Head in the Clouds

House of Darkness

2011-12-27T09:04:00.000+02:00

Beit Shemesh is a town of some 85,000 people at the foot of the Judean Mountains, about a 30 minute drive to Jerusalem. Beit Shemesh means “House of Sun” and it is, appropriately, very hot. But the recent violence and intolerance have turned Beit Shemesh into the House of Darkness. Reports of the assault of a little girl aired on Israeli TV this past Friday (http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=250917) have mushroomed and are the subject of a flood of e-mails, a Facebook group organizing a demonstration, and videos being shared to document this offense (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFm1tZkEuxI). Matters got worse this week when an Israeli TV news crew filming in Beit Shemesh was violently assaulted. Sadly, the ideology that has driven these violent assaults is one of fellow Jews, Haredim (ultra-orthodox), which makes the matter worse. Extremist Haredi communities throughout Israel have become increasingly isolationist, and increasingly arrogant in their behavior, not just with the strict interpretation of Jewish law for themselves, but in their imposing their standards on others. It has been long understood that someone driving through a Haredi neighborhood on Shabbat risks having his/her car stoned by men yelling “Shabbes” as if throwing rocks at a moving vehicle is less of a desecration of the sanctity of Shabbat than driving through a Haredi neighborhood, as insensitive as that may be. Sadly, even though we hold the saving of a life to be the highest value, some Haredim would just as soon stone an ambulance en route to saving someone’s life as an errant Mazda. According to Jewish law, in order to be able to throw rocks like this on Shabbat, the rocks have to be set aside before Shabbat in order that they have a purposeful use on Shabbat, and that the rock throwers (God forbid) not violate the sanctity of Shabbat by throwing rocks that have no purpose. Yogi Berra would have a field day with this! Depending on one’s perspective, this amounts to pre-meditated assault, or hyper-holiness. There are no shortage of other absurd examples of false Haredi piety such as segregating buses so men and women should not sit together and have impure thoughts or accidentally bump up against one another, segregating of shopping areas to men and women only areas, having separate sidewalks for men and women during holiday seasons, and more. It’s been said by contrast, that anyone who has such a risk of impure thoughts as a result of sitting next to or brushing up against a member of the opposite sex is a pervert anyway and has problems much deeper than perceived public piety. Given the dynamic of the Haredi community, all this could stop if their Rabbis had the sense and decency to tell their adherents that this behavior is not only NOT a sanctification, but rather a desecration, of God’s name. To their credit, some Haredi leaders have spoken out, and done so harshly, but unless the rabbis of the sects from where the offenders originate do so, not much is likely to change. Among recent accounts of the newest flare up that has garnered so much attention, some have noted that people would look the other way if these stringencies were not pushed on the rest of Israeli society. This is challenging in that it ought to be the right of people to live as they wish, but not to have their ideologies and stringencies imposed on others. In Israel, it is a fine line as to where one’s observance encroaches on the rights of others, not to observe, or to observe differently. There are many areas in which we defer to the “status quo” that has governed interaction among haredim in Israeli society for decades. However, in no case does spitting on and calling a little girl names fit and, at the risk of imposing my standards on others, has no place in our society. More than creating the environment in which gross behavior like this could even be considered acceptable, and the Haredi rabbis not speaking out against it, what’s worse is the overall tarnishing of the essence of Judaism. Liberal/secular inclined Israelis have long had gripes with the imposing of Haredi standards throughout so many facets of Israeli society. Israeli media is not known for its’ general respect for religion, and behavior like this ignites the embers of what, in any other country, could be deemed anti-Semitism. Writing this is challenging in its own right because so as not to be guilty of sinat hinam, baseless hatred, against fellow Jews, as much as their ideology may be distant from mine, and as much as the actions of some may be repugnant. I want to be careful not to project that all Haredim behave this way, or tolerate this behavior. That’s not true. Maybe, somehow, this gross progression of events by an extremist group of Haredim capped by the disgusting behavior that was reported in the Israeli media this week will somehow be a catalyst for their rabbis to take pause and at least stop their adherents from such behaviors if not because they are illegal, maybe because they will realize their behaviors are a desecration of God’s name and the Torah. And while they’re at it, maybe they’ll call upon their adherents to cease all actions that are, or might be, perceived as divisive by the majority of Israelis and, in turn, reach out to share with Israeli society the beauty of Judaism and it’s customs and rituals rather than the polarizing and repulsive behavior that will push Jews further away from Judaism. Maybe. But maybe I’m just spitting in the wind.

Bad Boy of the Middle East

2011-11-29T14:32:00.001+02:00

Every night, I sit down to watch the world’s newest TV reality show. Unlike a scripted, well choreographed, high priced show, the show I am watching is evolving in real time before our eyes, on the nightly news, “The Bad Boy of the Middle East.” The main difference between a commercial TV reality show and this one is that it’s hard to determine who the winner will be, if there will be a winner at all and, if so, what that winner will get in lieu of the cash prize most commercial shows offer. Who is the Bad Boy of the Middle East? It’s the one who most successfully discriminates against, brutalizes, and slaughters its own citizens. Let’s take a look at some of our contestants. Algeria – to put up a buffer against the wave of protests enveloping North African neighbors Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, Algeria ended its two decade old state of emergency and will try to hold off other protests. Not the worst offender in terms of brutalizing its own citizens, but not a shining light of democracy either. A long shot to win the title, but in changing times, one never knows. Egypt – the Arab spring was highlighted by the toppling of Egypt’s long time, and less than democratic, President Hosni Mubarak. Violence that erupted, then took the summer off, only now to rear its head again with hundreds of thousands protesting in the streets and dozens killed, so far. An Islamist victory will certainly lead to repression, especially among Egypt’s 8 million Christians. Iran – the bad boy of the bad boys. Their President doesn’t even try to lie about what they want to do to us. They just lie about making the weapons to use to do it. Iran gets extra credit for lying and making outrageous statements, and getting spineless other states to go along with them. They also get extra points for arming a network of like minded terrorists to destabilize Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, just to name a few. Before any Arab spring, the Iranians put down a post election fraud revolt that was starting. Since then, the winds of summer, fall and winter have not reached the sails of Iranians who would like to live with a sense of freedom and democracy. Definitely a front runner from brutalizing their own citizens and threatening the rest of us. Iraq – depending on what comes, Iraqis may long for the days that their “only” problem was being tortured by their former president Saddam Hussein. Fighting between the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish populations was, and probably always will be. Terrorist attacks by one group to another are common. As soon as US and other troops exit, Iran is sitting next door waiting to pounce and destabilize further. Whether the Iraqis win or not, one thing that’s almost certain is that Iraqis will surely spill one another’s blood for some time to come. Jordan – The Hashemite kingdom deserves credit for hanging on. A real democracy it isn’t, but it certainly isn’t one of the most brutal of Arab states. There’s a healthy struggle between an indigenous population that’s largely Palestinian, and a minority represented by the monarchy. The monarchy hasn’t really brutalized the Palestinians since the later challenged the former in 1970. It’s not certain that if a new challenge were to arise that King Abdullah could get away with a new Black September as his father did. Jordan changes governments as a national past time, and with the heat of the Arab spring, has done so again. For the moment, the King is stable. For the moment. Lebanon – this country gives definition to the word unstable. With a civil war that lasted decades, occupation by Syria, two wars with Israel as a result of the Lebanese firing rockets at Israel and attacking its citizens, murder of their popular Prime Minister, and the destabilizing imposition of Hezbollah as a terrorist entity now occupying seats in their parliament and maintaining their own army within an army, the only thing that makes Lebanon look good today is the horrors taking place next door in Syria. Lebanon is too torn and divided to be The Bad Boy today, but tomorrow is another day. Libya – the dust hasn’t settled since the revolution that ousted, captured and then killed its maniac dictator so it’s unclear what will be. Between Qaddafi the father and Qaddafi the son (Seif), the Libyan people have been terrorized and butchered for decades, and Libya also exported its terror. Extra credit for, while doing this, bullying the Brits to release the mastermind of the Lockerbie terrorist attack, while enabling British companies to sign lucrative oil deals with Qaddafi and company. Morocco – it’s not impossible that the wave of revolutionary fervor sweeping across northern Africa could go as far west as Morocco. But compared to others, Morocco is less at risk, therefore less internal brutalizing of its citizens. What will come of an Islamic party winning the recent elections there and whether it’s a threat to the long term monarchy remains to be seen. Palestinian Authority – Like Alcoholics Anonymous, AA, the PA is governed by a “recovering” terrorist group, the PLO, and one that hasn’t even realized that there’s a problem in being a terrorist organization, Hamas. The internal strife between the two is severe despite the whitewash if “unity” they paint periodically for the world to see, and each targets the others’ supporters, leading to murder and terrorizing of the people they claim to represent in a power struggle that has long term implications. Saudi Arabia – the enlightened oil rich desert kingdom gives women new rights to go out of their homes and go to university, even allowing one woman to represent the Saudis in the upcoming Olympic Games. Maybe the Saudi people will be appeased by this and the wave of unrest hitting the rest of the world will pass by like a desert storm. Saudis still behead people convicted of certain crimes and chop off hands of criminals. Unless there’s a wave of dissent against the well entrenched monarchy, it’s not likely that the Saudis will be serious contenders. Syria – poor Bashar Assad can’t get a break. He wants to unleash the full force of the Syrian military against his people, like the Iranians want him to, and like his father did. But Bashar just can’t fill his father’s big brutal shoes. He’s had more than 3500 people killed this year alone. Even the Arab League suspended and sanctioned Syria. As an assembly of some of the least democratic and most authoritarian countries in the world, their standards are far from western, or enlightened. So when they don’t like what another member is doing and sanction that member, it’s got to be really bad. Tunisia – other than angry fruit vendors setting themselves on fire because of a little police brutality, the protest and violence that enveloped Tunisia has largely passed. They set off a chain reaction that’s not stopped, but Tunisia’s issues are mostly self contained and they don’t pose a great threat to their own people or others. A for Assist, but no real great chance at Tunisia winning the Bad Boy title. Turkey – the Turks might get some sympathy after two serious earthquakes, but the real issue is their on and off cozying/conflicting with Iran and how that plays out domestically. They continue to fight against their own Kurdish population, support terrorist organizations, and have lead the charge against neighbor Syria, while absorbing tens of thousands of refugees. But, if they step too far out of the box, or if the Kurds in Iraq are emboldened in the deterioration of their country, it could create a new challenge for Turkey, one which they might just seek advice on repressing the population from the Syrians they are now sanctioning. Yemen – the country is a vacuum even with its’ hated and brutal dictator who is offering terms to step down that have not been acceptable, all the while breeding a local Al Qaida chapter that’s among the most radical. They may brutalize their own people but as a backwater, like in the movie, most won’t care as “what happens in Yemen stays in Yemen.” While situated in the Middle East, the only thing that makes Israel a contender is the international media and UN taking things that pale by comparison to the brutality of all the rest of the region and making Israel out to be a monster. The truth is that even the “occupied” Palestinians have a better and freer life than most of their Mid Eastern brethren, and this is depicted by protesters throughout the region saying that they want a democracy like Israel on one hand, while calling for destroying Israel on the other. Also, that Arabs and Jews can protest freely in Israel without fear of government or military reprisals make Israel not even qualified to enter for the title. If there’s one thing that these conflicts in the Middle East tell us, that’s Israel is not the root of all the problems, that making peace with the Palestinians won’t begin to make the rest of the problems go away, and that when Arabs kill one another, it’s accepted as the norm, (boys will be boys), and when Israel shoots tear gas or rubber bullets at Palestinians, it’s front page news as “proof” that Israel is anti-democratic, apartheid, or the biggest offender of human rights and perpetrator of “war crimes” in the world. Of course, when these countries and their third world allies stand in judgment, it’s no wonder. Maybe that’s also part of what makes a real Bad Boy the worst, the ability to deflect criticism and blame for their own criminal acts and human rights violations, and point a finger at Israel. 64 years after the world voted to create a Jewish and an Arab state in British occupied Palestine, if the Arabs would accept the formula of two states for two people, as Israel did then and still does, this would be one of the easiest problems to solve in the Middle East. But based on the ongoing conflicts that are pervasive throughout the region, highlighted by governments discriminating against, repressing, and killing their own citizens almost as an Olympic sport, it’s unlikely that even the long awaited resolution to the challenges Israel faces of being accepted by its neighbors will make any impact on the wider problems. Israel does serve an important role for its’ neighbors, to be the punching bag to deflect domestic issues. Rather than accept responsibility and accountability for their own behavior, they blame Israel for all their problems and use that to leverage support of the people they abuse in their own countries. Your vote for who’s going to win the “Bad Boy of the Middle East” title is welcome on my Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.a.feldstein.

Yishai was born in Israel

2011-11-02T11:23:00.001+02:00

Next week, the US Supreme Court will hear a case involving the US government's refusal to list Israel as the place of birth on the passports of American citizens born in Jerusalem. (For information about the case, please visit http://borninjerusalem.org.) I'm sure that numerous Supreme Court decisions have impacted me. But no Court decision has the potential to hit as close to home, literally and figuratively. In 2005, my wife and I were blessed to welcome our sixth child into our family, and the world. Yishai was born at Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, the center of Jewish life for more than 3000 years. As proud Americans, we completed the paperwork at the US Consulate to register him as an American born overseas and apply for his US passport. Despite our writing "Jerusalem, Israel" as his place of birth on the application, his passport arrived listing his place of birth only "Jerusalem." No state. Yishai is named for two relatives who were victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Yosef, my father's cousin, was just a child not much older than Yishai is today when the Nazis murdered him and his mother. He probably never even thought about seeing, much less living in, Jerusalem. But it would be hard to imagine that even as a young child, Jerusalem was not part of his consciousness, in prayer, during his last Passover Seders, and as a vision he could never comprehend. Shalom Yakov was my great grandfather. Despite raising several children and running a successful business, his life was cut short by Nazi bullets. As a mature adult, there's no doubt that he knew what Jerusalem meant. My great grandfather knew that the future of Jewish life was in Israel, and lived to see two children settle there. He must have been euphoric to know that he had a grandson (my father) born in Israel. I suspect that he'd have been even more elated to know that his great great grandson, Yishai, who is named for him, was born in Jerusalem seven decades later. Yishai’s birth was no more remarkable than the birth of any child, to the extent that the miracle of bringing a new person into the world is not remarkable. What was remarkable is that he joined tens of thousands of others that year alone who fulfilled the aspirations of millions of Jews throughout the millennia “just” by being born in a place about which they always dreamt. Jewish and Jerusalem are synonymous, and this is underscored by the fact that my son’s name, Yishai, is the Hebrew for Jesse, the father of King David, who established Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel and the Jewish people. I don’t expect the US government to follow Biblical tradition, but I do know that hundreds of millions of Americans, and billions worldwide, know that the link between Jerusalem and the Jewish people was, is and always will be unbreakable. The omission of “Israel” as the country of Yishai’s birth is an offense that we hope the Supreme Court will fix. In no other place in the world is the country of one’s birth omitted from the passport of American citizens born abroad. Imagine the fallout from the US not recognizing Paris as part of France, Moscow as part of Russia, or Beijing as part of China. Don’t Americans born in Kurdistan have Iraq, Syria or Iran listed as the country of birth? Don’t Americans born in Tibet have China listed in their passport? And yet as much as Jerusalem might be in dispute on a diplomatic basis with governments of the world playing politics rather than doing what’s right, it’s high time that these governments stop pandering to Arab and Islamic sensitivities which seek to erase and deny any Jewish historical and religious connection to Jerusalem, and recognize that Jerusalem is an integral part of Israel. Perhaps doing so would force the hands of the Arab and Islamic rejectionists, and bring them to the negotiating table in order to get a piece of the pie. Yet until that happens, there’s no ground for the US to deny the right of an American born in Jerusalem the ability to list “Israel” his or her country of birth. Rubbing salt into the wounds of the inability to list Israel as the country of birth for such people, uniquely, Americans born in Israel have the right to omit Israel from their passport as the country of birth. So an Israeli Arab with dual US citizenship has the ability to OMIT Israel from the place of birth on his passport even if he was born in Jaffa, Haifa, or Ramle. This is a double act of discrimination and a policy that is begging to be fixed. Not only does the US government not allow an American to record his son’s birth as “Jerusalem, Israel,” but the US government does allow an American born in Israel to remove any reference of Israel from their US passport. Sadly, current US policy is not only wrong and illegal, but it also allows people who try to purge the centrality of Jerusalem to Israel the ability deny to Israel’s legitimacy, if not its very existence. The current US policy is discriminatory, contradictory, and I hope the US Supreme Court will affirm that it is illegal. I look forward to taking my son to get his new American passport, proudly registering as an American born in Israel, not a stateless city that just happens to have Jewish historical evidence and religious relics that go back thousands of years.

Remembering Daniel

2011-05-09T00:33:00.000+03:00

The hardest part of telling Daniel’s story is that it is in the past tense. Otherwise, it’s inspiring and uplifting. In April 2006, during the intermediate days of Passover, Daniel Cantor Wultz suffered devastating life threatening injuries to most of his 16 year old body. Standing next to Daniel on an outing with his family during their holiday visit to Israel, Daniel’s father also suffered severe injuries when a suicide bomber detonated the belt full of explosives, killing 11 and injuring 70. In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack, Daniel was rushed to the hospital by Magen David Adom. On board the ambulance and at the hospital, EMTs and doctors feverishly tried to do everything they could to keep Daniel alive. In order to sustain his severely damaged body, doctors were challenged to replenish the blood being lost, while at the same time, trying to repair his badly devastated body. In all, Daniel required 80 units of blood just to stay alive in the hours after the terrorist attack. The doctors were able to stop the bleeding, yet Daniel’s life remained in grave danger. For weeks, his family prayed by his bedside, recalling better times and hoping that they would again be able to enjoy these together with Daniel soon. At one point, dozens of students from Daniel’s school in the US arrived to join the family in prayer. As they played for Daniel’s recovery, they recalled how he was a great people person. He loved people, especially his family and friends, and was widely loved as well. Daniel was known for warm embracing hugs which his friends and family longed to have again, as they hugged and comforted one another. Daniel also loved Israel. Upon arriving in Israel at the beginning of the Passover holiday, Daniel told his parents, “I’m glad to be home.” At his young age, Daniel understood the centrality of Israel in Jewish life, and loved the feeling of being there. Daniel loved his Judaism which instilled in him a deep sense of humility and respect for the values and beliefs of others. Daniel’s ability to respect others enabled him to reach out and be accepted by others in turn, young and old, black and white, Jewish and non-Jewish. Daniel never spoke badly of others. This was so important to him that if he heard others speaking negatively about their peers, he would actively reach out to encourage them to stop. As they waited and prayed together in the hospital, Daniel’s friends remembered what a role model he was to them, as well as adults who may have been much older but did not possess his maturity. Daniel loved sports, especially basketball. He looked up to Michael Jordan not only for his incredible athletic gift, but for overcoming many personal challenges as a young man to become “the best basketball player ever.” Daniel respected that Michael Jordan never blamed anyone or felt angry at those who criticized him for not playing well enough. For Daniel, Michael Jordan embodied the ability to overcome severe challenges, and Daniel’s friends and family hoped that somewhere deep inside, Daniel would be able to overcome the life threatening challenges that he faced at the very moment, beseeching God to give Daniel a full recovery. Daniel loved “XBOX,” movies, and had a great sense of humor. Daniel loved flying airplanes, and at 14 ½ flew a jet. Daniel loved life, but two years after the “height” of flying a jet, he lay in grave danger as a result of a terrorist’s hatred. On Mother’s Day that year, all Daniel’s mother wanted was for her son to be well again. But on Mother’s Day, just weeks after sustaining the life threatening injuries, weeks after doctors used every imaginable means at their disposal to keep Daniel alive, Daniel’s body succumbed to his wounds and he died. Today is Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day for Israel’s lost soldiers and victims of terrorist attacks. In its own short life, Israel has lost more than 22,000 soldiers defending the Land that Daniel loved, and more than 4000 victims of terrorist’s hatred and intolerance. In Israel, where we celebrate together, we also mourn together and the media is replete with stories of courage, bravery, inspiration, and, sadly, death. This year, I remember Daniel, a young man who I never met, but because the terrorist attack that killed him took place on the day I organized my first blood drive in Israel, he is someone to whom I feel very close. Today Israel mourns its martyrs. Daniel is among them. Sadly, today is Mother’s Day. Daniel’s mother never got her wish in 2006, and since, has only the comfort of the memory of Daniel’s short 16 years. May Daniel’s memory be a blessing for his family and friends, and all of us, and may no more mothers ever have to spend this day mourning their child.

Poland, Post-Mortem

2011-04-15T13:41:00.001+03:00

It was one of the most uneasy feelings I have ever had when, sometime in the mid 1980s, I made my grandmother sob. I don’t know what we were talking about but I mentioned my interest to go to Poland one day and see the town where she came from. My grandmother, who was born in Poland, moved to Israel as a young woman and left behind her parents, several siblings, tens of nieces and nephews, and everything she knew, not knowing when, or if, she’d ever see them again. “The land there is filled with our blood,” she sobbed, imploring me not to go there, ever. I suspect that as much as I opened a wound that never healed, knowing that almost her entire family was slaughtered by the Nazis and their Polish neighbors, I suspect she also feared for my well being. I don’t know what I responded exactly, but it probably was something to do with my not going there, in order to appease and calm her. Of course, I had no concrete plans to go there then, but I was still curious. In 1990, I was given the opportunity to go to Poland as staff for a UJA young leadership mission. Our time in Poland was filled with highs and lows: the rededication of a synagogue in Krakow, the first direct flight between Krakow and Israel, and other experiences as a group of young, lively, and living American Jews, juxtaposed by the horrors about which we all knew, but to which we had traveled to bear witness. There were many remarkable things that stood out in the brief trip: the colorful and festive Warsaw Yiddish Theater without a single Jewish actor, the “beauty” of the remaining part of Warsaw’s Jewish cemetery, digging in another cemetery where a survivor traveling with us thought he had buried the town’s Torah scrolls so they would not be desecrated by the Nazis or the Poles, bullet holes still in the wall of the synagogue in the same town where Jews had been lined up and shot inside the sanctuary, and Auschwitz with the incomprehensible crematoria still intact, as well as “exhibits” of hair, suitcases, glasses, shoes, and children’s shoes that were taken from the millions of victims who arrived, but never left. Like many trips of tens or hundreds of thousands, since then, our trip continued to Israel, from Jewish destruction to Jewish rebirth. One of the highlights of that trip was the ability to greet a plane load of Soviet Jewish immigrants. Tears and dancing on the tarmac celebrated their arrival in their homeland, a milestone not lost on the elderly immigrants who had to be helped off the plane, some survivors of the Holocaust, others WWII veterans proudly wearing their medals. All were refugees seeking a better life, and Israel was that life affirming place to welcome them all as Jews, even in the twilight of their own lives. If only Israel had existed many decades earlier, our trip to bear witness in Poland might never have been necessary. Before my daughter and her classmates left for Poland two weeks ago, they spent considerable time studying details of the Holocaust, and Jewish life in Poland up until that point. I knew it was critical for her to have this experience, not just to go to Poland, but to go with her class. It’s a class trip of a kind I never imagined growing up in suburban NJ. Yet, in a flashback to my interaction with my grandmother nearly three decades earlier, I felt unease in her going. Part of it was for her physical safety knowing that anti-Semitism is alive and well in Poland and that such groups require armed guards to protect them. More so, I realized that to the extent that my almost 18 year old is still innocent, this would shatter that forever. Balancing protecting one’s kids and sheltering them appropriately, with helping them to grow up with the resources to mature and become independent people, is one of the greatest challenges in parenting, one in which I am sure I made more than my share of mistakes. Sending your child to Poland to witness the destruction of Jews and Jewish life there is one of those difficult parenting moments. Indeed, some parents don’t allow their children to participate. How much more difficult it must have been for my great grandparents to have the opportunity to send four of their children out of Poland in the 1930s and early 40s, selflessly knowing that they were protecting their children, including my grandmother, but never knowing if they would ever see one another again. It’s customary to welcome back Israeli high school groups with formal ceremonies, celebrating their return, and marking the more than symbolic journey from destruction to revival of Jewish life. The truth is, we were initially loathe to have to be there at 6:30, and felt a bit of a reprieve the night before to learn that the girls’ charter flight was delayed and we could meet them at the more human hour of 9:30, eventually moved to even later. The truth is, I didn’t understand the need to make a big deal of their return home. I was looking forward to seeing my daughter and her friends home safely, as if from any trip, but I was worried that in too typical an Israeli manner, the ceremony would be long, drawn out, with dozens of speakers, each one thanking the previous, and subsequent speakers, ad infinitum. The truth is, I was very wrong. On the way to the ceremony welcoming my daughter and her classmates back, I was riding across Jerusalem on the #74 bus. At one point, the bus stopped and I looked up from my work to see that I was literally parallel to the spot where, just two weeks earlier, a terrorist’s bomb exploded, killing one and wounding dozens, including passengers on another #74 bus. How uneasy to be on the way to welcome your child back from Poland where she witnessed the destruction of our people – including dozens of our own relatives – when just outside the window of the bus on which I was riding I was witness to the site where a modern ideological descendant of the Nazis sought to murder and maim Jews, because they were Jews. The irony of course is that this did not occur in Poland where we were helpless victims and objects, but in the capitol of our own country, no more than a mile from our parliament and another few miles from Jerusalem’s Old City, the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall – surviving remnants of Jewish life for thousands of years. I don’t get emotional often, and when I do I try to mask it. However, I was completely overcome by how emotionally charged this ceremony was. Making it more so is that it was not scripted, but it was the natural outgrowth of what our daughters had just experienced. Teachers and special guests spoke, including “Saba Dov” (Grandpa Dov) who spent the week with the girls recounting his own experiences during, and as a survivor of, the Holocaust. Several girls read thoughts they had prepared, interspersed with singing, prayer, and occasional sobbing. One girl was so overcome with emotion that she turned from the group and walked away, only to be followed by another who held her friend and comforted her. I choked back tears more than a little, both because of the reality of what was going on and the awareness of what the girls had all gone through, and in enormous pride that my daughter was part of this experience, and that we are privileged to be raising her in Israel. She even commented how in seeing the different behavior of an American group also visiting Poland, she was grateful that we lived in Israel. Despite many parenting mistakes, that alone was validation of our decision to move here. If we needed a reminder of the reality that anti-Semitism is alive and well, it was hard not to be aware of the fact that one of my daughter’s classmates was not present, and did not make the trip. For her, and consequently her close friends in school, the reality and horrors of anti-Semitism were made far too vivid just a month earlier when her sister, brother in law, infant niece and two nephews were butchered in their own home by an Arab terrorist. This girl did not need to witness Auschwitz. She lived it a month earlier, and will be scarred the rest of her life, perhaps not dissimilar from how my grandmother was scarred, and how that conversation I had with her years before made her sob. As the ceremony drew to a close, the emotional, reflective and sometimes somber nature of the formal proceedings turned to euphoria. Unscripted and unrehearsed, 40 teenage Israeli girls burst into song and dance, in clear sight of Jerusalem’s Old City, the center of Jewish life for millennia, and today. They sang praise to God for protecting them. They sang about the love of the Land which they have the privilege, and responsibility, to inhabit. They sang and danced in a way that would surely have made their forebears in Poland, whose mass murder they were still reeling from trying to comprehend, sob a little too; in pride with the awareness that our future stood before us and that we all are stronger for it. It brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat to remember this, and probably always will. I think that despite my grandmother’s anguish some three decades earlier when I mentioned going to Poland, she’d have joined me in shedding a tear or two, yes in grief that will be with us forever as a lingering wound of the destruction of Jewish life and murder of six million Jews including dozens of our own relatives. But also in enormous pride that we have the privilege to live in Israel, raising our family here, and building a Jewish future, ever mindful of our past.

Another Shabbat in Poland

2011-04-15T13:41:00.000+03:00

The last time my relatives spent Shabbat in Poland was 69 years ago. This Shabbat was recounted in the book “Hidden” by Fay Walker and Leo Rosen, a brother and sister who were neighbors of my relatives who spent their last Shabbat in their hometown as recorded below. The police herded their prisoners past the jeering crowd and on to the synagogue. Our people struggled to stare straight ahead, but, as they trudged the dusty streets, they found themselves peering into the faces they had known all their lived, into the fair features and pale eyes of their closest neighbors, empty and as cold as death. Kanczuga’s newest synagogue was a good quarter mile from the Jewish cemetery on the edge of town. It was not quite completed, but already it was the pride of our community, a spacious sanctuary large enough to seat several hundred. That Shabbos, every inch of the shul was filled for the first time. Yet it was eerily quiet, the low murmurs punctuated only by the occasional barking of a policeman… With so many bodies huddled together, the room was close with the odor of human flesh. People slept standing, straight as sentries; others twisted into unnatural positions on the floor. At some point, rain tapped a somber staccato on the roof and windows. (Two men spoke quietly among the masses) “Do you think they’ll deport us instead of killing us? Maybe send us away and spare our lives, God willing?” “Who is to say. I have heard that families who didn’t come to the square to be picked up were shot in their homes. We can only wait and put our faith in God. God will provide for us. God has never forsaken us.” That Friday night, the crowded room was hushed as (one of the women who had two Shabbat candles) lit the trembling flames. For a moment, her face was illuminated as from within. When she sang the bracha (welcoming Shabbat), her shimmering soprano could scarcely be heard, so quickly did it make its way to God. Shabbos morning arrived warm and bright, but the synagogue was musky with fear. Several men began to daven…swaying back and forth to the familiar chants. The men were still praying when the police ordered them to leave their families and trek the short distance up the hill to the cemetery… They traveled a short distance in wagons. A boy named Yankele Kelstcher jumped out of his wagon and disappeared into the woods before the policemen could fire. (Note: this man later recounted to me that it was at my great grandmother’s insistence that he flee that he did so, saving his life.) Then the men were ordered out of the wagons. Perhaps the thought of Yankele gave the men strength as they climbed in a thin, halting line along the muddy path that wove though a corn field… At the crest of the hill was the tree-lined cemetery, its tombstones swathed in even rows of shrubbery. As if on command, the men paused to catch their breaths and wipe their brows. They gazed over the crest of the hill to the patchwork of the fields below. For a moment they forgot their terror and shook their heads at the lush landscape. It could not be helped; they loved this country. A straight backed officer handed out shovels and told them to dig. “Keep digging,” he said. “We’ll tell you when you’re finished.” Most of the men were spindly and weak with soft palms more used to the Hebrew siddur (prayer book) than to the spade. “Dig, keep digging! Thought you could get away with something, eh? Thought you could hide from us, you filthy Jews?” When at last they were allowed to stop, the men stood in silence beside the freshly dug earth. Their faces slick with tears and sweat, they stared at the raised rifles in astonishment. At eyes opaque as marbles, that didn’t look back. Then they saw the other eyes, those of their neighbors, the customers in their shops, the people to whom they had just last week sold a loaf of bread, who gave them a good price on chicken and eggs. The goyim stood or sat on their haunches in unruly rows alongside the policemen. Whole families with baskets of cheese and bread and homemade wine, little ones scurrying along the fringes of the crowd, hunting down field mice. The chattering spectators were in an edgy, festive mood, the women’s heads bobbing in their colorful scarves. “Zyd!” they cried. “Jew. Out with the Jews!” The policemen raised their rifles. One hundred hearts were broken before a single shot was fired. When it was over, the audience applauded and cheered. The next day, the sunlight was so fierce that the women shielded their eyes when they were led outside. They climbed through the tall grass directly to the pit, as if they had done so many times before, their children sobbing at their skirts. A fetid smell they did not recognize reached their nostrils, and they covered their faces in horror. When the policemen loaded their rifles, (one girl) clutching her mother’s waist (cried out), “I don’t want to die! The sun is shining so brightly, and I am so young. I want to grow up in this beautiful world...” (her mother) could do nothing to help. She could not hold her any closer, she could not love her any more. One policeman who witnessed the scene was so moved that, later, he would recall (the girl’s) words… Then, a bullet shattered (the girl’s) face and she collapsed at (her mother’s) feet, spraying blood on her new white shoes. Next, (the girl’s sister) dropped onto (the girl), her breath a shallow purr. Even before the third shot was fired, the mother fell on them both, trying to protect what no longer was hers. Beside the gunmen, the onlookers, some of whom had tied handkerchiefs over their noses to stave off the scent, clapped and shouted their approval. A burst of laughter skimmed the crowd. Neighbors clapped each other on the back, not quite meeting each other’s gaze. Except for a sole surviving cousin of my father who spent most of the Second World War and the Holocaust in hiding with his father, this was the last time any of my relatives welcomed Shabbat, the Biblically commanded day of rest, in Poland. The men of my family never saw that final Shabbat end. The women and children saw it end to see their lives taken the following day. Short of the personal horrors that befell my own relatives, and the untimely end of a small but vibrant Jewish community that existed in Kanczuga for hundreds of years, I was thinking about Shabbat in Poland this week because, until now, for seven decades, no Feldstein/Birnbach had ever spent Shabbat in Poland. Yet, this Shabbat, my nearly 18 year old daughter is ending a week with her school on a trip to Poland to explore our heritage that thrived there for hundreds of years, and the horrors off the eradication of Jews and Jewish life from the same place. My daughter and her classmates will be spending Shabbat in Lodz, a place made famous for its Jewish Ghetto symbolizing the end of Jewish life that had existed there as well. Unlike my relatives seven decades ago, my daughter and her friends are traveling as proud Jews, citizens of the State of Israel and will not experience the fear, uncertainty and want that our relatives experienced on their last Shabbat. They will pray together as a community, proud of their identity, and making proud those who preceded them there. They will rest and enjoy one another’s company, fighting the conflicting emotions of the restfulness and spirituality of Shabbat, and the horrors to which they have been made responsible to bear witness. We hope that our daughter misses us, as we miss her, but we look forward to her return in a few short days at a ceremony at the Kotel (Western Wall), the center of Jewish existence. Despite the destruction of the Temple which existed on the plaza above, of which the Kotel is a small remaining piece, we have the privilege of fulfilling the dream of millions who perished to live and build our lives here. As Shabbat enters in Israel, our thoughts will turn to Poland, hopeful that my daughter and her classmates will have a peaceful and restful Shabbat, one that nobody in my family at least has seen in Poland for almost 70 years. And as my wife lights the Shabbat candles in our home, using a candelabra that was given to my grandmother by her parents when she left Poland for the last time in 1933, not knowing if she’d ever see her family again, may we all be reminded how lucky we are that our daughters will leave Poland shortly, to come home to Israel, where we are mindful of the past and the people and horrors that have come before us, but dediated to build our future in our own land. Shabbat shalom.

Everything Goes on Facebook

2011-03-30T08:54:00.000+02:00

I was upset to learn that Facebook decided this week not to remove the page “Third Intifada” (http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/adl-slams-facebook-for-refusing-to-remove-third-intifada-fan-page-1.351881) despite great grassroots volume, as well as numerous high level appeals to do so. It seems that Facebook is more concerned about supposed freedom of speech despite the fact that it’s a private company, not a public institution, despite standards it sets itself opposing hate speech and incitement. Either that, or Facebook is concerned for a Muslim boycott of the web site. It tells me that Facebook is all about making money over morals, so I have decided to find ways I can use Facebook’s expansive reach to make some money from their social network, just as they make money from me via the same means. I am thinking about setting up my own “fan pages” looking for partners, both on the supply and end user side, using Facebook’s international reach to start up and develop businesses in the following areas. I welcome partners and those interested to send me a message via Facebook to this end. Drugs – illegal drugs are crossing international borders all the time anyway. In some countries, the cash crop of choice is the source of these, and to deny the hard working farmers a means to make a living seems wrong. Crops don’t hurt people, people hurt people. Facebook provides the ideal way to connect the farmer and manufacturer with the smuggler, dealer and end user. In fact, using a direct marketing model, we may be able to cut out the middleman and offer drugs at a lower price. Weapons – countries and major multi-national companies deal in arms all the time. I want to ride the wave of this reality and am looking for partners who can supply an array of weapons from light personal arms to tanks and missiles. In light of the nuclear disaster in Japan I’ll stay away from nuclear weapons, unless there’s a proven market and supply line of course. Human trafficking – look, people do it all the time, and for many of those being trafficked, it’s clear that their lives as sex slaves and the like are far better than they were in the hovels from which they come. Opportunity knocks in many ways and as long as there are people willing to be trafficked, and there’s a market for such a product, I can think of lots of places where women are lining up for these opportunities, and other places where men are lining up for the product. Some men are even willing to pay handsomely to marry such women so I look at this as much as a business as a match making opportunity, enabling people to find the love of their life through the magic of Facebook. Slavery – some may say that human trafficking is a form of slavery so this is redundant. But there are people out there looking to own a good, hard worker as much, or even more than those looking for a good time. The problem is that many of these are rural farmers who are not blessed with the dynamic power of Facebook, so I am hitting a dead end as how to market the product to the end user. I’d especially welcome entrepreneurs who have ideas on this because for a little more than a song, there are good people in developing nations who’d be happy to sell off a child or two to give their child better opportunities than they could be given at home, and make a little extra cash on the side to help sustain those not sold off. Pedophilia – this is the one that I am having the hardest time with because as the father of six children I’d hate to have my kids caught up in it, but there’s a supply and there’s a demand and Facebook is a great vehicle to bring together people who share this same interest. I am sure that there are other areas that one can go into and I’d welcome invitations by entrepreneurial people who want to make some money in a way that is either devoid of ethics, or at least pushes the envelope, via Facebook, using Facebook’s devoid-of-morals model of making money from other such ideas, like promoting a third intifada. Of course this is not for real, but what’s most upsetting is that it probably could go on Facebook because they are devoid of morals. Allowing any person to set up a fan page to incite others to violence is unacceptable. Having authority means exercising responsibility and if Facebook cannot do the later, that means they do not have the former. If Facebook is concerned over a Moslem boycott, I’d tell Facebook to say good riddance. I am not a big “fan” of boycotts. But I will be glad to share with the many companies whose ads Facebook bombards me with that by advertising on Facebook, they are guilty of moral transgressions just as Facebook is itself. Yes, we can click through to all the nice ads and rather than buying anything, we can register our complaint. Not everyone needs to agree with everyone all the time, and I am all for free speech even when I disagree. But calls for a third intifada, to use the free speech parallel, are exactly like yelling fire in a crowded theater. Let’s remember what the first two intifadas brought us: thousands killed and tens of thousands injured. It’s time to call Facebook on the carpet and challenge their morality. And if we can’t beat them, anyone want to join me in joining them?

My Daughter, the Chief of Staff, and National Service

2011-02-08T14:38:00.000+02:00

The past few months have seen a virtual roller coaster of errors relating to the appointment of Israel’s next Chief of Staff. During the process, scandals and rumors came to light including the leaking of a forged letter discrediting the general who would ultimately be selected. Following his appointment other leading generals who were passed over for the top position resigned. Then, allegations of illegal activities in the form of expropriating state land to expand his private home emerged. This past week, following two state investigations, it was announced that the newly appointed Chief of Staff would not be elevated to this position, causing a national stir as to who would serve until a new Chief of Staff is selected. This drama took place amid barbs about the backward process in making this critical appointment, allegations of favoritism and cronyism, speculation as to who will get the nod to be the new Chief of Staff, fallout for the politicians who were party to all this, as well as charges against both the outgoing Chief of Staff and the sitting Minister of Defense who is responsible for appointing the Chief of Staff. Is your head spinning yet? I haven't even mentioned the other legal scandals surrounding Israel’s recent past president, past prime minister, sitting foreign minister, several recently ousted cabinet members, and others, based on their own political, legal and criminal wrongdoings. To the untrained eye, one would think that it’s time for Israel to reconsider how it selects its local and national civil servants and elected leaders. This week, amid the breaking news regarding the Chief of Staff, the absurdity of it all came to light in a new way. My daughter is finishing high school and is in the process of determining where she'll spend the next two years doing her mandatory national service. Army or national service is compulsory for most Israelis, though there is no shortage of people avoiding military or national service entirely, or young women disgracefully declaring that they are religious, when they are not, to avoid conscription. Generally, young women who declare and demonstrate that they are religiously observant, for whom military service would compromise Jewish standards in modesty and mixing of men and women in uncomfortable settings, can sign up for national service rather than military service, volunteering in one of hundreds of organizations that service the public in many ways. Juxtaposing the absurdity of the Chief of Staff selection process, I am shocked to see, comparatively, how grueling the selection process is for my daughter to serve in a voluntary position-- admittedly one that is among the most coveted– to work with orphans and other at risk youth who have been taken out of their parents’ homes for their own well being. These childrens’ homes are special nurturing places where the staff and volunteers, and dozens of other children of all ages, become the childrens’ family in every sense of the word. Alumni visit there when on leave from the army. They bring their prospective spouses to meet their family there. The childrens' homes even host weddings or other celebration on behalf of their children, as any parent would. Compounding an absurd internet-based lottery to determine which 16 women will even be eligible for an interview, is the process itself, which is exceptionally detailed and arduous for a 17 year old woman from a sheltered environment and a safe and loving family. My daughter was fortunate to get an internet lottery scheduled interview for two of the three positions she wanted. She had to submit an application covering everything imaginable to be accepted for an interview to a third program. Tonight at 6:00, anyone who has at least 5 fingers and a computer will be “clicking” per instructions to get her a final interview at yet another children’s home. However, before the application process began, my daughter was told that under no circumstance would she get accepted to any of these positions without requisite 'Protexia.' Protexia is an Israeli phenomenon that greases the wheels of everything. Since in Israel “three degrees of separation” is the standard, the expectation is that everyone knows someone, who can get them to someone else, who can get pretty much anything done by asking a personal favor. It’s part of the Israeli DNA. As new immigrants, the best Protexia I have is that I can call a particularly busy and popular Jerusalem bakery on a Friday morning and have a box of hot chocolate croissants waiting for me without standing on line. In the case of my daughter applying for national service, we have pulled every string imaginable, and even considered forging our own letter from Israel’s (long deceased) first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, to my grandparents, immigrants from Poland in the 1930s, saying ‘what a privilege it is to write a letter of reference on behalf of their, as yet unborn, first great grandchild.’ While only 16 young women won spots for the respective interviews via the lottery “system,” Protexia was clear from the first moment on interview day, as 30 young women magically appeared for interviews despite spots officially available for only 16. This will occur two more times for a total of just ten spots. To my daughter’s credit, while we have pretty good resources intervening on her behalf, she is appalled by this process and finds it unfair. I admire how straight and honest she is to think that selection should be determined by merit. But it’s my job as her father to make sure that she’s given every 'string-pulling' opportunity possible. I suggested that rather than awkwardly dropping the requisite names that she’s supposed to drop in this process, hoping that these names mean more than the other names that the other young women will drop, she should go into the interviews saying that she was told she needed to drop so and so’s name, but is uneasy doing so because she thinks that she should be evaluated not based on who she knows, but on who she is. Maybe that would make her stand out in a positive way. Coming back to the Chief of Staff and our other leaders, one can’t help but wonder what process vets out these purported leaders on a national stage in anything remotely resembling the selection process that 17 year old women need undergo to work in a home with disadvantaged kids: undergoing formal aptitude tests, handwriting analysis, psychological evaluation, and be able to articulate what they want to do for the rest of their lives. I can’t help but feel that if half this national service process had been applied to our national leaders, we’d have nixed the candidacy of serial liars, a rapist, forger, and petty and not so petty criminals of all sorts who now receive government salaries, or pensions. Service to our country is still an esteemed virtue in Israel—one that we would like to believe the country’s leaders sincerely value. But these leaders would do well to take example from tens of thousands of young women who undergo a grueling process, just to be selected for a job that in many ways will be the hardest thing they do in their lives. Yet, as hard as my daughter and her peers will work, these will be positive, life-changing experiences that will make them better, more dedicated, empathetic adults, and future leaders in whom we can have pride. Oh…and anyone who has any contacts in any of Israel’s most outstanding children’s homes should please e-mail me off line. A father’s got to do what a father’s got to do.

Recognizing “Palestine”

2010-12-07T20:02:00.000+02:00

The only good thing to come out of Brazil and Argentina’s recognition of “Palestine,” as an independent country, and Uruguay’s plan to do so, is that these absurd government decisions make certain recent Israeli government decisions, and then their reversal, look less stupid. (http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=198279) Recognizing “Palestine,” not only does nothing to bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians, but it pushes the prospect of peace further away. It rewards the Palestinians for decades of violence and terror. It disregards all the Palestinians’ obligations since the November 1947 UN resolution to create a Jewish and an Arab state. It is racist. It lends credence to the Palestinian and other Arab claims that Israel has no legitimacy. It helps give birth to yet another country at war with Israel. And it creates the farce of “Palestine” as one state whereas, in fact, an extremist terrorist group that is at war both with Israel and the PA government controls territory that encompasses almost half of the would be citizens of the state that they are recognizing. Since even before its own statehood, Israel has not known one day of peace. It has been subject to terror and war for more than six decades. Palestinian leaders have ignored international agreements and UN resolutions to try to bring peace to the region as if it were their national pastime. Anytime the Palestinians don’t feel that they are getting a fair shake, they resort to threats of violence and actual terror. Why would any country make such an absurd unilateral gesture as to recognize “Palestine” at all, much less in territory that remains disputed, and absolve the Palestinians of the responsibility to come to an accommodation with Israel and make peace once and for all? What incentive do the Palestinians have to join the world of nations if they get a free pass at shirking their responsibilities and aren’t expected to behave in a manner that is according to international standards? Making the Palestinians any less accountable to live in peace and civility as a member of the nations of the world is racist because it says that we just don’t expect normative civil and peaceful behavior from them. How are the Palestinians expected to rise to the occasion and behave as the rest of the nations of the world when there are those who simply don’t expect that of them? The Palestinians deserve better. Recognizing “Palestine” unilaterally according to the 1949 armistice lines is also racist against Jews and goes against the very nature of the 1947 UN Resolution 181 which calls upon Jews and Arabs to live together in peace and harmony, as residents of one another’s countries but citizens of their own. Is it possible that these nations which recognize “Palestine” now believe that Jews are expected to host an Arab minority (some 20%) in their country, but that Jews are forbidden to reside in a Palestinian Arab state, and that their presence is unjust and an alleged obstacle to peace? Why is the same not said of Israel providing full citizenship and equal rights to its Arab minority? Why the one sided racism and delegitimizing of Israel? As long as there has been a territorial dispute in the Middle East, the Arabs have sought to undermine Israel’s very legitimacy. The Palestinian (and others’) claims that there is no historical or religious connection between the People of Israel and the Land of Israel is not just wrong and offensive, it contradicts the very foundation of Judaism and Christianity, and is yet another lie upon which they are building their society, by discrediting ours, rather than by coming to terms with us as neighbors, and our right to be here. All but two (of 22) Arab countries are still in a state of war with Israel. This does not include other “inspired” Muslim countries like Iran, which also don’t recognize our right to exist, and threaten us with war, terrorism, boycotts, and one sided condemnation. What justification does any country have in serving as the midwife for the birth of another country that will not uphold international standards and that will be (remains) at war with a third? Assuming none of the above are really issues, what I’d love to know is which “Palestine” these esteemed countries are recognizing. Is it what’s often referred to as the West Bank which is still (nominally) ruled by the elected Palestinian Authority, whose president has long out served his term and not called for new elections? Is it Gaza which is ruled by terrorists that overthrew the PA in a bloody coup and now rule with an iron hand over nearly half of the Palestinians? Is their recognition of “Palestine” as a state anything more than a game of international make-believe in the hope that by putting a diplomatic band aid on a problem with global implications it will all just be OK? If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, this road is paved in abject stupidity. This decision, at this time, lends reason to think that Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay are competing to be the leader of the banana republic of nations. Perhaps they would like to adopt the Palestinians as neighbors and see just how friendly their leaders are. Then again, they welcomed any number of Nazi war criminals, so Israel bashing, anti-Semitic terrorists would be right at home. Recognizing “Palestine” without holding the Palestinians accountable to the responsibilities that statehood brings, will not only do nothing to bring peace, but it will push peace further away, laying the foundation for more bloodshed rather than anything resembling a resolution.

Expressing our thanks to those who helped put out the fire

2010-12-06T22:17:00.000+02:00

Expressing our thanks to those who helped put out the fire Now that the devastating Carmel Forest fire has been extinguished, in Israel must mourn the dead and rebuild, while reinforcing emergency preparedness for this and other sort of national disaster. It’s unusual for Israel not to be one of the first countries sending aid to others and, in this case, being on the receiving end. The international support is most noteworthy and appreciated. Those who love and support Israel, and who are grateful for the international support that Israel received, should take a minute to express their gratitude to the following countries’ embassies and leaders in Israel and around the world. With two exceptions, the list below is of the countries and bodies that provided direct aid, what they provided, and their respective embassies and consulates in Israel. If anyone would like to take time to compile a list of the contact information for the respective Presidents/Prime Ministers/Foreign Ministers/ and/or other government representatives and sent to me. I will post on my blog and distribute as well. Please feel free to send these updates to me at no1abba@gmail.com and copy me on your notes of gratitude to these countries for their support. Azerbaijan – 2 helicopters Bulgaria – 1 plane and 92 firefighters Croatia – 1 plane, 8 firefighters and fire repression materials Cyprus – 1 plane and 1 helicopter Egypt – fire repression materials France – 5 planes and fire repression materials Germany – 1 plane, 7 experts in firefighting and fire repression materials Greece – 7 planes, 34 firefighters and fire repression materials Holland – 5 experts in firefighting Italy – 1 plane and fire repression materials Jordan – 3 truckloads of firefighting equipment and materials Palestinian Authority – 21 firefighters and 3 fire engines Russia – 3 planes and 22 experts in firefighting Spain – 5 planes Switzerland – 1 plane, 3 helicopters and a team of 14 Turkey – 2 planes UK – 2 helicopters US – 5 planes, 11 experts in firefighting and fire repression materials Azerbaijan does not maintain an embassy in Israel. Please contact the: Executive Administration of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan: Republic of Azerbaijan, Baku city, AZ1066, Istiglaliyyat street, 19, "The President Palace" Fax: (0099412) 492 35 43, 492 06 25 E-mail: office@pa.gov.az Bulgarian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Bulgarian Embassy in Tel-Aviv, Israel send edits 21 Leonardo Da-Vinchi Str. Tel Aviv 64733, Israel City: Tel Aviv Phone: (00972 3) 696 13 61 Fax: (00972 3) 696 14 30 Email: telaviv@mfa.bg Croatian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Tel-Aviv, Israel send edits Canion Ramat Aviv 40 Einstein St. Tel Aviv 69101 Israel City: Tel Aviv Phone: 00972 (0)3 643 8654 00972 (0)3 643 8655 Fax: 00972 (0)3 643 8503 Email: croemb.israel@mvpei.hr Office Hours: Working hours: Monday-Friday 9.00-17.00 Working hours of Consular Section (with clients)/phone: 00972 (0)3 641 3508/: Monday-Friday 10.00-14.00 Croatian Consulate in Jerusalem, Israel Consulate of the Republic of Croatia in Jerusalem, Israel send edits Shaarei Ha'ir Building, 5th Floor 216 Yaffo Street Jerusalem 94 383, Israel City: Jerusalem Phone: +972 (0) 77 777 92 77 Direct No. +972 (0) 50 777 45 00 Fax: +972 (0) 77 777 92 05 Email: honorary@consul-croatia.com Cypriot Embassy in Tel-Aviv, Israel Embassy of Cyprus in Tel-Aviv, Israel send edits 50, Dizengoff Str. Top Tower 14th Floor 64332 City: Tel-Aviv Phone: + 972 3 5250212, 6292546, 6297033 (Amb.), + 972 9 9500948 (Res.) Fax: + 972 3 6290535 Email: tel_avivembassy@mfa.gov.cy Office Hours: Ambassador: H.E. Mr. George Zodiates Office hours: 08:00 15:30 (Mon. Fr.) Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Embassy of Egypt in Israel 54 BAZEL Street, City: Tel Aviv Phone: (009723) 5464151-5464152 Fax: (009723) 5441615 Prime Minister of Egypt - primemin@idsc.gov.eg French Embassy in Tel-Aviv, Israel Embassy of France in Tel-Aviv, Israel 112 Promenade Herbert Samuel BP 3480 - 63572 Tel Aviv City: Tel-Aviv Phone: [972] (3) 520 83 00 Fax: [972] (3) 520 83 40 Web Site: http://www.ambafrance-il.org Email: diplomatie@ambafrance-il.org French Consulate in Jerusalem, Israel Consulate General of France in Jerusalem, Israel 5 rue Paul Emile Botta PO box 182 91001 Jerusalem City: Jerusalem Phone: [972] (2) 629 85 00 Fax: [972] (2) 629 85 01 / 629 85 02 Web Site: http://www.consulfrance-jerusalem.org Email: diplomat@france-jeru.org German Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Embassy of Germany in Tel Aviv, Israel 3, Daniel Frisch St. 19. Stock 64731 Tel Aviv Israel City: Tel Aviv Phone: 03-6931 313 / (00972 3) 693 13 12 Fax: 03-6969 217 Web Site: http://www.tel-aviv.diplo.de Email: ger_emb@mail.netvision.net.il Office Hours: Monday through Thursday: 8:00 - 16:00 Friday and Holidays: 8:00 - 12:30 Greek Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Embassy of Greece in Tel Aviv, Israel Tower Building 3 Daniel Frisch St. 16th floor 64731 City: Tel Aviv Phone: (009723) 6953060 or 609 4981 or 6951088 Fax: (009723)6951329 Email: gremil@netvision.net.il Greek Consulate in Jerusalem, Israel Consulate General of Greece in Jerusalem send edits 31 Rachel Immenu, Katamon, Jerusalem City: Jerusalem Phone: (009722) 5619583, 5619584, 5828316 Fax: 5610325, 5325392 Email: greconje@netvision.net.il Italian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Embassy of Italy in Tel Aviv, Israel send edits Trade Tower Building 25 Hamered Street 21 City: Tel Aviv Phone: 972 3 510 4004 Fax: 972 3 510 0235 Web Site: http://www.ambtelaviv.esteri.it Email: stampa.telaviv@esteri.it Jordanian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Embassy of Jordan in Tel Aviv, Israel send edits 14, Rehov Abba hillel Silver Ramat Gan 009723 City: Tel Aviv Phone: 9-723-751-7722 Fax: 9-723-751-7712 Email: jordan1@barak.net.il Office Hours: Monday - Thursday:9:00-3:00 Sunday:9:00-3:00 The Palestinian Authority does not maintain any diplomatic office in Israel and initial searches did not find any address for contacts of the President or Prime Minister in Ramallah. Please contact the: Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations 115 East 65th Street New York, N.Y. 10065 Telephone: (212) 288-8500 Telefax: (212) 517-2377 e-mail: palestine@un.int Spanish Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Embassy of Spain in Tel Aviv, Israel send edits Dubnov Tower, 3 Rehov Daniel Frisch, Floor 16 Tel-Aviv 64731 City: Tel Aviv Phone: +972-3-6965210/8/9 Fax: +972-3 -6952505/6965217 Email: embespil@mail.mae.es Spanish Consulate in Jerusalem, Israel Spanish Consulate General in Israel send edits Ramban, 53 City: Jerusalem Phone: (+972) 2 563 34 73 Fax: (+972) 2 563 20 59 Email: conspjer@mail.mae.es Swiss Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Embassy of Switzerland in Tel Aviv, Israel send edits 228 Hayarkon St. Tel Aviv 63405 City: Tel Aviv Phone: 03 546 44 55 Fax: 03 546 44 08 Email: vertretung@tel.rep.admin.ch Office Hours: 9am - 11am Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Embassy of Turkey in Israel send edits Rehov Ben Yehuda 1 City: Tel Aviv Phone: +972-3 517-1731 / +972-3 517-6157 Fax: +972-3 517-6303 Back to Top of the Page Turkish Consulate in Jerusalem, Israel Consulate of Turkey in Israel send edits City: Jerusalem Phone: (+972-2 532)-1087 / 2396 / 3310 Fax: +972-2 582-0214 Email: turkudus@netvision.net.il British Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel British Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel send edits 192 Hayarkon Street, Tel Aviv 63405 Consular Section 1 Ben Yehuda Street Migdalor Building, 6th Floor Tel Aviv 63801 City: Tel Aviv Phone: +972 (0)3 510 0166 Fax: + 972 (0)3 725 1222 Web Site: http://www.britemb.org.il/ Email: webmaster.telaviv@fco.gov.uk Office Hours: Monday - Thursday 08:00 - 13:00 Friday 08:00-12:30 American Consulate in Jerusalem, Israel Consulate General of United States in Jerusalem, Jerusalem 18 Agron Road Jerusalem 94190 City: Jerusalem Phone: +972.2.622.7230 Fax: +972.2.625.9270 Web Site: http://jerusalem.usconsulate.gov Email: UsConGenJerusalem@state.gov Office Hours: 08.00-16.30 American Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel Embassy of United States in Tel Aviv, Israel 71 Hayarkon Street Tel Aviv Israel City: Tel Aviv Phone: (+972) 3-519-7575 Fax: (+972) 3-517-3227 Web Site: http://telaviv.usembassy.gov Email: nivtelaviv@state.gov Office Hours: 08.00-16.30

Buy My Vote

2010-10-22T12:04:00.000+02:00

Buy My Vote Jonathan Feldstein No1abba@gmail.com http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com OK, not really. My vote is not for sale. Seriously. Unless the offer is one that’s just too good to refuse. No, I’m just joking. Seriously. That was a joke. Really. But you can help me decide on whom to vote for. I was very pleased to get my absentee ballot this week and I am planning to exercise my right to vote for NJ’s Ninth District federal election. Since I am 18 I have always voted in local national elections, in New Jersey, and for a time in Georgia. This has continued since I moved to Israel in 2004, and the next election is just around the corner. But I am not sure who to vote for. Having lived in the Ninth District for a dozen years, I am familiar local issues and with incumbent Congressman Steve Rothman’s record, particularly on things that matter to me the most. I also generally have a sense that Congressman Rothman is a decent and honest person. That makes a lot of difference. In the last few years, I am less aware of his voting record and particularly not aware of how he lines up with the current Obama Administration and its’ policies. Candidly, I am not a fan of many of the Administration’s policies, and I am wondering if as a Democrat, Congressman Rothman has been fully supportive of the party line, whether his voting record has differed with that of the Administration’s policies and expectations, if he’s differed with Obama, on what, and how much of a vocal advocate he’s been standing up against Administration policies with which he disagrees adamantly, if any. My vote, and my interests, are based on many things, the economy, security, diplomacy, education, taxes, social security, etc. But I’d be a liar if I were not up front that among the top of my agenda is how any candidate stands, and votes, vis a vis Israel and the Middle East, and whether that candidate is sophisticated enough to see the big picture. Knee jerk support for Israel is fine and something I’d never dismiss. To the contrary, any candidate anywhere recognizing that Israel is the only democracy in the entire Middle East, and America’s best ally here, if not in the world, wins my respect. However, noting here is black and white and I want a candidate who understands the nuance and cultural issues that make this region unique. Visiting Rothman’s Foreign Policy page, http://www.rothman.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=924&Itemid=1, it’s interesting to see that eight of the first ten items relate to Israel and the Middle East and Rothman’s position is strong. Yet, I recall that it wasn’t until former NY Mayor Ed Koch called NY Senator Schumer on the carpet for not speaking up against the Obama Administration’s incessant pushing Israel into a corner, and consequently pushing Israel and the Palestinians further from peace by raising the bar on issues that need to be negotiated, that Senate leader Schumer actually took a stand. What’s Congressman Rothman been doing these past months and how has he, a long time and well known supporter of Israel, stood against the Obama Administration’s unprecedented and one sided pushing of Israel? Rothman’s Republican opponent is Michael Agosta, a man I have never heard of until my ballot arrived. So I checked him out a bit. http://www.agostaforcongress.com . I read his policies, his background, and I believe I have a sense of what motivates him and that he’d be a fine representative of mine in Congress. He lacks Rothman’s 14 years of experience, but then if that were an impediment for anyone advancing professionally, I’d still be stocking shelves in a NJ hardware store. Israel is not the only important issue. Taxes are important, particularly the federal estate tax. I know firsthand, from sending a not insignificant check to the government after my mother died. Repealing the tax cuts that have been phased in over the past decade is a very bad idea. Similarly, the overall global economy is important and the steadily declining value of the dollar is very bad. That’s tied to many things, including diplomacy, and I want an elected official who will help the US stand strong and proud, not in anyone else’s face unnecessarily, but not appeasing others, weak or showing cowardice. The balance between civil rights and security impacts us all because threats to Americans are bad for the world. Iran must be stopped dead in its tracks of building nuclear weapons, by any means necessary. It is the 11th hour. Rothman brings experience, seniority and an understanding of the issues. But just by virtue of being a democrat, he’s tied to a Presidential Administration that I have become less and less a fan of, and if I vote for him, in a way that’s a vote for the Obama Administration, especially if Rothman has not stood up and differentiated himself from Obama on major policy differences, if there are any. Agosta seems to be a salt of the earth guy whose policies are appealing and who, if I support, also sends a clear message to the Administration that I don’t mind sending. But I don’t want to send a message just for the sake of sending a message and am as yet undecided. I recognize that all polls indicate sweeping change in Congress next month, not the kind of change that Obama campaigned on for sure. So maybe my vote won’t make any real difference. Voting to send a republican to Congress in a district that has been democratic for a generation or more may break the democratic control of Congress, and it also may create legislative deadlock. Or, it may bring the Obama Administration more toward the center and actually start to work with the other side of the aisle once the “other side” is much bigger than his side. This is something he campaigned on two years ago but has yet to deliver on that in any significant way. I know enough to ask these and other questions, but I can’t say for sure what the answers are. To that end, I invite and welcome the feedback of readers who have a serious thought on this and the issues I mentioned, and any others that may be relevant. I will weigh serious input seriously. I’d especially welcome feedback from people who live in the district. This will help in my decision making, and also be interesting to see the nature and number of responses. Please send responses to no1abba@gmail.com, or via my blog at http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com. Facebook works too. There’s bound to be someone reading this whose inclination it will be to say that because I no longer live in the district, or in the US for that matter, I shouldn’t vote. I reject that categorically. Not only do I have the Constitutional right to vote, any suggestion that I don’t because I live overseas opens up a huge can of worms about creating second class citizens in any number of categories and violates the rights of all of us. I always have been, and remain, a proud and loyal American. I have worked and paid state and federal income taxes for three decades. I’d like to be able to have the benefit of Social Security which I have paid into for far more than the 40 quarters needed. Not only am I a citizen with the RIGHT to vote, I am an ongoing shareholder with a vested interest in the interest in the outcome of every election and their results. So, even if you may think it, please don’t tell me I don’t have the right to exercise my vote. I wish both candidates well. I invite them to visit my home in Israel when they come for a tour to meet with myself and other constituents, to discuss issues and their respective policies, and to influence my vote and my confidence in them as my elected leader in the next election.

The Farce Behind the Freeze

2010-09-06T10:24:00.000+03:00

Formal face to face peace talks have begun, again, between Israel and the Palestinians and with all history, skepticism, and cynicism aside, I know that I share the hope of the overwhelming majority of Israelis that they will succeed. Yet, even before the talks began this week, the Palestinians were looking for excuses to run away from the table. Claiming that ending Israel’s ten month construction freeze in the disputed West Bank makes it impossible to continue talks, predetermining the outcome of the talks before they had started, the Palestinians entered talks with one foot out the door. But talk of the construction in these Jewish communities is a red herring. It’s a farce that has, and should have, no bearing on the talks, even though the freeze itself was a magnanimous and unprecedented gesture to the Palestinians to get them to enter direct negotiations to begin with. That the Palestinians waited until now, it’s even possible to imagine that they waited to sit down to begin talks deliberately in order to use this excuse as a way to end the talks three weeks later. As much as the Israeli position was magnanimous and unprecedented, the Palestinian position is intransigent and obstructive. Before addressing that, it’s important to note that much of the reason why the Palestinians took and maintain their position is due to President Obama's making “settlement” construction the issue that he did. Once he did that, the Palestinians could not be less “Palestinians than the President” and they adopted, and ran with, this hard line and unprecedented position just as a pre-condition to sit to negotiate face to face. The simple reality is that President Obama provided the ladder and pushed Abbas up the tallest tree in Palestine, then pulled away the ladder and left no way for him to climb down. It would be honest and useful if the President acknowledged such to Abbas, even privately, and made it clear that he was wrong. Since then, one Palestinian spokesman after another continue the mantra that it’s “impossible” to negotiate while settlements are being built, forget the fact that it’s Palestinians who do most of the construction and make a livelihood in building these communities, or the fact that it’s just not true. This is another excuse for their not negotiating in good faith, and makes one wonder seriously whether they in fact want an end to the war, violence, and disputes that have served as an impediment to their goal of a Palestinian state, or not. The reality is that until Netanyahu became Prime Minister in 2009, the Palestinians HAVE negotiated with Israel at the highest levels, on a regular and ongoing basis, all the while settlement construction continued. Not only is it not “impossible” to do so, but it’s been done! Underscoring this, an right leaning Israeli group recently bemoaned that they missed Prime Minister Olmert, never a fan of the Israeli right, as under Olmert, there was far more “settlement” construction than in Netanyahu’s tenure. Not only did negotiations take place, refuting Palestinian claims that these talks are “impossible,” but Israel demonstrated that settlements are not an obstacle to peace by unilaterally destroying dozens and evacuating nearly 10,000 of their residents. It is a precedent that was established in 2005 and one that is expected to be repeated under a final agreement with the Palestinians. Denying this reality is like denying that the Jewish people have a legitimate, historical and religious right to Israel that dates back thousands of years even before King David built Jerusalem 3000 years ago. And if the Palestinians weren’t negotiating peace and talking about a resolution of the conflict (which even Abbas admits took place because he said that Olmert’s offers and the Palestinian’s demands left gaps that were still too wide), then Prime Minister Olmert, President Abbas, Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni, and Ahmed Qureia had one of the highest level, and least publicized, book clubs in the world. Netanyahu is correct. One cannot set conditions of terms that predispose the outcome and an agreement on all the issues just to sit down and negotiate. Publically, both Netanyahu’s and Abbas’ remarks were conciliatory. One expects that the thawing of the building freeze notwithstanding, there will be many issues on which the sides differ. But the question is whether the parties want to charter a new path, or revert to historical problems. Most Israelis believe that Netanyahu is sincere about his desire to make peace, yet most Israelis do not believe that about Abbas, or his ability to do so. Historically, September is not an auspicious month in which to begin peace talks based on the September 13 anniversary of the ultimate failure of the signing of the Oslo agreements and mutual recognition between the PLO and Israel (1994), and the failure of the Clinton hosted Camp David negotiations in 2000 that precipitated the Second Intifada leaving thousands of Israelis killed and injured. Other anniversaries of events when moderation was missing – Black September (1970) when the PLO threatened the Jordanian monarchy and were driven out of Jordan in a bloody massacre, and albeit while not directly connected to the Palestinians, the September 11 (2001) attack on the United States, carried out by Muslim extremists, as a brazen act of terror and intolerance. There’s no more vivid reminder of that than the September 5 anniversary of the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the now infamous Munich Olympics (1972), not only of the terror but in the turning on its head of an international event meant to be about good will and competition as another forum for hate, intolerance and anti-Semitism. This week’s murder of four more Israelis continues that trend. Yet in spite of it all, and the historical odds against peace, one hopes that 2010 will bring a more positive outcome and that the death and bloodshed will end once and for all.

On Five Year Old Birthdays and Anniversaries

2010-07-02T16:29:00.000+03:00

My soon to be five year old son is the only member of our family with a summer birthday and one of those kids whose school birthday celebration will be bunched up with all other summer birthday kids. He had a hard time understanding that his party last Friday did not make him five years old, so we’ll make another party in two months when he really turns five. Hopefully he won’t feel short changed in his birthday celebrations. As we sat in his class enjoying the birthday rituals, I couldn’t help but think that in one gigantic way, it was hardly a day for celebration. Because that same day, June 25, marked the fourth anniversary of the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian terrorists. On June 25, Gilad Shalit began his fifth year in captivity with not so much as a letter from home, a visit from the Red Cross or representative of any international body, while existing in conditions far less humane than those under which Israel holds captured Palestinian terrorists--who enjoy cable TV, distance learning, air conditioning and visits from the Red Cross, families and friends. Hopefully Gilad Shalit will come home soon. Very soon. But until then, I will connect his captivity with my son’s growing up. I will now measure Gilad's imprisonment by my own son’s growth, vividly aware of his transition from infant to little boy, of his starting to do things for himself and experience all that life encompasses in five years. I am now more aware of the things Gilad has lost. Of the familial sanctuary stolen from him on the day of his abduction. The week of Gilad Shalit's kidnapping also marks the fifth anniversary of what was then an unrelated event, but has since become more related and relevant. Just days before his abduction, the International Red Cross (ICRC) finally undid a great historical injustice by accepting Magen David Adom as Israel’s member. (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Health/MDAadmitted.html) These coterminous events are connected because the Red Cross is mandated to enforce that prisoners worldwide be held under universally acceptable humane conditions. But since then, the Red Cross has held Israel to selective and inconsistent standards. While stating that it cares deeply about Shalit and his well being, http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/israel-shalit-interview-230610, it has been unsuccessful and inept at making any progress on Gilad’s condition. It has never visited him. It has not been able to assess under what conditions he’s being held or his medical condition. It can’t even deliver a letter to him from his family. Yet, while they make claims that they care, on the Red Cross’ own web site under “The ICRC in Israel and the occupied territories” (http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/israel!Open), a sample of some 30 articles and postings display a grossly imbalanced view of their position. Shockingly, of 30 postings, 20 are pro-Palestinian and lay out the troubles of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, positing or inferring that Israel is the sole cause of their troubles. Five postings present either a pro-Israel perspective, or one that at least makes Israel and Israelis look human. The remaining five can generously be described as neutral, except to the extent that of the Palestinians’ troubles noted, it can be inferred from the predominance of the majority of the postings, are Israel’s fault too. Magnifying this imbalance, the tab for “Israel” on the Red Cross web site opens to “Israel and the occupied territories.” Israel can’t even get its own tab, much less a balanced view. And the tab for “Palestine” opens to…you guessed it: “Israel and the occupied territories.” Yet, in neither is there mention of Israel's suffering through a decade of rocket's being fired at nearly 20% its population within 30 minutes of Gaza’s border. Or of Israel's anguish as a result of Palestinian terrorism in the past decade, and since its founding. There’s no consideration of post traumatic stress or the extent to which Israel has had to go to ensure the safety of its citizens. Oh… and did you see any Red Cross condemnation of Hamas, its bloody and illegitimate coup, and the cruel, militant terror state to which Gazans have been subjected under Islamic domination, purging fellow Arab Moslems and Christians? Of course not. Why would the Red Cross document or publicize Hamas’ inhumane treatment of fellow Arabs, let alone their terrorizing and murdering Israelis. While the Red Cross 'claims' they care about Gilad, its deputy head in “Israel and the occupied territories” absolves Hamas of all responsibility because, “Hamas is a non-state party to the conflict. As such, it is not obligated to allow family or Red Cross visits.” http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/pierre-dorbes-of-the-red-cross-has-hamas-agreed-to-anything-you-asked-for-regarding-gilad-shalit-1.297575 These sad facts hardly build one's confidence when the Red Cross’ head of operations for the Middle East states, “We are still working just as hard as we did when Gilad Shalit was first captured.” The Red Cross has a contemptible double standard: To uphold human rights for Gazans, even Hamas and other terrorists, and blame Israel for all their troubles, while making excuses to justify why they have not done anything tangible for Gilad Shalit. If I were the head of the Red Cross, I’d show up in Gaza and begin a public hunger strike until I were allowed to visit Gilad with a doctor, speak with him openly, and deliver a letter from his parents. That’s assuming the head of the Red Cross really cares. In thirteen years, my son will don the uniform of the IDF to defend us from Hamas and any existential challenges we may face. I am not holding my breath that we’ll have peace by then. As Gilad Shalit’s parents have begun a march (http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=179725) to secure their son’s freedom, as a parent of the little boy who will one day put his life on the line to defend the people and State of Israel, I pray that this will be Gilad’s last year in captivity and that he will be home with them soon. Until then, maybe the Red Cross will do something more than pay lip service to Gilad’s cause.

Turkish Acts of War, Genocide, Tourism and Hypocrisy

2010-06-28T12:16:00.000+03:00

There’s no sinking the swirling issue of so called “humanitarian activists” sending a flotilla of ships toward Israel last month with the alleged, and their now disproven, goal of breaking Israelis blockade of the Hamas (terrorist) controlled territory; or of Israel’s response, which some say was poorly planned and/or executed leaving several Israeli soldiers with severe injuries and nine Turks on board the now infamous Mavi Marmara dead. And if this is not enough, such other terrorist controlled states as Lebanon and Iran are now sending their own ships to attempt to break the blockade, er, bring “humanitarian supplies” to their terrorist brethren in Gaza. No, that’s not to say that all Iranians, Lebanese or Gazans are terrorists. Of course not. Nor is it to say that there are not legitimate humanitarian needs in Gaza, many of which are met by Israel’s trucking in by scores of trucks a day, thousands of tons of real humanitarian supplies. But it is incontrovertible that Iran is controlled by an Islamic terrorist regime that stole a national election a year ago and continues to threaten Israel’s very existence. It is incontrovertible that Lebanon is controlled to a large extent (and almost unilaterally in the south) by an Iranian proxy in Hezbollah. And it is incontrovertible that Gazans live under the terrorist heel of Hamas which overthrew the elected Palestinian Authority government that once controlled the area in a violent and bloody coup, murdering far more of their brothers than there were dead “humanitarians” on the Mavi Marmara. This is the reason for the blockade of Gaza to begin with. Oh, and that for the better part of a decade Hamas backed terrorists fired thousands of rockets at Israeli towns and cities, and that Hamas backed terrorists kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, now entering his fifth year in captivity without as much as a visit from the Red Cross or ability to correspond with his family forget other breaches of international conventions as to the treating of captives. On the day of Israeli’s boarding, being violently attacked by, and eventually defeating the terrorists aboard the Mavi Marmara, I was in Atlanta at a convention of some 5000 evangelical Christians whose love and support for Israel is almost as unilateral as the hate emanating from Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, Turkey and many other ports. Even before the details of the flotilla incident became apparent, support for Israel was uncontested. I received countless prayers for the well being of Israel, blessings for its people and soldiers, and expressions of unconditional love. Most did not know yet that Israel had offered to let the ships dock in Ashdod and transfer humanitarian supplies directly to Gaza. Most did not know yet that the organizers refused to carry a letter to Gilad Shalit from his family. Most did not know yet that the “passengers” were armed mercenaries who videotaped their own plotting to attack Israeli soldiers. Most did not know yet that Israel already sends scores of truck loads of humanitarian aid into Gaza, daily. Most did not know that Israel regularly transports tens of Gazan patients to Israeli hospitals for medical care, daily. While the world rushed to blame Israel before the facts were in, tripping over one another to see who lies and misrepresentations could be more egregious and baseless, and there were countless political and civic leaders, media personalities, and fringe groups who immediately questioned the planning, intelligence, implementation and the outcome of the operation, I felt stranded in a sea of love and support. The participants of the Foursquare Ministries Convention knew instinctively which side was right and did not equivocate. Israel has set up a commission to investigate, and some facts are still being discovered. However, the simple facts are that the Turks basically committed an act of war, nine armed mercenaries were killed by soldiers who were defending themselves, and the Turks had the hubris to demand an apology. Then, if that were not enough, they threatened that if Israel doesn’t apologize it will harm Israeli Turkish relations, and that the Turks will cancel lucrative military contracts. Let’s think about this a moment. Do we really want the Turks (read Iran-west) armed with superior Israeli military equipment and technology anyway? This is like an abusive husband beating his wife so badly that she goes to the hospital, and then he “visits” her to say that if she apologizes for making him beat her, he’ll take her back. She apologizes, and then, as if to make up, buys him a new Leatherman and aluminum baseball bat as a gift. What she should do is to spit in the abusive husband’s face and say good riddance. How do you say good riddance in Turkish? Kurdistan? Armenian genocide? Cyprus? Recently, on the same day, underscoring that there’s no sinking this story, the Jerusalem Post reported three stories related to Turkey, among others, that underscored the irony and hypocrisy of the situation. Turkish Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan is noted as saying that Turkey’s problems are with the Israeli government, not the Israeli people. That’s comforting. One is left to the limits of his imagination as to how the Turks would behave if they really didn’t like us as a people. [“Our problem is with the Israeli Government” (http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=178891)] Two pages later, “The sound of silence: Will Turkey become Like Iran for Tourists?” (http://new.jpost.com/Travel/TravelNews/Article.aspx?id=178922) we are told that Israeli tourism to Turkey has plummeted and is now all but dead. Of course Israelis don’t have a problem with Turkey, its people, or its lovely resorts, only with its budding terrorist government as part of the widening Islamist Iranian axis of those who want to destroy Israel. But the Iranians probably only really MEAN that they want to destroy our government, not the people, State or Land of Israel. Note my sigh of relief. Maybe we should buy them some rocket launchers and kiss and make up. But after reading about the friendly intentions of Turkey’s leaders toward me as an Israeli, and being wooed by the beautiful empty resorts being peddled by Turkish tourism professionals, I read with horror a report that “Turkish Jets Raid Northern Iraq” (http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=178896). How could the peace loving Turks do such a thing? If it were true, the world would surely have an international uproar at least as loud as that leveled at Israel. If it were true, then the world would surely call for an international inquiry. I shudder to think that respectable world media would report on something false, and am comforted in knowing that if the Turks committed such a grave hostility that the world outcry would be loud and unrelenting. Just like the outcry of Turkey’s genocide against the Armenians, its violent and bloody war on Cyprus, or Turkish hospitality and international relations as depicted in the movie “Midnight Express.” Its time to stop giving the Turks a pass and call them on the carpet. The behavior of the Turkish government is hostile and belligerent, and its’ cozying up to Iran is scary, especially to Europe to which Turkey still longs to be associated. Maybe that’s why the Turks can’t find anyone home when knocking on the EU’s door. Turkey has elections coming up and one can only hope that an appropriate barrage of media, formal and social, ostracizing the Turkish government will sway the public to elect new leaders who are in line with the Turkish tradition of secularism and western values, and reject the rising Islamist alliance and extremism. And let us hope that the Turkish army, long known to be a bastion of that secularism, will be able to withstand challenges that one can rightly fear might end up like when their Iranian patrons stole an election in Iran a year ago.

A-Positive Family Tradition

2010-06-20T20:44:00.000+03:00

Being the oldest of three sons, whether by design or de facto, one of my roles in my family structure was to “break in my parents” as I used to say. In so many ways, being the oldest comes with unique opportunities, but also challenges. Things that my brothers got away with I’d never have gotten away with, yet my growth and milestones were much more significant because except for the PhD, many of the significant things were ones I did first. The dynamic is the same in my own family where my oldest has complained for years that it’s not fair how much her siblings get away with as compared to her. She’s definitely played the role of breaking us in as parents, as I did decades earlier. However, she also has her milestones measured as benchmarks not just in her own life but in the entire extended family dynamic. She’s been the first to do many things. The most noteworthy of late are her being called up to the army, and on the verge of getting her drivers license. Old hat for anyone who’s done this before, but headline news for us, her siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. All this was trumped, in my mind at least, by my daughter being the first to carry on an important family tradition. Like my mother, and myself, for whom donating blood was/is an imperative and privilege, this week I took my daughter to donate blood for the first time. She was nervous before, and a little pale and dizzy afterward. But as she said, “it’s scary to think about before you’ve ever done it, but once you do it and see that it doesn’t hurt, it’s no problem.” For much of her adult life, my mother was a regular blood donor. She had the most rare blood type and understood how important it was to donate. When she’d hear about a car accident or other disaster locally, she’d go to the hospital to donate without being asked. When someone was in need of her type specific blood and she’d get a call, she’d go to donate at any hour of the day or night. Once, a relative by marriage who shared the same blood type was having surgery and my mother camped out at the hospital in case he needed her blood. My mother instilled the importance of donating blood in me and, when she was no longer able to donate for health reasons, she was pleased to see that I would continue in her tradition of donating regularly. Four years ago, as she lay dying requiring transfusion of tens of units of other people’s blood just to stay alive, it became more clear to me than ever how important this was. There’s a Jewish tradition to donate charity on behalf of someone who is gravely ill in order to find favor in Gods eye and a reversal of the severe outcome. As my mother lay dying I called upon people in most continents of the world to donate blood on her behalf so that she would merit a continued long and healthy life. Since then, my kids know that I have been fortunate to help bring thousands of Americans to donate blood in Israel, to provide a direct and tangible way to help save lives here as a meaningful bond between Americans, Jews and non-Jews, with the people of Israel. On July 9 2006, just weeks after my mother’s death, I arranged to host a group of Iranian Jews from NY to donate blood at Magen David Adom. One woman passionately pleaded with me for her blood to go to the “brave soldiers of the IDF.” I assured her that if there was a need to do so, Magen David Adom would provide all the blood to the Israeli army, but that then, things were peaceful and there was no need for blood in the IDF. Three days later, the Second Lebanon War began, and it’s almost a certainty that her blood went to the early Israeli victims of that war. There are many reasons to donate blood in general, and many more in Israel. Before, during, and after donating blood with my daughter this week, I tried to instill some of the importance of this so it would become part of her. There are many positive things that we do, or should do, but too often don’t do. Diet. Exercise. Homework. Chores of all kinds. We know that there’s a positive value in doing them, but often they slip to the back burner, or off the burner entirely. Donating blood should not be like that. It is a social and religious imperative and, for those who can, it should be a regular event. The privilege to be able to donate blood gives new meaning to the adage “better to give than to receive.” After a late lunch together and some nice bonding time, we walked out of Jerusalem’s central bus station where the blood donation took place. I heard my daughter mumbling something that was inaudible with the background noise of the buses behind us. “What?” I asked. “July, August, September,” she repeated. “What are you talking about?” I asked again, thinking that the blood was not flowing to her head so well. “July, August, September. September is the next time I can give blood.” If it costs me lunch every time, it is an investment that is well worth it. Because on the same day that my daughter was told that she’s ready to take the road test to get her drivers license, one of these new milestones that we as parents have to be broken in for, and four years to the week that her grandmother died, she also accepted the baton from one generation to the next, continuing A-Positive family tradition. Grandma would be very proud. I am. May my kids always be able to give and never receive.

The News of the Day to the Tune of Gilligan’s Island

2010-06-01T20:29:00.000+03:00

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip That started with a terrorist plot Aboard six terror ships. The myth was a humanitarian mission, To bring supplies to Gaza. To break the blockade on Hamas To bring needed supplies, to bring needed supplies. With an anti-Israel hidden agenda, The six ships stopped at sea. If not for the provocation of the terrorists The mission would be lost, the mission would be lost. The ship arrived in Israel’s Ashdod port With terrorists, Islamic militants, The Turkish and the Swedes, Anti Semites, “Blind” self hating Jews, And the truth yet to be told. So this is a battle in Israel’s war for survival, Its been going on for a long, long time, The terrorists blame Israel for all their woes, It's an uphill climb. The Israeli government and the IDF, Will do their very best, To make all Israelis safe, From enemies near and far. Few friends, bad PR, jihad, and intifadas, Between a rock and a hard place, Like challenges in days before, and again in our day. So pay attention to the truth my friends, Israel cant get a fair shake, From any of its neighbors, Or from most of the spineless world.

“I’m After You”

2010-05-18T15:42:00.000+03:00

I was standing in the grocery store yesterday evening; check out lines overflowing into the overcrowded aisles. On the eve of Shavuot, grocery stores and parking lots were packed as people were going to do their holiday shopping. I went in for one strategic purchase, Ben & Jerry's ice cream to use for dessert, the holiday in which Jews worldwide mark the giving of the Torah and, as custom dictates, eat dairy foods. Each of our holidays involves different customs and traditions regarding food: on some we eat fried foods, others we eat unleavened bread, and on Shavuot it’s dairy. Each carries with it its own tastes, and health consequences. All I know is that while there is a required amount of matza to eat during Passover, it’s a good thing that there's no comparable required amount of jelly donuts or latkes to eat during Chanukah, or cheesecake and blintzes for Shavuot. Though in the end, what’s the major difference between clogging one’s arteries and one’s intestines? But I digress. Two nights ago, I ran in to a different grocery store to attempt the same purchase of ice cream, but the lines were so long and the temperature so hot that I literally left. Even the express lane was so long that, had I waited, the ice cream would have been flavored milk by the time I paid for it. Like a mirage in the desert, the shortest of the express lanes for the check out last night looked too good to be true. It only took me 30 seconds to walk into the store and pick out my six pints of Ben & Jerry’s. The check out line was shorter than that of my attempted purchase the night before, and the weather cooler, so I was prepared to gamble that my ice cream might still have some ice to it. I took my place in line. No sooner than I had stepped foot across the invisible threshold that identified me as being in line as compared to just standing near the line then a woman appeared from behind and said, "If you're last, I'm after you." She left her shopping cart parked perpendicular to the line, leaving me to hold her space behind me, and disappeared as fast as she had appeared. The truth is this is very common in Israel. Whether in a grocery store, bank, or other place that one expects to be standing in line, as if a miracle from God Himself, you can find yourself standing in line quietly, patiently, and creeping ever closer to the end when, out of nowhere, someone will appear and announce the corollary to "I'm after you." "I was here." Sometimes, just as you're recovering from the mild shock of adding five minutes to your wait, one or two other people will appear, uttering the same vulgarity, "I was here." Sometimes these situations become tense, if not an outright argument. Even the sophisticated post office branches that have a number system are not immune from the "I was here" phenomena, nor from the fighting and bickering, the bright side of which does provide a certain amount of entertainment that distracts from the waiting time. Culturally, I am not there yet. But I am getting closer. Last week my wife and I ran into a grocery store (site of the first evening’s attempt this week) to pick up a few things. 30 minutes later, we found ourselves on line behind someone whose cart was full, but most of the bottom of the cart contained six packs of soft drinks, meaning that the number of items in his cart was less, so we thought we had picked our line well strategically. As soon as we dug in for the wait, I said to my wife that we should have come in, parked the cart on line somewhere, split up the list, and dodged back and forth filling the cart before it was our turn to pay. Part of me really regretted not having done so, but part of me could not imagine the unadulterated chutzpah this would have required. Very Israeli. Just not very me. Yet. So last night no sooner than I had lost the invisible woman "on line" behind me, another man appeared. "Is this cart yours?" he asked, pointing to her cart? "No," I replied, "it’s the lady's who just put it there and said she was after me." "OK then. I'm after her," and he proceeded to rearrange his cart, and hers, and then to "pick up one thing" he forgot. He returned just as I was putting the ice cream, still frozen, on the conveyor belt to pay. The lady "behind me" was nowhere to be seen. I did not catch the full interaction but noticed him bickering with the woman who had appeared BEHIND HIM over whether it was OK for him to cut in front of the lady "behind me." As I was bagging my purchase and just trying to get out before someone appeared in front of me, uttering that they were already there, I had a strange thought occurred, unique to being in Israel and shopping for Shavuot. It’s said that when the Jewish people stood together at Sinai to receive the Torah, we stood as one. So I couldn’t help but wonder if in fact two million people really stood there so patiently and happily, or if the chromosome that makes us culturally accepting of people appearing in line and saying, “I'm after you," or worse, "I was here," is a trait we carry from Sinai. As important as receiving the Torah is/was, and as we spiritually reenact receiving it again each Shavuot, I wonder if there weren’t just a few who stood at Sinai and told his or her neighbor, "just a minute. I forgot something. I’ll be right back. I'M AFTER YOU." Were there those who, just as the big moment was to take place, appeared out of nowhere and said "I was here." And when this happened, did we stand there and let it pass, partly in distain for the chutzpa and partly in envy that we didn’t think on it, and were there people behind us who would care to argue about the place of the person who was "already there" not being saved as if it were a precious gem. Long before our Sage Hillel uttered "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" could it be that the Jewish people really did, and still do, care for and protect one another, whether waiting patiently at Sinai or even buying ice cream in a Jerusalem grocery store today. As much as the "I'm after you" cultural mutation is distinctly Israeli, maybe it’s not all bad. Maybe, especially as we approach Shavuot and the reenactment of the receiving the Torah, it gives sufficient pause to reflect on how we interact and behave toward our neighbor. Even if we did not indeed wait patiently at Sinai, together as one, if there were some who had other things to do and cut in and out of line, it is a nice idea that once in a while we put our bickering aside and do stand together, united as one. A value that comes from the Torah itself. May we have a festive and joyous Shavuot and may this one lesson remind us that a little patience is a virtue. Unless of course you're buying expensive ice cream that is going to melt.

Another Jerusalem Day

2010-05-12T22:07:00.000+03:00

Today was Jerusalem Day, 43 years since the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem. 43 years since Jewish people were once again able to return to our most holy sites from which we had been banned for decades prior. 43 years since we were able to visit the city that King David built. 43 years since we were able to return to the stones of the Western Wall, the foundation of our ancient Temple, to pray and weep there for health, for bounty and for the ability once again to ascend to worship on the Temple Mount itself. Aware of the auspicious occasion, I made notes to look for and add meaning to the significance of the day. I expected that with recent political and diplomatic incidents and proclamations about Jerusalem that this year there would be a heightened celebration, a more fervent display of the emotion. It struck me that not since the very war in 1948-1949 in which Jerusalem was divided and Jews were barred from the eastern part of the city, including Jerusalem’s historic Old City, has Israel’s hegemony and the Jewish nature of Jerusalem been so challenged. Prior to that, Jerusalem’s Jewish roots, and the rights of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, were not challenged as much since the year 70 when the Roman sacked and destroyed Jerusalem. Although the Jewish people did not gain control of the entire city for nearly 2000 years, there has always been a Jewish presence in, and unbreakable connection to Jerusalem. Today’s challenges to the Jewish character and centrality of Jerusalem need to be met with a clear and unhesitant affirmation of Jerusalem as the heart of the Jewish people. We have grown to expect these challenges from Arab and other Moslem sources of intolerance, and they have grown more bold and brazen with millions actually believing the lie that there is no Jewish historical or religious connection to Jerusalem. Adding to this, when President Obama addressed the Moslem world in Cairo a year ago, his thesis was that Israel indeed has a right to exist, but he based that on the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust, not based on our historical and religious ties to Jerusalem going back more than three millennia. Always eloquent and to the point, Elie Wiesel addressed these challenges to the Jewish nature of Jerusalem head on in a recent ad that has drawn much attention. http://www.jewishblogging.com/blog.php?bid=217027 “.... Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture—and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem. To many theologians, it IS Jewish history, to many poets, a source of inspiration. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming. The first song I heard was my mother’s lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory. Since King David took Jerusalem as his capital, Jews have dwelled inside its walls with only two interruptions; when Roman invaders forbade them access to the city and again, when under Jordanian occupation, Jews, regardless of nationality, were refused entry into the old Jewish quarter to meditate and pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon’s temple. It is important to remember: had Jordan not joined Egypt and Syria in the war against Israel, the old city of Jerusalem would still be Arab. Clearly, while Jews were ready to die for Jerusalem they would not kill for Jerusalem. Today, for the first time in history, Jews, Christians and Muslims all may freely worship at their shrines. And, contrary to certain media reports, Jews, Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city. The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate but about memory….” Jews have prayed toward Jerusalem for 2000 years, to the Old City, to the Temple Mount, to the Holy of Holies. If our right to Israel and Jerusalem is only predicated on six million being murdered, perhaps the same detractors believe that we have been praying only toward the modern western part of the city. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy." (Psalms 137, 5-7). We have uttered “If I forget thee…” for millennia, but what are we worried about forgetting? Our detractors who say that we have no claim to Jerusalem to begin with might suggest that we have worried about “forgetting” the Knesset, Ben Yehuda St., or even the maligned and controversial Holyland development. As Elie Wiesel concluded, “Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.” There is simply nothing more incontrovertible. So I made it a point to spend the day in Jerusalem today albeit with meetings. Work prevented me from participating in any number of ceremonies, tours and celebrations, but that did not prevent me from witnessing, with great enthusiasm and pride, the celebrations of others, and to get stuck in traffic jams, admittedly with glee, watching hoards of modern pilgrims all marching in the direction of the Old City. My family participated in a tour of the newly renovated Hurva Synagogue, whose history itself goes back more than 300 years. http://www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/jerusalem-hurva-synagogue, but I was unable to attend. When I got home, I asked what it was like. I spoke with my 4 year old son who has been speaking excitedly about visiting the Old City for weeks. “What did you do today?” I asked. “I ate pizza in Jerusalem,” he replied. I pried further. “What else did you do in Jerusalem?” “I ate ice cream,” he beamed, dimples in full force. Eventually, we determined that he went to Jerusalem and was in the Old City and saw an important synagogue. What did he take from the day? Perhaps nothing. But then I realized that all the prepared notes and all the political rhetoric about defending our right to Jerusalem was not the most significant thing today. What was most significant is that going to Jerusalem, entering the Old City, feasting on pizza and ice cream, was as ordinary for my son as anything else. Our challenge is to raise him with the appreciation for what we have now that we did not have in Jerusalem for nearly 2000 years. To make sure that as common as these things are, that he does not take them for granted. But then again, he is the only one of my children born in Jerusalem, something that happened entirely by nature, whereas for centuries Jews yearned just to glimpse our holy city, millions dying without their dream fulfilled. And my son, on the other hand, is a native Jerusalemite, both fulfilling the dreams of millions before him, and as link to the future, making sure that our right to Jerusalem is never denied us again. That’s definitely cause for celebration. Maybe pizza and ice cream will become our tradition.

Proximity talks and satellite photos

2010-05-07T14:02:00.000+03:00

The inability to see a bigger picture or a broader perspective is often termed as “looking at the forest from the trees.” What I have found is that in addition to this truism, the opposite is also true. One cannot see the reality on the ground when looking at the forest from thousands of miles away. While the former affords the perspective of the limited view by sitting on a soft patch of moss while leaning against the trunk of a tree, far below the leaves and far too deep inside the forest than to be able to see more than a few trees away until it all becomes a blur, the later perspective yields a view where all one can see is a green speck. When looking at the forest from thousands of miles away, but looking up close with the aid of satellite photos, one can't see the leaves of the trees and their distinctive shapes or colors. One can't see the fauna in its natural habitat. One can't see growth or rejuvenation of life from season to season. One can't see how the flora and fauna are interdependent. One can't see when there are challenges and threats to the delicate ecosystem. With the impending beginning of new “proximity talks” to try to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians, I can’t help but feel that President Obama is attempting to initiate something, albeit well intentioned, while simultaneously being in the forest looking at the trees, and from looking at the forest from thousands of miles away. There’s every reason to question whether Obama really gets it. I can’t help but feel that at every turn, he’s tripping on his good intentions and in the process, making matters worse. Sitting in the forest, after the first 20-30 feet, it seems that all Obama sees is a blur of leaves and trees. Trees and leaves. At a glance, one might think that because the leaves high up, and the trees are rooted in the ground, they are separate and can be dealt with separately. One might think while sitting under a vast green umbrella of foliage that the two don’t relate to one another. One might find an occasional branch on the ground or bed of rotting leaves from the previous fall as being an irritation to the perspective of the two being separate. With all of the intricacies of this ecosystem literally at arm’s length, one might be forgiven for not being able to have the full perspective on life in the forest. Stepping outside the forest may help provide that perspective. However, when looking at the forest from thousands of miles away as Obama also does, he is far too distant and removed to be able to appreciate the things that make the forest unique, or threats to the forest itself, much less how to relate to these. For instance, when Obama started to raise the bar on expectations from Israel as more than those the Palestinians ever demanded just to consider renewing peace talks – total freeze of construction in Jewish communities in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), terming major Jewish Jerusalem neighborhoods as “settlements,” and calling upon Israel to freeze construction in Jerusalem’s Jewish neighborhoods, by setting such high and unprecedented demands he helped push Palestinian leader Abbas so far up a tree that he got stuck in the leaves. Obama has yet to build a ladder that can reach Abbas, much less help coax him down. Proximity talks are the current best effort, but there’s no sense that this will even bring Abbas down from the tree to the table, much less persuade him to negotiate sincerely if all he sees is Obama relentlessly holding Israel’s feet to the fire while giving the Palestinians a free pass in a way that would make even Yasser Arafat blush. Another reason Obama may be driving Israel and the Palestinians further apart is the Administration’s use of trial balloons to threaten imposing a solution if one cannot be negotiated on Obama’s timetable. Not only does this not bring a solution, it encourages the Palestinians to dig in deeper. Why should Abbas make any concessions if Obama’s position is more extreme than the best offers they have already received, or can expect to get? How does threatening to impose a solution give either party more confidence in the role of the US, or any motivation to proceed and progress in peace talks? It lends one to think that someone is inhaling a little too much of the helium needed to keep these trial balloons afloat. Independently, there is a wide enough gap between the Israeli and Palestinian positions and expectations. We don’t need Obama to drive us further apart. But on the ground, in this delicate ecosystem that Obama can’t seem to see, not everything is all bad, and pushing too hard without paying attention to the outcome may yield far worse results. Last fall, shortly after the imposition of the building freeze, I had the privilege to host a group of American Christians in my home. They were greeted by the mayor and who hosted them on a tour of our community and surrounding area. Overlooking an adjacent Arab village, he spoke about the positive relations, partnership and even a new water pipe being built in our community to service the Arab village next door. As we were standing there, two young Arab men from the village approached and greeted the mayor warmly, in fluent Hebrew. They complained to the mayor that the building freeze was hurting them, and that we should continue to build anyway, despite the restriction to do so! Lack of building in our communities is bad for the Arabs financially and, as a result, has the ability to create social problems in their communities and even open the door for Islamist extremists to make headway brainwashing and corrupting them and their kids. More recently, a man just outside the entrance to my community paved over an empty lot and opened a car wash. Had this been an Israeli Jew, no doubt the army would have been there to bulldoze and uproot the crude foundation, the same way Israeli army entered our community to destroy the foundation for a new synagogue they say was poured after the building freeze started. But the entrepreneur was not an Israeli Jew but a Palestinian Arab. Making his new business all the more interesting is that both the printed sign and spray painted graffiti announcing his business are written in Hebrew. Why? It shows that Arabs and Jews are inter reliant. Arabs are living from our business at the car wash, and an adjacent hardware store. Further up the road, more Hebrew signs for “Marble World,” and in other areas Arab doctors advertising in Hebrew as well. We rely on Arab labor to build our communities. In fact, looking outside the main entrance of many Israeli communities in this area one sees a scene reminiscent of a parking lot at a commuter bus or train station. Except the cars are all those of Palestinian Arabs, with the distinctive white and green license plates. Rather than commuting to “Downtown” anywhere, USA, they are parking their cars outside and entering our communities where they are as free to work as they are in their own communities. I don’t have a problem with this at all. In fact, it underscores a thesis of the Netanyahu government to help create economic infrastructures and stability within the Palestinian Authority and help make the quality of life better in little ways that can make a big difference in the long run. I am all for peaceful coexistence and interdependence as long as nobody is trying to kill me, my family or my neighbors, or deny our right to live here. I don’t mean to pick on President Obama, though he’s a big boy and can take care of himself. I want him to succeed. I want there to be peace. A real peace, not one imposed from Washington. But Obama’s efforts are naïve and misguided. By trying to make peace by looking at satellite photos of Jewish construction in the West Bank, while sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, he does not comprehend the reality on the ground, and that’s bad for us all. In making sweeping statements and raising the bar higher on Israel, he only lowers the possibility of proximity talks leading to face to face negotiations and a peaceful anything.

Something's Not Kosher With the Rubashkin Case

2010-05-06T20:52:00.000+03:00

i received the note below from a friend with a huge trail of people to whom it had been sent. i am always suspect of quotes such as the one stated below, or the notion that watching a clip on YouTube can affect social change, public policy or the outcome of the trial of anyone. I took the liberty of contacting Nathan Lewin to ask if the quote below was attributed to him. if it was, in my mind it would have a lot more weight. But it seemed suspect to me. Mr. Lewin replied that he had never said this and had not see the video until someone told him he was being quoted. he concurred with me, however, that It is an interesting video. the merits of the case are not clear to me personally though the video is compelling. As a former Soviet Jewry activist (you can watch my own YouTube clip from ABC News in 1988 though i make no representation that it will affect any social change http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKu_UyoAHtw) and Israel activist, among other things, i do believe in the value of grassroots activism even as simple as letter writing and phone calls. As the video suggests, it's probably worth writing such letters. it even occurred to me to go as high as the White House because politically, if Obama wants to prove he's not anti-Israel or anti-Jewish, while its unthinkable that he might release Jonathan Pollard, perhaps he'd intercede with clemency or a pardon for Rubashkin. but I am not a fan of spreading rumors and myths, even with what may be a valuable and compelling social objective. Lets evaluate the Rubashkin case on the merits, not on a made up quote of a prominent attorney and respected leader in the American Jewish community. to those compelled to write, pass this along with the endorsement of an American Israeli who has seen his days of public protests and quiet activism, and encourage people to write to elected officials as the video suggests. Write letters of support and encouragement to Mr. Rubashkin in jail as well. But lets do so with full integrity and not base it on a myth made up to appeal to the masses. if the case does not have the merits, even though the video has been seen by well more than 100,000 people, no amount of smoke and mirrors will make the cause righteous or the outcome just. Jonathan Feldstein No1abba@gmail.com http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com Watch five of my fifteen minutes of fame at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKu_UyoAHtw BS"D Natt Lewin said if this video on youtube about rubashkin gets 100,000 views it will help sholom mordechai rubashkin very much. Send it to all your contacts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1JCv4bYyWE Within less than an hour of sending the prior message about the Rubashkin YouTube piece and that Nat Lewin did not make the statement which was attributed to him, i received several e-mails back, all with the same theme. One from the west coast, someone up late, and several others locally. (see below for a sample) Allow me to clarify for the record and not respond to each individually. it seems that my previous message suggested that I supported the case against the Rubashkin sentencing. i certainly did not mean to suggest that i supported the case. rather i was trying to rebuke those who made up this story about Nat Lewin making such a statement and give them a constructive direction for their efforts that did not offend integrity of the readers, regardless of the merits of the case. One friend asked why would it make a difference what Nat Lewin thinks. My answer is that he is a noted and respected attorney who does take on cases that are generally rooted not only in upholding the law but things that are good for the Jewish community. If he had made such a statement, it would force me to look at the case in a different light. the opposite is also true and it was important to clarify the point. I generally agree that, as some suggested, unless there are extenuating circumstances if you do the crime you do the time. as a former (or more passive) activist, i always weighed how, when, where and under what circumstances it might be worth my being arrested for breaking a law or in a case of civil disobedience, but never thought of breaking the law and running or hiding from the legal outcome, or jail. In one case, knowing full well that a law I was considering violating carried with it a severe jail sentence and fine, i still decided to do it. (aren't you curious? you'll have to wait for the book.) I think the statute of limitations has passed so i can freely own up to it now because to be arrested for this twenty five years later, married with six kids, would definitely be an inconvenience. I have not followed the Rubashkin case. If he violated the law, he should pay the penalty according to the crime he committed. If a sentence is unjust, the US courts provide ways to appeal that. A Jew is obliged by Torah law to uphold the law of the land. if he did not do that, he's also guilty according to Jewish law. Either way, his actions are a brazen chilul hashem, a desecration of God's name. As compelling as the You Tube video was, looking at him in handcuffs, part of my response was embarrassment. the You Tube video is compelling, but i assume does not represent the merits of the case. I was taken however by the part about the sentence being not just a sentence against him, but also against his wife and kids. that may be true ultimately, but it reminds me of how i felt after my father died, wondering (inappropriately) what I HAD DONE to deserve the punishment of my father's death. its a shame that his family will have to go on without him, but this pulling of the heartstrings does not strengthen the case, it weakens it. Rubashkin should have considered the outcome of his actions before doing them, or even corrected the actions after he was engaged in them. as a neighbor of mine said, we should spend much more time trying to get Gilad Shalit home. Rubashkin in jail still gets to exercise and go outdoors, he gets three square (kosher) meals a day, and heat in the winter and a/c in the summer. He has the chance to do tshuva (repentance) for his actions against God and the Jewish community, and rehabilitate himself and have his sentence or incarceration shortened. His family will be able to visit him as well. he can even write a book or sell his story as a TV movie. I dont think that we should be heartless toward him and his family, but i am not convinced that the arrest and imprisonment of a Jew under all circumstances calls for our playing the pidyon shvuyim (redeeming captives) card. this case is weakened in my mind by the falsehood that is being spread that Nat Lewin made a statement he never made. I still do want the hot dogs however. And a package of soft and fluffy kosher hot dog rolls. Oh, and a jar or two of real deli mustard. Not the "spicy brown" fare that passes as the next best thing. that's like drinking blended whiskey, or putting CATSUP on a hot dog. Jonathan Feldstein No1abba@gmail.com http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com Watch five of my fifteen minutes of fame at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKu_UyoAHtw some of the immediate responses i received are: You need to read Postville. Rubashkin is devil spawn. The entire Rubashkin affair has been a terrible chilul hashem and and absolute travisty. The fact that youtube support of any kind containing falsly atrtributed quotes is justthe tip of the iceberg. Thanks for sending the message out. I prefer this type of mail to those who claim thatthe US government is anti-semitic and a bunch of nazis in their treatment of this guy; who has done terrible things that no-one should be allowed to get away... Mr. Rubashkin has been convicted of multiple extremely serious crimes including bank fraud and money laundering, and has been charged with violations of child labor laws and more! Who supports this criminal? And why should we? If we, as the Orthodox community, do not stand up and scream that this sort of behavior is anti-Torah, unethical and immoral, then what right do we have to set ourselves up as G-d - fearing Jews? Rather than make efforts to help people like this, we ought to evict him and declare that he is not a true representative of the holy Jewish people. It is about time that we stop sheltering the crud, clean our cupboards and return to be honest, ethical and moral. not by reading the biased jewish media, but the mainstream one....& then, i beg u, think abt writing another email to yr lg email list, telling them that every time a jew is convicted of a crime, do we jews need to play the pidyon shvuin card or maybe, just maybe, there r jews who r real criminals & deserve the punishment that is meted out & we, the bystanders, shud uphold & respect the law of the land that dealt out the sentence? u touched on this theme a bit in yr email, but not strongly enuf imho. stop with the rubashkin case already! you do the crime, you serve the time. yes, life term is excessive. but rubaskin is a total CHILLUL and he deserves rot. i have gotten many emails this week - mostly from israelis. here, we are sick and tired of this. it has made the entire american jewish community ashamed. we are more angry than anything else. the best part of your email was the hotdogs...yes, i sorely miss them, too!

What Israel Needs is MORE Unemployment

2010-04-28T16:28:00.000+03:00

Amid reports of political turmoil, trying to jumpstart the peace process, and the widening scope of growing corruption, an important news item was largely overlooked this week. Buried at the end of an article about the Israeli economy, I found a bit of good news. But had it been any more under reported, one could have blinked and missed it. “There were 197,600 unemployed people in March, down 0.5% from 198,500 in February. The unemployment rate in February remained steady at a preliminary 7.3% of the civilian labor force, after gradually declining since May last year when unemployment reached a high of 7.9%, ...” http://www.jpost.com/Business/BusinessNews/Article.aspx?id=174042 On the surface, this is very nice. It is a credit to the Prime Minister and Finance Minister, the Governor of the Bank of Israel, and I am sure others who deserve credit, and yet more who’d like to take credit. Best of all is that there are more people working, taking home a salary, paying taxes, and investing in the economy. By all measures that’s a good thing. However, I was puzzled as to why this was so under reported. Perhaps, though I am no economist, it’s because what Israel really needs in the long term is MORE unemployment. I am looking forward to thousands of Israelis losing their jobs. Outrageous? Crazy? Treasonous? Not really. Allow me to explain. In the early part of the previous decade, when Israel was subject to an unparalleled terrorist war, Israel’s economy suffered, as did its people. As a response to the trend of bus bombings, cafes turning into blood baths, malls turned into morgues, and pizzerias into slaughter houses, Israeli society undertook an “investment” that is simply not known in any other place in the world. In order to overcome a sense of fear, and instill a sense of security, the Israeli economy created tens of thousands of new jobs in one of the least glamorous but most important areas possible – security guards. Of course, Israel always had increased security at government offices, airports, military facilities and the like. But what changed then is something people living outside Israel cannot comprehend. Think about it. In most places in Israel, a person going about his or her day to day life will encounter multiple security personnel. These people first have to eyeball and profile a person coming their way, ask or assess if they have any weapons, wand them and check their bags, and only then let them enter. But where are they entering? A maximum security facility? The Knesset? A government building? An airport or major train station? No. Average Israelis find these security checks in the most mundane of places. For instance, in the course of an average week, I went to the mall and was checked going in to the parking lot AND going into the mall itself. Think about an average mall, how many entrances there are to the parking, and the building, and multiply that by full time coverage of one guard per entrance. People living in Atlanta, New Jersey, Toronto, Melbourne or any city in Europe could never comprehend much less tolerate this. On city buses, it’s common to see a young man or woman, armed, riding “shotgun.” They have to keep terrorists off the bus to let passengers arrive safely. I went to the bank. I was checked going in, not to prevent me from stealing money, but to prevent me from bringing in a bomb. I met a friend for coffee. Checked again. I drove to a lunch meeting nearby. I was checked entering the parking lot, and the restaurant. Dinner out? Getting “checked” happens when you go in, not when you want to pay the bill. I met with a hotel manager. At the entrance, “checking your bags” has a whole different meaning. I went to the post office to mail a package. Checked, checked, checked. I even had my car checked driving into the strip mall where I take my dry cleaning. Visiting a patient in the hospital one is checked at the parking lot, and at the entrance to the building. When I drop off my son at his pre-school, I greet the armed guard by name. When I pick up my other children from elementary school, another armed guard. This is not like in inner city American schools where violence and crime are rampant. It is just to keep the bad guys out, and the kids safe. I am reminded of my visits to the Soviet Union in the 80s. The USSR boasted that there was zero unemployment under its enlightened (now extinct) communist system. Of course this was another Soviet lie, but it was true that the government paid countless thousands (perhaps millions) to spy on one another. This Soviet over-employment served to give people work as well as to spy on its own citizens, not to protect the average citizen as we do in Israel. Underscoring the need for MORE unemployment, it’s quite clear that security guards are not Israel’s most glamorous career. Any random sample will find a disproportionate number of new immigrants among them, in what is sometimes a most dangerous job. Some are entirely uneducated. Others are decidedly overeducated. But work is work. Doing away with the need for this security-on-steroids and slashing a whole industry of security guards will do a great deal for the economy. Israelis will no longer have to absorb the cost of these guards as an expense passed along in virtually every service industry imaginable. The government and Israel’s free market economy will be challenged to create new industries to integrate the newly unemployed. It will require training and lots of work, but better that we should have a little growing pain in a country that no longer needs the “security” tens of thousands of guards, who can rather devote their efforts to building and contributing to the economy, instead of “just” keeping Israelis feeling safe enough to spend 12 shekels on a cup of coffee, taking their kids so school, or an outing to the mall. Israel has faced and overcome many challenges in its 62 years. Integrating tens of thousands of unemployed will be relatively small, but a challenge indeed. Yet for Israel to prosper to its fullest capability, doing away with the security guard industry will be a great achievement. Unfortunately, this depends largely on external factors over which Israel has little control. May Israel reach a point in my lifetime when security guards can turn their wands into plowshares, and where Israel’s most precious resource – its people – are able to contribute to the country and economy productively, rather than defensively.

Fund Raising Out of the Box

2010-04-25T15:07:00.000+03:00

I read an article recently about the record sale of Andy Warhol’s painting “200 One Dollar Bills” for $43.76 million http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aVVV8IsOLCOs which suggests that as bad as things are for many financially, that’s not the case for everyone to be sure. This reminded me of an amazing experience I had professionally a dozen or so years earlier, and how that relates to the need for non profits to be creative in general, but especially in the current environment; fund raising out of the box. Fund raisers, sit down. In a previous job, I had the opportunity to befriend an elderly couple, wealthy Holocaust survivors with no children or heirs. Oh, and they were art collectors. Not just nice pieces of art, but magnificent ones. This is the kind of relationship about which most fund raisers usually only dream. I don’t recall how I met them, but once I got to know them, we became good friends. When they were not feeling well, I’d bring them chicken soup and visit. They liked my visits, and eventually I’d make the occasion to bring my kids. Even though they lived full and rich lives, the void of not having children and grandchildren was palpable and they looked forward to our visits. Our relationship had a professional dimension to be sure, but over and above that we just became good friends. On one visit, I brought my kids and showed them one of their most special paintings. I asked the kids what it looked like and they all knew instantly, Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. Indeed, they were gazing at the original “Ten Commandments” by Marc Chagall. At one light moment, I told the couple that I didn’t want anything from them, but if they wanted to leave me the “Ten Commandments,” I wouldn’t mind. Paintings, sculptures and other collectables graced every room in their lavish home. Some by famous artists like Chagall whose names I knew. Others probably no less famous, just not known to me. I will never forget the two pieces of art that greeted visitors as they walked into the home. Side by side they had two original Andy Warhol portraits, of themselves. Yes, they had Andy Warhol paint their portraits. How cool was that! One day, I arrived at their home with a fresh new fund raising idea. The Israeli based non-profit institution I was working with had just announced a multi-million dollar project to build a new building. I brought the architectural renderings. As we sat and discussed the project and I did my best to sell them on it, I came up with an idea that they loved. In asking them to consider a significant naming opportunity, either the whole building itself, a wing, or the lobby, it occurred to me that as much as I thought it was cool to have Warhol portraits of them, when they were no longer alive with no heirs, while the art was original work by one of the most famous contemporary artists, I had a hard time imagining who would want these. So I blurted out my idea. “In addition to your donating millions of dollars for the building, why don’t you also donate the Warhols so that we can put them in the lobby and your images will forever accompany your names prominently in the new Jerusalem building.” This pushed all the right buttons and they were ready to do it immediately. Excited to the point of almost bursting at having all but secured a commitment for a million plus dollar donation, I raced back to my office to write this up for the people in Jerusalem to see in the morning. I was sure that they’d be thrilled that almost as quickly as the building project was announced, I had found them a major donor. We had not closed on which gift, but a major lead gift was a virtual sure thing. While they liked the project anyway, there was no doubt that the idea to display their Warhol portraits in perpetuity, in Jerusalem, was a clincher. Yet, when I woke up the next day, excited to get what I expected would be an enthusiastic response, I was shocked to see the immediate response was not one of mutual excitement, but pushback from the painting idea. E-mail is an imperfect means of communication so I was unsure that I was reading it right and I called. My call affirmed that I was reading their response right, that they did not see the merit and sense of this opportunity and offer. This began a protracted conversation that dragged on for far too long; all the while I was keeping the couple interested and stalling an answer, sure myself that this would be a sure thing. Eventually, the pushback became a roadblock, and a dead end. I don’t recall the reasons given why they wouldn’t entertain displaying the Warhol portraits, but in the end, I had to go back to the couple and try to put a positive face on this reversal of my idea. As happy as they were with my initial idea and proposal, they were upset and felt used rather than appreciated, and the deal never took place. While I did my best to maintain a relationship with the couple, especially following his death, this incident also gave me a clue that I was working with people in Israel who were unable to think outside the box. I took a new job where I really didn’t have anything to offer the widow. We kept in touch and eventually she died, and what could have been a multimillion dollar gift, and a likely bequest, in addition to two Warhol portraits, never materialized. I suspect that these portraits would never have sold for $43 million, but they were certainly valuable. In this case, neither the tangible value nor the leverage of using these for a major donation was appreciated. As much as the recent report of the record Warhol sale reminded me of this incident and the warm relationship that turned into a missed opportunity, it reminded me of one of the fundamentals of the fund raising business. Fund raising is about relationships. Offering a donor something meaningful that is focused on their personal interests is a much better way to make a deal than to pull something dry off the shelf and try to market it to them as what they want. That’s fund raising 101. This is all the more so in a period when the economy is suffering, when the fallout of many economic factors is still being felt, and when there are more people asking for more money than there are necessarily donors prepared to donate it. One needs the personal relationship to be sure, but also to be able to think outside the box and differentiate the philanthropic product in a way that the donor embraces it as their own, just like in this instance, but hopefully with better results.

Yom Haatzmaut Dayeinu

2010-04-20T08:53:00.000+03:00

Living most of my life in the United States, I knew Israel’s independence was not something to take for granted, and indeed to be celebrated at every opportunity. Nevertheless, with the pace of life there not focused of Israeli holidays, the ability to celebrate and commemorate Israel’s independence sometimes conflicted with business meetings, kids’ activities and other day to day challenges. I remember my rabbi imploring us to attend annual community-wide Yom Haatzmaut celebrations, but also remember that even in the community in which I lived – one rich in opportunities to live a full Jewish life – the attendance at these events struck me as being far too low for a community of its size and commitment. Since making aliyah, I have seen something new. Even amid the differences within Israeli society, the fear that we are in a post-Zionist era, and overall challenges of life in Israel, celebrating Israel’s independence is done with a sense of pride, joy and such a level of spirit that is simply inspiring. Beginning at Passover, Israel starts to get decked out in blue and white leading up to Yom Haatzmaut. Highways are lined with flags. Kites fly bearing the blue and white. Small flags fit with a plastic clip are sold at major intersections for your car. In 2008 I adorned my car with 60 to the delight of many passers-by. Newspaper ads become patriotic and use the blue and white regularly, and the weekend papers have free inserts of Israeli flags. The Yom Haatzmaut celebration in my new community it is emotional. The past two years we have left with a lump in our throat from the feeling of pride and awe at being able to live in Israel, to raise our children here, and to build for the future. Fireworks are seen throughout the country, just as on July 4th in the US. Other than religious holidays when work is prohibited, Yom Haatzmaut may be the only day that no newspapers are printed. Family celebrations are varied, but many involve finding a patch of grass somewhere and setting up a portable bar-b-que to picnic into the night. We add Hallel to our prayers offering God special thanks for this milestone. But based on living most of my life in the Diaspora where it was often a challenge to carve out time to acknowledge, much less actually celebrate the holiday, it strikes me that there are no formal rituals associated with celebrating Israel’s independence. So I started wondering, what could be done after six decades to mark Israel’s independence in a way that is perhaps more universal, and even to facilitate a five minute pause in the life of someone overseas who wants to celebrate Israel’s independence, but for whom the pace of life is more about the daily grind rather than the festive nature we have in Israel. Thinking about the meaning of what we are celebrating, the message I hope my children will take with them forever, I realized that though the words of Hallel are meaningful, perhaps we needed something more contemporary. Building on an element of the Passover Seder, I came up with “Yom Haatzmaut Dayeinu.” IF God had only given us Herzl’s will to dream, and not given us the Zionist Congresses, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the Zionist Congresses and not given us the 1917 Balfour Declaration affirming the reestablishment of a Jewish home in the Land of Israel, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the Balfour Declaration and not created the spark for early waves of aliyah to dry the swamps, irrigate the Land and build our country, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the spark to ignite waves of early aliyah to build our country and not taken us out of the ashes of the Holocaust, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only taken us out of the ashes of the Holocaust and not continued the ingathering of the exiles from the four corners of the earth, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only continued the ingathering of the exiles and not given us the 1947 UN Partition Vote to create the State of Israel, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the 1947 UN Partition Vote and not enabled our victory in the War of Independence and our Declaration of Independence, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only enabled our victory to establish and declare independence, and not restored Jewish sovereignty to the Land for the first time in 2000 years, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only restored Jewish sovereignty to the Land and not built us a thriving democracy, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only built our democracy and not helped us overcome our enemies’ attempts to destroy us in 1956, 1967, 1970, 1973, 1982, 2006 and even today, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only helped us overcome our enemies’ attempts to destroy us and not returned the Jews of Ethiopia to their homeland, rescuing black Africans from slavery in Africa to freedom, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only returned the Jews of Ethiopia to their homeland and not enabled the aliyah of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only enabled the aliyah of Soviet Jews and not reunified our Holy City, Jerusalem, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. . IF God had reunified Jerusalem and not made Israel a world leader in medical, biotech and high tech fields – a modern light unto the nations - it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only made Israel a world leader in technology, and not continued to bless Israel with His promise to build Jewish life for eternity, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. So let us pause on this special day to remember these and many other miracles that God has done for Israel, and that we magnify every day just by living as Jews in our homeland. Dayeinu. Happy Independence Day Israel. Chag sameach. By Jonathan Feldstein, a new Israeli, celebrating the miracles of Israel in the Land of Israel.

The Kitniyot Konundrums - 5770

2010-03-26T13:46:00.000+03:00

The following is an encore presentation of a timely and pressing issue of the gravest importance. When first written in 2009 and submitted as an entry to the blog of a major modern orthodox Jewish organization, the article first had to be approved by the “halacha department” as if the issues discussed were somehow in wild contradiction of accepted Jewish law. In the end, the article was not published. This year, allow me to share a more recent update as a preface: I am sitting across the table from a man after donating blood, drinking nauseatingly sweet juice and eating particularly bland cookies. I mentioned to him that I have accepted recent rabbinic rulings that it’s OK for Ashkenazi Jews like us eat Kitniyot on Pesach. He is horrified, as if I suggested killing someone. “Kitniyot are chametz. You can’t eat Kitniyot on Pesach,” he stammers. “No,” I retort. “Kitniyot are Kitniyot. It’s a tradition that’s important, but they are not chametz.” “No, they’re chametz. But you just can’t sell it like chametz.” “If you can’t sell it like chametz, maybe it’s because it’s not chametz.” “No, Kitniyot are chametz.” “So what you’re saying is that Sephardim who eat Kitniyot are eating chametz and violating the most fundamental law of Pesach.” “No. It’s their minhag. It’s OK for Sephardim.” “But if they’re chametz, how is that OK for anyone to eat them during Pesach?” … Who’s on first? I don’t ever recall thinking about kitniyot during Pesach in any substantial way while living in the US. I grew up there and made my first home there, and kashrut, particularly relating to Pesach, seemed to focus on the customs of Ashkenazim like myself which made up the majority of American Jewry and, therefore, dominated kosher and culinary things there. Since making aliyah, it seems that not only has a year not gone by without kitniyot being an issue about which I have had to think considerably, but one that seems to get more heated year by year and as preparations for Pesach get closer. For an understanding of what kitniyot are, please see http://www.kashrut.com/Passover/Kitniyot. There are many challenges and opinions surrounding the kitniyot question ranging from whether Ashkenazim can eat them at all, eat derivatives of products from kitniyot, eat things classified as kitniyot that have no historical bearing as kitniyot, following minhag avotaynu (our father’s customs), and not eating them at all. It’s eye opening to walk the aisles of grocery stores throughout Israel and see things like pasta, rice cakes, Doritos, chumus, popcorn, and a wide range of other things that are indeed kosher l’pesach. It’s challenging to shop for cookies, candy, oils, sauces, beverages, ice cream and many other things that may have traces of kitniyot, or things derived from kitniyot, that make consumption of these items for Ashkenazim an issue. Indeed, in the past years, we have eaten our share of kitniyot by mistake because it’s easy to let it slip by that generic kosher l’pesach cookies might be made from something that our ancestors in Poland did not eat. More confusing was the time when we were on an outing and got ice cream for the kids in a familiar yellow Magnum wrapper – checking that it was kosher l’pesach – but without thinking that there might be kitniyot that made this Pesach version of the yummy white chocolate ice cream so tasty. Last year, going out to lunch at a mall in Haifa became an exercise in frustration because every restaurant that was open and kosher l’pesach included kitniyot in their menu, or ingredients. That time, all the kids had to eat was the one ice cream that could be found without kitniyot. As complex as it is to shop and eat as an Ashkenazi who does not eat kitniyot, people are passionate about why they do or don’t. While my personal thinking has evolved, without getting into my practice, I’d like to share just a small sample of the opinions that have been presented on Anglo e-mail chat lists here. First, a conversation I initiated with a respected Rabbi in the US last year as the issue – or my awareness of it – came more to the surface. Dear Respected Rabbi, Recently, we were talking about the topic of eating kitniyot on Pesach. There seems to be a great deal of interest this year more than the past two that we've been here, a flood of e-mails and the like. I am passing along this e-mail from one of the Anglo lists and very much wonder what your thoughts are. Not that we're running to eat kitniyot, but the issue is interesting. As many things, I know there are two sides and it's not normally the role of a Rabbi outside Israel to make a psak on issues in Israel, but we're curious what you think. Yonatan Dear Yonatan, As you correctly noted I cannot issue a Psak Halacha for people residing in Israel. There is much merit to this argument (of eating kitniyot on Pesach). Others have said something very similar as well. The mainstream rabbinate will have to make that decision. Unfortunately, I don't think that it will be coming too quickly. Chag Sameach. Your Rav There are those who passionately disagree that there is any merit to this at all…. I am curious, all those Ashkenazi Jews who are so willing to eat kitniyot, are they also ready to change their nussach tefilah and get up for slichot all of Elul! There is a principle stated in Pirke Avot that one should not separate from the tzibur. The vast majority of orthodox Ashkenazi Rabbis today, and for very many generations in the past, don't permit eating kitniyot on Pesach, except under extraordinary circumstances. There is a very, very small minority who permit Ashkenazim to eat Kitniyot on Pesach. It seems to me that generally speaking, an Ashkenazi Jew should follow the vast majority of today's orthodox Ashkenazi Rabbis, and not eat Kitniyot on Pesach. As far as I am concerned, when (someone writes) that “…. (Rabbi) Hartman said…” and that “…already there is not a single family in the country without a Sephardi member..” is enough to invalidate his position. (The latter is just) not true. And others who feel just as passionately the other way… By separating themselves from the MAJORITY of Jews who live in Israel and who, just by chance happen to be Sephardic, it is Ashkenazi Jews who insist on keeping up their traditions at all costs, who are continuing to keep Am Yisrael from becoming one nation with one halacha. It is these Jews who separate themselves from the tzibur. This year we're going with the things that were added to the original gezera and didn't exist at the time- like soy, peanuts, humus, canola etc. Rice is a bit much at this point for us. I just found out that Moroccans don't eat rice, either, but definitely things have gotten too machmir and there's a rebellion. For us the real selling point was that if we're 'Eretz Yisraelis' and the minhag makom was to eat kitniyot and ideologically this is consistent with other things we do, then we're okay with it. Already the majority of Jews in Israel are Sephardi. It’s almost a certainty that at least one of my four girls will marry a man whose custom it is to eat kitniyot, and they will. By the time the grandchildren are married, there will be very little difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardi, and few families outside Mea Shearim and Bnai Berak who are 100% Ashkenazi. I like to see myself as a Zionist visionary, just starting to do something that will be done in the future anyway. Some are more confused with the issue as time passes… I used to give the Kitniyot Madness Award every year to the most lunatic new humra on kitniyot. One year it almost went to the rabbi who solemnly proclaimed a ban on tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini. Why? Because the seeds are edible. (Siddown, rabbi.) He lost out to the rabbi who proclaimed cottonseed oil to be kitniyot. I can think of several good reasons not to eat cottonseed oil ever but none of them has any connection whatever to Pesach. The only reason I can see to call cottonseed oil kitniyot is that kutnah sounds something like kitniyot. Now, I am told that products can no longer get a mehadrin hekhsher if they have cottonseed oil. Please tell me this is not true! Meanwhile, many of the same people who worry over every new humrah on kitniyot buy ordinary matzot and not matzo shemurah. We are told the ban was instituted to protect the integrity of the matzo and now there are people who are hamur on kitniyot and meykel on matzah. Does that make any sense? A few years ago, news went out the quinoa is not kitniyot because it was not known to the rabbanim at the time of the ban and we do not expand humrot by analogy. That may be true as a general rule but kitniyot is a madness way beyond that sort of nicety. That year, I did not find quinoa with a Pesach hekhsher. The next year, it appeared on the market, “Kasher lePesah l-okhlei kitniyot bilvad.” (Kosher for Pesach only for those who eat kitniyot.) As much as some passionately agree, and others passionately disagree, there are those who are passionately irreverent and must be using this as a mindless interlude from cleaning and cooking…. If we decide to eat kitniyot....are we also obligated to celebrate Mimouna? If that is the case...the deal is out...I can't think of having to cook an entire Mimouna festival after 8 days of cooking matza brei.... Just a warning -you might see me during Chag sitting in the plaza with bare legs munching on a rice cracker - please don't call security on me. The rabbinate is so corrupt I can get a psak for anything, if I ask the right person for the right amount of money. So why do I need to wait until someone issues a psak, because his brother in law just started a wholesale chick pea distribution business. I know an Ashkenazi man who, in order to please his Sephardic wife and in-laws, wants to finally (begin) eating kitniyot but he also wants to keep his great-great-grandmother's tradition of eating "non-gebrocht"... Question: Is there any way to do both: Eat "non-gebrocht" and eat kitniyot? And if there is no way to do both...do you know of any good marriage counselor who can give him advice as how to please his wife and (honor) his great-great great grandmother’s memory? Please note: he wants a marriage counselor who eats non-gebrocht if possible... When Mashiach comes, (bimeheyrah veyameinu) if he tells the Ashkenazim, “Well done, and bless you for your perseverance in kitniyot, and you can now actually eat kitniyot,” they will not do it. They might decide he didn’t really say that and what he said didn’t really mean that "and in any case, just to be on the safe side, we won’t do it.” And if he says to the Sephardim, “Continue to enjoy your kitniyot on Pesach but you may not grind it into flour,” they will say “But we never accepted the ban on kitniyot.” Chag sameach and may we need to keep ourselves busy with kitniyot issues rather than with security and defense issues, even though I doubt that this will be the case. As the last post suggested, there are many other more pressing issues this Pesach and in general. Nevertheless, the issue has become so widespread that even the far from religious oriented Forward published an article on it, “Pesach Kitniyot Rebels Roil Rabbis As Some Ashkenazim Follow New, Permissive Ruling” at http://forward.com/articles/104483 Perhaps the primary recent source that has aroused this debate is Rav David Bar-Hayim's Beit Din well-publicized psak permitting the consumption of kitniyot by all Jews living in Israel which can be found at www.machonshilo.org Finally, not to be outdone or leave people to think that kitniyot are the only potentially divisive issue during Pesach, last year Haaretz reported that “A 28-year-old yeshiva student was arrested late Sunday after undressing completely in a Tel Aviv supermarket with only a sock to cover his genitals, to protest the store's sale of chametz during Passover. The same student was arrested for pulling the same stunt last year, after the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court passed a controversial ruling which permitted the sale of chametz (foods Jewish law prohibits on Passover) in some businesses. The court ruled then that the matzot law, which prohibits the display of chametz, in public places during the holiday, does not apply to supermarkets, pizzerias and restaurants, as they are not considered "public." The student was detained for interrogation on suspicion of performing an indecent act in public. In his defense, he claimed that since chamez was sold on the premises, it could therefore not be legally recognized as a public place, and as such, there were no grounds to press charges against him.” Perhaps it’s obvious that the majority of recent Anglo olim here are Ashkenazim who are confronted with something in kitniyot that they never had to consider before, so these Anglo lists are probably more prone to this debate than Israeli society on the whole. What will be in the future? Will you eat in my home during Pesach? Will I eat in yours? Only time will tell. After all, yetziat mitzrayim took 40 years so I suppose we can give this a little time too. Chag sameach.

Let Freedom Reign

2010-03-23T19:07:00.000+02:00

Our dinner at a very nice Jerusalem restaurant consisted of appetizers of fried and stuffed mushrooms, stuffed artichokes and spicy Moroccan fish. The main courses were steak, burgers and chicken. Dessert was halvah parfait and lemon tart, tea and coffee. And a very nice bottle of Israeli wine. On the surface, it was a nice evening out for two couples, friends whose relationship goes back more than two decades. Over dinner, as much as I enjoyed visiting and catching up with David and Anna, seeing photos of their kids and finding out what they are doing, and reciprocating about our family, talking about work and recent job changes, politics, and a little reminiscing of stories past, I couldn't help but recognize that this visit was worlds away from our first meeting. Thursday October 1, 1987, I had just landed in Moscow with a friend, Michael. This would be my second trip to the Soviet Union for the express purpose of visiting and helping Jewish refusenicks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusenik), Jews who were brave enough to submit a formal application to leave the USSR, flagging themselves for all sorts of problems socially, legally, politically, and professionally. Despite optimism from perestroika and glasnost, the USSR was still an oppressive society where the cloud of fear and mistrust loomed as a huge as the vast reach of the Kremlin itself. This was especially the case for Soviet Jews whose struggle for freedom had ebbed and flowed along with the tide of international affairs, and who were definitely feeling the heel of the decades of oppression in spite of much publicized hopes. In all of 1987, fewer than 1000 Jews were given permission to leave the USSR. Most of them were long term refusenicks. My trip that October was initially intended to launch the process of marrying a woman my age whose family I had adopted some years earlier. After years of correspondence, I finally met the Steins 1985. I proposed marriage with the hopes of using that as leverage to get her and her family out of the USSR. That year, they were four among the lucky few who had already received permission to leave, and actually had left that summer, so my trip became about helping others. (See the following links for video and stories as background about this chapter of my life, the first from ABC News anchored by Ted Koppel March 25, 1988: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKu_UyoAHtw , and the second a research project about which I was the subject http://www.js.emory.edu/BLUMENTHAL/Kate.html) Back to Moscow 1987. We arrived two days before Yom Kippur for a seventeen day journey that would take us through Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and Odessa, and encompass both Yom Kippur in Moscow, the first days of Sukkot in Leningrad and then back in Moscow for Simchat Torah which had become a celebrated outlet for Jews to express their Judaism, under careful watch of the KGB. Toting a new address book in which I had transcribed all my contacts, long before this could be done electronically, I opened it to look for the names of the refusenicks I was to contact, who had been entered among all my friends, family, and others, in code, so that the KGB would neither suspect me nor be able to identify who I was supposed to visit. We followed careful instructions as to which pay phones were believed to be relatively safe to use and not draw attention upon ourselves, or those we were calling, even though it was common belief that no call was really safe from KGB ears. Within hours we were off to meet the Lurie family, long term refusenicks whose matriarch had been allowed to emigrate, but the rest of the family had been refused. Anna, the oldest daughter, had recently married David, a young Jewish activist, and we became instant friends. Getting to know them I felt that David’s story sounded familiar, but wrote it off to my several prior years of involvement and activism. We went about the rest of our visit including being the first to see the legendary Ida Nudel hours after she received her permission to emigrate. Our audio tape of that visit and the accompanying photos showed her immediate transformation from an oppressed slave of the Soviet system to a free woman. We shared a taxi to the synagogue for Yom Kippur eve services, and she left the following week. With the exception of this euphoric experience, most of the rest of the visits with dozens of refusenicks we met were less upbeat. They were appreciative of our help and being there, but still felt the fear and oppression that existed, and they desperately yearned to be free. Our last night in the USSR was back in Moscow, both to be ready to leave on our flight home and to be there for the Simchat Torah experience. Thousands filled the street outside and hundreds, maybe thousands, more inside Moscow’s then only “functional” synagogue. Those outside either could not get inside, did not want to be branded as a potentially bigger troublemaker by actually entering the sanctuary, or were just having too much fun where they were. It was said that the scene outside the synagogue on Simchat Torah was like a big Jewish singles event, resulting in many matches being made. Based on the demographics, that was probably true. But the scene outside was also the meeting point of older Jews, married and not, those who had applied to leave, and those who just wanted a taste of Judaism. We bumped into several leaders of the refusenick movement there, a virtual who’s who of Moscow’s Jewish community. Drawn to some festive singing and guitar playing, we noticed our new, old friend, David, at the center of a circle, guitar in hand, leading in Hebrew songs, something that in and of itself could have been punished by trumped up charges and a prison sentence. But the Jews of Moscow felt just free enough that festival, as they had in the past, to push the envelope, just a little. For a few hours each year, Moscow’s Jews experienced a hint of freedom. Yet the KGB watched very closely and, when they were ready, gave the order to close down the festivities. As we walked from the Archipova St. Synagogue together with David and Anna, saying good bye but not knowing when we might see one another again, I started giving David things that we really didn’t need. Among them, my long wool coat that was keeping me warm in the cold Moscow pre-winter. Initially David refused, but I insisted. I told him to take it, and sell it on the black market if he needed money. He liked that idea as, rather than keeping the money himself, he’d use it to buy an amplifier for his guitar so that when they had clandestine festive Jewish gatherings full of song and dance, more people would be able to hear from further away. David and Anna were allowed to leave not long thereafter. By then, Daniel was born, and they had to leave their families behind initially, not knowing when they’d see them again, but also not knowing when there might be another chance to leave. Now that they were parents, it was all the more urgent that they be free, so they could raise a new generation of Jewish children in Israel, in freedom. After they made aliyah, they visited me in the US, and I’d visit them in Israel. Though we don’t make the opportunity to see one another often enough due to the complexities of life, kids, work, etc, at least today we have the freedom to do so as now we’re living only 45 minutes from one another. Some time after David and Anna were in Israel, I discovered why, when I had met them some years earlier, his story was familiar. It turns out that David was the subject of a 1982 article in Hadassah magazine, the very one my mother read to our family over dinner one night that had inspired me to become active. We learned that David and I share the same birthday, and that Anna’s birthday is the same as our wedding anniversary. Other than the nostalgia of dinner with David and Anna, our story, and reliving my past involvement in the Soviet Jewry movement, it is a story that is particularly relevant this season, on the eve of Passover, the festival of freedom, the celebration of the Jewish redemption from slavery in Egypt. Our tradition teaches that Jews must observe Passover, reliving the Exodus of thousands of years ago as if we, too, were slaves in Egypt. That’s a very hard to do today, unlike in my day when Jews were still largely enslaved in the USSR, Syria, and in other corners of the world. It’s hard to feel as if you ARE a slave leaving Egypt thousands of years ago, when the concept of a refusenick, modern Jewish persecution and enslavement, the idea of living in fear, and even a black market to deal in wool coats to sustain Jewish life is one that is completely foreign and unimaginable. Even the children of these brave Jews who resisted Soviet oppression and assimilation, those living in Israel as free and proud Jews integrated with my kids and the rest of Israeli society, don’t fully grasp the struggle their parents had to endure to bring them to a life of freedom in Israel. As we celebrate this festival of freedom and redemption, looking back on ancient history as if it were the present, it’s important to remember that freedom has a price, but that no matter the price, it is far less than the value. In addition to teaching us about suffering of generations past, Passover teaches us to appreciate our freedom, and never to take it for granted. May we be privileged to have the freedom to continue to recount our redemption as if we had been redeemed ourselves, never actually knowing what that was like. May we have the ability to celebrate festivals together with friends and family, as well as long overdue reunions, but be mindful not to take these for granted, even though we have the freedom to do so.

Some of My Best Friends are Christian Zionists

2010-03-17T09:19:00.000+02:00

Now the tide has shifted. I am no historian, but I suspect that if there was ever any precedent for Christians loving Jews as Jews, and supporting Jewish independence and statehood in Israel as a pillar of their faith, it was an historical anomaly that was short lived, rather than the impact of a growing movement with hundreds of millions of devotees today. Last week I had one of the most inspiring and meaningful experiences of my life. I attended the “Night to Honor Israel” under the auspices of John Hagee Ministries and Christians United for Israel, in Jerusalem. Twenty four hours after the event, my hands were still hurting from all the clapping. This was not my first event like this. Over the years I have had the privilege to participate in several similar evenings entirely orchestrated by fervently Zionist Christians. My early exposure to, and participation in, these events filled me with a combination of emotions – shell shocked to see such vibrant, colorful and sincere expressions of love and support for Israel, but outside the Jewish framework in which I was raised and with which I was familiar. I also felt a sense of awe and appreciation that for the Christian organizers and participants, this was simply a biblically mandated imperative which they embrace and undertake with the sincerity and joy of living God’s word. It’s that simple. While the “Night to Honor Israel” last week was especially inspirational, meaningful and motivational, the first one I attended was smaller but equally unforgettable. At the “Bless Israel Rally” in 1988 or 1989, in Cleveland, Tennessee, I was invited and escorted by a wonderful friend, Doug Chatham, who exposed me to an array of such events. Even more, he gave me an early understanding and appreciation for the genuine and sincere love for Israel as a growing phenomenon in the Christian community. In the ensuing years, I have had the privilege to participate in many events with similar themes and objectives, organized by Christians United for Israel, Eagles Wings, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, John Hagee Ministries, and others, and made genuine warm friendships through relationships established at these events. It is inspiring to celebrate support for Israel with 1000 people or more in any framework. I have attended countless Jewish rallies and parades like this, and of course living in Israel is the ultimate celebration of that. There’s something truly awesome and emotional in singing Israel’s anthem, Hatikvah, among hundreds, or thousands, of people. But when it is emotionally led by a Christian, among a sea of 1000 other Christian supporters of Israel, it is something uniquely so. One feels the palpable change in tide from a time, not that long ago, that the majority of Christians used their faith to persecute Jews, and even worse. Making this all the more unique is that the love for Jews and Israel expressed in these events is unconditional. It is the feeling of love like that which one feels from a parent. But with great respect for Judaism and humility, the love expressed is not that of a parent, but rather like that of a sibling, in this case a younger sibling, who looks up to the older sibling with respect and adoration. Christian Zionists today, and the growing relationships between Christians and Jews, are built on an underpinning of recognition of the proud Jewish roots as the foundation of their faith. Christian Zionists’ lives and faith are enriched by Judaism, not there to replace Judaism. Some who don’t know any better ascribe malicious intentions to these relationships. Some fellow Jews are threatened by these because of their own lack of faith, or knowledge of their own traditions. Some can’t get beyond differences politically, socially, and religiously, hanging an association between Jews and Christians on one divergent issue as compared to the wealth of issues and values that bring us together. Some can’t get beyond the thousands of years of Christian persecution of Jews and want nothing to do with “goyim,” used pejoratively, carrying with it thousands of years of fear and mistrust. The reality is that having a meaningful interaction, even close personal relationships, with Christians of faith who share a mutual belief and devotion to Israel, and the God of Israel, is uplifting. This year, I risked shaking up the relationship with my own wife over extending an invitation to friends from a church in Washington to visit our home. Under normal circumstances, she’d have been perfectly happy to open our home to any guests, in the finest spirit of our patriarch, Abraham. However, I dared to suggest that they visit us the day before Rosh Hashanah. Anyone who knows the pace of life in a Jewish home that is preparing for a major holiday knows that the house is in disarray, last minute errands need to be run, and cooking, cooking and more cooking abound. And then, cleaning up the mess. Comforted by the fact that my wife loves me, and that killing me on the eve of Rosh Hashanah would generally be a bad thing, I told her not to worry. After my friends left, I braced for another thing for which I’d need to ask forgiveness, fearing my wife’s response from inviting our Christian guests into my home, almost as much as our forefathers feared the pogroms often inspired by Christians which would cause their homes to be burned and looted. Ready for the hammer to fall, I was struck, rather, by my wife’s response. Meeting and getting to know these people, understanding their sincerity and devotion, appreciating the expense that each undertook to be in Israel, some not for the first time, left her with a sense of awe and appreciation as we went into the Days of Awe. Since then, my wife has recounted this experience as having helped to give her an extra special appreciation and sense of devotion in her Rosh Hashanah prayers. Rather than pissing her off, I helped her have a sense of the warmth of some of these relationships which I have been blessed to have for more than two decades. The Jewish principle of hakarat hatov, teaches us acknowledge kindness received from, or done by, another person. But more than just to acknowledge such kindness, hakarat comes from the word lehakir, to know or become familiar with. Rather than just remembering to say thank you to someone, hakarat hatov means to take time to recognize the benefit one has received from another. To that end, it’s not just a human value to say thank you, but a Jewish imperative. When someone expresses unconditional love for another as in this case, it’s our obligation to acknowledge that, to appreciate it, to say thank you. And taking it a step further, to offer a reciprocal embrace of such sincere love and support not only is proper, but makes us each stronger in our respective faith. On Easter 1945, which corresponded to the first days of Passover, three months after the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of WWII, several Jewish holocaust survivors who were neighbors of my grandmother and who had returned to their homes in search of other survivors were murdered by their Polish Catholic neighbors. The murderers threatened to finish the job the next day and kill the remaining twenty Jews in a town that, once, was almost half Jewish. There are more than enough reasons for fear and mistrust. However as the spring ushers in the respective Jewish and Christian holidays of Passover and Easter, let the renewal of this season serve as a harbinger of renewal of personal and interfaith relations between Jews and Christians, with the model like that of the thousands just with whom I have had the privilege to interact, to serve as a living example for the future.

February 26

2010-02-26T13:08:00.000+02:00

Purim is the Jewish festival depicted and ordained in the Book of Esther. Including this year, in the past 17 years this celebration of Jewish good over Persian evil, fell on or within a day of, February 26 only three times. Most, I am sure, have no clue why one would even care. Haman said to King Achashvairosh, "There is a nation scattered and separated among the nations throughout your empire. Their laws are different than everyone else's, they do not obey the king's laws, and it does not pay for the king to tolerate their existence. "If it pleases the king, let a law be written that they be destroyed, and I will pay to the executors ten thousand silver Kikar-coins for the king's treasury." Esther, Chapter 3, 8-9 http://www.beingjewish.com/yomtov/purim/esther_intro.html Over the past several years, a new threat against the Jewish people in particular, and the West in general, has arisen from modern Persia embodied in Iran and its theocracy, and its president. Today’s Iranian threat against the Jewish people and the West is no less ruthless than the threat of the wicked Haman in ancient Persia, albeit that today's threat comes at the tip of a nuclear armed Shabab missile, or in a suitcase smuggled into any western mall or train station, not a hangman's noose as 2500 years ago. Yet the level of genocidal agitation is no less great, and their rants do not cease. http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=169723 On February 26, 1993 I sat in naïve bliss, just two months from the birth of my first child. Like any first time parents, much of our energy was focused on preparing for this imminent arrival and to become parents for the first time. As I brewed my coffee that morning, nobody imagined the evil that was brewing for that day. Nobody could imagine it, except the terrorists who had hopes to destroy the World Trade Center as high as the buildings themselves. Their plans were foiled and the buildings remained standing, but six people were killed and some 150 injured. February 26 passed and life went on. It was a wakeup call, but like the rest of the world I probably remained ignorant or naïve, or both and, and like most, either did not comprehend that it was serious, or that the threat was what it was, or that this was not just an isolated incident of some angry Moslem men playing with explosive toys. The US and the world hit the collective snooze button. Whether the terrorists who planned and implemented the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center attack were trained and funded by Iran per se, they were and are ideological twins. For eight years the world sat by silently and ignorantly while other terrorists trained, learning how to fly but not land a plane, until the rude awakening the morning of September 11, 2001. This wakeup call was loud and jarring. We jumped out of bed, but I can’t help but feel that in reality, eight years since September 11, we’ve gotten back in bed, and covered our heads with a warm comforter of ignorance and naiveté once again. What’s so perverse is that those who would execute further terrorist attacks have made their intentions fully known. There are no secrets. We know that they are out to get us. Yet we sit back, rather complacently, removing shoes of old ladies at airports, and engaging a proxy war in Afghanistan and Iraq while places like Yemen and Iran heat up. Centuries ago the tables were turned on the evil Haman who ended up dying at the end of the noose which he had prepared for the righteous Mordechai. Today a new threat from Persia looms and we can only pray that those who threaten to carry out such an evil plot again will end up meeting the same fate as their ideological and geographical ancestor. But we can’t sit by and do nothing. We need to be sure that our governments are aware of the threat, are held accountable to act with unswerving strength, and are dedicated to our protection and defeating this new evil. Perhaps this year, amid the joy as we celebrate our victory from genocidal evil twenty five centuries ago, we can use the wakeup call from February 26 seventeen years ago to remind us that the same evil looms in this generation, and must be defeated today as it was then. Like Esther and Mordechai, we must devote ourselves to this, fast and pray, and take action, to be sure that it never happens again. In two months my daughter will turn seventeen. The world is a vastly different place since the two months before she was born. Not because the evil looming is unique, but because if we sleep through it again, we may doom ourselves to not waking up. As a parent, it’s my responsibility to look out for the welfare of her and her siblings so that seventeen years hence, they will have the ability to raise their children in a world that is safer, or at least not more dangerous and radioactive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/february-26-1993-1.819530 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/26/newsid_2516000/2516469.stm

The Right Place at the Wrong Time

2010-02-19T12:46:00.000+02:00

One of the hardest things about making aliyah from the US in an era when, and from a place where, Jewish life thrives and where it is not threatened, if not the hardest thing, is leaving behind friends and loved ones. Of course, as hard as it is, we also live in an era where technology enables families and friends to stay almost as close from 6000 miles away as if we were just down the street. Almost. I am always mindful of how much easier it is for us today in this regard as compared to others who made aliyah in previous generations. Like my grandparents, who made aliyah in the 1930s, not only not having regular let alone internet phones or Skype, not having e-mail with which to be in contact daily, and no airlines with frequent flyer programs and credit cards to accrue points toward free tickets, and literally not knowing when, or if, they would ever see their loved ones again. Knowing that missing friends and loved ones is expected makes us prepared, but does not make it any easier. Things that we'd have taken for granted by being able to spend time together, planned or impulsively, are now a distant but fond memory. Conversely, the infrequent opportunities to visit and celebrate milestones with friends and loved ones are occasions which we relish, and which we cannot take for granted. As much as a challenge as it is to move a family of eight anywhere at once, traveling internationally as a family is a virtual non-occurrence. Yet when given the opportunity to celebrate two family bat mitzvahs three months apart, it is a challenge for which we rise to the occasion. Planning and anticipating these trips are full of excitement equal to the resources needed to make them happen, as infrequent as this may be. In addition to missing most of the celebrations, we also miss opportunities to share the grief, or comfort a loss, with friends and loved ones, both because of distance as well as that these are never planned. The most recent trip that was planned months in advance for a joyous celebration turned into a case of our being at the right place at the wrong time, combining the joy of dancing at a family simcha with shedding tears at the funerals of two parents of two loved ones. As much as we looked forward to the celebration which was the purpose of the trip, we were glad to be able to be in the right place at the wrong time to mourn as well. A phone call to a mourner does provide comfort and, measured by the final episode of Seinfeld when discussing phone call etiquette, may be considered particularly meaningful to be sure to go out of the way to express condolences from 6000 miles, even by phone. But reaching out and touching someone by phone is not the same as reaching out and embracing them in person. For good or for bad, this is not the first case of our being in the right place at the wrong time. A trip in 2006 that was meant to be for another celebration, ironically of the granddaughter of one of the men whose funerals which we attended, ended up falling at the end of the 30 days of mourning following the death of my wife's mother. That same trip also saw my wife and our oldest and youngest children visiting with my mother, the day before she was hospitalized for what would be the last time, and I received the call to come at once because it was not expected that she'd be alive by the time my trans-Atlantic flight landed. Sometimes, being in the right place at the wrong time is in fact perfect timing. When my grandparents made aliyah, if there was news to share with, or from, those in the old country, the only means of doing so was by a letter. When my father was born, there was not only no realistic expectation of him meeting any of his relatives in Poland in any reasonable amount of time in the foreseeable future, but news of his birth likely took months to be transmitted. Just as news of the natural deaths of his cousins, uncles and aunts came as a shock albeit long after the fact, and long before the Nazis left nobody with whom to communicate. It’s unlikely to be likely that we'll be able to dance at and celebrate all the special occasions in person. Yet we'll look forward to relishing these, even from a distance. Whether we're there or not, mindful that the other side of the equation can come at any moment, it’s extra meaningful to be able to do so in person when possible. And if death and mourning are inevitable as they are anyway, it’s all the more meaningful to be able shed tears of sorrow, even if all that was planned was tears of joy. But sometimes the wrong time is just the wrong time. As I was packing our luggage into the snow covered car to take the family back to the airport for the flight home this week, my cell phone rang. “Steve died.” My good friend, colleague and mentor succumbed to a heart attack like the one that he survived several years ago, and on the anniversary of which I would always call or e-mail, a happy one indeed. But with a flight home in just a few hours, his was not a funeral which I would make. I won't get to mourn with or comfort Steve's family in person as I did with my sister in law on the loss of her mother, or our former neighbor on the loss of her father. But we did get to celebrate our niece's bat mitzvah, and look forward to the next one in a few months, and just hope that there are more happy milestones than sad ones, even if we miss them all. May Carol's, Jacob's and Steve's families all be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, may their memories be for a blessing, and may they (and we) all have many more occasions to celebrate than mourn.

Water Under the Bridge

2010-02-04T11:26:00.000+02:00

In 1817, Benjamin Franklin famously uttered the phrase, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Had Franklin lived in Israel today, he might have added two certainties: water shortages and Syrian belligerency. Indeed, recent reports about both affirm this including the most recent saber rattling from Damascus, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147473.html Israel’s water crisis is well known and something that weighs on the mind of Israelis across the spectrum. Water is about politics, religion, the environment, economy, agriculture, and impacts all sectors of Israeli society. It’s interesting to live in a place where Biblical traditions play out on a day to day basis with fervent prayers for rain in its season to fill our aquifers and provide abundance, and the reliance on the rain to sustain our lives. In an arid and largely desert land, while agriculture continues to be relevant, the simple fact of Israel’s population nearly doubling in the past two decades, coupled by many years of less than average rain leading Israel to one of its’ most severe droughts, water use and conservation play a role in every facet of our lives, from the price of produce to the length of our showers. In the past, Israel has dealt with the water situation in many new and innovative ways. Israel leads the world in reclaiming and recycling of grey and brackish water. Israel has given the world drip irrigation which brings just the amount of water a plant needs to thrive right to its roots. Israel has built and continues to build desalination plants which provide a growing amount of potable water, and Israel regularly practices cloud seeding to precipitate maximum precipitation. Israel has also proposed but not implemented vast international projects to supply water. Some have been shelved for political, diplomatic, and economic reasons, as well as what sometimes appears to be ineptitude. As much as Israel has built and continues to build desalination plants, wide criticism exists in our not having done this sooner, faster and to a greater extent. Plans have existed for decades to build a canal from the Mediterranean (and since formalizing peace with Jordan now the Red) Sea. This would serve four important purposes of 1. Providing a source for generating energy, 2. Desalinating water for use, 3. Creating tourism and industry along the way, and 4. Replenishing the Dead Sea which is rapidly drying out. Even Theodor Herzl envisioned this in his 1902 “Altneuland.” In better times, Israel even proposed importing water from Turkey, by pipeline or by tanker ships. But the water situation in Israel is deeply tied to politics and peace with our neighbors. As noted in a recent article (http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=167544), the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan obliges Israel to provide tens of millions of cubic meters of water to Jordan each year. Leading up to the 1967 Six Day War, Syria attempted to divert water from tributaries of the Yarmuk and Jordan Rivers which Israel considered belligerent, and to which it responded accordingly. Controlling and use of water resources in the Middle East is something that can both be part of the terms of establishing peace, and can be the trigger for a full fledged war. In this context, I was interested to read an article about how years of drought have impacted Syria, http://www.greenprophet.com/2009/11/08/13399/syria-drought. Since my first visit to Israel as a teen, I have been aware of the lack of water and how water has been a source of potential regional conflict. It was interesting to read that Syria, a much less developed and much more agrarian society with virtually no natural resources, was suffering as a result of years of drought. It made sense to me how over the past few years Israel has facilitated Druze farmers on the Golan Heights, who have had surpluses of their famous Golan apples partly by benefitting from using Israeli irrigation technologies, to export their apples to Syria. As if two streams coming together to form a river, in my mind, a number of issues flowed together to yield a possible source for conflict resolution, if not peace itself. At a minimum, there is a possibility to rehydrate the region if not bring peace. While there’s no sign that peace with Syria is in the offing, it is clear that if it were ever to come, one of the issues that will have to be resolved is water rights, especially because Israel’s peace treaty with Jordan requires it to provide vast quantities of water to the desert kingdom. Similarly, while in the past year, once very warm Israeli-Turkish relations have become more strained as if in a drought. At the same time, Syrian-Turkish relations which had been mired in conflict in the past, some of which as a result of water problems between them, have seen a new wave. In the past, Syria has long complained of Turkish plans to build a string of dams cross the Euphrates, depriving it of water on which its agriculture so heavily depends. So as the tide seems to have changed, perhaps a new way of thinking is in order. Maybe Turkey holds the key. Maybe a rapprochement between Turkey and Syria can be catalyst for the former to provide relief for a parched Syria. Maybe Turkey, long desiring to serve as an intermediary between Israel and Syria in making peace, can provide water guarantees that provide not just Syria, but Israel and Jordan as well, with an ample flow along the natural network of rivers that feed one another, oblivious to national borders and regional conflicts. Rather than being a thorn in the side of one another’s mutual distrust, perhaps Turkey can be the leverage for the resolution of a problem that will not go away on its own. An Israeli public burned over and over the past year by growing Turkish intransigence can be reassured that maybe Turkey’s interests are not as wildly anti-Israel as an objective observer might believe. Syria’s active participation in rehydrating the region would restore its centrality in the region as a player, not a pariah. Seeing water flow over the border between Israel and Syria would go a long way to repair decades of hate, rhetoric and threats which is all Israel has ever seen from its northern neighbor. This flow of water could energize life for Israel, Syria, Jordan and even the Palestinians, literally and figuratively, and lay a foundation for peace in its wake. There’s been more than enough hostility, and that’s been like swimming against the tide. Perhaps it’s time to let history be seen as water under the bridge and let water, the source for life, be part of the solution, not an ongoing part of the problem that yields conflict and death.

The State of the Union is (adjective)

2010-01-26T09:22:00.000+02:00

This week, President Obama will deliver the annual “State of the Union” to Congress, broadcast live throughout the United States, and around the world. Commentators and pundits will spend days analyzing and commenting on Obama’s address from even before he begins, with advanced copies provided to the press. Many are looking at this address as much as a “State of the Obama Presidency” as it is about the state of the Union. Indeed, it will be interesting to hear what the President has to say about the state of the Union, reflecting on the end of his first year in office and looking ahead. The President is likely to begin his remarks with the traditional formula, “Madam Speaker, the State of the Union is (adjective).” The question is what adjective President Obama will use. It’s unlikely that he’ll pick a word that resembles one which Jimmy Carter used in a different address, and which has haunted him since, malaise. And he may want to use a word that has not used before, or at least one that has been over used. What do you think? What word will President Obama use? What word should he use? While not scientific, please do share your thoughts before the pundits have their say and before Obama begins his remarks. And while you’re at it, please share any notable highlights of Obama’s first year, good or bad. Living for the first 40 years of my life in the United States, it’s clear that the state of the Union is important to all Americans. However, living in Israel since 2004, it has become clear that the state of the Union is something that is important worldwide, on a myriad of levels. Ideally, please share your adjectives and any other remarks at http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com, or you may go to my Facebook page but since that is an audience of limited number, I’d rather you share your thoughts on my blog. If you don’t want your comments shared publically, you may send me an e-mail at no1abba@gmail.com.

Remembering To Never Forget

2010-01-25T15:25:00.001+02:00

The following excerpt is from “Hidden” (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3522.htm) a memoir of the survival of a brother and sister from Kanczuga, Poland, the town in which my paternal grandmother’s family once lived for generations. Their account of life in Kanczuga and their lives in hiding is deeply personal and I share it this week, marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Rather than passing along things that have been circulating e-mail lists and the internet for years, I hope to add a moment of meaning and a personal reflection on the Holocaust for those who read this, and for future generations, even if it is only those who are my own descendants. While Jews observe Yom Hashoah on the 27th of the month of Nissan, international Holocaust Remembrance Day will take place this week, January 27. In an era of growing Holocaust denial, and the aging of the remaining survivors whose personal experiences will one day only be a distant memory, I share this account both because it is personal and vivid, and also because while I do not know the Rosens and did not know their family, the life and murder of their relatives as noted here were lived and ended the same as my grandmother’s family. In the event that one day someone should ever doubt the veracity of these accounts, I take the liberty of sharing something that is also deeply personal and connected to my own family in Kanczuga, and the recount below. In the early 1990s, I became president of the First Kanczuger Society, a Landsmannschaft (welfare and cultural associations for Jews from cities, towns and villages throughout Europe and Russia established to provide kinship and support for émigrés, survivors and their descendents) established by my great-grandfather, Shalom Yakov Birnbach, in 1901. In the course of meeting several of the members who were born in Kanczuga and who remembered my family, I got to know Benny Shanzer (Yankele Kelstecher*). Benny shared with me that when my father came to the US, Benny got him his first job. And Benny also remembered my great-grandmother, Dreizel Hamel Birnbach, who he credited with saving his life. As the Jews of Kanczuga were being rounded up to be murdered, Dreizel turned to Yankele and said, “You’re too young.” Yankele knew that meant they were going to be murdered and used this as the impetus to escape, and survive, as is recounted just in passing below. I have never been to Kanczuga and can only imagine what life was like there before 1939. My sense is that just as in any community there were rivalries and differences within the community, yet there was nevertheless a great sense of community. This sense of community was what motivated my great-grandmother to inspire Yankele to save himself. It is what brought Yankele, Bernie and Yehuda to come back to Kanczuga in April 1945 to bury the seven Jews murdered in a pogrom after the War ended and to protect the survivors. It is what made it second nature for Benny to help find a job for the grandson of Dreizel who saved his life when he arrived in the US as a new immigrant himself. While this week we mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, my relatives who were murdered, with their neighbors witnessing it all standing by as spectators, on a hill on the outskirts of Kanczuga never made it to Auschwitz. I remember my great-grandparents, Shalom Yakov and Dreizel Birnbach, their children, sons and daughters in law, siblings, cousins and grandchildren who were murdered in a hastily dug ditch in the summer of 1942. I also remember the relatives on my grandfather’s side whose names are not all known but whose lives must be remembered nonetheless. While the account below is not about them, their lives were lived alongside those who are mentioned, as were their lives taken from them in exactly the same way. May we, and the generations that follow, always remember to never forget. Hidden – Fay Walker and Leo Rosen Prologue 1942 (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3522.htm) We were hidden in the countryside by the time the war flooded the streets of tiny Kanczuga, until the screams and bursts of gunfire were as familiar as the cries of the peddlers hawking their wares in the rynek, the town’s main marketplace. More than a hundred of our people were executed at point blank range in front of the Brill’s house. Then early one morning, two young SS men, ably aided by the Polish police, rounded up the hundreds of Jews who had not managed to hide themselves in time. The officers deposited then in the main square, where they stood in shocked silence, some of them still in nightclothes, shivering in the sparkling dawn. Now the police herded their prisoners past the jeering crowd and in to the synagogue. Our people struggled to stare straight ahead, but, as they trudged the dusty streets, they found themselves peering into the faces they had known all their lives, into the flat features and pale eyes of their closest neighbors, empty and cold as death. Kanczuga‘s newest synagogue was a good quarter mile from the Jewish cemetery on the edge of town. It was not quite complicated, but already it was the pride of our community, a spacious sanctuary large enough to seat several hundred people. That Shabbos, every inch of the shul was filled for the first time. Yet it was eerily quiet, the low murmurs punctuated only by the occasional barking if a policeman. Our family, apart from the two in hiding, filled the floor by the eastern wall. Tata’s brother David sat with his wife and three of their five children, Aron, Runie, and little Golda, named after our grandmother. The other two children had been on vacation with their mother’s parents and had already been captured and sent to Siberia. Wordless and watchful, our Tata fingered a pocket of his long, black coat and stroked his beard. Beside him, Mamche, her face raw from weeping, rested a delicate hand on one of my sisters’ shoulders. Now and then she whispered to little Tunia, who was serious even in the best of times. The child’s face, olive-skinned as a Gypsy’s, glistened with tears. Pretty Senia, Aryan-blond and almost a teenager, seemed out of place in this group of frightened Jews. She scanned the wan faces, searching for friends from school. With so many bodies huddled together, the room was close with the odor of human flesh. People slept standing, straight as sentries; others twisted into unnatural positions on the floor. At some point, rain tapped a somber staccato on the roof and windows. A poor tradesman, reverential and cowering, broke off from the crowd to consult with Tata. “Do you think they’ll deport us instead of killing us? Maybe send us away and spare our lives, God willing?” Our taciturn father shrugged and shook his head. “Who is to say?” he asked. “I have heard that the families who didn’t come to the square to be picked up were shot in their homes. We can only wait and put our faith in God. God will provide for us. God has never forsaken us.” Like everyone else, my parents had come to the shul without packing a bag. But my best friend, Bruchcia Laufer, whose family had been temporarily spared because they were engineers still useful to the Reich, visited every day with supplies. That Friday morning, she brought two white Shabbos candles. The crowded room was hushed now, as Mamche lit the trembling flames. For a moment, her face was illuminated, as if from within. When she said the bracha, her shimmering soprano could scarcely be heard, so quickly did it make its way to God. Blessed are You, oh Lord our God, King of the Universe, who commands us to light the Sabbath candles. Shabbos morning arrived warm and bright, but the synagogue was musky with fear. Several men began to daven, and Tata joined them in prayer, swaying back and forth to the familiar chants. Mamche, as a woman forbidden to pray with the men, hummed the wailing nigunim under her breath, her voice sweet and smooth as her homemade jam, her pitch never wavering. The families were still praying when the police ordered them to leave their families and trek the short distance up the hill to the cemetery. Mamche gripped the girls harder, her fingers digging so deeply into their flesh that they squirmed, but they did not break away. Our father, never a demonstrative man, reached for our mother’s hand. The gesture was so unexpected that she met his eyes with a smile. Then the butt of an unseen rifle knocked Tata squarely between the shoulder blades, and he flinched and moved on without speaking. They traveled a short distance in wagons. A boy named Yankele Kelstecher jumped out of his wagon and disappeared into the woods before the policemen could fire.(*) Then the men were ordered out of the wagons. Perhaps the thought of Yankele gave the men strength as they climbed in a thin, halting line along the muddy path that wove through a cornfield. They passed a scarecrow, mocking in unfettered repose. At the crest of the hill was the tree-lined cemetery, its tombstones swathed in even rows of shrubbery. As if on command, the men paused to catch their breaths and to wipe their brows. They gazed out over the crest of the hill to the patchwork of fields below. For a moment, they forgot their terror and shook their heads at the lush landscape. It could not be helped; they loved this country. A straight-backed officer handed out shovels and told them to dig. “Keep digging,” he said. “We’ll tell you when you’re finished.” Most of the men were spindly and weak, with soft palms more used to the Hebrew siddur than to the spade. “Dig, keep digging! Thought you could get away with something, eh? Thought you could hide from us, you filthy Jews?” When at last they were allowed to stop, the men stood in silence beside the freshly dug earth. Their faces slick with tears and sweat, they stared at the raised rifles in astonishment. At eyes opaque as marbles, that didn’t look back. Then they saw the other eyes, those of their neighbors, the customers in their shops, the people to whom they had just last week sold a loaf of bread, who gave them a good price on chickens and eggs. The goyim stood or sat on their haunches in unruly rows alongside the policemen. Whole families, with baskets of cheese and bread and homemade wine, little ones scurrying along the fringes of the crowd, hunting down field mice. The chattering spectators were in an edgy, festive mood, the women’s heads bobbing in their colorful scarves. “Zyd!” they cried. “Jew! Out with the Jews!” The policemen raised their rifles. One hundred hearts were broken before a single shot was fired. When it was over, the audience applauded and cheered. The next day, the sunlight was so fierce that the women shielded their eyes when they were led outside. They climbed through the tall grass directly to the pit, as if they had done so many times before, their children sobbing at their skirts. A fetid smell they did not recognize reached their nostrils, and they covered their faces in horror. When the policemen loaded their rifles, Senia clutched Mamche’s waist. “I don’t want to die!” she cried. “The sun is shining so brightly, and I am so young, Mamche. I want to grow up in this beautiful world.” For the first time in Senia’s life, our Mamche could do nothing to help. She could not hold her any closer; she could not love her any more. One policeman who witnessed this scene was so moved that, later, he would recall Senia’s words to the Kwasniaks, who had worked for us back in town. Then a bullet shattered our little sister’s face, and she collapsed at Mamche’s feet, spraying blood in her new white shoes. Next, Tunia dropped onto Senia, her breath a shallow purr. Even before the third shot was fired, our mother fell on them both, trying to protect what was no longer hers. Beside the gunmen, the onlookers, some of whom had tied handkerchiefs over their noses to stave off the scent, clapped and shouted their approval. A burst of laughter skimmed the crowd. Neighbors clapped each other on the back, not quite meeting each other’s gaze.

Remembering To Never Forget

2010-01-25T15:25:00.000+02:00

The Holy See should take a better look.

2010-01-24T11:06:00.000+02:00

To the Editor, If it were not so sad it would be funny with the Vatican releasing a document blaming Israel “occupying” land as the reason for driving Christians out of the Middle East. Let me try to understand this; the Vatican is planning to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East in October and this document represents the outline for these discussions. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3837018,00.html Having just spent a day with members of Israel’s Christian minority, hearing their stories of “jihad” against them by their Moslem neighbors, including stories of forced marriages of Christian women to Moslem men, Moslems harassing and threatening the Christians, an assault against the Christian mayor of Nazareth, multi-million dollar foreign Islamic investments “perseverance funds” to buy out Christians from their homes and businesses (I guess that they forgot they are supposed to be boycotting Israel), unilateral destruction of ancient archeological sites of historic significance to Judaism and early Christianity in an attempt to erase our respective connection from the Land, “conquering” of private Christian schools by Moslem students that relegates Christian students to public schools where they are threatened, boycotts of Christian owned businesses by their Moslem neighbors, and many other allegations that are too vast to list, it’s a wonder what planet the Vatican authors live on that a Jewish Israeli can understand the real threat to Christians in the Middle East that the Vatican can’t. Or, doesn’t want to. I wonder how my friend “Sami” would respond to the Vatican on this, a Lebanese Christian who welcomed Israel’s invasion to eliminate the PLO in 1982 but fled his home and homeland afterward because of the people who “stole” his home and business and “ruined” his life. Who were the thieves that ruined his life? Israel? No, Hizbullah. The Vatican would be well off to spend a day like I did and getting to know the worries and fears of their co-religionists before making stupid and incorrect, not to mention borderline anti-Semitic allegations. Placing blame on Israel for the plight of Christians in the Middle East is about as honest as saying Pope Pius saved millions of Jews during the Holocaust. When issuing documents, let the Vatican find some proof in their archives that disproves that he was no saint in this regard. And while they’re looking, perhaps they can return some of the loot from our Temple that the Romans destroyed 1960 years ago, lest they be accidental accomplices in erasing the Jewish, and Christian, roots of the Land of Israel. If the Vatican does not want to ask the Christians themselves, just take a look at the former Christian cities of Nazareth and Bethlehem. Churches are overshadowed by Mosques whose green illuminated minarets dominate the sky line like an Islamic game of connect the dots. But the Vatican is who needs to be connecting the dots to see the true picture that it is an intolerant stream of Islam that is the guilty party for the plight of the Christians here. Any Vatican discussion of the plight of Christians in the Middle East that is not grounded in reality will relegate the remaining Christians living here as an endangered species to extinction. The Holy See should take a better look. Jonathan Feldstein http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com

Darkness at the End of the Tunnel

2010-01-24T10:43:00.000+02:00

Scarcely a year after the end of Israel’s military operation in Gaza to stop the daily barrage of missiles and rockets fired at Israeli communities by the thousands, a new war is raging involving the Palestinians and Gaza. But this time it’s a war of religious edicts (fatwas) between Palestinian factions that seek to ban and, conversely, justify, the digging and operating of smuggling tunnels under Gaza’s border with Egypt. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1263147877009 This is just another chapter in the saga of the network of smuggling tunnels that have become a big and profitable business in Gaza, one that even the Hamas leadership “lisences,” taxes, and from which it profits. As a result, other problems have arisen relating to the tunnels, including groups calling upon Hamas to guarantee workers rights for those who dig and operate the tunnels. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256799082916&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull It seems that tunnel business can be dangerous and risky. What’s next, a Gaza Tunnel Diggers and Workers Local 101 union complete with a pension, health benefits and of course a hefty life insurance (martyr’s) policy? Maybe the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey should step in to offer expertise in management, maintenance, and an easy, efficient electronic toll collecting system with each worker wearing a transmitter around his neck to clock each time he passes a toll collection point and registering what his toll is at the end of the day. Regrettably, as much as these incidents expose a darker side of the tunnel digging industry, in no case – either the fatwas for or against the tunnels, or those brazen enough to fault Hamas for sanctioning the tunnels to begin with, yet not providing for the safety of the workers – none on the Palestinian side have come out and just said it’s wrong to use these tunnels for smuggling, especially of weapons, drugs, and women for prostitution. Until recently Egypt, whose territorial integrity has been violated daily by the tunnel operators and illegal traffic, commerce, and overt smuggling, didn’t say a peep. I could even make the case that Gaza’s residents may in fact be stuck between a tunnel and a hard place, and may be legitimately upset that Israel closes its border with Gaza to prevent the delivery of all but the most basic humanitarian needs. (This does not mitigate the fact that Israel fosters the shipment of literally tons of humanitarian supplies that do cross into Gaza all the time, or the regular flow of Palestinian patients from Gaza into Israel to be treated at Israeli hospitals.) But the proclivity to blame Israel for any Gaza problems raises two questions to which I have just not seen a good answer. If the humanitarian situation is indeed so bad there, why would Hamas allow the smuggling of drugs, weapons and prostitutes, as well as suitcases of cash and other wanted criminals and terrorists? Other than the inherent vice associated with these things that presumably contradict Islamic law, if the tunnels are indeed necessary to avert a humanitarian crisis, shouldn’t every tunnel be used exclusively to solve the humanitarian needs of their population? But of course, that would mean Hamas changing its MO and actually caring about the well being of the population under its iron clad extremist grip. Oh, and it would mean giving up its cynical blaming of Israel for all their problems, even when they fabricate a situation that is based on one lie building the foundation for the next. And whether the humanitarian situation is so bad or not, why is it Israel’s responsibility to open the borders to importing of any supplies into Gaza, especially when doing so often is a catalyst for terrorist attacks on the very convoys of food and other supplies that are being brought across. Of course this is not to mention the fact that Hamas, and Gaza especially under Hamas’ control, is a hostile enemy entity which seeks to terrorize and ultimately destroy Israel. Why must Israel prop that up and support it at all, let alone be considered the sole responsible party? Golda Meir once said that Israel and the Arabs will only have peace when the Arabs care more about the lives of their children more than they care about killing ours. Allow me a modern interpretation. Israel will only have peace, and the Palestinians under Hamas’ grip will only truly have freedom and prosperity, when the tunnels they dig have light and not darkness coming in from both sides, and the contents of goods and traffic through these tunnels are for the welfare of their own population, not to harm or delegitimize Israel’s. If the tunnels are indeed necessary, let them be used exclusively for good. If the world truly cares about the plight of the Palestinians in general, and those in Gaza in particular, let it clamp down to prevent the Hamas terrorist warlords who control Gaza from using the suffering of the residents of Gaza as an excuse for continued smuggling of weapons, drugs and human beings which are only associated with terror, vice, and crime. And let the people of Gaza end the fatwa wars, take control of their destiny by forcing Hamas out, and let them assert that the tunnel business and Hamas itself are bad for their well being. To borrow a phrase from the 1960s, let the world in general, and Palestinians in particular affirm that, “Smuggling and illicit tunnels are not healthy for Palestinians and other living things.”

David and Jonathan

2010-01-01T13:54:00.000+02:00

The Torah has many lessons about many aspects of life that can be relevant to almost everyone, in one way or another. Some only become clear at different stages and phases of life. There are many Biblical models of friendship but one that is most striking is that of David and Jonathan. Their relationship is particularly interesting because while they should have been competitors for Saul’s throne, instead they were best friends. We all should be lucky enough to have at least one such relationship in our lives. I have been fortunate to have many, and since moving to Israel to make many more. Recently, I was thinking of one of my earliest, substantial, and most meaningful friendships with a dear friend whose name happened to be David. No, we did not reconnect on Facebook. A mutual friend found some letters from 25 years ago that he had written to her, and shared them with me. It brought back vivid memories of early morning classes and late night conversations from the 1980s. I met David during my freshman year of college. We were fraternity brothers and became instant friends. David became the closest thing to an older brother that I had. We shared hopes and fears, talked politics and religion, cooked meals, and drank together. There was scarcely anything that David and I didn't talk about, and we learned many things from each other. My friendship with David was, and remains, one of my most cherished relationships. When I met David he had just returned to college following surgery and recovery from having a grapefruit-sized tumor removed along with a large piece of his colon. His prognosis was very good, and he returned to finish his senior year at Emory. In addition to studying, David did a good bit of informal teaching, about recovery from cancer. I never knew about the effects of morphine, either as a hallucinogen or as a pain killer, or what a colostomy bag was. A grandmother had died from cancer, but I never knew what recovery was like, or about what one who has/had cancer and is in recovery was thinking. I didn’t know David before his cancer, but he was entirely open with me about all his thoughts, not just about cancer, but about life. In addition to being open about his hopes and fears, David retained an extraordinary sense of humor. It was common to have nick-names in the fraternity and David was no different. His was “semi-colon.” His fraternity jersey had our three Greek letters on the front and, while others had their names or nick names on the back, David’s simply had the punctuation mark “;” representing the name by which we all knew him affectionately. Having cancer forced David to confront many things that an average college student never considered, or even knew about. David graduated and stayed in Atlanta for a while where our friendship continued to flourish. He returned to New Jersey and was preparing to go to medical school when, following a typical post surgical medical checkup, it was discovered that his cancer had returned. David had to put medical school on hold to deal with more chemo and other treatments in order to beat the cancer again. If medical schools took credits for personal experience, David would surely have entered far ahead of his classmates. His understanding of medicine, cancer, surgery, recovery, and both the physical and psychological side effects made David far more aware and sensitive to aspects of medicine that most medical students would take years to learn. And it drove him to get well so he could be the best doctor he could be. In the 1980s, before e-mail, Facebook, cell phones, or even long distance phone plans, keeping in touch long distance was harder. David and I did so with an occasional phone call, and the now antiquated art of letter writing. My studies kept me busy in Atlanta and I rarely traveled to the north. After graduating, I kept busy finding a job and planning my second visit to the USSR to continue my advocacy for Soviet Jews. David had been a huge supporter and participant in my advocacy for Soviet Jews. We talked about it all the time, and why it was imperative to do everything we could. In October 1987, I returned to my parents’ house in Jew Jersey for a visit en route to the USSR. This trip was less nerve stressful than my first trip two years earlier, partly because I was going with a friend, and partly because I had already been there before. But I was still nervous. David was too ill at the time to drive himself to visit me before my departure, so he had his parents drive him the 90 minutes to my parents’ house so that he could visit me, encourage me, and partly live this impending experience through me while giving me an outlet for my nerves. Among the things in my life that I’ll never forget was that visit. David was bald again, thin bordering on emaciated, and his bright eyes were sunken, all as a result of the new round of chemo that was trying to arrest the cancer. Yet, as physically weak and broken as he looked, David was vibrant and full of life. His eyes were piercing and his interest in the mission on which I was about to embark was intense. David was interacting with me on every level of his being. As he left, we embraced and agreed that I’d be in touch after my safe return. He was not worried about my safety, but he knew I was. I returned to the US after an “adventure” filled trip and filed lengthy reports with the Soviet Jewry organizations and many individuals that had facilitated my trip. I sent David a copy. Settling back into a routine, I got a job, winter came, and my life went on. One day I got a call that David had died. My emotions ranged from shock, sadness, and denial. I realized then that David probably knew he was dying which is why he made the effort to visit me two months earlier. But I had not understood that. Maybe he didn’t want me to. I was in Atlanta and the funeral was in New Jersey the next day amid a winter storm. As much as David was, and always will be, one of my closest friends, I still regret not having been able to make it to the funeral. We held a memorial for David with friends from the fraternity, Emory, and all over Atlanta. This was important closure for us all, and even though he had left Atlanta several months earlier, the void of his death was pronounced. If David had lived, ours is a relationship that would have transcended the need for Facebook because we’d have been in close touch even throughout these many years. We’d have danced at each others’ weddings, shared the blessings and challenges of parenthood, stresses and achievements of work, and endless thoughts on life. Instead, I have a child named for David who I hope will grow up knowing at least this much about the man behind the name. I have been blessed with many “David and Jonathan” relationships since then. Not all my closest friends are named David, but my friendship with David is the model upon which I base many of these relationships since. David’s death was, and is, a big loss in my life. It has not been replaced by other relationships, but supplemented by them. David taught me many things, including dealing with mortality. As I have gotten older, one of the best things that I have been able to take away from my friendship with David is to realize that life is finite and that the “David and Jonathan” relationships that we are fortunate to have are ones that should never be taken for granted.

Taking Stock in Hamas

2009-12-29T21:07:00.000+02:00

If Hamas were a publically traded company, there's little doubt that they would be rated a stock to buy. As it appears Israel may be about to strike a deal with Hamas to release nearly 1000 terrorists and others in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped and held hostage for three and a half years by Hamas in Gaza, it’s a safe bet that upon concluding this deal, Hamas’ stock will go up. Especially on the Arab street. Hamas’ ability to kidnap and hold Shalit hostage all these years gives them added prowess in the eyes of the Arab world for holding Israel at bay. Exchanging Shalit for as many as 1000 Arab terrorists will be perceived as a big victory for Hamas. In business terms, it’s like launching a new product that replaces that of the nearest competition, or the conclusion of a hostile takeover. Yes, if Hamas were a publically traded company, now would be a good time to buy. But a careful analyst, while issuing a recommendation to “buy Hamas” now because of the impending deal, and a resulting increase of Hamas’ value, would be remiss not to consider other factors that might change the “buy” recommendation to a to a “sell”, almost as quickly as many of the terrorists who are expelled from the region find their way back to Gaza through the porous border with Egypt, through the network of tunnels to which Egypt and the world turn a blind eye. One of the reasons Hamas’ stock is likely to dive as fast as it rises is an ongoing conflict with Egypt. While Egypt facilitates the smuggling of weapons, drugs, prostitutes and terrorists through the tunnels if only in not preventing it, Egypt has been embarrassed by Hamas too many times and consequences are likely to arise. Egypt has been trying to serve as the broker to strike a deal to release Shalit but Hamas has embarrassed Egypt by seeking to work through German mediators. Egypt has also been trying to strike a reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah since the violent Hamas insurrection that saw Fatah and the ruling Palestinian Authority expelled from power in Gaza, and the establishment of a mini Hamas terror state in Gaza under its total hegemony. Hamas’ agreeing to, and then retracting from, reconciliation with Fatah was a personal slight to Egyptian President Mubarak, diminishing Mubarak’s own stock in the Arab world, challenging his strength, influence and even legitimacy. As a result, Egypt announced its plan recently to build a 30-40 meter deep underground metal wall along the Gaza border to block and prevent smuggling in the tunnels which, until now, they have let happen with virtual impunity if not active support. The political struggle between Egypt and Hamas aside, were smuggling like this to be stopped or significantly diminished, access to many items that have been smuggled will decrease, their prices will increase, and Hamas’ stock on the street will fall. While Hamas’ stock may well go up as a result of its ability to strike a deal that sees the release of as many as 1000 terrorists and others, a good analyst will not discount the fact that a year ago this week, Hamas instigated a battle that saw Gaza attacked and an equal number of Gazans killed as a result. If half of the human tragedy that Hamas (and Goldstone) claimed took place actually did take place, while there may be cause for celebration in the release of the terrorists on Gaza’s streets, nobody can ignore that the suffering that Gazans have endured is a direct result and consequence of Hamas’ religious extremism, ideological intransigence, and their unrelenting attacks on Israel whose very existence they still give no legitimacy. With nothing changing on the extremism, intransigence or physical attacks, a good analyst will know it’s just a matter of time before there is another battle that could see 1000 or more Gazans killed, again. This too will diminish Hamas’ stock on the Arab street. There is a great conflict in Israel over this deal with Hamas. There is near universal support for and solidarity with the Shalit family and desire to bring Gilad Shalit home. He is one of us and could be any of our sons. But there is equal division, and are lots of questions, about at what price to do this. How should the relatives of someone murdered by these (soon-to-be-released) terrorists feel that their murderer is going free? How should any of us feel in making such a deal? It gives us pause to go out for coffee, ride a city bus, or spend a holiday with family in a hotel, knowing that the terrorists responsible for some of the worst terror attacks in places just like this are running free, plotting to do it again. There is concern that in making such a deal we are legitimizing Hamas’ tactics and rewarding terrorism. The world chastises Israel for fighting Hamas which is part of the reason that Israel does so without completing the battle and crushing them entirely. Yet the very completion of the deal at hand may be the inevitable act that necessitates Israel to fight Hamas yet again. Of course, Hamas is not a publically traded stock but a criminal Jihadist terrorist organization. In business there are any number of factors that cause a company’s stock to rise and fall. Some we can project and predict. Others surprise even the best analysts and planners, and can only be responded to. If Hamas were a publically traded company and I were a business analyst, I would project is that a deal to release Gilad Shalit for some 1000 terrorists and others may increase Hamas’ short term value and may bring Gilad Shalit home to sleep peacefully in his own bed at last. But, I’d issue a call to sell shares in Hamas as fast as Shalit gets home, because his return will give no reason for Israelis, or Palestinians, reason to sleep peacefully for very long.

Cousins

2009-12-27T08:47:00.000+02:00

This week is the anniversary (yartzeit) of the death of my grandfather. He was born in Poland to Yosef and Yaffa Feldstein, and made aliyah in 1931. He and my grandmother were married and she arrived in Israel in 1933 where my father was born 4 years later. Luck, and passionate Zionism, had it that my grandfather’s arrival was eased by the earlier arrival of some of his siblings. By shortly after Israel declared statehood, he lived in Israel with three sisters and a brother who had either made it to Israel before the Holocaust, or in the case of one brother, survived the war and arrived afterward with his surviving son. Most families of Polish Jews were not as lucky as the Feldstein siblings who survived and were reunited all in close proximity to one another. A variety of circumstances transpired that my father and his mother left Israel in order to reunite with her two brothers and sister who survived the War and had settled in New York. In 1963, my grandfather died. He is buried in the beautiful old Haifa cemetery. According to Ashkenazi Jewish custom, since I was born after he died, I am named for him. While my father returned to Israel immediately after his father died, he lost touch with his uncles and aunts and cousins. I knew the names of uncles and aunts, but had no real way of finding them. During my junior year in college I studied in Israel and visited Haifa often. When I’d visit, I’d go to the cemetery to look after my grandfather’s grave. But other than imagining what my grandfather was like, a man whose name I carried but who I never knew, I had an ulterior motive. I’d leave notes on the grave, wrapped in plastic, weighed down under the rocks that were the sign that I visited, with the hope that a sibling, niece or nephew or old friend might find it and I’d reunite with my family that I didn’t know. I don’t know if they were ever found, but I never received any indication that they were. During my first visit to Israel, and the only time that I’d be in Israel together with my father, he brought us to visit his old neighborhood and his school. He found an elderly former neighbor who recognized him immediately after 30 plus years, and found an electronic shop owned by his best childhood friend, Ben Zion, across the street from where my father grew up (and next to where my grandmother once had a clothing shop of her own). We found that Ben Zion lived just two buildings down on the same street in which they grew up and where they played together as children. While it was meaningful and interesting to see where my father spent his early years, and I really enjoyed being taken in by Ben Zion and his family as if I were family, I always wondered about the biological family my father left behind. I wondered how he dealt with going to the US with his mother to reunite with her siblings who survived the Holocaust, and what it was like in an age prior to the internet and easy phone access to leave a parent so many miles away, just as his parents had done leaving their families in Poland, never knowing when, or if, they’d see each other again. Many years later, after my own father had died, I still had an unquenchable desire to find my Israeli relatives. Every time I’d meet a Feldstein I had to play genealogist to see if maybe we were related and if I could track that person’s family to find my own. Once, on vacation in Israel, I took a Haifa phone book and called all the Feldsteins, but had no luck considering that there was only one surviving male relative and all the sisters took on their husbands’ names. Ten years ago, I stumbled upon a Jewish genealogy web site and tried to look up all possible configurations of names and locations to find living relatives. http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org brought me to a page on which a woman also named Feldstein was looking for relatives from the same town from which my grandfather came. Her phone number was a Haifa area number. I could not contain my excitement. I woke up early the next day, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, and called her. In my broken Hebrew, I was able to discern that her husband was indeed my father’s first cousin. As I would learn later, Shlomo arrived in Israel after the War with his father, Jacob, and lived with my father and his parents until they got settled on their own. After searching most of two decades, I had found my family. Fortunately, my mother had planned a family trip to Israel that December and thirteen American Feldsteins had a family reunion with nearly 100 other Israeli descendants of Yosef and Yaffa Feldstein, finally meeting our Israeli family for the first time. After moving to Israel with my own family in 2004, I was able to get to know my relatives here somewhat. We were moved that some of my father’s cousins (and their children) joined us at the celebrations of our daughters’ bat mitzvahs, we have shared in their celebrations, and have had other occasions to visit and get to know one another, some more than others. What’s so interesting is that one cousin after the next are really fine people. While none are religiously observant, they are proud Jews and Israelis. They run the political spectrum from right to left. I have enjoyed getting to know them as people, but also have been grateful for their ability – and willingness – to piece together my own family history by sharing parts of their past, and memories of my father and his parents. This past summer we were invited to the 80th birthday of my father’s oldest cousin, David. We had met the cousins before but had not seen some since 1999. Just before the party, I found a photo of my grandfather along with several others and shared it with David. As I suspected, this was my grandfather and his siblings all in Poland, including each of the brothers and sisters who made aliyah, and a brother, Ephraim, who was murdered during the Holocaust. Sharing the photo at the party brought back memories to the cousins, and brought me closer to them. As I sat with them, I couldn’t help think that my father really would have loved to have been there. It would have made him happy to sit with his cousins and reminisce even though he left Israel as a young man and did not see them again. My father would have been proud to see that everyone grew up and came out OK, that they had raised beautiful families of their own. It was sad that he couldn’t have been there with us, but I was happy, and fortunate, that I had the privilege myself. My grandfather was the first of his siblings (in Israel) to die, and my father was the first among his cousins. These are not milestones about which to be especially proud, but that’s the reality. Now, ten years after reuniting with my family and 46 years after my grandfather’s death, I hope that circumstances will enable my nuclear family and all generations of my extended family to get to know one another and share many happy occasions together. We are very different people with very different perspectives, but we are all family and descendants of those who left Poland to build a better life for themselves in Israel. By thriving in Israel, we honor their memory and truly play a direct and active role in realizing the goals and dreams that they had for themselves, and for us. We fulfill the dreams of my grandfather, who never knew his grandchildren or great grandchildren, but who came to Israel so we’d have the privilege of being here as well. As I observe the yartzeit of the man for whom I am named, wondering about his life, I know that if he were around still he’d be very proud of our coming full circle, not just living here but in our reuniting with my father’s cousins with a common bond and a common destiny, as well as our common DNA.

An 'Al Het' Too Little Too Late

2009-12-27T08:45:00.000+02:00

To the Editor, Jimmy Carter's sudden crocodile apology to the Jewish community is about as sincere as the probability of his reversing the flow of the Chattahoochee River. While it might be a stretch to doubt that Carter may truly wish for peace in the Middle East, his calculating “apology” is hard to accept given three decades of his cozying up to Arab terrorists and their collaborators, his faulting Israel for every problem in the Middle East, and blaming the Israeli victims of Arab terrorism. After three decades of strong arming and pointing a finger at Israel at every opportunity, Carter's word is about as good as the United States' credit rating during his presidency. Demonstrable actions are needed to back up his words, not copying liturgy from Judaism's most solemn Day of Repentance. Judaism requires meaningful actions to accompany repentance, not just the insincere utterance of scripted words. This is the standard by which Carter's sudden “apology” should be measured and judged, maybe in another 30 years. Jonathan Feldstein No1abba@gmail.com Jerusalem, Israel

Who Will Take Care of My Fruit Trees?

2009-11-20T11:56:00.000+02:00

Recently, I started looking for a new gardener, someone to cut my small lawn and maintain the flowers and shrubs we have, but mostly someone who will care for the six beautiful fruit trees and grape vine that we have in our yard. Before moving to Israel I had a small garden, growing tomatoes and herbs mostly. But in Israel there is something unique about planting trees in general, and fruit trees in particular. These are a point of great pride and pleasure to be able to harvest and enjoy fruits that are grown in the land of Israel. As I was looking for a gardener, among the several referrals, I got one from someone whose yard is particularly beautiful whose gardener is in miluiim (military reserves) until the end of the month. This made me wonder that if I hired him, there could be extended periods during which nobody would take care of my garden, and mostly the fruit trees, for a full month. This also made me realize that we have been immune to military service and the need to do reserve duty in my own family; but it won’t be that long before this changes. Most immediately, a good friend and former neighbor who is like an older daughter, Rachel, made aliyah recently. She is getting married next month. We’re all excited for the wedding and that it will be in Jerusalem, meaning one less simcha among dear friends that we’ll miss in the old country. We look forward to dancing and celebrating with her and her soon to be husband, Moshe. Rachel will be initiated very early into a side aliyah that we don’t know because her husband is called to miluiim regularly. For a newlywed, much less a new immigrant, this can and will be trying and stressful. We also have good friends and new neighbors who are native Israelis and also leave their families periodically for 2-4 weeks at a time to do their required miluiim, and their sons, and sometimes daughters, who do mandatory military service for two to three years and sometimes more. We can see that this disrupts the family, that kids need their fathers, and siblings miss their big brothers and sisters. But as stressful and out of sorts as this may be, for people who were born here, or long time veterans, it is the normal pace of life. That does not make it any less stressful I am sure, but the stress is probably different because it is expected. It’s what they know. When we moved to Israel, I was too old to serve in the army, so we’ll never have the inconvenience of me being out of the house like that. But eventually my children will. My daughters will grow up, get married and raise families knowing that it’s the norm that for a month or so every year their husbands will be called into the army for miluiim, and with the awareness that at any point that they could be called into actual battle. My sons will grow up, get married and from time to time leave their families as they are called into miluiim. This will be their norm. It will be stressful and inconvenient at best. But it will be their norm. Another incident that made this hit home was that my 5th grade son’s teacher was called up into miluiim recently, just for a week. But this took place toward the beginning of the school year, just as my son was bonding with this teacher, and learning himself how best to learn with and from this teacher. Not that the substitute teacher was bad by any stretch, but it upsets the pace of life, the continuity of living. But here it’s the norm. We put a lot of trust and faith in the teachers who spend most of our kids’ waking days with them, that they will teach them, set a positive example, help mold them, and enable them to blossom and flourish. Of course it’s much more important that the teachers have a positive impact on the kids than the gardener who takes care of our lawns, shrubs and fruit trees. Yet, the fruit trees, especially in Israel, are vastly important. And the fruit tree is an appropriate metaphor for our children. I have six fruit trees, and I have six children. Children and fruit trees both need constant attention, nourishment, care and a guiding hand. If left alone without these, a tree will deteriorate and die. Entrusting a gardener to maintain these is very important. How much more so this is the case with a teacher. And even more so with a parent. Parents teach their kids many things by example, however in moving to Israel at the age and stage of life that I did, military service was not required. One might even say that the army didn’t want me, leading me to the relief, paraphrasing Groucho Marx, that “I wouldn’t want to be a member of an army that would have me as a member”, anyway. But my kids will only know of the imposition and hardships of military service from their friends, future spouses and others who have gone through this. Of course there is, and should be, pride in serving to defend our country, our home, as much as there is a hope that one day we won’t have to do so. Military service and miluiim are not something that’s part of our life now, but will be part of my fruit, as they grow up and yield their own fruit. Whether relating to a gardener, teacher or future spouse, I can’t help wondering that when military service and miluiim comes to my kids’ lives, who will take care of my fruit trees?

To PC or not to PC

2009-11-13T10:15:00.000+02:00

I stayed up late in Israel on Monday to watch the memorial ceremony at Fort Hood and was struck both by the loss, and the crime that was committed. The memorial was truly poignant and my heart goes out to the families of the victims, and for a full and speedy recovery of those who were injured.

I was also struck by the fact that while in some news outlets and media reports (perhaps more so as facts are discovered), the majority have not focused on the reality that the perpetrator of this crime was motivated by Islamic extremism and hatred. There’s no need to suggest that this makes all Moslems bad. That’s not accurate and not fair. But there’s also no need to bury this out of a sense of hyper political correctness. That’s also not accurate or fair because, especially in the case of such fanaticism, people deserve to know the facts and to be aware of challenges that may confront them, be it at a shopping mall, sky scraper, at an airport or even within the security of a US military base.

Does hyper political correctness breed or foster terrorism? No. Terrorists foster terrorism and any other excuses are simple folly. However, if we can’t call an Islamic terrorist a terrorist, are we blinding ourselves from the probability that not only will it happen again, but that it will catch us off guard, and possibly enter a military base or other area which we never imagined would be within the terrorists reach. Of course, nobody ever imagined that Islamic terrorists would ever take down the World Trade Center, murdering 3000. Except the terrorists.

It seems that in an effort by the Obama administration to reach out and establish dialogue with the Moslem world, the US has had to dumb down certain realities relating to Islamic terror. The Administration does not use Islamic and terrorist in the same sentence, even when it’s as plain as day and incontrovertible. Too much of the news media is quick to follow suit. The Administration seems to go out of its way to stick its' head in the sand to avoid risking the ire of Moslems around the world, putting our collective head in the sand along with theirs by making the average person simply not aware of the realities and challenges that these terrorists pose. How, in a representative democracy, do we hold our elected leaders accountable for doing their job, or not, if they’re hiding the truth to begin with.

In the early aftermath of the reporting of the terrorist attack at Fort Hood, I was watching Geraldo Rivera as part of a panel discussing this. Geraldo is not known to be the most conservative of thinkers to put it mildly. It was telling that when the issue of addressing this as an Islamic terrorist attack and the potential need to give extra scrutiny to Moslems within the US military, even Geraldo hesitated. His inclination is that it’s wrong, but faced with the facts, his hesitation was significant. I appreciate that many people feel that politically such scrutiny, maybe even (hated) profiling, would be an affront to their democratic sensibilities. I love that we can have that debate in a free and open society, even though I fall on the side of those who would limit personal freedom for the greater good and public safety. But equally telling is that when a man like Geraldo whose own social and political leanings are to the left hesitates to give what might otherwise be a knee-jerk reaction, you know that there’s something wrong with this picture.

When President Obama, and the majority of the news media, cannot bring themselves to connect the fact that the perpetrator espoused violent and hateful fundamentalist Islamic ideologies, and that the murder was an Islamic terrorist attack against Americans on US soil, the best one can say is that it is misleading. The President can allude to this by calling it a “tragedy” and saying “no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts, no just and loving God looks upon them with favor,” but by not calling it what it is, but not expecting Moslems who find this an affront as well to look deeper inside their own communities to out those who would seek to harm others and the interests of the United States, is as much of an outrage as it is to call the murders at Fort Hood merely a “tragedy.” It’s tragic when a young person dies needlessly in a car accident or by some other natural disaster. It’s tragic when a child is left without his parents. But Fort Hood is much more. The same way the President said that “no words can fill the void that has been left,” so too the wrong words can cause this to happen again.

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that the memorial for the victims of the Fort Hood terrorist attack took place on the same day as the execution of another murderer, John Allen Muhammed, the Beltway Sniper. Some have attributed his murder spree as an attempt to set up a terrorist training base in Canada. Who knows? But we deserve the right to know, and not have the religious origin of this, or any other crime, clouded by the opiate of political correctness.

Shakespeare wrote “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” So to terrorism by any other name would be as foul. But first let’s call a rose a rose, a spade a spade, and an Islamic terrorist an Islamic terrorist, and stop with the modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s other timeless question, ”to PC or not to PC, that is the question.”

Let us hold elected leaders and news media accountable for lies of omission, and let them call a terrorist a terrorist without worrying how it will play in Cairo, Riyadh or Tehran. After all, if we can’t stop Islamic terrorists from trying to kill us, I’d at least like to know who it is taking aim so I can be careful.

I am not a Fish

2009-11-04T17:28:00.001+02:00

There are many challenges along the road to making aliyah and successful absorption in Israel. I realize that as challenging as things may be, we have it much easier than the waves of olim who preceded us, whether in the first and second aliyah, my grandparents arrival in the 1930s, waves of Jews from Arab lands in the 40s and 50s, Soviet and Ethiopian Jews more recently, etc. Among the many challenges is language: Learning Hebrew. Acquiring Hebrew is the product of formally studying in an ulpan, but also interaction with other Israelis and learning from them and their Hebrew in real time. But because Israel is a country of immigrants from many countries all over the world, grammar, slang and accents are not uniform, so to the ears of a relatively new immigrant, one never really knows if the real Hebrew used on the streets is what all Israelis use, or just that of another oleh who does not know any better than another. Another challenge is that sometimes it’s very easy and comfortable not to have to learn Hebrew, and one can speak his or her native language, in my case English, and get along just fine. Recently, I heard a story of a neighbor’s grandmother who lived, and died, here for decades, but still never spoke Hebrew. But that does make those moments when one has to speak in Hebrew all the more challenging, especially when your grandchildren are not raised to speak your native (or most comfortable) language. I was reminded recently of an experience that took place when I dropped my youngest son off at gan (Kindergarten) for the first time. He's the youngest of our six children and our only native Israeli. We only speak English in the house so he was in for a culture shock as well as the trauma of being left alone for the first time. I said to the head of the gan (a veteran immigrant herself from Tunisia) as I left, "B'hatzlacha." (Good luck). She replied, "Al tidag." (Don’t worry.) My verb conjugation was very off and I replied, "Ani lo dag." (I am not a fish.), when what I meant was “Ani lo do’eg” (I am not worried). I think she understood, I hope. As my youngest son experiences Israel as a native Israeli and grows up and is educated in Hebrew like my other children are, and to which they have adapted so well, I hope that my own Hebrew will improve and that I won’t make these mistakes again, or at least not as much. I have resigned to the fact that this might not happen, and I will always be an immigrant, like my grandparents and great grandparents before them. Even my father was an immigrant. It’s hard. But since I come from a long line of immigrants, and since they all made it, so will I. I am not worried, ani lo do’eg. But if I remain an illiterate, I just hope that my kids laugh with us, and not at us. Whether I tell someone I am not a fish or, as my wife once said in giving directions to the house, turn right at “the ceiling with the trees.” But either way, I’ll get by. I hope that my grandchildren will understand me and that my children’s future spouses will not think I am a total moron if I smile and nod a lot in place of more substantial verbal communication. I am not worried, ani lo do’eg. And, in case you were wondering, I am also not a fish.

School's Back. Dialogue Safely.

2009-09-29T14:07:00.003+02:00

At the end of the last academic year, I had a unique opportunity to meet with students completing a year on various academic, religious and volunteer programs in Israel. I was asked to talk with them about Jewish life on campus in the US, albeit that it had been more than 20 years since I had been a student leader on my own campus. I was worried that I wouldn’t have much to offer, and mindful that while it doesn't feel as if it’s been so long, or that I am not as young as I feel (or as the students are), I am now old enough to be their parent. Many of the students were finishing a “gap year” as part of the Jewish Agency’s MASA program (http://www.masaisrael.org/masa/english) and were interested in all kinds of information on the verge of entering their first year of college. Some students were completing a junior year abroad and looking forward to returning to complete their senior year. As a Jewish student leader at Emory University in the mid 1980s, I was involved in a wide array of advocacy on behalf of Soviet Jewry, pro-Israel activities, student lobbies in Washington and no shortage of cultural and social events. For my assignment to meet with the students this year, I was briefed about the current status of Jewish life on campus, availability of kosher food, who to contact at Hillel, etc. What surprised me the most is that while nearly across the board all the students wanted to be involved with Jewish and pro Israel activities on campus, similarly most of the incoming students were concerned about the level of anti Israel and anti Semitic activities on campus. In my own day, as I expanded my activities beyond Emory and entered the national sphere of Jewish student activities, I became aware of a phenomenon that existed on other campuses, but not on mine. Jewish students were harassed, pro-Israel events were protested, and hateful anti Israel and anti Semitic activities were common. I made a determination to preempt, and possibly prevent, these activities from infecting Emory and, as president of Hillel, established a formal dialogue with the Moslem Student Association. In truth, our formal dialogue between organizations never took root, but it was a meaningful and interesting accomplishment to hold several sessions relating to common and divergent religious practices and beliefs of Moslems and Jews, while agreeing to avoid topics that might create division. Through the course of these interactions, I became friendly with the MSA president, Ahmed, a Sunni medical student from Syria. We let our guards down and discussed politics, religion and “the Arab Israel conflict.” I don't know that we changed one another's views, but we did open one another's minds. One of the most memorable instances was when Ahmed asked me to take him to a lecture off campus by Rabbi Meir Kahane. Afterward, Ahmed said he respected Kahane and that if he were Jewish, he'd be like Kahane. Regrettably, over the years hateful anti Israel activism began to seep into and infect the Emory campus. Experiences of one of the students with whom I met this year sounded like stories I had heard from other campuses some two decades earlier. This past year Emory became one of the campuses to sink to hosting an “Israel Apartheid Week” which served to make Israel a punching bag for all of the ills of the Arab world in general, and Palestinians in specific, while not considering their own culpability in decades of war, terror, and hostility. Further, these ignorant expressions of hate and anti Semitism not only discredit Israel at every turn, but often deny Israel’s very legitimacy. Of course, while Emory did not have the long tradition of such hate fests and intimidation of Jewish students as other campuses have, Emory does have a special “asset” making the campus riper for sewing such activities in Jimmy Carter. Carter’s presidency in exile found a home at Emory shortly before I arrived. He has used this as a pulpit from which to espouse his own anti Israel bent, and share no shortage of his animosity toward, and lies about, Israel and its leaders. He has also taken academic integrity to a new low with allegations of plagiarism and a gross lack of balance or perspective in anything related to Israel and the Middle East. In meeting with the new Emory bound students, I was upset to hear that this was a prime concern of theirs. College is a time for opening one’s mind and learning. To enter college afraid that one’s inclination for supporting Israel and wanting to be involved with Israeli and Jewish activities on campus might somehow adversely impact their experience, or make them targets for hate speech, or worse, was a rude awakening. They asked my opinion about what to do, talking about my dialogue experience, interested in doing so as well. A current student spoke of a recent attempt to create such a dialogue that broke down with intolerable anti-Israel rhetoric. After all, it takes two to dialogue and if one party is only interested in shouting down the other and pointing a finger, then what’s the point. I digested their worries and assessed their questions. My answer to them was unconventional but one which, the more I consider, the more I think it’s on target. Certainly there will always be Arabs and Moslems willing to dialogue, but if the majority (or vocal minority) prevent that then I saw no point in trying to engage them. Dialogue is to create understanding, but if the other side does not want to understand, then it’s fruitless. My suggestion was to interact with people who may be more ideologically and religiously compatible. Dialogue does not need to mean suddenly loving one another and agreeing on everything, but opening one’s mind, listening, and understanding. An exchange of views, not a hate filled monologue. So my suggestion is that rather on focusing efforts to dialogue with Moslems or Arabs on campus, the students should reach out to Christians, with whom Jews share common western values and a Biblical foundation. It’s peculiar that many American Jews would run to have a dialogue with Moslems or Arabs, with whom we can have a perfectly good and meaningful interaction, but with whom we have many differences and a mindset that we are not likely to change much less effect, yet be loathe to interact with believing Christians. For Israel supporters, this is a much more logical venue, as one can understand the commonalities and differences in traditions and beliefs without having to dance around topics that might trigger a hate filled diatribe where a pro-Israel student may feel personally attacked, or threatened. Jews and Christians have many differences indeed, but a college setting is the best environment in which to learn about others. Arguably, that’s what a college experience should be. Some may be concerned about an ulterior motive, or feel threatened that some Christians are more knowledgeable than many Jews about their own faith and, in many cases, about Judaism as well. But this ought not be a reason to run away from such a dialogue but, rather, to use this educational setting to embrace it, as well as build a stronger foundation in one’s own Jewish identity as well as the framework for pro-Israel activities.

My Signature

2009-09-27T08:09:00.000+02:00

It’s still incredible to me that the pace of life in Israel revolves so much around Jewish life and holidays. Perhaps since I did not grow up with it and have only been living here for five years it takes getting used to, but I hope it will always be special and something that neither I nor my kids take for granted.

For the past few weeks, people have greeted one another in the spirit of the holiday seasons with wishes for a Shana Tova (a happy new year) and a gmar chatima tova (Literally: A good final sealing, idiomatically: May you be inscribed (in the Book of Life) for Good.) This is common throughout Israeli society, even among entirely non-observant people, and through every element of society. I was struck recently when listening to a particular secular oriented radio program and the hosts were wishing that to one another and to their call in guests.

In Hebrew, chatima also means signature. That got me thinking about signatures in general and about how the greeting is especially appropriate before Yom Kippur, not just as a greeting and good wishes, but as a charge and commitment.

As a child growing up in New Jersey, a place central to early American history, I learned many stories of the American Revolutionary War era. One was the story of John Hancock. Hancock was the first to sign the American Declaration of Independence. He did so in big, bold and even flamboyant letters so as to make a statement despite that the British viewed this and other similar actions of the colonies as criminal. Hancock and others were wanted criminals. But he didn’t care and used this opportunity not just to ratify the Declaration of Independence, but to make a statement in doing so.

Some 200 years later, having “borrowed” Hancock’s name and legacy as the name of a financial services company, a clever ad campaign suggested that the company had the integrity of its namesake. Similarly, the name “John Hancock” had become synonymous with one’s signature.

The season between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is one where we are to account for our sins and wrongs both between man and God, and one another, to sincerely commit not to do them again. We wish one another and ourselves to be inscribed, and sealed, in the Book of Life. But to do so requires action and commitment. Not just hollow words and following of a ritual prayer.

So too, when we sign our signature, it means that we are putting our name behind what we write. Whether the name on a check (made all the more relevant in a post-Madoff era) to vouch that the money is there (and perhaps that it’s been earned legally), on a letter or memo to a colleague or business associate giving our word and commitment to them, or on something as rudimentary as a note to school saying that your child can’t play sports because s/he does not feel well.

In short, our signature is our guarantee. We don’t literally sign a contract with God that we promise to do better, but we do that in effect through our words, thoughts, and actions. The opposite side of the coin beseeching God that we be inscribed is our “signature” that we commit to uphold our end.

Having the sincerity and humility to account for one’s shortcomings is not an easy thing in and of itself. Recognizing and understanding them is a process, especially when one has the challenge of turning over every figurative rock to reflect on such transgressions, even, or particularly those that were not intended. Apologizing and making amends for these is equally as hard, but it’s essential. Only then can we truly be forgiven, and only then can we really be accountable to make a commitment that we won’t do it again. Short of that is insincere, and though we may utter the words and beat our chest, it’s not complete.

Albeit impersonal but no less sincere, I realize that some of my writing in the past year has upset, offended or disappointed some readers. I value and appreciate the feedback (positive and negative), and truly try to internalize the constructive criticism, even when I do something as simple as butcher the grammar. So if I have hurt, offended or disappointed you at all in my past writings, please know I am truly sorry. Sometimes what I want to say and how I say it are not 100% in sync, and even when they are, there’s room for errors. But I will, and do, strive to continue to present my thoughts and insight in a way that is honest and accurate, and most definitely not offensive, unless speaking about Jimmy Carter. Sorry, I am still only human.

May we each go into the Day of Atonement with the humility and sincerity to account for the wrongs for which we are responsible, and make every effort to be sure that as we ask God to SEAL us in the Book of Life, that our word is as good as our signature. The legend is said of John Hancock when he signed the Declaration of Independence, he said, “There, I guess King George will be able to read that!”

Indeed. Let our “signature” this Yom Kippur be big enough for The King to read, and read into it the sincerity in every curve of every letter.

May you and your family be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life.

http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com

A Good Six Minutes

2009-09-21T10:08:00.001+03:00

Over lunch on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, I reflected with my family about, among other things, omens and hopes for the coming year. One daughter noted that taking a nap that afternoon could lead to a “sleepy” year. Perhaps, but I had a four year old who was exhausted from being out late the night before and I was bound to get him to lie down and sleep, even if it meant I had to lie down with him and fall asleep myself. The selfless things we do for our kids! My four year old fell into a deep sleep, and I was sleeping next to him a little less deeply, when I heard my older son run in the house and yell for a towel. It seems that when he was outside playing soccer (no doubt an omen for a playful, or sporting, year), the skies opened and he got drenched. When I woke up, I looked out the window and saw the puddle that accumulated at the bottom of our block, a strange site for September. In Israel, there are distinct seasons and rain usually does not begin so early. On the Jewish calendar, we begin to pray for rain only at the end of Sukkot, another three weeks off. After successive very dry years and a severe drought in effect, to the extent that our main sources of fresh water are at the lowest point in most of the last century, we need the rain desperately and I suspect that come the end of Sukkot, mine will not be the only one whose prayers are particularly fervent and sincere. Later that day, still somewhat incredulous that we had the rain that we did, I asked a neighbor if he was awake during the rain. He was. “How long did it rain?” I asked. “A good six minutes,” he replied. Of course, while it’s essential to have peace with our neighbors, the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan requires Israel to transfer 50 million cubic meters of water to Jordan every year. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if there were not enough water to transfer. Would Israel be in violation of the peace treaty and would Jordan declare war? Regardless, the additional responsibility to furnish Jordan with this vast amount of water is especially taxing to Israel’s limited water supply. The second day of Rosh Hashanah arrived wet too. I walked outside in the morning and noticed it had been raining, but no puddle suggesting a downpour. On the way to shul, little drops of rain fell on and around me, not even a drizzle, but noticeable nonetheless. At one point, my four year old ran in to happily report that it was raining, drops visible on his button down shirt and face. At his age, some six months since the last rain is a significant portion of his life so he ran back outside happily to play in the drizzle. Later, in the middle of services, the skies opened and the rain was both visible out the window, and audible on the roof. It’s interesting to be in Israel and how the pace of life literally revolves around the seasons that are Biblically ordained. The rains come in their season, the almost invisible presence of dew in its’, sabbatical years when the land is to lie fallow, and the harvest of various crops in exact sync with the Biblical recounting of these as if they were mile markers on a highway, everything coming in its season. As we start the New Year 5770, our thoughts and prayers turn to things that are reflective and often very personal. But, in a very short time, the seasonal prayer for rain will be upon us. Israel will benefit from the rains directly, or suffer the consequences of another dry winter. The rains impact us directly. But Jews around the world will have the responsibility and authority no less to enter the rainy season with sincere prayers for abundant rain in the Land of Israel. Of course, friends in North America who had rain these past summer months more reminiscent of Noah’s Ark probably want nothing to do with this. Yet, here, all we could do was look on in envy, with a faint hope and an early prayer that we too would benefit from some of that precipitation, in its season, for a blessing and not a curse, for life and not for death, and for bounty and not for scarcity. As much as I wouldn’t mind that my nap on the first day of the New Year was a positive omen for my getting a good nap on most Shabbat afternoons, even more so, I’d be elated if the rains that we were teased with the first two days of the New Year were an omen of something more to come, rains that will fill our lakes and rivers, revive the Dead Sea, and restore underground aqueducts. Most silently hope that the rains will come at night, but if they fill our days, that’s just fine by me. A good six minutes is a good start.

The Book of Life

2009-09-20T20:45:00.001+03:00

I have looked at the High Holidays very differently the past few years. I have been wondering what has shaped this new outlook and keep coming back to one word: Death.

Going through daily prayers during Elul, preceding Rosh Hashanah, and preparing for Rosh Hashanah itself, and the Ten Days of Repentance until Yom Kippur, I am more mindful (perhaps than ever) of the tone of the prayer. We devote ourselves to God and to keeping His commandments, but more now than during the whole year we have to reflect on our shortcomings and strive to do better in the coming year. We beseech God to be inscribed for a year of health, prosperity, peace and life.

And in going through this process we are aware that as much as He is the final Judge, the outcome of that judgment is in our own hands. How we behave, how we observe God's commandments, and how we interact with others all factor into the sealing of our fate for the coming year.

The Holidays are supposed to be a time of great joy, as well as introspection and prayer. Far too many Israeli homes will have an empty seat at the table this year and that is a hard thing to face, in general, and especially for those who have experienced death and loss through terrorism and war. For those paying attention to the prayers, there must be many among them who say the words, but do so with the feeling of a bone in one's throat. They wonder as they mourn, praying for health, life, peace, an annulment of harsh judgments, how God could have taken their loved one, whether three years ago in the Second Lebanon War, or two decades ago during the (First) Lebanon War, or just last week. They weep over the many ways we see that death can happen: fire, water, thirst, hunger, etc. and wonder how God could have allowed that Katyusha to kill the way it did, or the terrorist to be on target at that very moment, the plane to crash.

Others I am sure cannot even utter the words for they are too painful.

Thirteen years ago I went through a similar conflict. My father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer ten months earlier. We were told that by being diagnosed so early, he stood a better chance to survive if the treatments were successful, even though the survival rate from pancreatic cancer was a fraction of a percent. But after successive hospitalizations and surgeries, all the doctors told us there was no hope. I watched him decline physically, and I was probably in denial even until the very end. He came home from his final hospitalization just before Rosh Hashanah 1996, and my mother had the good sense to call hospice to be sure that his final days were lived in comfort and with as much dignity as possible.

That year, each time my wife lit candles to usher in another yom tov when we would be detached from news and communication with the outside world, my physiology changed. I feared that my father would die and I would not know about it for a day or two after.

Sitting in shul was about all I could do. I felt it was dishonest to follow a ritual of prayer that asked to heal the sick, annul judgments against us and to be inscribed in the book of life. My father lay dying, he could have been dead for all I knew, and my head and heart were not in it at all. I am sure I was angry. My faith hit rock bottom, and my grief was profound.

We were blessed during that time with an interruption of the pain in the birth of our third daughter. She was a joy to behold, and to hold. I argued with my wife that we should adopt the Sephardi custom of naming for the living rather than the Ashkenazi custom that we name for those who have died. She won, and she was right. But even in the minutes after she was born, as the whole world was filled with joy and happiness at her arrival, I was overcome by sadness and grief that she and my father would never get to know each other.

My father did get to meet her and hold her twice. He was clearly in awe, and fell in love with her instantly as he had with his other two granddaughters before that. But I stared on in pain because it was just not fair that these two opposite sides of the life cycle should come together like this.

My grief, anger and fear increased as Yom Kippur ended and Sukkot began. I wondered in a very strange way WHAT I HAD DONE to deserve the punishment of my father's death. How could God punish me like this?

Even as he lay unconscious from the increased medication to ease his pain, I was in shock, and definitely partly in denial. My father died on the 27^th of the Hebrew month Tishrei, days after Simchat Torah when we literally renew the cycle of reading the Torah. The Torah ends, and we begin reading it again from the start. Moshe dies after leading the Jewish people for 40 years, and then God creates life. There is no pause, no break in the reading from one week to the next as is done during the year. Many brighter than I have commented on this, but in its most simple form, this underscores that life itself is a cycle.

It has taken me the better part of these thirteen years to realize this, celebrating my daughter's 13^th birthday as we approach my father's thirteenth Yahrzeit. Three years ago, my mother died somewhat suddenly. When she was alive, we had the occasion to speak about death more than a few times. My fear of death has gone, and the grief after my mother's death was very different. Maybe it's not having living parents any more that has enabled me to crystallize these thoughts. My mother's healthy approach to living, not simply the state of being alive but doing something meaningful and productive with that time, however little or long we are given, is an inspiration for me. I know that she, and my father as well, would not want their death to be the end of our living.

As much as the grief and sense of loss has never gone away following my father's death, and that it was renewed by my mother's death, I am older and wiser and know that rather than my being punished, I was given the privilege of wonderful parents and many blessings along my life so far. I am happily married, raising six extraordinary children, and live in a beautiful home in the heart of Israel. My work is meaningful and enjoyable. I have the ability to give tzedaka rather than be on the receiving end. I have health and many talents with which I can help others. I do hope that I will be able to live a long time to enjoy these blessings and impart to my children these and many other wisdoms that will enable them to live and celebrate life fully.

At my mother's funeral, I spoke about the saddest part of the Torah, for me at least. That's the death of Moshe. He was the leader, the teacher, the inspiration that God chose and who the Jewish people followed to begin life again as free people in our own land. His death must have been met with a level of grief that was simply unknown until then. That's how I felt at my mother's death, the end of a generation and passing of the torch to a new generation. It is scary, sad and challenging to realize that you no longer have parents to fall back upon for support, unconditional love, wisdom and advice. And how much more so it must have been for the Jewish people to realize the awesome task of going forward without their leader.

These past few years, I have read the ending of the Torah with a new perspective. In a few weeks we'll read of Moshe's death, but what is happening now, building up to that point, is he is preparing the people to go on without him. He's reminding them what he taught them before. He is training a new leader to follow in his place. And he is giving us inspiration and hope that as hard as things may get, everything will turn out alright.

It has taken thirteen years, but I realize that now. My father's death thirteen years ago, and my mother's death just over three years ago were the saddest days of my life. Days and events that have shaken the foundation, but ultimately reaffirmed that which I already know. That which they imparted in me. The grief and loss are still palpable, but I also understand now that life does go on, that everything will be OK, and that this is part of the cycle of life, albeit that I would have rather experienced as a much older person.

For those in Israel who mourn the victims of war and terror attacks, or anyone who lost a loved one in the past year, as hard as it is now, hopefully you will come to this point as well. For others with a parent or loved one in the same situation as I was in thirteen years ago, I hope this provides an element of perspective and comfort.

May we all be sealed in the Book of Life, and for those who are not, may their survivors have comfort and understanding, and the strength and courage to move on in living. Through living, we celebrate the memory of those who have left us physically, but who will never stop being part of us.

Lost in Translation

2009-05-19T21:54:00.000+03:00

The Pope’s recent visit to Israel was scrutinized and commented upon from every angle possible. Some were critical of what he said. Others were critical of what he didn’t say. Some observed that his presence is not as great as that of his predecessor, John Paul II. Others said that his presence in Israel was enough in, and of, itself. Some flocked to the city. And many stayed away to avoid the traffic nightmares his visit and security created. In many ways, there was more Monday morning quarterbacking going on than after the Super Bowl. Every gesture he made was commented upon. Every word he uttered was scrutinized. Every word he did not utter (Nazi, murder, sorry, six million) was questioned. The Pope’s visit was full of religious, political, cultural and diplomatic symbolism, and real issues. The Pope is a frequent flyer but in no other country are his visits quite as scrutinized. It goes without saying that the mere presence of the leader of more than one billion Catholics in the Jewish state is bound to be significant. Jews and Catholics (indeed all Christianity) don’t have to look far back to times when anti-Semitism was at the very least common and Church sanctioned, if not encouraged. It’s only been 15 years since the Vatican actually recognized the State of Israel and established full relations. Having two successive Popes of Polish and German origin underscores that there is an inseparable connection between the Holocaust and the Church. Yet as they try to make amends for the past, the deep wounds are exacerbated by plans to beatify Holocaust era Pope Pius VI. I am neither a linguist nor an historian nor a theologian. And I don’t play one on TV. And while I tried to absorb all the observations being made, I had a hard time coming down on either side of what all the questions and scrutiny were ultimately about: Is the Pope, and his visit to Israel, good for the Jews? Yet some things seem patently obvious. Given the extremes to which people have gone to interpret the Pope’s visit, I have to go back to basics. First, it’s hard, and even unfathomable, to think that the Pope would come to Israel as anything but a gesture of good will. OK, so he sees the world, religion and politics differently than we do. It’s not as if we are one unified body on most issues, so it’s a moving target as to which segments of the Jewish or Israeli population from whom he really differs. Some of his actions and words may have come across poorly or not clearly enough. But is it really possible that he came here with the intent of showing overt disrespect for Israel and sugar coating a message for which he really didn’t care? I don’t think so. Perhaps the Vatican Foreign Ministry will go back to the drawing board and try to learn for the future, not just about what message they wish to convey, but how it will be conveyed, how it might be received, especially if the positive message he tried to convey on this visit was lost on those he visited. In five days in Israel alone, the Pope must have delivered more than a dozen formal speeches, attended many events and dialogues, and held mass in three or four different places. He had a busy schedule indeed. Each event was planned not just by the Israeli hosts, but by the Vatican as well. So, as many posited their own opinions, I wondered who wrote his speeches and what they intended to convey. Was there gross insensitivity or a huge cultural gap? Was there a consideration to use language that would convey to Israelis that he gets it, that we’re really on the same page, that the Church deplores anti Semitism, that the Church is sorry for its role in the Holocaust, that Holocaust denial is a sin? The Pope’s visit reminded me of a third grade school party. I don’t remember the occasion, but we sat in a circle and played the famous childhood game, telephone. One person started by whispering something to the child to his or her left, and so it went around in a circle to see if the original message remained intact. Our teacher, Mrs. Mathis, used this as her way to announce to the class that she was pregnant and would be leaving at the end of the year. It’s strange how such memories can come back after almost four decades in a seemingly unrelated context. Whoever wrote his speeches probably wrote them in Italian, Latin or maybe even German. Then they were translated to English. And after he delivered them, they were translated yet again into Hebrew. Was something lost in the translation? In his speech at Yad Vashem, among those most scrutinized, is it possible that the word used in the original copy (in whatever language it was written) that was translated as “killed” really meant something closer to “murdered?” Is it possible that some or all of the brouhaha that came about was nothing more than a misunderstanding, like a third grade game about which everyone can have a good laugh afterward without pointing fingers and getting angry? Maybe what the Pope MEANT to say was “Mrs. Mathis is having a baby.” But what we HEARD was “Mrs. Mathis is eating turkey with gravy.” And I hate gravy. How could the Pope be so insensitive? And why didn’t he apologize for, if nothing else, the horrible traffic?

Wood Mongers

2009-05-05T22:01:00.000+03:00

For most of my adult life I remember that early sightings of Christmas decorations near my suburban NJ home were a sign that Thanksgiving was coming. In my childhood, the opposite was true - Thanksgiving was the official start of the Christmas (“Holiday”) season, ushering in sales and the beginning of public decorations. It never really fazed me one way or another, except to observe that the holiday had become that much more commercialized and seasonal sales were starting that much earlier. There are other things that herald the arrival of different seasons and holidays. I’ve been observing those signs here in Israel for the last five years. The first sign of rain in the fall ushers in the beginning of a rainy season that never quite seems to be rainy enough. After Purim, stores around the country begin covering shelves upon which to display the Pesach foods and, as the holiday gets closer, whole shelves and aisles are covered, closed, and barricaded to prevent the sale of chametz. And then there is the early seasonal sighting of one of the most unique Israeli traditions of kids going out to collect wood. Collect wood? What’s this about? What holiday or season involves collecting wood? Lag B’Omer of course. It’s a day of weddings and other smachot, haircuts… and bonfires. Admittedly, my experience is not vast on the subject, but the bottom line is that in just about every village, town, and city, fires are built that border on state sanctioned pyromania. From as early as Purim but definitely after Pesach, it’s common to see boys and girls as young as 5 and 6 out collecting any piece of wood that is not nailed down. The first one or two wood mongers go almost unnoticed yet warrant a chuckle for their early industriousness. Then the trickle becomes a swarm. Children collected pieces of wood bigger than they are is a common site. Sometimes they are single pieces. Sometimes pieces nailed to one another. Sometimes nails protruding. Unsafe is an understatement, but nobody seems to think twice about it. Sometimes a “borrowed” shopping cart is employed to transport the loot. Sometimes a scooter or skateboard. Sometimes, kids pile the wood up on top of another piece of wood, or a whole palate, and tie a rope to the bottom piece, dragging a mini construction site behind them, back to their hidden stash, only to be revealed in the days immediately preceding Lag B’Omer. On Lag B’Omer, on many blocks, or within any small patches of (relatively vacant) land, there can be several different bonfires going on. Children get together in groups to make their own fires. Sometimes kids take burning embers from one fire and make breakaway fires. Kids plan with friends for weeks about what they hope to do; staking out their land, gathering their collective wooden loot, and thinking nothing of building towers that are many times their size, ultimately burning well into the night, or even until the next day. Perhaps it’s the budding engineers among them who are the chief architects of the most interesting fires, where the “fuel” in the form of planks, boards and palates become part of the props and scaffolding in order to reach and sculpt the highest points of the pyre, ultimately to be burned along with the rest. My first year in Israel I made a mistake I’ll never make again. Before going out, I left the windows open in my house so that in the morning, the house smelled like there had been a fire in the house. Now, I keep the windows shut, and do my best to stay upwind. As children (and adults too) scour the country to collect just about any piece of wooden anything that will burn, it’s hard to imagine that there’s enough wood in the country for the vast amount of fires that people ignite and stoke all night. It’s hard to imagine that a year from now the abundance of wooden planks, old furniture, shipping palates, trees and branches, etc., will somehow be regenerated so that there’s enough wood to burn the night away, yet again. But every year, nobody seems to be disappointed. If only we could train our kids to pick up garbage, and bottles and cans that can be recycled, even once a year, with the same intensity, we’d do a lot to repair the damage to the earth that we do by burning these fires all night. A national recycling day. Who do I talk to?

What Are We Thinking: Yom HaZikaron 2009

2009-04-28T22:03:00.000+03:00

Memorial Day conjures up memories of long weekends, the beginning of summer vacation, family gatherings and seasonal sales. Yet since moving to Israel I have developed an appreciation for what I think that the day was meant to be, especially through observances here that are part of the DNA of Israeli culture. For a day or two in advance, the public tone changes as the State and the people begin to prepare for formal commemoration of Yom HaZikaron. The country’s military cemeteries get a spring cleaning, themes of programs both on TV and radio focus on the nation’s wars and terrorist attacks, schools infuse their curriculum with lessons, memorials and ceremonies, often from a personal perspective of someone who has lost a loved one. Every year I enter the season with more or less the same mindset, and every year I am overwhelmed by the new observations, insight, and thoughts that come to mind. As the siren heralding the start of the observation was sounded Monday night at 8:00 PM, I was tucking in my youngest son. I interrupted my bed time ritual to point out the siren to my three and a half year old. He already learned in his gan that when you hear the siren you stand at attention “for the chayalim” (soldiers). What does this mean to him, I wondered? What is he thinking? After he went to sleep, I watched the State ceremony at the Western Wall on TV with my other kids. Virtually all stations broadcasting were showing either the State ceremony, stories about victims of war and terrorist attacks, or movies of a similar theme. Many other stations had no broadcast at all, only a photo of a memorial candle. Public entertainment is closed as religiously as it is on Yom Kippur. I sat next to my 10 year old son whose thin arms and legs are still that of a little boy, but who will one day, too soon, grow up and mature to resemble those whose lives we heard about on TV this night. He will fill out the uniform of a soldier of Israel with the body of a young man. Yet today as a child he understands that war and defending ourselves is a fact of life. It does not upset him. He is curious about the army and military things, but that’s probably age appropriate. Unlike me, growing up in New Jersey, he is growing up knowing that in several years he’ll be well on the way to being drafted and donning a green IDF uniform. When he watches the memorial, and sees stories of others who have been killed in defense of their country, what does he think? As for my daughters, one would think that they have it easier. The girls can choose to serve in the army or do national service. Even for those who might serve in the army, it’s unlikely that they’d be in combat or putting their own lives in harms’ way. But I couldn’t help but wonder if they are thinking they might marry a man who must put his life in danger. Is that even a factor or thought to them? Do my older children already talk among their friends about who will be the first to die defending the Land, as if it’s something to be expected, as if it’s normal? I know it’s done, but are my kids at that age yet? Are they thinking about this, or just about the tests in school next week and summer vacation? At the State Yom HaZikaron ceremony itself, the memorial flame was lit by a young woman whose husband died from “friendly fire” only in January. She’s barely had time to absorb her loss. Of course it makes no difference that he died due to an IDF mistake rather than at the hands of a terrorist, her husband is still gone. As she stood there, brave and stoic, I couldn’t help trying to imagine what she was thinking. Other than dignitaries and military leadership, the participants at the State ceremony were mostly family members of people killed at the hands of those who would still like to kill us, more of us. The glazed look on many of their faces suggested that their minds had wandered to the memory of their lost sons and daughters. How long has it been? Is their memory fading? Have they been able to move on in their lives? What are they thinking about? The Prime Minister and President spoke. Prime Minister Netanyahu no doubt remembers his brother, Yoni, who lead and fell during the 1976 Entebbe operation to free captive Jews hijacked to Uganda. Having served in an elite military unit himself, no doubt he knows others who served with him who are not here anymore. President Shimon Peres’ long history of public service, going back to before statehood, has given him the opportunity to know tens of thousands of people personally who were intricately involved in building our country. He can close his eyes and recall scores or hundreds of heroes whom he knew personally, victims of every war and battle since the Independence War. Even earlier. One must imagine that both these leaders stand humbly aware of the fact that their leadership today was in many ways built on the sacrifice of others, people they knew personally. Is two minutes of silence even enough for them to reflect on these losses? What could they possibly be thinking about the past, and how does this color their looking forward so that there are no more victims by this time a year from now? My wife wondered aloud whether we are a normal people. We live without regret or fear, just bewilderment at the hope of living in peace, and the parallel ability to fight and sacrifice for our homeland as needed. The dream of a Jewish state that became a reality 61 years ago was also supposed to make us just like the other nations, accepted by the other nations, living in peace. But we have not had a day of peace since then. Sadly, peace does not seem to be on the horizon. Traditionally, Yizkor (the memorial prayer for a dead relative) is recited on the last day of our festivals, in part, not to diminish the joy of celebrating the festivals to begin with. But in Israel, we mourn for those who have been killed defending the country the day before we celebrate our independence. It’s a stark contrast. It reminds us that the 22,570 who have been killed have given their lives so we can celebrate. While everyone would love to celebrate with only faint memories of those who have fallen in the distant past, the reality is that our need to defend ourselves and our country will probably not diminish for some time. Maybe never. And not that I want to have reasons to commemorate the day, but there is something to be said for a somber meaningful and reflective Memorial Day rather than one that is marked by running to the mall so as not to miss the sales, or a family barbecue with no recollection at all on the reason for the extra day off work to begin with. What are we thinking? We are raising our children to be proud Jews in the State and Land of Israel, to have meaning in their lives by building on our past and contributing to our future. We raise our children and live here ourselves, not shrinking from the threat that never seems to end, but mindful of it, and aware that sometimes when a loss is more personal, more relevant, it provides the elements to build a stronger foundation as an individual, as a Jew and as an Israeli. Yom HaZikaron is a milestone in all our lives and whatever perspective and mindset I enter it with, I always comes away thinking something different. In the year I made aliyah, Israel mourned 21,000 dead. This year that has increased to 22,570. It’s incomprehensible. It’s as if more than 800,000 Americans were to have been killed defending their country in the corresponding time. Only with the Civil War is the US able to count anything close to 800,000 victims, but that was also a war when all the victims, on both sides, were American. May we be privileged to commemorate Yom HaZikaron next year remembering only the 22,570, yet with the same sense of loss and grief, respect and gratitude, that gives us extra appreciation for everything we have, especially as we enter the festive celebrations of Yom Haatzmaut, our independence, as night falls on one day and dawns on the next.

Yom Haatzmaut Dayeinu

2009-04-23T21:57:00.000+03:00

Just Glad to Be Living in Israel Living most of my life in the United States, I knew Israel’s independence was not something to take for granted, and indeed to be celebrated at every opportunity. Nevertheless, with the pace of life there not focused on Israeli holidays, the ability to celebrate and commemorate Israel’s independence sometimes conflicted with business meetings, kids’ activities and other day to day challenges. I remember my rabbi imploring us to attend annual community-wide Yom Haatzmaut celebrations, but also remember that even in the community in which I lived – one rich in opportunities to live a full Jewish life – the attendance at these events struck me as being far too low for a community of its size and commitment. Since making aliyah, I have seen something new. Even with all the differences within Israeli society, the fear that we are in a post-Zionist era, and the challenges of life in Israel, celebrating Israel’s independence is done with a sense of pride, joy and such a level of spirit. It is truly inspiring. Beginning with Passover, and leading up to Yom Haatzmaut, Israel decks itself out in blue and white. Highways are lined with flags. Kites fly bearing the blue and white. Small flags fit with a plastic clip for your car are sold at major intersections. Last year I adorned my car with 60 to the delight of many passers-by. It will be 61 this year, of course. Newspaper ads become patriotic and use blue and white regularly, and the weekend papers have free inserts of Israeli flags. The Yom Haatzmaut celebration in my new community is emotional. The past two years my wife and I have left with a lump in our throats from the feelings of pride and awe at being able to live in Israel, to raise our children here, and to build for the future. Fireworks are seen throughout the country, just as on July 4th in the US. Other than religious holidays when work is prohibited, Yom Haatzmaut may be the only day that no newspapers are printed. Family celebrations are varied, but many involve finding a patch of grass somewhere and setting up a portable barbecue to picnic into the night. We add Hallel to our prayers offering God special thanks for this milestone. But based on living most of my life in the Diaspora where it was often a challenge to carve out time to acknowledge, much less actually celebrate the holiday, it strikes me that there are no formal rituals associated with celebrating Israel’s independence. So I started wondering, what could be done after six decades to mark Israel’s independence in a way that is perhaps more universal, and even to facilitate a five minute pause in the life of someone overseas who wants to celebrate Israel’s independence, but for whom the pace of life is more about the daily grind rather than the festive nature we have in Israel. Thinking about the meaning of what we are celebrating, the message I hope my children will take with them forever, I realized that though the words of Hallel are meaningful, perhaps we needed something more contemporary. Building on an element of the Passover Seder, I came up with “Yom Haatzmaut Dayeinu.”

IF God had only given us Herzl’s will to dream, and not given us the Zionist Congresses, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the Zionist Congresses and not given us the 1917 Balfour Declaration affirming the reestablishment of a Jewish home in the Land of Israel, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the Balfour Declaration and not created the spark for early waves of aliyah to dry the swamps, irrigate the Land and build our country, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the spark to ignite waves of early aliyah to build our country and not taken us out of the ashes of the Holocaust, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only taken us out of the ashes of the Holocaust and not continued the ingathering of the exiles from the four corners of the earth, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only continued the ingathering of the exiles and not given us the 1947 UN Partition Vote to create the State of Israel, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the 1947 UN Partition Vote and not enabled our victory in the War of Independence and our Declaration of Independence, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only enabled our victory to establish and declare independence, and not restored Jewish sovereignty to the Land for the first time in 2000 years, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only restored Jewish sovereignty to the Land and not built us a thriving democracy, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only built our democracy and not helped us overcome our enemies’ attempts to destroy us in 1956, 1967, 1970, 1973, 1982, 2006 and even today, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only helped us overcome our enemies’ attempts to destroy us and not returned the Jews of Ethiopia to their homeland, rescuing black Africans from slavery in Africa to freedom, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only returned the Jews of Ethiopia to their homeland and not enabled the aliyah of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only enabled the aliyah of Soviet Jews and not reunified our Holy City, Jerusalem, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. . IF God had reunified Jerusalem and not made Israel a world leader in medical, biotech and high tech fields – a modern light unto the nations - it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only made Israel a world leader in technology, and not continued to bless Israel with His promise to build Jewish life for eternity, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. So let us pause on this special day to remember these and many other miracles that God has done for Israel, and that we magnify every day just by living as Jews in our homeland. Dayeinu.

Happy Independence Day Israel. Chag sameach.

Because of Schindler’s List

2009-04-21T22:04:00.000+03:00

Dreizel and Shalom Yaakov Birnbach

Sitting in the second row at Israel’s national Yom Hashoah ceremony thanks to good friends, my mind wandered to things and places far away as I absorbed the powerful speeches, stories and performances before me. More than ever, the juxtaposition of this being both a personal and national tragedy was clear. And even though I have watched this ceremony on TV before, I reflected on how we commemorate this tragedy today and in the future. The theme of the program was especially powerful, “Children in the Holocaust.” Survivors’ whose stories were depicted were children during the Holocaust. Musical performances were both about, and by, children. Speakers referred to the 1.5 million children whose lives, and hopes and futures, were brutally cut short. The loss was made particularly relevant this week with projections that had the Holocaust not happened, the world’s Jewish population would number 35 million, three times what it is today. And while the stories of specific survivors were replete with personal horrors and grief, that they have each rebuilt their lives and raised families of their own offered hope for the future in spite of the suffering of the past. Without a doubt, we must mourn for our losses, individually and nationally. But to only mourn perpetuates defeat and victimhood. In an age when the number of living Holocaust survivors is dwindling, we must learn and teach from the past, and build for the future. By continuing to live and thrive, by magnifying Jewish life in every facet, we not only honor the memory of the six million murdered that their death was not in vain, but we also make sure that our very flourishing is a perpetual victory over those who tried to destroy us in the past, and a notice for those who would think of doing so again. Memorializing the six million is both a mission and obligation. We must consider not just the absolute losses, but the lives and stories of all the survivors and victims. We must consider the sacrifices of others in the past that made the present possible, for each of us as individuals, and for us as a people. And, especially in an era that provides platforms for those who deny that the Holocaust even happened, as a lesson to the world. On a personal level, my great grandparents were ones who made such a sacrifice.

Star of the Efrat (and Kanczuga) soccer team

As the Nazis rounded up my family in Kanczuga, Poland, all the shtetl’s Jews were being taken away to be murdered. My great grandmother, Dreizel, my great grandfather, Shalom Yaakov, their children, grandchildren and neighbors were among those being led to their death. Benny Shanzer, a teen at the time who was already an old man by the time I met him, told me how on that very day, my great grandmother saved his life. As they were being rounded up, she looked at him and said, simply, “You’re too young.” He understood and escaped, owing his life to the caring of a woman who would be murdered along with her family within hours of his escape. As much as she exhibited caring for Benny, I have no doubt that even until the last moment, they comforted their children with all the unconditional love that they exhibited throughout their lives. Lives cut short by the barrel of a Nazi gun. My great grandparents were also selfless parents in a way that nobody I know can ever imagine. They exhibited painful selflessness in the decade preceding their murder by sending four of their children away – to America and to Palestine - without knowing if they’d ever see them again. My great grandparents did this to protect their children, to give them opportunities, to give them a future. In doing so, they not only saved their children’s lives and enabled me to be born, but through them and their actions, they made it possible that we would have the privilege of living here today. As I sat at the Yad Vashem ceremony, it was clear that my great grandparents probably could have never imagined the life I’d be able to lead in Israel today, 75 years after they sent my grandmother, their daughter, to settle in Haifa. But whether they could or not, if they could see us now, they would be very proud. Others, like my relatives, made similar personal sacrifices, and there are thousands of stories of Righteous Gentiles who also sacrificed and put themselves at personal risk to save Jews, sometimes neighbors and sometimes total strangers. Among the most famous of these was Oskar Schindler whose story was captured in the award winning film, Schindler’s List. Many say the greatest victory over the Nazis is that Jewish life continues to flourish. A neighbor’s father, a survivor, celebrates Pesach each year with extra gusto, and his entire extended family at his side, as his victory over evil. Others speak of other occasions, holidays and lifecycle events in a similar way. Each one, another victory in the battle of the ongoing war against anti-Semitism. Yet sitting at Israel’s national Yom Hashoah ceremony, surrounded by Israel’s religious, civic, military and political leaders, by survivors, and even people like myself born after the Holocaust, something different came to mind. I sat near the world’s diplomats. For many of them it was their first substantial exposure to the Holocaust. The stories they heard, the ethical questions that must have been raised, were profound. How would they have responded then, indeed, how do they respond now to threats and rhetoric that is every bit as criminal and genocidal.

A special list - the Efrat soccer team

Oskar Schindler had his list of 1100. As Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) said in the film, “The list is an absolute good. The list is life.” Yet my mind wandered to another place, another list, surrounded by fewer dignitaries, but no less significant. Eichen Elkin Feldstein Goldberg Goodman Levy Revivi Shefler Taragin Zeligman Zivotofsky My ten year old son was privileged to be picked to be on our town’s 3rd and 4th grade soccer team, playing other third and fourth grade teams from throughout and around Jerusalem. It’s a big deal to him, an enormous point of pride to us, his family, and is as fun to watch as it is competitive and educational. But as I sat at the national Israeli ceremony commemorating the six million martyrs, I couldn’t help but think that this list of 9 and 10 year old boys is every much about life as Oskar Schindler’s list. In many cases, this list would not be possible without the bravery and sacrifices of those who came before us. And after all, what better representation could there be of the survival and flourishing of Jewish life, more than six decades after the Holocaust, than dozens of boys running all over soccer fields in and around Jerusalem, cheering one another on in Hebrew. I think that my great grandparents would have an extra measure of pride in seeing their great-great-grandson running up and down a soccer field in Jerusalem, and leaping to stop a goal in Gush Etzion. I think, if they could, they’d join me every week sitting in the front row at the game to see our future before their eyes, or at least in the second row, as I did this week, remembering their lives and sacrifices that made our life here possible.

Outside My Comfort Zone

2009-03-18T20:53:00.000+02:00

I visited relatives recently in the north of Israel. I had not been to their house in a while and, though they live on a small quiet street, I drove past their home without recognizing it. What ultimately identified the house for me was a big tree they had planted in the yard some 40 years ago. I drove past the house at first because I didn’t see it. Since I was there last, they erected a big wall around their property, 4-5 feet high. Behind the wall, all the windows were covered with iron bars. While this is not uncommon in Israel, and many other places throughout the world, I was sad to see that they felt the need to make their quaint home into a compound. The house is very modest, small and old. There’s no indication of wealth and no particular reason why they’d need to protect their house specifically. So I was saddened to learn about an increase in violent theft and robberies throughout the area in which they live. I was sad to hear about it because in my utopian perspective of how Israel SHOULD BE, the increase of crime in general, and particularly against a person and his/her property, is particularly upsetting. I was saddened to hear that they feared opening their door to strangers, parking their car at the mall, and even suspicious telephone solicitations. I was saddened for them personally, but also for the state of things, that an older couple living in the same home for four decades no longer feels safe there. As we were talking, I couldn’t help but think about how, as far as personal security and crime, I felt the complete opposite. Maybe part of it is my naiveté. But a large part was very ironic. Because I live on the “West Bank”. Five years ago as I planned to make aliyah and told them that we were considering the “West Bank” they were horrified. Politically, we’re very different and I have learned a lot from them about how the far left thinks. (That’s a topic for another article.) They were horrified no doubt because, to them, the “West Bank” is not a place for a nice Jewish boy. They felt that the communities I was considering were unsafe. I’d be putting myself and my family in harm’s way. And politically, to put it nicely, they did not think that this was a prudent move for the good of the country. I did not have the heart to tell them in fact how safe, free and comfortable we are and feel. And how I am saddened for them in their loss of this feeling. While several of my Israeli relatives have actually dared to cross the “green line” to visit us and celebrate our smachot, I am mindful that they are uneasy with this for their own physical safety, as well as – in some cases – making a political statement that they’d rather not be making. It’s to their credit that they do join us from time to time. But most of the time, as much as we’ll invite them just to come visit, this is not something they will do. It is outside their comfort zone. During the 2006 Lebanon War I spent a few days in the north, working and bringing material and moral support to residents who had not fled. As the war progressed, and hundreds of thousands of Israelis from the north ran for the safer center of the country, we joined many neighbors in inviting people to move in with us. We had no idea how long the war would last or when they’d be able to go home, but we invited everyone we knew nonetheless: Friends and relatives. Arabs and Jews. I admired that, with only one exception, everyone we invited to join us stayed in their homes in the north. But it could not go unnoticed that for the majority of our relatives and friends whose political views are to the left of ours, the irony of being safer in the dreaded “West Bank” than they were in the north did not escape us. More recently, a similar situation took place. During the Gaza fighting, many here invited residents of Sderot and surrounding communities to move in, or even come for Shabbat as a respite from the daily barrage of rockets. For many, daily rocket firing was something they were used to so they stayed in their homes. Others thanked us, but politely declined as they were scared to come here. They were more afraid of perceived fear of life in the “West Bank” than living under a daily barrage of kassam and katyusha rockets. The most vivid depiction of this took place when two truckloads of vendors’ wares were on their way to a nearby community where Gush Etzion residents enthusiastically organized a shuk of Sderot vendors selling everything from food and disposable plates to electronics and clothes. This was a means to support those who lived in the war zone, economically as well as morally. But as the trucks were approaching their destination, one of the drivers heard something about rocks being thrown at vehicles somewhere in the “West Bank,” and he decided that to come here was unsafe. And so, while almost at his destination, he turned around with a truck load of things that we’d have bought, and went back to the safety of Sderot. I suppose everyone has their comfort zone. Some are politically oriented, and some are based on perceived level of personal security. For me, I could never live in a situation where I had to put a wall around my house. I look back on life in suburban New Jersey and recall how we’d never let the kids play alone in the front yard for a different set of reasons. Here, my kids have much greater freedom. While we raise them aware of other challenges we face, it’s a small price to pay for being able to live here. Here, I am mindful of my surrounding, but grateful for the freedom that we have just to live.

Defensive Driving

2009-03-16T21:07:00.000+02:00

Cars swerving between lanes, opening doors without looking, a rubber ball bouncing into traffic followed by a little child. In a quick internet search of “defensive driving” I found the following definition and an abundance of places prepared to teach me how to be a better driver.

“Defensive driving is more than just knowing how to drive. It is about taking a conscious effort every time you sit behind the wheels to take all the necessary precautions for a safer ride. Defensive driving actually goes beyond the basic skills of driving. It is even more than mastering the rules of the road. Defensive driving is actually a form of training or practice for motor vehicle drivers to drive in such a way that they consciously reduce the dangers associated with driving. They do this by anticipating dangerous scenarios, which could range from bad weather to erring motorists. A driver who practices defensive driving is ever watchful and careful. He is one who can quickly identify and predict potential road problems and then immediately decide and act appropriately to avoid dangers and accidents.”

But none of these sites cater to the Israeli driver. When I moved to Israel, several things got me to think about driving in a way I never had before. I’ll bet that none of the defensive driving schools on the internet have ever thought how to be a safe driver in Israel, or even considered factors that make driving here unique. Israel is known for many wonderful things, many special and even miraculous things. But Israel is also known for things that are incredibly maddening, frustrating, and sometimes third world. One of these is the number of traffic accidents, related of course to a culture of aggressive and sometimes haphazard driving. Every year, some 450 Israelis die on the road. Many are pedestrians hit by cars. Thousands more drivers, passengers and pedestrians are injured. And there’s the loss of property. It frustrates me that something often in our control, to drive safely and mindful of hazards, is something too often disregarded and even flaunted. I see whole families of kids bouncing around in back seats of cars, seat belts nowhere to be seen. People talking on cell phones. Each vehicular death and injury is particularly sad because it’s in our control to prevent them. But all of these things could be covered in a defensive driving class, or even just by listening to the laws. There are other aspects of driving in Israel the developers of defensive driving classes would find more astounding and have a harder time fitting in to their curriculum. Living in Gush Etzion, we have to be aware of the hidden stone thrower. Too frequently these are not reported, and when they are, they rarely make it to the media. But every turn can yield a potential new danger. Every hill next to the road a potential staging ground for a rock, or a barrage of them. Or there’s the road covered in rocks. Making a turn, you might find the road covered with stones. Not little ones, but the kind that will take out your transmission if you go over them. Once I made a wrong turn in a place that, though abandoned, was still littered with rocks as big as could be carried by little terrorists waiting to catch an unsuspecting Israeli car. I was lucky, nobody was there and I was able to turn around. But others I know have not been so lucky. And in a situation like this, you’re told to act in a way that is counter intuitive; in case of such a roadblock, you drive right through it. No matter how big the rocks are. No matter how damaging to your transmission. Don’t stop, just drive. There’s also the risk of letting cars pass you. Most roads are one lane in each direction, so passing is risky at best. But it’s still common. (OK, sometimes I am guilty too.) But the cars to be careful of have white license plates with green letters, or green ones with white letters. These Palestinian cars drive more or less freely on the vast majority of roads in Judaea and Samaria. One needs to be careful not to let them pass you because they have used this tactic as a way to kill people. They drive up next to you, spray the car with bullets, and drive off. A good friend lost her mother this way. A few years ago, during Sukkot, three Israelis were killed not far from my house when an Arab car drove by, opened fire, and fled. In order to prevent this, I always make it a point to keep close to the middle of the road and drive with an extra measure of care not to let cars pass me, especially if I can see that it is a Palestinian car. All these risks make driving challenging. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not the Wild West. These things don’t happen all the time. Once is too often, so these are things that we need to think about, just as driving in suburban NJ you worry about a child chasing his ball into the street in front of your car. We just need to be extra careful as few kids in NJ target oncoming cars for evil, and the balls that we need to be careful of can smash our windows, or worse.

Most of these things don’t take place throughout all of Israel anymore, but it used to be different. Ambushes were once a very regular occurrence. More “clever” terrorists devised a scheme to kill and maim by stretching a thin wire across a road so that passengers in unsuspecting cars, and especially army jeeps, would get stuck, hurt or even decapitated. Look at the front of a military jeep and notice the long pole mounted to catch and break these wires. Just in case. Last week there was the third incident in nine months of a terrorist using a tractor to try to maim and kill Israelis. This newest mode of terror not only terrorizes and harms Israelis, it harms the other Arabs who by in large just want to go to work building roads, buildings, train lines, etc. Every big yellow tractor is now suspect as a potential weapon. And big yellow tractors aren’t limited to the West Bank, but roam the cities and town throughout Israel. In Jerusalem, Modiin, Beit Shemesh, Afula… It gives me pause when driving down the road, anywhere in Israel, wondering if a tractor nearby is being piloted by a fanatic terrorist “with Allah as his co-pilot.” I have taken to driving extra slowly when they are spotted, to keeping extra distance between my car and others, just in case I need to escape. And I am mindful that if I am so unlucky to be stuck nearby when this happens again, to hope that there will be someone with a gun close by to end the terrorist’s road trip and give him a free pass to martyrdom, hopefully without taking anyone with him. There are many customs as to when one is supposed to say tefillat haderech, the travelers’ prayer. Most people say it upon returning from a trip to Israel, or arriving in Israel from a trip overseas. But there’s also a case to be made that we need to pray for our safe arrival even when we go to the grocery store, commute to work, or meet friends for dinner. Simple things not to be taken for granted.

Drowning in Drought

2009-03-03T22:08:00.000+02:00

I have never really been a big fan of the water. Maybe it’s because when I was young some kid held me under the water at the swim club, a scarring experience no doubt, (what would Freud have to say about that!), or maybe something else. But I don’t particularly like to go swimming. And the beach, forget it. Sand everywhere that follows you home in your hair, shoes, etc. Filthy salty water. Who needs it? The only exception is swimming on a very hot summer day with my kids. That’s refreshing and fun. And since I know that my attitude toward swimming is not healthy, and that I have a responsibility to teach my kids to swim, I get over it and take the plunge. Most of the time. This week, however, filling up my kids’ outdoor wading pool was not only exciting, but it was even emotional. In Israel we got what we have been praying for the past months. Rain. And lots of it. Given the grave situation that was being painted for us going into the spring and summer, talk of the most severe water shortage here ever, the rain was a welcome and very needed gift. In the past months I have been drilling into my kids’ heads about not wasting water. Not a day goes by without some suggestion as to how to save, or at least not to waste, this precious resource. The kids understand that without water, life cannot exist, and our life as we live it cannot be possible. I put the wading pool out in the front of the house to capture as much rain as possible. I am guessing it has as much as 50 gallons. It’s dirty, murky and not anything we’d want to swim in. But when the rain stops, there will be water left to water our six fruit trees and grape vine. The lawn can die, that’s not the end of the world. But the fruit trees that we planted with our own hands and are now just coming to the time that we can eat from them, we can’t let them die. It’s Israel. A tree is not just a tree. But we also can’t waste the water. So this is my partial answer, even more than what it does to save water, it is important in what it teaches my kids about how to be responsible Israelis. Another neighbor put a 500 liter tank on top of his house to catch rain water for use in the garden too. The rains this week increased the level of the Kineret, Israeli’s main source of fresh water, by about 8 inches. That’s really quite a lot. More than 50 inches of snow on the Hermon in the Golan have an important impact too because when the snows melt, run-off will also make its way into the Kineret. Maybe another 8 inches. Maybe more. But as exciting and emotional as this all really is, the sum of all the prior rains this winter was only 11 inches. Before the recent storm, the Kineret was just 34 inches above the Black Line, the level at which ground contamination may force a halt to pumping of water into the national water carrier. Basically, the closing of Israel’s primary water source. From another perspective, the Red Line, the minimum desirable level of the Kineret, is 46 inches above the current level. That means we need another six good storms, at least, just to get to the minimum desirable level. And to fill the Kineret, the level needs to rise more than another 5 meters or almost 200 inches, not factoring in usage and evaporation in the interim. As much as I hope that the Kineret may fill up this season, I also hope that the government will finally expedite plans to build desalination plants and other projects that will give us more water when we need it. As much as the lack of water is a severe threat, the government’s mismanaging of this for years is criminal and needs to stop. It’s not just that living in Israel we have to be more responsible and careful with water. There’s a personal awareness of the scarcity of this resource, and how water connects us to the Land. When we pray for rain here, it’s not the same as it was in the US, praying for rain over there. It’s here, in our front yard, our back yard and everywhere around us. Its very close and personal. While I have lived in many places where droughts have occurred, in Israel it’s a regular event. We’re grateful for the rain and hope and pray it will continue. But we have to be responsible about not wasting water, and conserving it every little bit that we can. I miss the carefree days of leisure and taking a nice long, hot shower. But if my sacrificing and conserving just a little helps just a little, and helps others – especially my kids –Israelis and tourists alike to do so as well, while I can’t make the rain, I can hope that we won’t waste water or take it for granted. And through a personal awareness and commitment not to waste water, maybe collectively we can add just a bit that will help us get through the dry months from this spring until when the next rains begin.