m going to have to speak out,’ ” Stephens said. “He would have been howled out of polite society.”

Stephens also chastised the Obama administration for its role in the international negotiations of Iran’s nuclear program, which he said is “increasingly divorced from reality.” 

Stephens, in response to a question from moderator Josh Block, president and CEO of The Israel Project (which sponsored the event with the Journal and Beth Jacob), spent several minutes playing devil’s advocate to those opposed to an Iranian nuclear deal — before tearing down such arguments. At first, Stephens mentioned the parallels between the United States’ current negotiations with Iran and its successful negotiations with China during the Nixon administration, but then he did an about face, saying there are important differences between the wounded Maoist China of the 1970s and Iran’s current economy. 

“Mao had no option but to reach a strategic accommodation with the United States,” Stephens said. “But Iran is winning on every front and is already a highly successful regional power. They are already getting sanctions relief. So why on Earth would they curb their ambitions?”

Stephens finished his conversation by offering a warning to American and Israeli Jews. In drawing upon accounts of Jews in Germany before the Holocaust, he asks Jews around the world to be prepared.  

“One of the things that I worry about most of all is that the Jewish people here or in Israel should never lose the instinct for danger,” Stephens said. “Israel has survived because it is a country founded on the instinct for danger, from Theodor Herzl to David Ben-Gurion to Ari Sharon, and I think that’s the essential point.”

Award-winning journalist thrashes U.S. mideast policy Read More »

Rabbi champions role of women in Orthodox Judaism

Leave a Comment / Judaism /

As a child growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, now the chief rabbi of the Israeli city of Efrat, assumed that every religious Jewish woman knew how to read Gemara. His greatest example was his maternal grandmother, the daughter of a dayan (judge in a Jewish court of law), with whom he studied the Talmud and who he fondly calls “my first rebbe.” 

“She wanted to learn Chumash, Rashi, Ramban,” he told an attentive audience June 2 at B’nai David-Judea Congregation in Pico-Robertson. “For me, feminine Jewish leadership was natural.”

Riskin, 75, who founded Manhattan’s Lincoln Square Synagogue before moving to Efrat in 1981, was the speaker at a question-and-answer-style talk titled “Orthodox Female Spiritual Leadership: An Idea Whose Time Has Come.” The event was sponsored by B’nai David-Judea — which last month announced the hiring of the first female member of the clergy at any Orthodox synagogue in Los Angeles — and the Shalhevet Institute, Shalhevet High School’s community education program. With more than 100 people in attendance, Riskin spoke about the value of female spiritual leaders and how to handle criticism of the advancement of the role of women in Orthodox Judaism.

Dealing with controversy on this is particularly relevant now for Riskin. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel recently summoned him for a hearing instead of automatically extending his tenure. Although the rabbinate has said that this is standard for municipal rabbis who have reached the age of 75, others have deemed the decision to have been politically influenced by opposition to Riskin’s stance on the role of women in Judaism and the conversion process, among other issues.

His talk cited the many models of female leadership in the Torah, including the judge Deborah, and Abraham’s wife Sarah, who was a prophet, as well as a midrash in which the daughters of Tzelafchad convince Moses of their right to inherit their father’s estate in order to support their mother.

“There’s generally very good acceptance, at least theoretically,” Riskin said, referencing the Sefer ha-Chinuch and the writings of the Chidah, both of which allow women to give halachic rulings. “The material is quite expansive and certainly gives a green light to learn [halachah] on the highest of level.”

But only in recent years have women started to be ordained in the Orthodox movement. One of the earliest was Sara Hurwitz, who graduated from Yeshivat Maharat in 2009. A longtime advocate of female talmudic study, Riskin pioneered the first advanced Talmud study program for women at Lincoln Square Synagogue, nicknamed “Kollelet,” and established a five-year ordination program at Midreshet Lindenbaum seminary in Jerusalem to train women as legal authorities in rabbinical courts.

Riskin explained that he refrains from using the terms rabbi or rabbah to describe ordained women, because he feels the titles imply duties that a woman is halachically not permitted to practice.

“The rabbis at most synagogues are expected to read Torah and serve as a cantor,” he said. “This I do not believe women can do halachically.”

Instead, he prefers the phrase “manhiga ruchanit,” or spiritual leader, the title of the woman he appointed for the community of Efrat this year. When she starts her position in August at B’nai David-Judea, Alissa Thomas-Newborn, 26, will use the title “morateinu,” meaning “our teacher.”

“The most important piece for me is doing the work,” Thomas-Newborn told the Journal. “Title is valuable in enabling Orthodox women who have the necessary training to officially serve the community as well as in honoring the education and skills we have to offer.”

In response to a question on how to respond to public criticism, Riskin discussed the need to balance continuity and change. He recalled overhearing a conversation with former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir at a dinner in Israel where she politely refused the gift of a new style of a Passover hagaddah, saying that it is important that her granddaughter recite the same words that her grandmother had said.

“People want to feel a very deep connection of the generations,” he said. “At the same time, the world changes. Oral law expresses the need for those changes.”

After the event, Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky of B’nai David-Judea said that female spiritual leadership had been a “logical next step” for B’nai David, which has had a female president and for years has had women giving divrei torah, hosted women as scholars-in-residence, and periodically holds Shirat Chana, a females-only minyan.

“We’ve been moving in this direction for a long time and, in that sense, female leadership has become part of our culture,” he said. “You have to create opportunities for people and get the best leadership that you can.”

Rabbi Ari Schwarzberg, director of the Shalhevet Institute, seconded Kanefsky’s opinion.

“In some areas of the community, at this point, I don’t think it’s such a change,” he said. “You see women that are scholars all over the Orthodox world, and over the past several years, whether you want to call it kehillah intern, manhiga ruchanit, many shuls have female spiritual leadership.”

Riskin recalled approaching three leading Orthodox rabbis for advice regarding his decision to let women perform hakafot at Lincoln Square Synagogue. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein warned him that if he didn’t continue the program, some of the synagogue’s women might leave Orthodoxy, and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik insisted that the synagogue remain Orthodox even with women performing hakafot. Finally, the Lubavitcher Rebbe told him that “not only may you do it, you must do it,” explaining how women have much more natural compassion than men and that “at the time of the Messiah, the woman’s voice will be dominant.”

“I urge you to understand the controversy and even to respect the controversy,” Riskin told his local audience. “What’s frightening to most people is change, and especially changes in places people like to feel familiar in.”

Regarding the current controversy in which he finds himself embroiled, Riskin said the decision for him to remain chief rabbi lies with his congregation.

“I don’t feel at all burnt out,” he said. “I feel very well supported. A rabbi is a rabbi if his congregation wants him to be in office.”

He also believes that it is the congregations, and not the rabbinic bodies, that will ultimately determine the innovations, like female spiritual leadership, that take place. 

“You can’t expect change to be accepted by all congregations,” he said. “That’s one of the glories of talmudic pluralism. My sense is observant congregations are giving women more and more roles of leadership, but these are things time will tell.” 

Rabbi champions role of women in Orthodox Judaism Read More »

The ‘heart and soul’ of Silver Lake JCC moves on

Leave a Comment / Los Angeles /

Dozens of families packed the courtyard of the Silverlake Independent Jewish Community Center (SIJCC) on the morning of June 5, to give the center’s co-executive director, Ruthie Shavit, a celebratory farewell after 28 years as director and 43 years on staff. Some of her former preschool students, now teens or even older, came with their parents to join in the Shabbat songs they’d sung as toddlers and to thank Shavit for her role in saving the center from near-closure a dozen years ago.

“Ruthie’s the heart and soul and spirit of the JCC,” said Mike Abrams, a former preschool parent and former board president. “This is a community that’s growing and thriving and morphing into something really special, and there wouldn’t have been a community to grow and thrive without Ruthie.”

Shavit, 68, wearing a stylish, Asian-inspired outfit (she’s regularly praised for her fashion sense), led the crowd in song and prayer, accompanied by a band of about 15 parents playing guitars, trumpets and other instruments behind her. One teacher, Cheryl Williams, fought tears as she sang “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday,” causing a few parents to get choked up.

“We came to the Jewish community center with a bunch of other misfits from the neighborhood who couldn’t get onto waitlists in time for other things,” said Curt Anderson, whose daughter Zola attended preschool there 15 years ago. “They took us in, and we formed this wonderful community here with Ruthie leading the way.” 

Parents praised Shavit’s outspokenness, her no-nonsense Israeli toughness and her ability to discipline misbehaving students without upsetting parents.

“What you see is what you get. She’s fierce, she’s opinionated, she’s funny, and this place has her personality stamped on it,” said Barry Isaacson, another parent.

The SIJCC was built in 1951 as the Hollywood/Los Feliz JCC, and was owned by the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles (JCCGLA). But in 2001, as the JCCGLA struggled with financial mismanagement and debt, it threatened to cut off funding to the center, as well as other JCCs locally. The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles held a $550,000 lien on the Silver Lake property.

Tanya Peacock, a former board member, had a 2-year-old son at the JCC when it was threatened with closure. Wearing bright orange T-shirts, she and a handful of other parents staged protests in front of Federation’s offices on Wilshire Boulevard.

“We said, ‘Absolutely not. This is our center. We’re going to get together and figure out how to make it work.’ And we did,” Peacock said.

Ruthie Shavit (center), the SIJCC’s outgoing director, and Lihi Shadmi, the center’s assistant preschool director, lead the crowd in Shabbat prayers and children’s songs. 

The savior of the Jewish preschool came in the form of an unlikely benefactor: Bishop J. Jon Bruno, head of Los Angeles’ Episcopal Diocese. In his youth, Bruno had played basketball at the center’s gym. Under his leadership, the diocese joined with the Jewish community group operating the center to purchase the property for $2.1 million, and a loan from Far East National Bank made the deal possible. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, who represented the district as city councilman at the time and had attended the JCC as a child, helped facilitate the negotiations. The diocese got a 49 percent ownership stake in exchange for being able to conduct its own services and other programs there, and the JCC supporters got 51 percent. Federation, long criticized for refusing to forgive the debt the JCC had inherited from JCCGLA, offered no financial support. Thus, the newly independent Silver Lake center was born.

“It was quite a community-building experience, because we’d have bottles of wine, and we’d sit around and argue, ‘What do we need to do?’ But miraculously it all came together,” Peacock said. “The teachers stayed with us, and I think that’s really a testament to Ruthie.”

Peacock also praised Shavit’s personal style. She remembered how, one time, Shavit handed Peacock a jacket and told her to keep it. She still wears it.

“She’s so beautiful and so stylish and always looks amazing. You would never think a director of a preschool would be such a fashion plate,” Peacock said.

Shavit had loved reading fashion magazines as a child on a kibbutz in Israel. But because all the clothes there were shared communally, she didn’t get to choose what she wore. “I thought that was really cruel and unusual punishment,” she said, laughing. “So I was very happy to come to America, to be able to wear these gorgeous clothes I saw in the magazines.”

Born in 1946 on Kibbutz Hefzi-ba in the Jezreel Valley of northern Israel, Shavit arrived in the U.S. in 1970 with her husband, Jacob, to attend the University of Judaism (now American Jewish University). She studied Jewish history, even though she hadn’t had much exposure to religious life. “I’d never been to a synagogue in my life until I came to the United States,” she said.

Shavit joined the JCC preschool teaching staff in 1972. In 1987, she became the preschool director for the center. In 2002, she rose to become director of the SIJCC and helped form its board, leading the purchase of the center’s property in 2005. Preschool classes have essentially doubled under Shavit’s leadership and are now at capacity, with 110 students.

Former SIJCC board member and preschool parent Sarah Finn joked that her job as a Hollywood casting director isn’t so different from Shavit’s role at the center. “It’s all about bringing the right people together. I do it in the movies; Ruthie does it in real life,” Finn said.

With Shavit’s departure, current co-executive director Ayana Morse will take over as head of the SIJCC, and Elizabeth Schwandt has been hired as the preschool director. The center’s programming has expanded significantly beyond the preschool. It now houses the Jewish Learning Center, a Hebrew school with 90 families that teaches children until their bar or bat mitzvah; East Side Jews, an irreverent, nondenominational social community; Culture Lab, a project that gathers artists to create work around Jewish-related themes; and other cultural and educational activities. Morse said there are ambitious plans for the center’s physical upgrade and expansion, but that replacing Shavit would be impossible.

“She is in the center. She is in the walls; she is in the bricks. It’s her place. So I think, hopefully, we can retain that. And no one will replace her. She is such a unique spirit,” Morse said.

As for Shavit’s future plans, she is simply looking forward to retirement.

“I’ll go to yoga every day,” Shavit said, “and I’ll go to tai chi. In tai chi you learn to let go and move on.”

Shavit’s not worried about the future of the SIJCC without her.

“My experience as a teacher here taught me that this is a very organic place. It’s a river. And, you know, a river knows how to flow.” 

The ‘heart and soul’ of Silver Lake JCC moves on Read More »

Advice to grads: Go forth and create a masterpiece

Leave a Comment / Graduation, Los Angeles /

Having recently attended the college graduation of our youngest child, I could not stop thinking about what I might say if given the opportunity to offer the commencement address. Five thoughts come to mind:  

Continue to learn and teach: At the moment you were born — whether conscience of it or not — all of you have been students. All of you were constantly learning from others, patterning and comparing yourselves to the world around you.

At the same time, you have always been teachers. Beginning with infancy, you taught your parents and family about the preciousness of life and the awe-inspiring responsibility of raising a child simply by your being born.  You’ve taught them about themselves, as they observed and raised you.

As you leave the womb that is the college environment, all of you become teachers. If not literal credentialed teachers, figuratively so. You are now college graduates. Teach and share what you’ve learned over the past four years. Don’t gloat over your degree or your school’s namesake.

Develop and maintain a humble soul: All of you feel a great sense of accomplishment; you’ve worked hard. But it’s expected that you worked hard and made sacrifices while in college. College is not summer camp. If anything, being in college is a supreme gift. Metaphorically, all of you stand on the shoulders of the generations that have come before you. All of you have benefited from those who built and maintained your school.

By now you should also know some students wishing to attend particular schools have been turned down for inexplicable reasons. Some students get accepted for reasons equally inexplicable.

A humble soul knows and a prudent mind understands that some things in life come about due to luck or randomness. Even if you worked diligently through grade school and did well on college entrance exams and got accepted to the school of your choice, you’re lucky to have had other things given to you allowing you to succeed. So, keep a humble perspective about what you’ve accomplished. You have been given at least as much.

[READ: OUTSTANDING TEEN GRADUATES 2015]

Include God/godliness in your life: College is a secular institution — it is not a seminary where you’d expect to grapple with such ideas. But with a notion of the transcendent, and the discipline of healthy religion, you will live a more balanced and enriched life.  You will handle failures better and you will understand and appreciate success more. With all the questions you posed while in college, ponder this:  The most important question one can possibly ask is whether God exists.

Don’t be fearful: Go out and take some risks. There is an obsession in our day with health and safety. You’ve been told to fear changes in the environment, certain types of food, strangers, and the economy to name a few. Enough! Go live. Some parents think their duty is to raise children.  That’s only partially correct.  The duty of parents is to raise adults.  So, become adults.

Arguably, you are at a point in your life where you are the most resilient. Take some chances — don’t be fearful. Learn how to fail and you’ll learn how to succeed. A successful person has failed many more times than one deemed a failure.  If not now, when?

Enjoy the journey: Life goes fast.  Notice I said life goes fast, not time. Time is a human convention. We’ve invented and formatted time to help us function and “navigate” through life. There is no such thing as time, per se. A waste of time is, more emphatically, a waste of life.

Don’t think of life only in terms of goals to be met, quotas to be filled and appointments to be kept. In your haste to get a job, choose a spouse, pay off a debt (including student loans), take a breath and reorient yourself; savor the journey as much as, if not more than, the goals you set out to achieve.

One last thought: Sadly, for many of you, college will be the high point of your life — I sincerely hope it is not. Like the Bible’s portrayal of the Seraphs wielding fiery batons at the entrance to the Garden of Eden, preventing man and woman from ever returning, you too can never return to your undergraduate days.  Don’t fret; that’s a good thing. 

The biblical depiction is an allegorical way of saying, “Get going — don’t even think of coming back.” And so it is with all of you — it’s now time to move on, to get going. 

Contrary to popular opinion, which holds college life is not indicative of the real world,  every occurrence we encounter is real. Life, wherever and however lived, is not an illusion. But college is only a few years in a lifetime of accumulated experiences, ongoing challenges and adventures.  So, go out and continue to learn and teach; develop a humble soul; include God; don’t be fearful; enjoy the journey, and in the process, make your life a masterpiece. 

Advice to grads: Go forth and create a masterpiece Read More »

New minister launches uphill battle to rein in Israel’s housing costs

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

After huge success in slashing mobile phone rates, new Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon hopes to do the same with sky-high housing costs with reforms aimed at increasing supply and cooling demand by raising taxes on investment homes.

The soaring cost of owning a home — and of living in general — has fueled fierce public debate for years in Israel and helped touch off mass street protests in 2011 that served as a wake-up call to political leaders.

Kahlon, who as communications minister in 2012 opened up the mobile sector to competition, is merely the latest politician to try to dampen the molten housing market.

Since 2007, house prices have nearly doubled, the Bank of Israel says, thanks to low interest rates and a myriad of bureaucratic obstacles that limit new home construction.

This has sent mortgage loans to record highs and monthly payments down, with many Israelis locking in the tax advantages of owning property over stocks and bonds.

Contractors blame high prices on lack of land released by the government – which owns more than 90 percent of the country's territory – and the long process to obtain permits.

Under a long-awaited plan unveiled late on Wednesday, Kahlon proposed increasing supply by converting flats used for offices into residential dwellings, re-zoning public land to permit home building and tackling a shortage in construction labourers by training more Israelis and bringing in more foreign workers.

He also proposed raising the tax on those owning more than one home to 8-10 percent from 5-7 percent to discourage the buying of houses solely for investment, a trend that has accelerated as interest rates have fallen to near zero.

“We are taking responsibility and presenting an unprecedented government reform … that will handle both supply and demand,” Kahlon said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has failed in the past to rein in housing costs, said he wanted parliament — where his coalition holds a narrow majority — to quickly pass Kahlon's reform package.

“MORE OF THE SAME”

A previous attempt by Kahlon's predecessor, Yair Lapid, to lower housing prices by eliminating the value added tax for some first-time home buyers fell victim to political infighting that brought down the government.

The private sector's response to Kahlon's initiative has been sceptical.

Eldad Tamir, chief executive of the Tamir Fishman brokerage, called it disappointing and lacking substance since it set no timetables, and said such plans were destined to fail.

“It's more of the same,” he said, adding that a tax increase on investment homes would lead to higher prices in the absence of a steep rise in supply.

A survey published this week showed 73 percent of Israelis do not believe home prices will fall in the next two years.

Ahead of the March 17 election, Kahlon campaigned largely on lowering housing costs for newly married couples. Since taking office a month ago, he has consolidated and taken control of all housing-related agencies seen as causing bureaucratic obstacles.

A report by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies found the residential construction process takes an average of 13 years – 11 for bureaucratic hurdles to be cleared and two for construction. It noted that in most European Union countries, the maximum time needed to obtain a permit is 12 weeks.

The central bank has taken steps to try to cool the housing boom, mainly by curbs on mortgages, but believes boosting supply is the best long-term answer by making more land available for construction and streamlining the planning and approval process.

Doron Cohen, head of Dun & Bradstreet Israel, believes the best way to lower housing prices is to build more, noting Israel's population has doubled to 8.3 million over the past 30 years, with the forecast for another doubling by 2045.

“That requires an additional 2 million units and means 80,000 units a year,” said Cohen, who advocates creating a long-term rental market.

Israel now builds around 43,000 housing units a year, many of them outside of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where demand is highest and where most of the population lives.

A major problem is that Israel lacks an established long-term housing rental market. As a result, young couples traditionally buy homes, often with the help of their families.

It now takes 141 monthly salaries to afford an apartment of average value, up from 103 in 2008.

New minister launches uphill battle to rein in Israel’s housing costs Read More »

Regents beware: You are already under attack for calling out “anti-Zionism”

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

The 10-campus University of California system is a “Jurassic World” all its own. The UC Regents are even now threatened with a raptor attack if they follow the lead of UC President Janet Napolitano by reducing political correctness through administration of a dose of political courage and honesty regarding campus anti-Semitism.

Jewish campus groups want the Regents at a meeting this July to adopt the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism which extends the concept to “anti-Zionism.” This means words and acts demanding the suicide—or murder—of the Jewish state, while also threatening Israel’s defenders on campus. On the other side of the debate, anti-Zionists essentially agree with Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass who says that a word “means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.   . . . The question is which is to be master—that’s all.”

The real question at UC is whether those who want to end Israel and silence its friends should be allowed to continue their current veto over defining what is and is not anti-Semitism.

Combatting “microaggressions” against virtually everybody else but Jews is a current campus fad. For example, a new UC faculty training seminar tells professors not to lecture that “America is the land of opportunity” because the statement might aggress against those with racial or gender grievances.

Those concerned with “microggressions” against gay or lesbian or transgender students, for example, have a point: words can and do hurt. This is not to say that obnoxious or insensitive words or ideas should be banned from campus by the transformation of universities into hurt-free “safe zones.” But why is it not a “microaggression” to accuse Jewish students of complicity in genocide of Palestinians or to equate Jewish students with Apartheid’s storm troopers or even Hitler’s SS, as is being done on American campuses?

And why is it out of bounds for defenders of Israel, and of Jewish rights and identity on campus, to call out members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) or proponents of the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) Movement? Many zealots have crossed the line into anti-Semitic language and, sometimes, actions like setting up anti-Israel “checkpoints” on campus or targeting Jewish dorm students for “eviction.”

The Daily Forward newspaper is about a month behind the Journal in publishing Jared Sichel’s recent story on the UC dispute. Unlike the earlier Journal piece, the story in the Forward is one-sided and slanted in favor of  BDS activists. It lionizes those with the chutzpah to condemn anyone who speaks out against campus bigots employing incendiary language to demean, intimidate, and silence Jewish students. Courageous Jewish students and their allies are accused of threatening the freedom of speech of Israel haters and aligning Israel lovers with the Israeli death machine!

The lethal history of anti-Semitism reads in some respects as if it were written by a literary ironist. In the 1870s in The Victory of Jewry over Germandom, a Jew-hating propagandist, Wilhelm Marr, coined the term, anti-Semitism, to galvanize a movement around the theory that Jews were not part and parcel of Europe’s population, but an alien, noxious import from the Orient. Rather than avoid the label “anti-Semites,” Marr’s new anti-Semites reveled in it.

Now, those who hate Israel and want it destroyed for alleged sins against Palestinians are indignant when they are called “anti-Semites.” After all, aren’t the Arabs also “Semites”—so how can those who want to bury Israel be “anti-Semites”?

It’s time to end this sophistry and masquerade. Anti-Zionism is criticism of Israel carried to the extreme of targeting it for destruction. The UC Regents can and should adopt this definition without silencing campus free speech.

So far as we are concerned, haters of Israel and of Jews can continue to market their vile wares in “free speech zones” on and off campus. But we—and the UC Regents—have a right to define what these bigots advocate as anti-Semitism.

Some may think that for that for the UC Regents to recognize the ideological link between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionist extremism is inadvisable—even illegal. The advisability of adopting the State Department’s definition is going to be debated by the Regents who can make their up own minds. But the general public as well as UC’s governing body should know the know truth about the Regents’ right to define anti-Zionism as an anti-Semitic creed.

Contrary to what many believe, leading constitutional scholars have indicated that a government entity like the Regents “is entitled to say what it wishes.” The line of cases runs from the U.S. Circuit Court ruling in Rosenberger v. Rector in 1995 to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum in 2009. Basically, the courts have ruled that university Boards like the Regents have extraordinarily wide discretion when it comes to making policy declarations.  If a university governing body goes too far in what it declares, it is ultimately “accountable to the electorate and the political process for its advocacy.”

We are not asking the Regents and UC administrators to act against instances of campus bigotry that they would not already act against under existing policies. We are asking that they make a statement of moral conscience.

If the UC Regents follow the U.S. State Department, President Napolitano, and most recently President Obama in condemning anti-Zionist extremism as a form of anti-Semitism, the BDS movement can try to convince the legislature and people of the State of California that anti-Zionism is as wholesome as mother and apple pie, and that the Regents should be rebuked for declaring otherwise.

We wish them luck.

Historian Harold Brackman is a consultant for the Simon Wiesenthal Center. 

Regents beware: You are already under attack for calling out “anti-Zionism” Read More »

National Poll of American Jews on Iran & Forward’s Response to Adelson’s anti-BDS Campaign

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

Two matters of vital interest to American Jewry and Israel:

1. J Street conducted a national poll of American Jewish support for Iran nuclear negotiations. American Jews are strongly in favor of the current negotiations with Iran and the P5 +2 going forward with proper inspection of all sites (including military sites) and provisions to reinstitute sanctions immediately upon Iranian violations of the agreement. See findings https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.jstreet.org/images/j-street-iran-poll-1-pager.pdf

– See also this Times of Israel article on poll – “Most US Jews support Iran nuclear deal, J Street poll finds”, – http://www.timesofisrael.com/most-us-jews-support-iran-nuclear-deal-j-street-poll-finds/

“Overall, President Obama’s approval rating remains higher among American Jews than among Americans in general. Fifty-six percent approve of the way he is handling his job as president, compared to 45% of the general population, according to a calculation published by website Real Clear Politics from the same period.”

2. Wealthy Republican Right-Wing supporter of PM Netanyahu Sheldon Adelson is pouring money into fighting BDS on American college campuses. I am opposed to BDS, but we have to ask ‘Is Adelson’s money and approach good or bad in the fight against the BDS movement on college campuses?’ The Jewish Daily Forward editorial staff says it is not, and I agree with them.

See “The Wrong and Right Way to Beat BDS,” Jewish Forward

http://forward.com/opinion/editorial/309821/how-sheldon-adelson-could-really-fight-bds/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Main

“It’s hard to see what sort of productive role Sheldon Adelson can play in [fighting BDS],” writes the Forward editorial board. “But there is something that he can do. He can call his friend Benjamin Netanyahu and remind the prime minister that it is in his power to resurrect genuine negotiations with the Palestinians, repair his frayed relationship with the Obama administration and rescue Israel from growing international isolation. That might, indeed, save the day.”

National Poll of American Jews on Iran & Forward’s Response to Adelson’s anti-BDS Campaign Read More »

President Rivlin: In Israel, there is a word which has long since turned into a weapon: ‘Demography’

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No demographers have framed the implications of Israel's developing demographics better and therefore I am bringing Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's complete speech on June 7, 2015 at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Israeli society is undergoing a far-reaching transformation. This is not a trivial change, it is a transformation that will restructure our very identity as ‘Israelis’, and will have a profound impact on the way we understand ourselves and our national home; there is no escape from this change. These changes may well stir up, for some of us, nostalgia for ‘the old and much loved Israel’, but those experiences of togetherness sitting around an imaginary Israeli camp-fire will not return.

In Israel, there is a word which has long since turned into a weapon: ‘Demography’.  This word is generally used when someone wants to validate a particular claim. However, those with a good ear understand that this usage is generally nothing but an ostensibly polite way of describing one or other population group as a ‘threat’, or a ‘danger’. As unwanted, as illegitimate. Sometimes the finger is pointed at the Arabs, sometimes at the religious Israeli Jews, or at the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) – depending on the context. For this reason, over the years, I have developed a profound distaste for that concept. But today, here I am standing before you, one year into my presidency, and asking to speak to you about demography. And that is because significant demographic changes speak to, and indeed even dictate, the very essence of reality. I have never regarded, nor will I ever regard any persons or groups comprising Israeli society as a danger, or, God forbid, as a threat.

But, I am standing here today, because I have identified a very real threat in our collective suppression of the transformations that Israeli society has been undergoing in recent decades; in neglecting to confront what I call the ‘new Israeli order’, the significance of which I want to deal with today.

Ladies and gentlemen, the ‘new Israeli order’ is not an apocalyptic prophecy. It is the reality. A reality, that can already be seen in the composition of the first grade classes in the Israeli education system. In the 1990s (as can be seen in the slide behind me), Israeli society comprised a clear and firm majority, with minority groups alongside it.

(Dark Blue=Arab Students Light Blue=Secular Jewish Students Blue=Orthodox Zionist Students Teal=Haredi Orthodox Non-Zionist Students  right pie chart *Elementary Grades in 1990  left pie chart *Projected First Grade, 2018 based on 2012 births)

A large secular Zionist majority, and beside it three minority groups: a national-religious minority, an Arab minority, and a Haredi minority. Although this pattern remains frozen in the minds of much of the Israeli public, in the press, in the political system, all the while, the reality has totally changed.

Today, the first grade classes are composed of about 38% secular Jews, about 15% national religious, about one quarter Arabs, and close to a quarter Haredim.  While it is true that numbers and definitions are dynamic, neither identities nor birth-rates remain static over time. But one thing is clear, the demographic processes that are restructuring or redesigning the shape of Israeli society, have, in fact, created a ‘new Israeli order’. A reality in which there is no longer a clear majority, nor clear minority groups. A reality in which Israeli society is comprised of four population sectors, or, if you will, four principal ‘tribes’, essentially different from each other, and growing closer in size. Whether we like it or not, the make-up of the ‘stakeholders’ of Israeli society, and of the State of Israel, is changing before our eyes.

Whenever I describe this distribution, I am always asked: ‘and what about the distribution between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews?’ Between Left and Right? Periphery and center? Rich and poor? Are these not dividing lines that segment and tear apart Israeli society? And the answer is, of course they are. Those dividing lines unfortunately exist – within each of the population sectors, and through all of them together – and they must be addressed and dealt with. However, in contrast to those divisions, it is the distribution into four principal tribes that make up Israeli society, that reveals its basic structure; a structure that we shall never have the ability or the power to blur or erase; a structure, that for many of us, is perceived as a threat – to the secular-liberal character of the State of Israel on the one hand; and to the Zionist enterprise on the other. This serious division of Israeli society finds expression primarily in the distribution between the different and separate education systems. While in the main, Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, from Right and Left, do go to school together – in general, children born in the State of Israel are sent to one of four separate education systems. To a system whose purpose is to educate the child and form their worldview into a different ethos or culture, religious belief or even national identity.

A child from Beth El, a child from Rahat, a child from Herzliya and a child from Beitar Ilit –  not only do they not meet each other, but they are educated toward a totally different outlook regarding the basic values and desired character of the State of Israel. Will this be a secular, liberal state, Jewish and democratic? Will it be a state based on Jewish religious law? Or a religious democratic state? Will it be a state of all it citizens, of all its national ethnic groups? Tribe, by tribe, by tribe, by tribe.

Similarly, each tribe has its own media platforms, newspapers they read, the television channels they watch. Each tribe also has its own towns, Tel Aviv is the town of one tribe, just as Umm el Fahm is the town of another, as is Efrat, and Bnei Brak. Each represents the town of a different tribe. In the State of Israel the basic systems that form people's consciousness are tribal and separate, and will most likely remain so. I do not want to oversimplify with rough generalizations. Obviously, this division is neither absolute nor all-embracing. No population sector is in itself a single element, but rather comprises a varied range of members; and there are of course, also common areas between the sectors.  However, it is also important we do not ignore, whether through blindness or denial, that it is not the marginal elements of each sector that create the huge gaps between them.

We are not dealing here with the gaps between extreme Jewish nationalists on one side, and radical anarchists, or Islamist fundamentalists on the other. We are dealing here with a cultural and religious identity gap and sometimes an abyss between the mainstreams of each of the camps; between four different and rich engines of identity. The ‘new Israeli order’ is not a creative sociological differentiation; it is, rather, a reality with far-reaching consequences for our national strength, for the future of us all. From an economic viewpoint, the current reality is not viable. The mathematics is simple, any child can see it. If we do not reduce the current gaps in the rate of participation in the work force and in the salary levels of the Arab and Haredi populations – who are soon to become one half of the work force – Israel will not be able to continue to be a developed economy.


The severe and painful epidemic of poverty that is already having a major effect in Israel, will only expand and worsen. From a political viewpoint, Israeli politics to a great extent is built as an inter-tribal zero sum game. One tribe, the Arabs, whether or not by its own choice, is not really a partner in the game. The other three, it seems, are absorbed by a struggle for survival, a struggle over budgets and resources for education, housing, or infrastructure, each on behalf of their own sector. In the ‘new Israeli order’ in which each sector experiences itself as a minority, this dynamic will be infinitely more destructive. But, beyond all this, we must examine the social and moral implications of the ‘new Israeli order’. We must ask ourselves honestly, what is common to all these population sectors? Do we have a shared civil language, a shared ethos? Do we share a common denominator of values with the power to link all these sectors together in the Jewish and democratic State of Israel?  In the past, the IDF served as a central tool for fashioning the Israeli character. In the military, Israeli society would confront itself, would consolidate, and shape itself morally, socially and in many ways economically.

However, in the emerging Israeli order, more than half of the population does not serve in the military. So the Israelis will meet for the first time, if at all, only in the work place. In any case, the mutual ignorance and lack of a common language between these four populations, that are becoming ever more similar in size, merely increase the tension, fear, hostility and the competitiveness between them.

Some will say that I am only stating opinion, but first and foremost these are the facts. In order to create hope, we must recognize the facts. Ignoring, denying and suppressing the changes Israeli society is undergoing, or an inability to recognize them – will not help.

Recently, I met with a forum of young CEOs, among them a Vice CEO for marketing, working for a large advertising company in Tel Aviv. I presented them with the data (on this slide here behind me). He let out a shriek. A man such as this, whose livelihood is probably dependent on an ability to understand us, the Israelis, found it difficult to believe that this is the society in which he is living. He is not the only one. This outlook is shared by the average viewer of the commercial TV channels, who does not see Haredi, or Arab, towns on the weather-forecast map, and so gets into the habit of thinking that they do not exist. On the other hand, there are those who clearly see these changes, but refuse to accept the facts. So too, there are those who call out in public against what they call the ‘religionization’ of the IDF.

Conversely, there are those who simply propose territorial exchanges, since it is not possible to change the demography, but it is possible to play around with the geography. Indeed, it has already been said that if the Haredim and the Arabs did not exist, our situation would be excellent.

Ladies and Gentlemen, neither suppressing nor fighting this situation will help. We are all here to stay – Haredim and secular Jews, Orthodox Jews and Arabs. Now, if we truly want to deal with the significance of the ‘new Israeli order’, then we must bravely face the issue, and ask ourselves some tough questions. Are we, the members of the Zionist population, able to accept the fact that two significant groups, a half of the future population of Israel, do not define themselves as Zionists? They do not watch the torch-lighting ceremony on Mount Herzl on Independence Day. They do not sing the national anthem with eyes glistening. Are we willing to give up military service, as an entry ticket into Israeli society and economy, and settle for civilian or community service? And on the other hand, are the Arab and Haredi publics willing to commit to contributing their share in molding Israeli identity and the Israeli economy, and to participating in civil national and community service, with a sense of responsibility and commitment? Whoever is not willing to ask these questions today is not more or less of a Zionist or a Nationalist, but one who is ignoring the most significant challenge put before the Zionist enterprise today. If we desire to live with the vision of a Jewish and democratic state as our life's dream and our heart's desire, then we need to look bravely at this reality. This should be done together, out of a deep commitment to find the answers to these questions, out of a readiness to draw together all the tribes of Israel, with a shared vision of Israeli hope.

Ladies and gentlemen, the ‘new Israeli order’ now requires us to abandon the accepted view of a majority and minorities, and move to a new concept of partnership between the various population sectors in our society.  Clarification of the essence of that partnership is the task of all of Israeli society. Even if it is not my role, as President of the State of Israel, to dictate the answers to these important questions, it is my duty and obligation to ask them, and demand they be debated and answered. And I will continue to do so from every platform, everywhere, before every tribe amongst us, and before the whole people.

I believe that there are four pillars on which this partnership must stand. The first is a sense of security for each sector, that entry into this partnership does not require giving up basic elements of their identity. The Haredi, the secular, the religious, or the Arab individual must not feel that the issues most sensitive to them are in danger or under threat. Whether this be the Haredi way of education in the Yeshivot; the national religious concept of redemption; the liberal lifestyle of a secular Jew, or the Arab-Palestinian identity.

The sense of security that my basic identity is not threatened is a fundamental prerequisite for the ability of each one of us to hold out a hand to the other. To understand their pain and fears. The ability of us all, to establish a partnership here between the various sectors. We cannot do this unless we can learn to know each other, unless we gain an understanding of the most sensitive issues of each sector, and learn how to respect and safeguard them – even when this is difficult or even frustrating.

The second pillar is shared responsibility. When no tribe is a minority, no side can escape bearing responsibility for the destiny and the future of the State of Israel, and of Israeli society in general. So, no tribe is exempt from proposing solutions to deal with the challenge of defending the security of the State; from facing the economic challenges, or maintaining the international status of Israel as a member of the family of nations. Partnership demands responsibility.

The third pillar, is equity and equality. In order to ensure the partnership between us, we must ensure that no citizen is discriminated against, nor favoured, simply because they belong to a specific sector. The current situation of structural gaps between the partners, whether in budgets, infrastructures or land, is intolerable. There are clear tribal aspects to poverty in Israel, and the majority of senior positions in the economy are held by the members of one or two sectors. In such a situation it is not possible to build a shared future here. In order to create a strong basis for the partnership between us, we will have to ensure an accessible ‘Israeli dream’ that can be realized by each and every young person, judged only on the basis of their talents, and not according to their ethnic or social origins.
The fourth, and the most challenging pillar, is the creation of a shared Israeli character – a shared ‘Israeliness’. Despite the challenges the ‘new Israeli order’ poses, we must recognize that we are not condemned to be punished by the developing Israeli mosaic – but rather it offers a tremendous opportunity. It encompasses cultural richness, inspiration, humanity and sensitivity. We must not allow the ‘new Israeli order’ to cajole us into sectarianism and separation. We must not give up on the concept of ‘Israeliness’; we should rather open up its gates and expand its language.

There is a long and difficult path to the establishment of these pillars. But, if we believe that we were not doomed, but destined to live together, we shall overcome the challenge.

Dear friends, we shall need to implement the partnership demanded by the ‘new Israeli order’ in each and every area of our lives. We shall be required to be familiar with education for partnership – given the separate education systems. To learn how to manage an economy and a public sector that excels at employment diversity. To learn the nature of media that succeeds in serving as a joint platform, an academic world that does not compromise on quality, but also knows how to create a sensitive cultural environment. A world of politics and political discourse that takes into account the sensitivities and foundations of partnership.

The establishment of this partnership is an enormous task. It is a task which I have taken upon myself, but far from a task that is mine alone. It demands from all of us a great collective effort.

During my first year in office, I have worked to rouse each sector among us, to see the other sector – even when difficult – to hear the other sector, even when it grates on ones ears.  To hold out a hand to them.  At the end of that year, I now stand here before you, seeking to say these things openly and clearly, feeling deeply that Israeli society is today in need of a wake-up call. 

I call on you all today to join me in facing this challenge. I am a partner to anyone ready and willing to play their part in this task. I am here at your service, at the service of all of Israeli society. Only in this way, together and in partnership, shall we be able to rekindle the Israeli hope.

I would like to thank the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center and its leaders, and the members of the Steering Committee who are sitting here with us, who have taken on themselves the task of investigating their role and contribution to the establishment of this partnership.
Bless you all.

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5 notes on booing Jack Lew and US-Israel relations

Leave a Comment / Israel, Rosner's Domain, Rosners Domain-mobile, United States /

1.

The booing of Secretary Jack Lew in New York early this week was a disgrace. It was a case in which a crowd consisting of true friends of Israel embarrassed itself, embarrassed its hosts, embarrassed Israel, damaged Israel.

Lew is not an enemy of Israel. The administration he represents is not an enemy of Israel. The need to be respectful toward the administration, toward Lew, and toward all other administration officials should be obvious to everyone. So much so, that I almost understand why the organizers of the Jerusalem Post conference in which the incident occurred did not bother to make sure that the crowd understands the rules.

2.

I was on five or six Israeli radio shows on Monday to talk about this incident (and declined invitations from four different TV shows – just for lack of time). In some of these shows I was disturbed to learn that many Israelis felt somewhat pleased with this incident, that they do not understand that insulting Lew is self-defeating and dumb.

Israelis – as I’ve shown before – are very unhappy with the Obama administration, and by the end of the month, assuming an agreement with Iran is completed, they will be even less happy with it. Israelis have good reasons to question the policies of the Obama administration. They have good reasons to be suspicious of its claims that Israel’s security is its foremost concern.

The Obama administration chose a path that leads to the erosion of Israel’s security. Whether that’s the right path for America – that is for Americans to decide. But Israelis and their friends are right to argue that it is the wrong path from Israel’s viewpoint. They have every right to protest, and every reason to try to sabotage the Obama administration's policy on Iran. They also have every reason to try to do it while keeping in mind that the US is Israel’s most important ally, and that having good relations with the US is also an overwhelming Israeli interest.

3.

Let’s make a wild assumption. Let’s assume that booing Lew makes it ten percent less likely that an agreement with Iran will be reached – would you still think that booing him would be a travesty? I would not. Iran is important enough an issue to make booing worthwhile in such a case.

But how about five precent less likely?

And how about two precent less likely?

When Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to accept an invitation to speak at a joint session of Congress, I thought that he made the wrong decision. I thought that it was the wrong decision not because it was impolite. Not because it angered the Obama administration. Not because it broke some codes of proper behaviour. It was the wrong decision because it did all those things without advancing the policies for which Netanyahu advocates. Damage was done. The benefit was meager at most.

But a case could be made that the Netanyahu speech did make a difference. A case could be made that the speech forced the Obama administration to somewhat toughen its position in negotiations with Iran, fearing Congressional resistance. A case could be made that the speech put the questions about the desirability of the agreement with Iran on the table, made it an issue much more under discussion than it was before the speech.

No such case can be made to defend the booing of Lew. There is not even a one percent chance that the booing will make an agreement with Iran less likely. So in this case – there is damage, there is no benefit, and there is no line of defense that can make the booing justifiable.  

4.

JJ Goldberg, writing for The Forward, argued that even “allies of Prime Minister Netanyahu seemed equally rattled, aware of the danger of angering the White House at a moment when Israel is seeking help fighting off foreign boycotts and blocking an upcoming pro-Palestinian United Nations resolution”. He is factually right – they were rattled and displeased. He is conceptually wrong – they were displeased not because of their fear that the White House will get angry. Netanyahu has proved time and again that he is ready to anger the White House when he deems it necessary.

They were rattled because the booing makes no sense. It helps no one, it hurts the wrong person, it makes a strong Israeli case seem less appealing, it makes supporting Israel seem less appealing.

Goldberg’s report was somewhat typical in that it does not appreciate the difference between a dumb, unnecessary, impolite battle – and between defensible battles of merit. It was somewhat typical in hinting that a straight line connects between Netanyahu’s fierce (and at times blunt) objections to the policies of the Obama administration and the booing of Lew. Others were even more direct than Goldberg, blaming Netanyahu for (in Chemi Shalev’s words) “creating the kind of atmosphere that has incited and inflamed right wing opinions” and going as far as reminiscing about the days before Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination .

That is an obvious attempt to discredit Netanyahu and his effort to object to the Iran deal, an attempt that I find to be not quite respectable.

5.

Lew doesn’t work for Israel. He doesn’t work for a Jewish pro-Israel lobby. He works for the President. He supports the policies of the President – and when he doesn’t, he probably conveys it privately to the President.

The crowd at the JP conference doesn’t work for Lew. It doesn’t work for the President. It opposes the policies of the President. And it has the right to publicly convey its displeasure with these policies.

It makes perfect sense for people who oppose the policies of the Obama administration to diligently work against the policies Lew advocates. But this should be done smartly, so as to increase the chances for success.

It makes no sense for people who oppose the policies of the Obama administration to boo Lew at a conference. It will contribute nothing to the battle against the Obama policies and will alienate Americans that Israel has no benefit in alienating.

5 notes on booing Jack Lew and US-Israel relations Read More »

Australia: A Fifth Continent for American Airlines

Leave a Comment / Travel /

Scott Kirby, President of ” target=”_blank”>Qantas, shared the excitement about this partnership and new flights direct from San Francisco to Sydney.

JC Liscano, Managing Director of American Airlines at LAX, invited all present to enjoy treats from Down Under like Lamington and Aussie pies and to remember that all 5000 employees are ready to assist customers to their dream destinations like Australia!

This Direct Down Under service will start to “kick some United, Delta and Virgin butts” said Kirby. I interviewed him and discovered he has not yet been to Sydney so he may be exploring with you this holiday season.

Please find three videos and photos below from the announcement yesterday:  ​” target=”_blank”>American Airlines Press Conference: Fifth Continent (full speech from Kirby, Hudson, Liscano) and a tour of the “>We Said Go Travel

Video:
 
Video:

Australia: A Fifth Continent for American Airlines Read More »