The 16th Maccabiah Games ended with a lot of fanfare, flaming batons and fireworks — and a sigh of relief from the organizers that the much-anticipated event had ended safely and without mishap.
After weeks of debate, organizers of Israel\’s 16th Maccabiah Games announced last Friday that the Olympics-style sporting competition will open as planned July 16 in Jerusalem, despite widespread individual cancellations due to fears of violence.
With the risk imposed by the new intifada, the near-term security of individual Israelis weighs heavily on all our minds. However, we also must consider threats farther afield, as Iran, Iraq and Syria threaten the long-term stability of the entire Israeli state.
Even as organizations are canceling their summer Israel programs, for some teens already in Israel the experience is proving invaluable.
Los Angeles police officers have been visiting Jewish institutions, schools and synagogues to urge an extra measure of alertness while a high-profile trial is underway in the downtown federal courthouse.
For the past 37 summers, the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Los Angeles (BJE) has sent high school students to Israel through its pioneering L.A. Ulpan program.
The sign to the left, posted by Israeli Jewish and Arab students at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology around the elite Rehovot campus, reads: \”We, the Arab and Jewish students of the Technion, who daily sit together in the same classrooms in cooperation and friendship, express our pain over the recent outbreaks of violence in our country. It is up to us to continue living here in mutual dignity, peace and security. We call on every Technion student to speak out against violence, and on every citizen to work on behalf of good neighborly relations.\”
Bill Clinton is wasting his time. The chances of a meaningful Israeli-Palestinian deal before he hands over the presidency to George W. Bush on Jan. 20 are negligible.
\nAmerican Jews are letting down Israel in the short run by staying away during the current unrest, says a top Progressive rabbi, and in the long run by not fighting harder for religious pluralism in the Jewish state.
\”You can\’t afford to sign up to a peace agreement that is all one-sided, meaning Israel takes all the risks,\” observed retired U.S. Admiral Leon A. Edney to small groups of Jewish leaders in Beverly Hills last week. \”We need to find a way to live in peace with the Arab world, but it\’s not done with appeasement.\”
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