Vandals Burn Survivor’s ChanukahBanner
Chabad of the Conejo installed a 6-foot menorah on the frontlawn of Victoria Monina’s North Ranch home on Dec. 16, after vandals burnt aChanukah banner that she hung over her garage.
Monina told The Journal that she hung the banner inanticipation of an upcoming Chanukah party, and that it was burnt sometime onSunday night. The banner was the only item on her property that was damaged.
“Two-thirds of the flag had been burnt, and there was onlyone piece left,” said Monina, 71. “I am really scared, I can’t sleep.”
A Holocaust survivor, Monina said she wanted the menoraherected to send a message to the arsonists.
“I had to hide the fact that I am Jewish once when I washiding from Nazis,” she said, “but I am only going to hide it once.”
Rabbi Moshe Bryski of Chabad of the Conejo, where Moninaattends classes, told The Journal that he put up two more banners as well asthe menorah.
“We decided to respond in the best way we knew how,” hesaid. “So we doubled our efforts, and put up two banners — one to replace theburnt one and one to make a statement that this Holocaust survivor would not beintimidated.” — Gaby Wenig, Staff Writer
Little Accord on Geneva
More Israelis and Palestinians oppose the unofficial “Genevaaccord” peace proposal than support it, a new poll says. Thirty-four percent ofIsraelis and 19 percent of Palestinians support the Geneva proposal, and 43percent of Israelis and 44 percent of Palestinians oppose the plan, accordingto the poll, carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and SurveyResearch and Hebrew University’s Truman Institute.
The poll of 1,319 Palestinians and 504 Israelis wasconducted in early December. The Palestinian side of the poll had a margin oferror of 3 percent; the Israeli side, 4.5 percent.
Jewish Dating BehaviorEyed
Nearly half of college-aged Jews have one non-Jewish parentand don’t exclusively date Jews.
Those are among the findings from the latest National JewishPopulation Survey (NJPS) about Jews ages 18 to 29, presented Sunday toofficials of Hillel, who were meeting for a professional staff conference in Princeton, N.J. The NJPS 2000-01 showed dating and social patterns differing, sometimesdramatically, between students who have one or two Jewish parents.
While the report shows that less than 1 percent of studentswith only one Jewish parent exclusively date Jews, 36 percent of those with twoJewish parents date only Jews. According to the NJPS, 48 percent ofcollege-aged Jewish students have two Jewish parents, 45 percent have oneJewish parent and 7 percent said neither parent was Jewish.
Gehry Pulls Out ofMuseum
Architect Frank Gehry quit designing a planned museum forPolish Jewry. Details about Gehry’s departure from the Museum of the History ofPolish Jewry, to be built on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto, were notreleased.
A design competition for the museum now will be held. ThePolish government has pledged to fund one-quarter of the museum’s $63 millionprice tag.
Sen. Clinton: Israeli Tactics Badfor Iraq
Israeli military tactics haven’t worked against thePalestinians and shouldn’t be used in Iraq, Sen. Hillary Clinton said. The U.S.military has blockaded troublesome villages with barbed wire fence and hasdemolished buildings suspected to be sniper nests. Reports have said thatIsraeli advisers were involved in training U.S. troops in such tactics, thoughthe Pentagon will not confirm that.
“Many of us were taken aback when we saw that article and wesaw the barbed wire and the fence,” the New York Democrat told the Council onForeign Relations last week. “It is very hard to build any fence that’s goingto keep a terrorist out. That is certainly the tragic lesson of Israel’sefforts against terrorism over all these years.”
Where’s the Menorah?
A Christmas tree controversy erupted at Indiana University.The dean of the university’s law school replaced a Christmas tree with twosmaller trees and a sleigh after some students and professor Florence Roitman,a Jewish professor at IU’s law school, complained that the tree constituted areligious display.
The dean says the new display represents Indiana woods andhas no religious meaning. But both Roitman and students who support aChristmas-tree display say the new display is not much of a change.
Ads Seek Info on Nazi-EraCriminals
Advertisements will begin running in Austria this week for acampaign aimed at finding Nazi-era war criminals. The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s”Operation: Last Chance,” which began last year in the Baltic states, offersfinancial rewards for information on suspected war criminals from World War II.Ads will be launched in Poland and Romania in coming weeks.
Briefs courtesy Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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