They are in their 20s, were raised in families with only one Jewish parent, do not associate themselves with any Jewish denomination and are likely to hold liberal political views.
This is the profile of one in five young American Jews and, according to a new analysis of data collected by the Pew Research Center in its 2013 survey of American Jews, they feel deeply alienated from Israel.
...
Cohen, a leading sociologist who researches the American Jewish community, has defined in his analysis a new category that combines detachment from Israel and opposition to the country’s policies. “When it reaches 20% of Jews under the age of 30, this is huge,” he said. “There is a real leap in various forms of alienation from Israel.”
The category of “Israel-alienated” includes members of the Jewish community who both indicate having low attachment to Israel and think the United States is too supportive of it. Combining these two aspects, Cohen explained, provides a look at those in the community who are not only critical of Israel, as are many Jews who do not agree with the positions of the government in Jerusalem, but also reached this position without having any attachment to the Jewish state.
The analysis found that a fifth of non-Orthodox young Jews could be categorized as “Israel-alienated.” In general, younger Jews tend to be less attached to Israel and less supportive of Israel in the context of its conflict with the Palestinians.
The portrait of Israel-alienated American Jews that emerges from the data analysis includes several main characteristics: They are young (18.8% of Jews between the ages of 18 and 29 feel alienated from Israel) and they are more likely to be unaffiliated with any denomination within Judaism (14.9%), liberal in their politics (21.6% describe themselves as very liberal) and have grown up with only one Jewish parent. Of those raised in interfaith families, 19.4% have low attachment to Israel and think America is too supportive of it. Only 4.4% of American Jews raised with two Jewish parents share these sentiments.
...
Similar views on Israel among young American Jews have been detected in polls for almost three decades, but the recent analysis pinpoints the reasons for detachment and alienation, and points to interfaith marriage as a key indicator of resentment toward Israel. “The rate of alienated remained the same, but there is a change in their characteristics,” Sasson said. “A couple of decades ago they came from homes with two Jewish parents, and now they are coming from intermarried families.”
Children of interfaith families, experts explain, show less engagement in all aspects of Jewish life, including attachment to Israel. But while there was a relatively small decline among children of interfaith parents in participation in certain religious ceremonies (Passover Seders, for example), their feelings toward Israel demonstrated a greater drop.
“The non-Jewish parents have an understanding of Judaism that comports with Christianity, and that’s why going to synagogue makes sense to them” Cohen said. On the other hand, he added, “there is no counterpart in Christianity to the idea of an ethnic state.”
The Jewish community’s evolving attitude toward intermarriage could, however, hold promise for forging a better connection between these younger Jews and Israel.
...
According to the recent analysis, alienation toward Israel among those who never visited Israel hovers around the 20% marker. This figure drops only slightly among young American Jews who have visited once. A real decline in alienation is seen only after a second trip to Israel, or after living there for a while.
Also, while researchers agree that intermarriage is the leading indicator for alienation from Israel, political views still play a role. The data analysis shows a steady increase in negative feelings toward Israel that correlates with the spectrum of conservative to liberal views. The alienation rate among the self-described “very conservative” is less than 1%, while among the “very liberal” it reaches 21.6%.
The first Annual BRONX YOUTH POETRY SLAM took place in May 2013 at the
Kingsbridge Library in the Bronx, NY. Curated by Community Board 8 Youth
Committee Chairman, Lamont Parker. Co-curated and Hosted by Advocate of
Wordz.
Notes from "Advocate Of Wordz" - 'Ethan Metzger did not
advance to the second round, but this poem was my favorite one from the
evening.'
The difference between American Jews and Israeli Jews
I'm enjoying watching a bunch of you trying to figure out what I really meant about that Pew poll in the comments. Despite what I'm about to post below, in the long run, I don't believe that Israeli Jews are immune from assimilation. But for now we just might be.
Jeff Woolf and I go back about 45 years to a boy scout troop in a Conservative temple in the Boston area (there were no Orthodox scout troops in Boston then). I was actually in a group with his younger brother. Note what he says about Jewish identity in Israel.
I am, at the same time, thunderstruck by the stark contrast between the Pew Study, and the most recent Guttman/IDI Study of Israeli Jewry. The findings are almost symmetrical opposites. Israeli Jews believe in God (over 80%). There is a Jewish Renaissance(in Study, Culture, and Observance) in
Israel that literally boggles the imagination (even as it confounds the
usual definitions of Religious and Secular). And, while individualism
and individual expression are certainly not absent, the sense of
national cohesion, what we call bayachad, is movingly strong.
Anyone, who lived here through the Second Intifada, or the various wars
and campaigns since then will readily attest to this fact. All that my
American brothers and sisters have so readily jettisoned, is held sacred
by the Jews of Israel. No wonder that we speak so often at cross
purposes. The two communities organize themselves around different value
systems.
I write this
column with a significant measure of pain. I am a fourth generation
Bostonian. America has been incredibly generous to my family, and to me.
The education and upbringing that I received was uniquely Jewish and
uniquely American. I am very much part of both countries, as are my
peers here. I cannot, will not, express any type of cheap triumphalism.
At the same time, every year when I visit the graves of my forbears on
the Mount of Olives, Hovevei Tziyyon who trekked from Volkovisk
Lithuania to Jerusalem in 1882, I am painfully reminded that of their
hundreds of descendants, no more than fifteen in my children’s
generation can be identified as Jews.
I should preface this post by saying that I don't know anything about any of the participants in the wedding ceremony and that they may or may not have anything to do with the story below.
A new Pew poll - the first on the subject in more than ten years - reports that 58% of American Jews and 71% of non-Orthodox American Jews are marrying out of the faith. Pew is calling it a major decline in Jewish identity.
The intermarriage rate, a bellwether statistic, has reached a high of 58
percent for all Jews, and 71 percent for non-Orthodox Jews — a huge
change from before 1970 when only 17 percent of Jews married outside the
faith. Two-thirds of Jews do not belong to a synagogue, one-fourth do
not believe in God and one-third had a Christmas tree in their home last
year.
“It’s a very grim portrait of the health of the American Jewish
population in terms of their Jewish identification,” said Jack
Wertheimer, a professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary, in New York.
The survey,
by the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, found
that despite the declines in religious identity and participation,
American Jews say they are proud to be Jewish and have a “strong sense
of belonging to the Jewish people.”
While 69 percent say they feel an emotional attachment to Israel, and 40
percent believe that the land that is now Israel was “given to the
Jewish people by God,” only 17 percent think that the continued building
of settlements in the West Bank is helpful to Israel’s security.
...
“It’s very stark,” Alan Cooperman, deputy director of the Pew religion
project, said in an interview. “Older Jews are Jews by religion. Younger
Jews are Jews of no religion.”
The trend toward secularism is also happening in the American population
in general, with increasing proportions of each generation claiming no
religious affiliation.
But Jews without religion tend not to raise their children Jewish, so
this secular trend has serious consequences for what Jewish leaders call
“Jewish continuity.” Of the “Jews of no religion” who have children at
home, two-thirds are not raising their children Jewish in any way. This
is in contrast to the “Jews with religion,” of whom 93 percent said they
are raising their children to have a Jewish identity.
Reform Judaism remains the largest American Jewish movement, at 35
percent. Conservative Jews are 18 percent, Orthodox 10 percent, and
groups such as Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal make up 6 percent
combined. Thirty percent of Jews do not identify with any denomination.
In a surprising finding, 34 percent said you could still be Jewish if you believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
...
While earlier generations of Orthodox Jews defected in large numbers,
those in the younger generation are being retained. Several scholars
attributed this to the Orthodox marrying young, having large families
and sending their children to Jewish schools.
Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist of American Jewry at Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Religion, in New York, and a paid consultant
on the poll, said the report foretold “a sharply declining non-Orthodox
population in the second half of the 21st century, and a rising
fraction of Jews who are Orthodox.”
That last paragraph is nothing I haven't told you about before. I've posted this chart many times:
In Israel, many people think we're immune from this sort of thing. We're not. First of all, an increasing number of Israeli Jewish girls are running off with, or being kidnapped by Arabs. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a fundraiser for a group that rescues Jewish girls - from across the religious spectrum - from Arab villages throughout Israel.
Second, if there is ever 'peace' with the Arabs, you can bet that intermarriage will increase if only because Arabs will have more access to Israeli society.
Third, secular Israelis often don't understand the difference between the different 'streams' of American Jews and can find themselves involved in relationships with those who are halachically (under Jewish law) non-Jewish.
The survey also portends “growing polarization” between religious and
nonreligious Jews, said Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz, senior director of
research and analysis at the Jewish Federations of North America.
The Jewish Federations has conducted major surveys of American Jews over
many decades, but the last one in 2000 was mired in controversy over
methodology. When the federations decided not to undertake another
survey in 2010, Jane Eisner, editor in chief of The Jewish Daily Forward, urged the Pew researchers to jump in.
It was a multimillion-dollar effort to cull 3,475 respondents from a
pool of 70,000. They were interviewed in English and Russian, on
landlines and cellphones from Feb. 20 to June 13, 2013. The margin of
error for the full sample is plus or minus three percentage points.
Ms. Eisner found the results “devastating” because, she said in an
interview, “I thought there would be more American Jews who cared about
religion.”
“This should serve as a wake-up call for all of us as Jews,” she said,
“to think about what kind of community we’re going to be able to sustain
if we have so much assimilation.”
So what is likely to sustain us for the coming generations is exactly what sustained us for the last 3,000 years: Torah, Torah and more Torah. Too bad Torah is under attack even in Israel today.
Outrage: US to return Iraqi Jewish artifacts to Iraq and not to Jews
The National Archives in Washington is opening an exhibit of Iraqi Jewish artifacts on October 11. The artifacts were rescued from the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Saddam Hussein's intelligence service, in 2003, during the Second Gulf War. Incredibly, the United States of Obama has agreed to return the artifacts to Iraq, rather than to their lawful owners, by June 2014.
After American forces entered Baghdad in May 2003, the head of the
Jewish and Israel section of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat (intelligence
agency) came to the Iraqi National Congress (INC), offering information
about Saddam’s intelligence operations against Israel and Jews. He did
this in order to curry favor. Former Iraqi officials frequently came to
opposition groups to tell their stories, in return for which they would
get “safe passage” documents stating that since they were cooperating
with post-Saddam authorities, they should not be harmed.
The tipster visited the INC to talk about the rumored Jewish archives
hidden in the basement of the Mukhabarat headquarters. After his visit,
INC chairman Ahmed Chalabi called Judy Miller, the former New York Times
reporter then embedded with a mobile unit looking for WMD, and me. I
was an Arabic/Hebrew speaking policy analyst with the Office of Net
Assessments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, then assigned to
the Coalition Provisional Authority, at the time.
We rushed over to talk with Chalabi, who told us that a former
Mukhabarat employee reported that a huge treasure trove of Iraqi Jewish
and Israeli material was amassed in the Mukhabarat building, and that he
was prepared to show us where it was located. He also said there was an
ancient copy of the Talmud written on leather or parchment.
Miller and I then went off to the Mukhabarat building with the former Saddam officer and an INC contingent.
The tipster indicated from outside the building where in the basement
the Jewish and Israel sections were located. Then — he promptly
disappeared. Despite the bombed-out structure’s instability, looters
were overrunning the building. Danger was everywhere.
We were, in fact, standing beside a large metal device which had
lodged itself halfway into the ground. We later learned that this live,
undetonated bomb had penetrated through three or four stories of the
building and destroyed the building’s water system. It had pierced the
wall almost at ground level. We saw, through the hole it made, that the
Jewish and Israel sections were flooded.
We went around to the building’s main entrance and descended only
halfway down a basement staircase, blocked by water which had risen
about halfway up. Several WMD team members waded into the water and
entered the Israel section. They found pictures of the Dome of the Rock,
a Soviet map of Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor, and a sign in Arabic
which read: “Who will be the one to send the 40th missile to Israel?”
(This referred to the fact that during the Kuwait war, Iraq had sent 39
missiles toward Israel.)
The WMD team then proceeded down the hall, found the Jewish section, and carried out religious books and a tiq (the wooden/metal box which holds Torahs). These items proved to be only a tiny example of what we were to find later.
Many Iraqis with whom we spoke about the discovery told us to get the
material out of the country as soon as possible before it became public
knowledge. That way, Iraqi Jewry could have its patrimony, and no Iraqi
politician could be held responsible for having let the Jews take the
material.
...
The materials were then flown to Texas where they were
vacuum-freeze-dried, and in Fall 2003 they were brought to the National
Archives. In 2011, the State Department kicked in over $3 million for
stabilizing, digitizing, and packing the material. Again, none of that
would have been possible without the interventions of the people I have
referenced.
Among the items we found in the intelligence headquarters basement: a
400-year-old Hebrew Bible; a 200-year-old Talmud from Vienna; a copy of
the book of Numbers in Hebrew published in Jerusalem in 1972; a Megillat Esther of uncertain date; a Haggadahpublished in Baghdad and edited by the chief rabbi of Baghdad; the Writings of Ketuvim containing books like Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Lamentations, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles published in Venice in 1568; a copy of Pirkei Avot, or Ethics of the Fathers, published in Livorno, Italy in 1928 with commentary written with Hebrew letters but in Baghdadi-Judeo Arabic; a luach
(a calendar with lists of duties and prayers for each holy day printed
in Baghdad in 1972); a printed collection of sermons by a rabbi made in
Germany in 1692; thousands of books printed in Vienna, Livorno,
Jerusalem, Izmir, and Vilna; miscellaneous communal records from
1920-1953; lists of male Jewish residents, school records, financial
records, applications for university admissions.
All of this illustrated the history of Baghdadi Jewish community life, a community which is no more.
After Israel became a state in 1948, martial law was declared in Iraq
and many Jews left in the mass exodus in 1950-51. Almost all of those
who remained behind left by the 1970s. They were not allowed to take
much with them.
In 1950-51, they were allowed one suitcase with clothing — sometimes
not even their personal documents — and nothing more. They were forced
to leave everything else behind, including their communal property. For
many years, Jews were not permitted to leave Iraq at all and were
persecuted. With time, the few Jews who remained in Baghdad transferred
what communal holy books and religious articles they had to the one
remaining synagogue which functioned. This was in Batawin, a section of
Baghdad which in the late 1940s was the neighborhood to which upwardly
mobile Jews moved. The remaining Jews stored this property in the
synagogue’s balcony, where the women sat during prayer.
The Jews did not freely relinquish this material. They did it under duress, having no other option.
In 1984, Saddam sent henchmen with trucks to that synagogue. Those
scrolls, records, and books were carted off to a place unknown. Local
Jews who were at the synagogue at that time witnessed this thievery, and
described to me personally how the material was carted off against
their will.
Why did Saddam even care about this material, and why did he keep it
in his intelligence headquarters? Did he think he might gain some
insights into the Jewish mind by doing so? Did he think doing so would
help him defeat the Israelis?
From a Middle Eastern cultural perspective, capturing the archive
makes perfect sense. Humiliation — i.e., shaming another’s personal
reputation — is more important and more powerful than physical
cruelty. From this cultural perspective, by capturing the Jewish
archives, Saddam was humiliating the Jewish people. He was showing how
powerless the Jews were to stop him. By keeping that archive and the
Israel section in the basement of his intelligence headquarters, Saddam
further humiliated the Jews and Israel. And by doing so, Saddam – again,
in Middle Eastern eyes — was also regaining a portion of the honor the
Arabs lost through their constant military defeats at the hands of the
(Jewish) Israelis.
...
It would be as if Germany demanded material looted from German Jewish
communities under the Nazis in German government hands. But even in
this case, the Germans today admit their Nazi crimes against the Jews,
and they have done much to compensate the Jews for German actions.
Moreover, can Iraq even care for this archive?
Iraq now — today — has a basement room of its archives filled with
Torahs. The conditions in which they are kept are deplorable. Moreover,
no one is allowed access to this material. To be sure, the Iraqis have
great difficulty taking care of their ownhistorical and
archival material, so this does not mean that the current Iraqi
government discriminates particularly against the Jewish material in its
possession. The point is they have shown no capability for preserving
such material.
The most logical final resting place for the material is the
Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center outside of Tel Aviv. It is the only
museum in the world dedicated to the history of Iraqi Jewry.
This is a bit off topic, but it's a great story that was shared with me by GP, who has been a friend for longer than many of my readers have been alive.
Lowi the Levy [Levite. CiJ]walked out of Dachau literally without the shirt on his back and ended up a multimillionaire in Beverly Hills and one of the gabbaim [managers. CiJ]in shul [synagogue. CiJ]. Stood 4 feet tall, weighed 90 lbs soaking wet.
When I got divorced and was at Stanford I davened [prayed. CiJ] there all the time. He pulled me over and explained that none of these people were real Jews because they Daven [pray. CiJ] to a Santa Claus who does nothing but celebrate their good fortune and answers their every wish and demand. But now I will learn the true secret of tefila [prayer. CiJ] out of terror of hakadosh Baruch hu [God. CiJ], that
ראשית חכמה יראת ה׳
[The beginning of wisdom is fear of God. CiJ] and we two can sit and Daven [pray. CiJ] together in fear and terror of what the slightly mad & unscrupulous Omnipotent One might do next to us, the heck with these idiots clueless in their wealth and luxury.
So all through my divorce and loss of children, loss of wealth, loss of good name, Lowi the Levy and I had our own private little pew amidst the oblivious larger minyan [prayer quorum. CiJ]. We would study the second Tochacha [set of curses - Deuteronomy 28. CiJ] together, over and over, and its 4 very significant distinctions from the gentler first Tochacha [Leviticus 26. CiJ].
He shows up at mincha [afternoon service. CiJ]one day with the biggest black guy you ever imagined on the face of the earth and helps him stutter out Kaddish [mourner's prayer. CiJ]. No one questions Lowi the Levy. The gorilla of a guy comes back the next day, and the day after, sits quietly with Lowi the Levy and they say Kaddish slowly together. No one dares ask. Turns out it is Lamar Odom, All Star for the LA Lakers basketball team who tragically lost a 2 year old son and had no vehicle for grief. The guy knows Lowi the Levy (don't even ask...) who convinces him to come say Kaddish in the afternoons before home games. Lamar turns out to be a huge Chevraman [socialite. CiJ], gives a great kiddush [food buffet. CiJ] on Shabbat yahrzeit [the Sabbath before the anniversary of a relative's death. CiJ] and to this day is a welcome "member" of the shul.
Only in Beverly Hills.
One of the truly great mentors of my life.
Nice story, huh? May Lowi the Levy's memory be blessed. And yes, the picture at the top is Lamar Odom, now with the Mavericks.
Video: Passover message from Chief Rabbi of South Africa
Here's a Passover message from Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein, the Chief Rabbi of South Africa.
Let's go to the videotape.
I have heard that saying from R. Yaakov Emden before. They are very true.
After having watched the whole thing, I have tears rolling down my face. Everywhere I looked today, the most commonly cited Passover message was the one from that moron, Hussein Obama. This message is relevant. It's Jewish. It's beautiful. I hope you will all take it to heart.
The journalist, Hamza Kashgari, had been detained by the Malaysian police since Thursday, when he was stopped at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at the request of the Saudi government. Mr. Kashgari, a newspaper columnist based in Jidda, had fled Saudi Arabia amid public outrage after he wrote about an imaginary meeting with the Prophet Muhammad in a series of posts on Twitter, according to news reports. ... The Saudi king has reportedly called for his arrest, and many in the religiously conservative country have accused him of blasphemy, a capital offense in Saudi Arabia. Muhammad Afiq Bin Mohamad Noor, the Malaysian lawyer hired by Mr. Kashgari’s family, said he obtained an interim court order from the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Sunday afternoon that would have prevented the authorities from deporting Mr. Kashgari. He only discovered later on Sunday, when he spoke to an immigration officer at the Kuala Lumpur airport, that Mr. Kashgari had already been deported on a private Saudi jet.
This incident - of a Saudi national who had escaped Saudi Arabia only to be extradited by a different Muslim nation - ought to raise questions as to why the United States is involved in the Istanbul Process, which would criminalize defamation of religion internationally. This question is even more serious, because it has been charged (and denied) that Interpol played a role in Kashgari's identification and capture.
Back in December, Nina Shea wrote about the problems with the Istanbul Process advocated by the OIC and apparently encouraged by the State Department. Among the problems was:
It offered a transnational venue for the OIC to reintroduce its anti-defamation push, just as the issue had been laid to rest at the United Nations. The administration erred in viewing resolution 16/18 as a meeting of minds between the OIC and America on freedoms of religion and speech. In Istanbul, Clinton asserted that the United States does not want to see speech restrictions — but her conference announcement immediately reignited OIC demands for the West to punish anti-Islamic speech. As the OIC reported it: “The upcoming [Washington] meetings . . . [will] help in enacting domestic laws for the countries involved in the issue, as well as formulating international laws preventing inciting hatred resulting from the continued defamation of religions.”
The end of this process would be an international regimen for prosecuting anyone who could be said to be defaming Islam. Think about the fatwa against Salman Rushdie with the force of international law behind it.
2) The bliss of ignorance
Roger Cohen has written an important column called the Dilemmas of Islamic Power:
Major American Islamic organizations, their agendas often supported by clueless liberal publications (like the increasingly unserious New York Times), have in general made uncritical defense of Islam — rather than constructive criticism — the cornerstone of their policies and viewed deviation from the ever-refreshed victimhood narrative as unacceptable dissent. A recent New York Times editorial called a film that was critical of extreme Islam, a "hateful film."
Yet, as Beinart chronicles, major American Jewish organizations, their agendas often swayed by a few wealthy donors (like the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson), have in general made uncritical defense of Israel — rather than constructive criticism — the cornerstone of their policies and viewed deviation from the ever-refreshed victimhood narrative as unacceptable dissent. He quotes Abraham Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League: “Israeli democracy should decide; American Jews should support.”
Except that much criticism of Israel is not constructive, as Cohen, in his ignorance demonstrates in subsequent paragraphs.
Such prescriptions worked for an embattled little Israel and a generation of Holocaust survivors; they fall short today. “In their support for a halt to settlement growth and their comfort with public criticism of Israeli policy,” Beinart writes, “the mass of American Jews are to the left of the organizations that speak in their name, organizations that almost always oppose U.S. pressure on Israeli leaders and blame the Palestinians almost exclusively for the lack of Middle East peace.” Blaming Palestinians — for disunity, for grandstanding, for seeking not the 1967 lines but Israel’s disappearance — is easy enough, although increasingly an exercise in misrepresentation of the major Palestinian shifts under Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The blame game would, however, be far more credible if the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had shown the least interest in peace; it has not. Subsidized West Bank settlement expansion continues, a claim in concrete to the land Netanyahu calls Judea and Samaria.
Granted, the mistakes in these quoted paragraphs would not be known to someone who only reads the New York Times for news on the Middle East, so maybe Cohen could be forgiven for his ignorance. However, since he has such a major platform, he ought to have done a bit more research.
The mass of American Jews are not "to the left" of organizations speaking in their name. If they were J-Street wouldn't have been reduced to a political footnote three years after its founding.
A few days after another agreement Fatah / Hamas agreement relegating Salam Fayyad to irrelevance it is amazing that Cohen appeals to "major shifts" under Fayyad. True, the Fatah / Hamas agreement may not actually come to fruition, but it is a sign of Fayyad's marginalization and reflects that he really had no political base in the first place. Even now Barry Rubin points out that Fatah's official new Facebook page denies Israel's right to exist and praises terrorists.
Beinart's thesis makes a lot of sense if one is ignorant about what is going on. But when the true story is known Beinart and Cohen are simply engaged in calumny against Israel and its supporters, especially Israel's Jewish supporters. It is they who embrace a hateful canard.
3) The attacks in India and Georgia
In Ha'aretz, Anshel Pfeffer suggests a reason why the Israeli embassies in India and Georgia were targeted (h/t Israel Matzav):
Hezbollah's and Iran's focus therefore has been centered on Israeli representations abroad. Attempts to attack targets in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and most recently Thailand were nipped in the bud through close cooperation between Israeli intelligence and the local security services. A Hezbollah cell operating in Western Europe was also apprehended last year before it could launch an operation. Two years ago, a shooting at cars carrying Israeli diplomats in Jordan resulted in no casualties. There were multiple intelligence warnings of a pending attack - and the recent assassinations of nuclear scientists in Tehran and mysterious explosions at various Iranian installations only added impetus. The twin locations, India and Georgia, are countries where Israel has close relationships with the local political leaderships and especially with the defense establishments. They are also countries where the security forces are not in total control of wide regions and borders.
Jackson Diehl considers an aspect of India's relationship with Iran and concludes that the attack may be a sign of desperation:
According to news service reports, a man on a motorcycle stuck a bomb on the van of the wife of an Israeli military attache as she drove to pick up her children from school. Israeli reports said she was moderately injured by shrapnel, and several Indians in her van also suffered injuries. Remarkably, the attack took place within a few hundred meters of the offices of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who just last week was resisting pressure from the United States to cut back on Indian purchases of Iranian oil. As Europe had applied an embargo on oil purchases, and even China has cut back, India has recently become Iran’s largest customer. It has even reportedly worked out barter arrangements to pay for continuing oil deliveries so that its banks are not exposed to U.S. sanctions. Having suffered repeated major terrorist attacks by Islamic militants in recent years, India takes terrorism very seriously. It is unlikely to respond mildly if today’s attack can be traced to Iran or to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia which serves as Iran’s proxy in countries around the world.
The silver lining on this unfortunate event is that it is a further proof of Hezbollah’s loss of the ability to carry out long-range terror attacks. While it has been generally assumed the Hezbollah is one of the most capable terrorist groups this morning was its first successful operation outside of Lebanon since 1996. Hezbollah has certainly had the motivation to carry out major terror attacks, particularly to avenge the assassination of its operations chief, the arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh. In the past I have argued that extensive international intelligence efforts against Hezbollah have taken a heavy toll, restricting their ability to carry out complex attacks abroad. While this morning’s attack was a tragedy it is a far cry from the devastating attacks Hezbollah launched in Argentina or against the Khobar Towers (or its initial attacks against the US Embassy and Marine Barracks in Lebanon.) Hezbollah has also assassinated its enemies, but the targets were carefully chosen – this morning’s attacks were more akin to targets of opportunity. It is of course possible that Hezbollah was merely holding its fire, that these were shots across the bow rather then full-fledged strikes. But the fact that a revenge attack for the Mughniyeh killing has only come four years does little to suggest that Hezbollah has maintained its once formidable international network. None of this is to suggest, that Hezbollah as been defanged. The efforts needed to keep Hezbollah international terror capabilities in check are essential - if they were not present the organization would probably be able to resume high-level attacks.
My favorite statement summing up the past year's complexities: The IDF has prepared humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees in a buffer zone between Syrian- and Israeli-controlled territory, including thousands from the ruling Alawite sect, prompting Israel's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, to muse: "I am not sure all the Alawites will run toward Israel," but many will do so.
Adnan Al-'Ar'our: Good people, this is shameful, by Allah. Good people, we don't want any weapons from you. All we want is for you to treat the wounded and open up your hospitals. Have your hearts become that cruel? Have you become such cowards? Open up your hospitals. Give us money to buy shrouds. […] Good people, there is an unwritten law with regard to treating the wounded. I think we should even appeal to Israel. Maybe that would be easier. Perhaps they would give us… If it is possible, we appeal to them to treat the wounded. Interviewer: But would the Syrian army allow the wounded safe passage through the Golan? Adnan Al-'Ar'our: Not, it would not.
I received this op-ed from Richard L with a request to publish it.
I have 2 great passions in life and hope to one day develop a career in both fields.
The first is advertising, the second, Jewish identity. So when I came across the latest campaigns targeted towards Israelis in the U.S. telling them to come home, I could not ignore it, and I definitely could not ignore it after the uproar which it created amongst American Jewry. There is an on going argument amongst advertisers- is all publicity good? Some believe that even bad publicity is good, since it gets the company's name out in the public. I am glad this campaign is creating such an uproar. This gives us a chance to finally discuss this important topic that has been relevant for the past 2,000 years.
One cannot find on YouTube the ad with the child saying it's Christmas, when he actually should be saying it's Channuka. It seems that the ad had hit an exposed nerve in the body of American Jewry.
Jeffrey Goldberg at his blog writes: "The idea, communicated in these ads, that America is no place for a proper Jew, and that a Jew who is concerned about the Jewish future should live in Israel, is archaic, and also chutzpadik ".
I would like to tell Mr. Goldberg, “That's right. America IS no place for a proper Jew. And any Jew who is concerned about the Jewish future should not be living abroad. And, by the way, chutzpah in Israel is not a negative term. It’s having the nerve to say what needs to be said, no matter how unpleasant, in this case to tell Israelis who have gone to American for the “good life,” that they may have sold their birthright for a mess of lentil soup.”
Other bloggers have written about the scare tactic in this campaign. The question arises: “why hasn't the campaign gone down a calmer road, convincing these Israelis to come back home for reasons like, sunshine, a low unemployment rate, real felafels? Using fear in a campaign is a very strong tactic, but most- sometimes it's all that works. Sunshine, good food and a steady economy, may not be cards strong enough to play.
I was talking to a relative who moved to Israel a few years ago. We spoke after she had some trouble in a few stores that day and of course she began the classic "Oh, in the states that would never had happened". But then she paused and said "it’s moments like this that remind you that you move to Israel for spiritual reasons, not materialistic reasons." Anyone who’s been following the Israeli news over the last 6 months knows that financially life in Israel is not simple for many of us. During college I've heard my friends saying that in a few years they hoped to live somewhere outside the land of Israel. Some of my friends found out that I'm an American citizen and I can get up and leave anytime I wish to do so. They've told me I'm crazy for staying here when I have an opportunity to just get on a plane and not live here anymore. But those are just some of my friends.
On the other hand, I have a fair number of friends who've made aliya. These friends have chosen to voluntarily join the army and start a life here without their family. I greatly admire these friends. Truth be told, if you look at their actions through materialistic eyes – then yes, they are crazy. But when you know that moving to Israel is not immigrating to another country, but something much deeper than that, the Jews who live out of this great country, may be the crazy ones.
One does not immigrate to Israel, one makes aliya, and one is not an immigrant in Israel, one is an Oleh. Aliya, and Oleh come from a root that means "going up". Moving to Israel is a difficult but an uplifting experience for your soul, from what I've heard. I myself cannot share my experience of making aliya, I was lucky enough to be born here. But my parents have made aliya 30 years ago and everyday I thank God for that.
Not too long ago, a friend who made aliya asked what my favorite thing about Israel is. I had no answer. Later that night I went to bed asking myself that question over and over again. I realized I don’t have a favorite thing about life in Israel. Life in Israel is my favorite thing. Knowing that I am lucky enough to be living in the land that has been promised to my forefathers thousands of years ago is an astonishing thought to me. But living here is not amazing just because of historical reasons. A Jew's spirituality is not whole while living out of the Land of Israel. Although G-d dwells everywhere, his presence is strongest in the land of Israel. A Jew is closest to G-d while being in the Land of Israel. Making aliya is not just for religious people. Aliya is for anyone who understands the importance of Jews living in their home land.
Julie Wiener suggests that a parody campaign should be done, presenting the "dangers" of aliya Americans making aliya and producing "bizarre" offspring who will call their mother "Ima". Wiener is afraid that God forbid, these offspring will cut in line in the super market. In life one should keep a sense of proportion. On the micro level, cutting in line is disturbing to me; on the macro level – Jews living outside of Israel is much more disturbing to me. I feel sorry for Jews whose ancestors prayed for two thousand years to be able to return to the Land, and now that we can, they don’t. I try to imagine to what these people's ancestors would say if 200 years ago they'd been told their grandchildren would have the possibility to live in Israel, yet chose to ignore it.
It seems that those frightened by this campaign are threatened by the thought that someone actually is telling them that living out of Israel undermines Jewish and Israeli identity. You do not have to be a professor of sociology to know that immigration creates a new identity for immigrants and if not for them, then for their off spring. The percent of Jewish assimilation is incredibly high. The number of Jews in the world today is the same as it's been in 1980, which means, we're still having children, but were disappearing too. One can say they will make the effort in order to keep his/ hers Jewish identity, but our forefathers said the same thing when they moved out of the shtetel. We all know that did not last for long.
Every day I pray for all Jews to realize the importance of life in Israel. How can we claim this land is ours while we're still living all over the world? Why should the common Joe Smith believe in the Jew's right to the land of Israel, while half of his colleagues are Jews, not living in the Promised Land?
Living in this great country may be a crazy thing to do, but still, I know this is where I'm suppose to be, and that's what keeps here.
Chana Rivka Poupko is a 24 year old Jerusalemite; she is a PR intern and hopes to see the day when all Jews move to Israel. Besides that she has lots of love of world Jewry and cares about their future. She'd love it if her kids will have Israeli chutzpa instead of having no Jewish identity.
I have a relative in the US who told me that when they put their (electric) Menorah in the window of their home, one of their neighbors came over and said "I'm so glad you did that. I thought I was the only Jew here." Well, yeah, but how are your kids going to grow up there?
Maybe it's better that there aren't too many people in Boston who both know me personally and connect me to this blog.... And that ad about the kid calling Chanuka "Christmas" really did touch a raw nerve.
You won't believe this... Gadhafi's mother was Jewish
During a discussion on Israel Radio they just dropped this little tidbit. There is a Jew left in Libya. His name is Muammar Gadhafi. At first, I found it hard to believe, but when I Googled "Gadhafi's mother was Jewish" (without the quotes), the first three results all confirmed it. Gadhafi's mother was a Jewish woman who converted to Islam at the age of 9 or the daughter of a Jewish woman who left her husband for an Arab Sheikh. Those two narratives are not mutually exclusive. I kid you not.
A year and a half ago, two Israeli women who claimed to be relatives of Gadhafi's were interviewed on Israel's Channel 2 television.
The older of the two interviewees, Guita Brown, claimed that she is Gaddafi’s second cousin: her grandmother was the sister of Gaddafi’s grandmother. The younger of the two women, Rachel Saada, Brown's granddaughter , explained in more detail: “The story goes that Gaddafi’s grandmother, a Jewess, was married to a Jewish man at first. But he treated her badly, so she ran away and married a Muslim sheikh. Their child was the mother of Gaddafi.” While Gaddafi’s grandmother converted to Islam when she married the sheikh, according to Jewish religious law (and common sense), she was ethnically still Jewish. And that makes Gaddafi's mother a Jewess. And if Gaddafi's mother is a Jewess, what does that make Gaddafi?
Let's go to the videotape (sorry - the interview is only in Hebrew).
That means Gadhafi is Jewish - he can even be counted in a minyan (quorum of Jews for prayer).
More to the point, Gadhafi is entitled to 'return' to Israel under the Law of Return. Given that he may soon be looking for political asylum and the usual candidates (the Saudis and the Europeans) are unlikely to take him, could he be looking to come to Israel?
Oy vey.... What could go wrong? (Well, the professor in the video doesn't believe it).
Homeland Security walking back Jewish claim on Giffords
You will recall that I posted yesterday that the attempt on Representative Gabrielle Giffords' life was because she is Jewish. That post was based on a memo from the Department of Homeland Security that was posted by Fox News' Greta van Sustern on her blog. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is walking back that memo.
Fox News's report yesterday initially claimed that a DHS memo had outlined the possible connection, and defined American Renaissance as a "pro-white racist organization" that Jared Loughner "mentioned in some of his internet postings." Fox later walked back the report a bit, sourcing the claim to "a law enforcement memo based on information provided by DHS."
The Fox report caused a splash, with some news orgs reporting that anonymous officials had confirmed such possible ties. Some conservatives railed at DHS for supposedly trying to tie the shooter to the right for political reasons, and others disputed the suggestion that this displayed the shooter's ideological leanings.
But DHS has not officially provided any such information to any law enforcement officials, the DHS official says.
"We have not established any such possible link," the official says.
The official cautions it's conceivable that a law enforcement official got unofficial info from a DHS official somewhere along the lines of what Fox reported. But he emphasizes that DHS has not even concluded in any official way that even the possibility of such ties exists. The official adds that it wouldn't be DHS's place to reach any such conclusion in the first place, since the FBI is leading the investigation.
Spokespeople for Fox didn't immediately return an email for comment. For now, however, it looks like this could further complicate efforts to pin down the shooter's beliefs.
Let's go to the videotape.
Yes, that was Gilda Radner as Roseann Rosannadanna.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
