Jews in Prague

Looking through my photos of Prague, the architectural difference between the churches and the synagogues strikes me. The churches are all bigger than the synagogues - especially than the Staronova (the Old-New Synagogue, the oldest in Prague, from the 13th century), the level of which is below-ground. The churches are in open public squares, obvious to everyone, with lots of fancy decoration and statues on them. The synagogues are not nearly so decorated outside, except for the Spanish synagogue and the Jerusalem synagogue (which is fabulous outside, but I didn't see the inside). When I went into the Staronova the guidebook said that in the Middle Ages the synagogues had to be built lower than the churches as a sign of the Jews' inferior status to Christians. It is really a striking architectural statement of the inferiority of Jews to Christians.


The Staronova synagogue is on top, and below it is St. Vitus Cathedral in the Prague Castle.

It is intimidating to realize in my guts that I come from a group of people who were despised and denigrated for hundreds, if not thousands of years, in the places that they called home. They were systematically discriminated against, restricted in their livelihoods, even in whether their children could marry (under the Hapsburgs, before Emancipation), prevented from living anywhere but in ghettos, their religion was denigrated, they were forced to wear special clothing to single them out for ridicule.... the list goes on and on. Knowing this intellectually is one thing, seeing it even in the architecture is another.

And it's not as if it's over. Strangely enough, tourists can go in and out of the synagogues as they wish, after having paid the entrance fees, but people who want to pray in the synagogue on Shabbat have to be inspected by guards before being allowed to enter. If one is identified as a Jew in a Jewish place there is clearly a danger of terrorism (this is not true only in the Czech Republic, for that matter - I've had this same experience going to synagogue services in Israel, for example, and when I visited Vienna a couple of years ago and went into the sole remaining synagogue, I had to show my passport and inspected by the guard). When I went on Friday night there were two guards searching bags and wanding people for weapons or explosives. And then when we entered the synagogue for the service, it was so obvious that the building had been made for a much larger congregation (this was in the Spanish synagogue, built in the late 1800s), and that we were a rather meager remnant, mostly made up of visiting tourists. The service was held in Hebrew and English, with occasional Czech translation.

Prague architecture

One of the more pleasant aspects of my trip to Prague was simply wandering around the city and looking at the fantastic architecture - medieval and modern. Near to where I was staying, by the Jirasek Bridge across the Vltava River, is a building called "Tancici Dom" in Czech - "Dancing House." It was built in the 1990s, and one of the architects was Frank Gehry. When I first saw the house I was astonished, and after that the building always made me smile.

Another building was my favorite in Prague - the Obecni Dom (Municipal House), built in the early 20th century with much art nouveau decoration. This first photograph is of a mural just above the entrance to the building.

The second photo is of the balcony over the entrance. Notice the symbol of Prague in the center of the balcony.




The third photo is a detail in the stained glass of the entrance.

Pulsa Denura

Having just arrived back from Prague, I checked my blog and discovered to my astonishment how many people have been reading it - apparently to learn about the pulsa denura that the latest group of extremists has pronounced against Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

According to Haaretz, "Twenty people took part in the ceremony, which was held last Thursday in the small northern town of Rosh Pina. The participants believe that Sharon will die in the coming 30 days, or else all those who took part in the ceremony would die." Rabbi Yosef Dayan was one of the organizers of this curse ceremony, as he was of the original curse against the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was killed in 1995.

I originally wrote about this when Dayan threatened to curse Sharon, in September of 2004.

Terezin

Yesterday I visited Terezin, the Czech town that was turned by the Nazis into a ghetto for the Jews of the Czech lands (Bohemia and Moravia), as well as Jews from other parts of Europe (in particular, elderly German Jews). The town was originally built in the late 18th century as a fortress, and had become an ordinary town where people live before being taken over by the Nazis. It is about 40 miles from Prague, and the tour was led by a survivor of Terezin and Auschwitz. We visited museums that have been constructed only since the fall of Communism in 1989 (apparently the Communist regime only memorialized the Communists who had been held prisoner there by the Gestapo, but not the Jews), as well as surviving parts of the ghetto - for example, the morgue and the crematorium, which was built by the prisoners. There were no gas chambers there - Terezin was not an extermination camp, but rather a transit ghetto. Most of the Jews who passed through there (about 150, 000) were eventually transported to death camps, especially Auschwitz. The horrible, crowded conditions (about 60,000 people living in a town fit for about 5,000), starvation, and epidemic illness killed about 35,000 in Terezin.

We saw, among other places, one of the barracks where the Jews lived - part of it has been turned into a museum about cultural life in the ghetto (visual arts, theatre, and music paradoxically thrived in the ghetto, due in part to the large number of artists and musicians imprisoned there). There was also one room that has been reconstructed to look like a barracks room - with three-level bunks, clothes hanging up, people's suitcases, pots and pans and other belongings (they were allowed to bring a suitcase of about 100 lbs. per person with everything they needed). One could see from this how crowded the living conditions must have been. The museum showed many drawings made by prisoners about life in the ghetto, including pictures of people being taken to transports to the extermination camps in Poland.

In addition to the ghetto, we also saw the Small Fortress, which was the Gestapo prison. Political prisoners were held there in terrible conditions - the Jewish prisoners in particular were crammed together into a small cell, and very few survived. It was a grim place. One entered through an archway with the typical Nazi slogan at the entrance to the concentration camps - "Arbeit macht frei" - "Work makes you free," which was, of course, completely not true in the camps.

One of the feelings I ended up with was just blank incomprehension. I felt like I came away with some sense of the what - what happened - and of the how - how the Nazis treated the Jews and other prisoners there, how the prisoners tried to organize themselves and survive - but with no better sense of the why. I can study Nazi anti-semitism and try to understand Nazi ideology, but even that doesn't give me the answer I'm seeking, which is how people are capable of such acts of cruelty. I feel kind of like one of my students, just not understanding.

Blair speech on terror

Tony Blair made a very strong speech today denouncing terrorism which says "What we are confronting here is an evil ideology." It is very refreshing to see such an articulate explanation of what the "war on terror" is fighting - something which President Bush has never been able to explain sufficiently carefully to the American people.

They demand the elimination of Israel; the withdrawal of all Westerners from Muslim countries, irrespective of the wishes of people and government; the establishment of effectively Taleban states and Sharia law in the Arab world en route to one caliphate of all Muslim nations.

From the mid 1990s onwards, statements from Al-Qaeda, gave very clear expression to this ideology: "Every Muslim, the minute he can start differentiating, carries hatred towards the Americans, Jews and Christians. This is part of our ideology. The creation of Israel is a crime and it has to be erased.

"You should know that targeting Americans and Jews and killing them anywhere you find them on the earth is one of the greatest duties and one of the best acts of piety you can offer to God Almighty." Just as great is their hatred for so-called apostate governments in Muslim countries. This is why mainstream Muslims are also regarded as legitimate targets.

This is what we are up against. It cannot be beaten except by confronting it, symptoms and causes, head-on. Without compromise and without delusion.

The extremist propaganda is cleverly aimed at their target audience. It plays on our tolerance and good nature.

It exploits the tendency to guilt of the developed world, as if it is our behaviour that should change, that if we only tried to work out and act on their grievances, we could lift this evil, that if we changed our behaviour, they would change theirs. This is a misunderstanding of a catastrophic order.

Their cause is not founded on an injustice. It is founded on a belief, one whose fanaticism is such it can't be moderated. It can't be remedied. It has to be stood up to.

If it is the plight of the Palestinians that drives them, why, every time it looks as if Israel and Palestine are making progress, does the same ideology perpetrate an outrage that turns hope back into despair?

If it is Afghanistan that motivates them, why blow up innocent Afghans on their way to their first ever election? If it is Iraq that motivates them, why is the same ideology killing Iraqis by terror in defiance of an elected Iraqi government?

What was September 11, 2001 the reprisal for? Why even after the first Madrid bomb (in March 2004) and the election of a new Spanish government, were they planning another atrocity when caught?

Apologists among us

This thought-provoking posting at Norman Geras' blog, Apologists among us, made me think about something that has often occurred to me after one terrorist outrage or another. My reaction, when I hear of a terrorist attack, in Israel, the United States, Britain, Russia, Iraq, etc., is usually first of all shock and sadness, and then anger and often a desire for revenge against the terrorists (not that I'm advocating revenge, but it is one of my first feelings - I would advocate cool analysis, investigation, and measures to find the attackers and defend the vulnerable, instead). I feel helpless. I can't understand why people would do such a thing, especially to innocent civilians (the attack in Baghdad yesterday that killed many children was particularly appalling). I am interested in having a political understanding of how such things occur, but I don't view this as an explanation or excuse for why people commit such atrocities.

A month or so after September 11, I went to NYC to visit friends, and made a trip to the World Trade Center site. I couldn't see much, because of the fence around the whole site, but between the slats I could see the pile and the skeleton left of part of the buildings, a couple of stories high. I also saw another building that wasn't destroyed but had obviously been hit by falling debris and a huge gash in it (I think this was the Deutsche Bank building). It wasn't as horrible a sight as it would have been earlier, but it was still stunning. As I looked at it I was trying to figure out why people would do this - how they could possibly bring themselves to do this - and I had no answer. I took the train back uptown still baffled and shaken.

It didn't occur to me right after the attacks, or at any point thereafter, what the U.S. had done to "deserve this." I thought it was completely undeserved, as I think is true for every terrorist attack. It made me angry that people had attacked our country this way.

For this reason, I'm baffled why people react to terrorist attacks by searching for "root causes," as Norman says. It seems to be part of the whole ethos of blaming the victim, even if the victims include oneself. I think it's important to understand the political framework for these attacks, but that framework includes a lot more than the usual suspects - all the purportedly evil things the U.S. (or Britain) has done in the Middle East.

And I'm even more baffled when people's reaction is that since the attack was caused, for example, by Britain's participation in the Iraq War, that this means that Britain should pull out of Iraq. Isn't that simply giving in to the enemy, declaring defeat? Is the correct answer to an attack surrender, or preparing better defenses and going after the attackers? Even if one opposed Britain's participation in the Iraq war, isn't it simply giving in to terrorists to do what (you think) they want? And why would someone who opposed the war want to give in to terrorists, whom I hope he or she also opposes?

Global Attitudes

Andrew Sullivan sees positive trends in the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which reports lowered support for terrorism (specifically, suicide bombings) in six selected Muslim countries. The six countries surveyed were Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey, and Morocco. If we break it down to individual countries, however, I am not as sanguine as Andrew. Those surveyed were asked if violence against civilian targets is justified. In Jordan, 57% said it was often/sometimes justified, which is an increase from the last Pew survey, in summer 2002, when it was 43%. Perhaps this has something to do with the Palestinian intifada, since a majority of the Jordanian population is Palestinian in ethnic origin. This summer, 11% in Jordan said it was never justified, as opposed to 26% in summer 2002 - so the attitudes have worsened there. There has been a decrease in support for terrorism in the other countries, specifically Lebanon (from a height of 73% to a low now of 39%) - presumably affected by disapproval at the assassination of former Prime Minister Hariri. Support in Morocco went down from 40% to 13%. Majorities in Morocco, Pakistan, and Turkey saw Islamic extremism as a threat to their countries.

The most depressing statistics were from the questions about how people viewed those of other religious groups, specifically Jews. See the table below.



You'll notice that in all non-Muslim countries a majority has a favorable view of Jews - ranging from a low of 54% in Russia to a high of 85% in the Netherlands. If we look at the Muslim countries, opinions are uniformly negative, ranging from a high of 18% in Turkey having a favorable view of Jews to a low of 0% in Lebanon and Jordan. Even Turkey and Morocco, which have pretty good diplomatic relations with Israel, have a preponderance of negative views of Jews. I would guess that these negative opinions have been formed both by the Arab-Israeli conflict and by the spread of vile anti-semitic slanders in Muslim countries. Opinions about Christians in Muslim countries are mixed - 91% in Lebanon have a favorable view of Christians, and views are positive in Indonesia and Jordan (58% favorable). In Turkey, Pakistan, and Morocco lopsided majorities disapprove of Christians.

Views of Muslims in non-Muslim countries are much more positive, in contrast - the lowest favorable percentages are 40% in Germany, 45% in the Netherlands, 46% in Spain and Poland. In the U.S., 57% have a favorable view, 22% an unfavorable one. Thus, even after September 11, 2001, most Americans do not harbor anti-Muslim attitudes, showing that there is a reservoir of goodwill in this country.

Al Qaeda since 1998

At Winds of Change they have a produced a flash movie of the Al Qaeda attacks since 1998.

As the author says, “The purpose of the presentation is to graphically demonstrate al Qaeda’s ability to conduct mass casualty assaults on a global scale. This presentation by no means documents every single al Qaeda attack. For example, the murders of journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and USAID executive Lawrence Foley in Jordan were excluded, as have smaller impact suicide attacks and beheadings by al Qaeda in Iraq and elsewhere. Al Qaeda's butchery in Iraq can fill a presentation of its own. Also, planned or foiled chemical attacks against Jordan, France and England, the assassination attempts on President Musharraf of Pakistan and numerous other incidents throughout the world have not been documented.

The facts presented speak for themselves.

There have been 30 major mass casualty attacks directed against the United States, Britain, France, Spain, Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, Tunisia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and North Osetia. 14 of the 30 attacks were conducted prior to the invasion of Iraq, making claims of the occupation of Iraq as a casus belli for al Qaeda’s terrorism to be disingenuous at best. 4,895 people have been killed in these attacks, and 12,345 plus have been wounded. The majority of the countries attacked are Muslim countries. And although not stated, the vast majority of the victims of al Qaeda's violence are Muslims.

The ideologues, leaders and foot soldiers of al Qaeda have no reservations about slaughtering the innocent. The majority of their attacks have been directed against civilian infrastructure such as embassies, consulates, shipping, transportation, hotels, resorts, nightclubs, bars, synagogues, churches, temples, mosques, markets, housing complexes, office buildings and schools. Each of al Qaeda's targets were purposefully selected and carefully timed to inflict mass casualties as well as to provide the maximum media exposure. The radical Islamists embrace Muslim casualties, as many are considered infidel for embracing Western culture and rejecting the “pure” Islam espoused by al Qaeda. This is an enemy that deserves no quarter.

First London Bomb Victims Named

The First London Bomb Victims Named today.

Susan Levy, 53, a mother-of-two from Hertfordshire, north of London, was named by police while University College London (UCL) said its employee Gladys Wundowa had also been killed.

Levy was on the Piccadilly line train that was hit between Russell Square and Kings Cross last Thursday. She had traveled to central London with her son James, 23, but they parted at Finsbury Park.

"We are all devastated by our loss,'' her husband Harry said in a statement. "She was a valued and respected member of her extended Jewish family and will be deeply mourned and sadly missed by us and her many friends. We are all distraught at her needless loss and our thoughts and prayers are also with the many other families affected by this horrendous tragedy.''

Wundowa, a cleaner at UCL, was killed in the bus explosion at Tavistock Square.

And in the meantime, while people in London are mourning the dead, still searching for bodies, and doing their best to go forward leading normal lives, my local newspaper has printed its first letter blaming President Bush for the bombings....

There was no mercy here, no compassion, just bloodlust and desire to reciprocate the deaths and injuries that England has helped the United States to commit in Iraq and Afghanistan. Between Bush's puerile, gung-ho cowboy rhetoric and Blair's sidekick acquiescence, thousands of innocent people have died, including U.S. soldiers whose better natures and love of their country caused them to enlist and protect because their leaders fed them lie after lie. Iraqi civilians watch their families being destroyed, see their homeland occupied and looted, and all without evident hope that reason and justice will prevail to protect those who deserve none of the violence, the everyday citizens of the world.

The letter writer is avoiding the inconvenient fact that the September 11 attacks occurred before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. I don't quite see how those attacks could be blamed on our subsequent actions.

This letter fails completely to come to grips with the Islamist ideology that governs the actions of Al Qaeda and its cohorts - an ideology well articulated long before Sept. 11. Everything is blamed on the U.S. - would the writer even hold the bombers truly responsible for their own actions?

I was visiting my family when the London attacks occurred, and thus was buoyed up by the feeling that the world is a sane place, that decent people denounce terrorist attacks. Now that I've returned to Ithaca, I have the sinking feeling that I'm just going to have to listen to more of this rhetoric and once again try to decide whether to confront it (and get into arguments with people) or just let it pass in order not to say something I'd regret.

islamicate: London, G8, and the Bombings

I have finally taken a look at the Islamicate blog; the author, "Islamoyankee," has a very moving post about Al Qaeda and the London bombings. He says, "Understand, Al-Qaeda is not only about hatred; they are not only about denying and destroying the Islamic spirit; they are about destroying hope; about destroying the future. Their only concern is themselves. Not God's message. Not their interpretation of God's message. They have to be the center of everyone's attention. Like spoiled brats they make noise to get noticed, but there's no meaning to the noise. There's no way to make it stop."

Islam & Terrorism roundup

An excellent article by Salman Rushdie on India and Pakistan's Code of Dishonor. "The 'culture' of rape that exists in India and Pakistan arises from profound social anomalies, its origins lying in the unchanging harshness of a moral code based on the concepts of honor and shame. Thanks to that code's ruthlessness, raped women will go on hanging themselves in the woods and walking into rivers to drown themselves. It will take generations to change that."

And also in today's New York Times, For a Decade, London Thrived as a Busy Crossroads of Terror. Read this article if you subscribe to the puerile excuse that the attacks in London last week were because Britain has supported the U.S. in the war in Iraq.

Long before bombings ripped through London on Thursday, Britain had become a breeding ground for hate, fed by a militant version of Islam.

For two years, extremists like Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, a 47-year-old Syrian-born cleric, have played to ever-larger crowds, calling for holy war against Britain and exhorting young Muslim men to join the insurgency in Iraq. In a newspaper interview in April 2004, he warned that "a very well-organized" London-based group, Al Qaeda Europe, was "on the verge of launching a big operation" here. In a sermon attended by more than 500 people in a central London meeting hall last December, Sheik Omar vowed that if Western governments did not change their policies, Muslims would give them "a 9/11, day after day after day."

If London became a magnet for fiery preachers, it also became a destination for men willing to carry out their threats. For a decade, the city has been a crossroads for would-be terrorists who used it as a home base, where they could raise money, recruit members and draw inspiration from the militant messages. Among them were terrorists involved in attacks in Madrid, Casablanca, Saudi Arabia, Israel and in the Sept. 11 plot. Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man charged in the United States in the 9/11 attacks, and Richard C. Reid, the convicted shoe-bomber, both prayed at the Finsbury Park mosque in north London. The mosque's former leader, Abu Hamza al-Masri openly preached violence for years before the authorities arrested him in April 2004.

...Well before Thursday's bombings, British officials predicted a terrorist attack in their country. In a speech in October 2003, Eliza Manningham-Buller, the director general of MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence agency, said she saw "no prospect of a significant reduction in the threat posed to the U.K. and its interests from Islamist terrorism over the next five years, and I fear for a considerable number of years thereafter."

Britain's challenge to detect militants on its soil is particularly difficult. Counterterrorism officials estimate that 10,000 to 15,000 Muslims living in Britain are supporters of Al Qaeda. Among that number, officials believe that as many as 600 men were trained in camps connected with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

...Even last week's bombings did little to curtail the rhetoric of some of the most radical leaders, who criticized Prime Minister Tony Blair for saying that the bombings appeared to be the work of Islamic terrorists. "This shows me that he is an enemy of Islam," Abu Abdullah, a self-appointed preacher and the spokesman for the radical group Supporters of Shariah, said in an interview on Friday, adding, "Sometimes when you see how people speak, it shows you who your enemies are."

Mr. Abdullah declared that those British citizens who re-elected Mr. Blair "have blood on their hands" because British soldiers are killing Muslims. He also said that the British government, not Muslims, "have their hands" in the bombings, explaining, "They want to go on with their fight against Islam."

Imran Waheed, a spokesman for a radical British-based group, Hizb ut Tahrir, which is allowed to function here but is banned in Germany and much of the Muslim world, said: "When Westerners get killed, the world cries. But if Muslims get killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, it's the smallest of news. I will condemn what happened in London only after there is the promise from Western leaders to condemn what they have done in Falluja and other parts of Iraq and in Afghanistan."

So far, there appears to be little effort to restrain outspoken clerics, including prominent extremists like Sheik Omar, who has reportedly been under investigation by Scotland Yard. Sheik Omar, who remains free, is an example of the double-edged policies in Britain. He is a political refugee who was given asylum 19 years ago and is supported by public assistance. Asked in an interview in May how he felt about being barred from obtaining British citizenship, he replied, "I don't want to become a citizen of hell."

It's nice to see the Times not pulling any punches in today's article, because in article in yesterday's Times on Muslims in England, they presented Imran Waheed as an example of a moderate Muslim outraged by people slurring all Muslims as terrorists! See this outrageous article.

But the frustration of the community is growing as evidence mounts that Muslim immigrant citizens or the children of immigrants in Europe are increasingly populating the rank and file of terrorist organizations. Of 140 people implicated in European terrorist activities since 1993, 24 percent were European nationals, according to a study by Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke at Washington's Nixon Center, an independent think tank.

And whose fault is it that Muslim immigrants or their children are increasingly counted among the terrorists? Seems to me that Muslims should be frustrated at themselves, not at others!

These next paragraphs, however, are the most outrageous, picking supporters of Islamist terror and quoting them as moderate Muslims!

For many Muslims here, condemning terrorism does not mean condoning American or British policies. "It is correct to say Islam forbids the killing of civilians, but we need to have a larger discussion about why these actions happened," said Imran Waheed, spokesman for the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamist party working for the return of an Islamic caliphate, whose activists handed out leaflets outside the Finsbury Park mosque as people left Friday Prayer. "What we want is equity or parity between the life of a Briton in the suburbs of London and a farmer in Iraq," he said.

Opposition to Britain's role in Iraq has turned the area's Muslim community away from the governing Labor Party and toward the upstart Respect Party of George Galloway, who issued a statement Thursday saying that his party had warned that the war in Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain.

Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of Britain's Islamic Human Rights Commission, argued that injustice lends legitimacy to extremist discourse. "There needs to be a separation between those who are committing those atrocities and those who are passionate about injustice," he said, adding that dismissing extremists outright only isolates them and makes them more likely to turn to violence. "We need to encourage that passion and give them avenues within the civil society to deal with injustices."

This is another excuse for terrorists. Their "passion" needs to be encouraged and given avenues within civil society! How, exactly? Making all women wear burkas? Like instituting the laws about rape cited in Salman Rushdie's op-ed piece? Like opposing the existence of the state of Israel?

"We have far greater experience as victims of terror than as perpetrators of terror," said Mr. Waheed of Hizb ut-Tahrir, saying that the community's reaction to the killing of Muslims in Afghanistan and the Middle East has been "remarkably restrained..."People need to understand the feeling on the Muslim street," he said. "People hate the foreign policy of Britain and the United States, and the West needs to consider whether constant interference in the Muslim world is productive."

What were the editors of the Times thinking when they allowed this piece of biased, slanted, and simply wrong journalism to be printed in the newspaper? It seems to me that they were letting the political biases of this particular reporter, Craig Smith, get in the way of some honest reporting about the support for Islamic terrorism among Muslims in Britain. While I am not usually one to attack the Times for its political stance, in this case I think it has made an egregious mistake.

This article, however, does give me some hope: Longtime Haven for Arabs Now Must Ask: Why Us?. One of the bombs in London went off in a predominantly Arab neighborhood.

"We have to be honest and realistic with ourselves," said Laith Abdel Fattah, a part owner of Panini Cafe, tucked on a side street a block from the bombed train station. "We are living in an age that is simply unnatural. Is there anywhere in Islam that says you have to kill? Nowhere does it say you can take away somebody's right to live. And yet they do this in the name of Islam." Like many here, Mr. Abdel Fattah said he was indignant that the bombing could possibly be done in the name of his faith and his community. Out of a sense of duty, he said, he approached the police on Friday and offered any help they required.

"I wanted to show them that we too believe that what happened was unacceptable," he said. "There are only two directions we can take now. Either we wait and see what's coming, and that can only be bad, or we have to speak out and say unequivocally this is unacceptable. We need to show people what the right example is."

At the Rafidain Real Estate Agency on Edgware Road, Abu Ahmad al-Sharif sat with his nephew and a friend, pondering the bombings. Mr. Sharif, an immigrant from Iraq, was riding a bus as the Edgware Road bomb went off a few blocks away from him. The bus service was halted and he walked to work, leading him past the carnage at the Edgware Road station, where he grasped the gravity of the incident. He realized his son had taken one of the routes to work and broke into tears, then grew furious.

"In my homeland, Iraq, terrorism is no longer a surprise," Mr. Sharif said. "But I never imagined it could happen in a place like this. This place always seemed so far from terrorism," he said, noting the safe harbor England has given many Iraqis. "I blame the fathers, the mothers and the schools of these people who let them get to this point," he said. "It is our duty to find these groups because they are like a cancer and will only continue to grow unless we cut it from its roots." "Someone has to show them the boundary," said Sabah al-Hamdani, who had been listening intently. "We need to stand in their way."

Visiting Prague

Just a quick posting, because I'm paying by the minute.... I arrived in Prague last Monday, and will be visiting here until next Thursday. I spent the first few days visiting an academic study abroad program that we have sent students to - it seems very well-organized and intellectually rooted, and I will be happily recommending it to more students. Along with that I've been a tourist in Prague, and as I'm sure almost everyone says who visits here, it's a beautiful city - lots of art nouveau buildings from the early 20th century mixed in with medieval architecture. I visited Josefov, the Jewish quarter, my first full day here - I saw the synagogues, including the Old-New synagogue, which dates from the 13th century. Yesterday and today I went to the Prague Castle complex and have still seen only a part of it - lots of beautiful buildings and art still to be seen in the days ahead. Tomorrow I'm going on a tour to Terezin - the town the Nazis turned into a concentration camp, which became the way-station to Auschwitz. I'll post more about my trip probably when I return to the states and have more time (and I'm not writing in an internet cafe!).

It was shocking to hear about the attempted bombings in London yesterday and the horrible bombings in Sharm el Sheik today. It still feels distant from Prague, which seems like a very safe city (at least in the touristy sections), but it puts me a bit on edge.

Terrorist attacks in London

Tom Friedman in tomorrow's New York Times is correct when he says: "Yesterday's bombings in downtown London are profoundly disturbing. In part, that is because a bombing in our mother country and closest ally, England, is almost like a bombing in our own country." I have to admit this is also how I feel - although more people were killed in the Madrid bombings on 3/11/04, the bombings in London have upset me more deeply. I've visited London, some of my ancestors come from England (others passed through on their way to the U.S.), and the British were the bulwark against Nazism when no one else was. Somehow, this hits closer to home.

He continues by arguing that this attack in London could lead Western countries to a crackdown not just on Muslim terrorists, but on all Muslims.

And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.

What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed. Many people said Palestinian suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians decided that it was in their interest to have a cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold. The village said enough was enough.

The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.

Some Muslim leaders have taken up this challenge. This past week in Jordan, King Abdullah II hosted an impressive conference in Amman for moderate Muslim thinkers and clerics who want to take back their faith from those who have tried to hijack it. But this has to go further and wider.

The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.

There are Muslims who condemn terrorism in their name and who call for free and equal Muslim societies. The Bahraini blogger Mahmood al-Yousif says, "The way to beat them is not to give in to them, and more democracy and democratic institutions, a complete overhaul of the education system in the Arab and Muslim worlds and the full separation of Mosque and State. The time is now. We have to get this done. Otherwise we will be completely left behind and will suffer much more at the hands of these terrorists. My heart and thoughts go to the people of the United Kingdom in this very difficult time."

I second his feelingsl and hope that this will be the last terrorist attack inflicted by al-Qaeda and its cohorts.

Protest vigil in Jerusalem

According to this report in Haaretz, about 350 people showed up tonight for the protest vigil against the stabbing at the Jerusalem gay pride rally.

Tuesday's demonstration was an expression of solidarity with the three marchers stabbed last Thursday at Jerusalem's gay pride parade. The slogan of the demonstration was "They tried to kill me because I am gay."

Approximately 350 demonstrators gathered Tuesday on King George Street in the capital across from the spot in which Schlisel stormed the parade. Demonstrators waved signs ("Jerusalem was destroyed by hatred" and "love thy enemies") and called for an end to homophobia, addressing Jerusalem's mayor Uri Lupolianski directly.

Chair of the Jerusalem Open House and organizer of the event Noa Sattath said, "There is a direct connection between the incitement that originated with the mayor and the stabbing... I don't understand how the mayor sleeps at night."

More violence against gay people in Jerusalem

As reported in today's Jerusalem Post, Violent anti-gay protests continue in Jerusalem.

A 30-year-old haredi man who was seen approaching an event organized by Jerusalem's gay and lesbian community in the city center Tuesday night was detained for questioning after police found a knife in his possession, police said. The suspect told police that he came to the event to "read the placards" and that he uses the knife "to peel fruit", Jerusalem Police Spokesman Shmuel ben Ruby said.

Simultaneously, several thousand haredi protesters pelted three city busses with stones Tuesday evening at a central Jerusalem thoroughfare in a continuation of the protest over last week's gay pride parade in the city, police said. One police officer was struck in the head by a rock, and was treated for injuries at Sha'are Zedek Hospital. Three Egged busses were also badly damaged, ben-Ruby said. Police dispersed the rioters, who had congregated at Kikar Shabat in the heart of Jerusalem's haredi neighborhoods.

I would guess that the event referred to was the protest vigil I mentioned earlier.

One wonders why the haredi rioters pelted city buses with stones - were their drivers or riders guilty of anything in particular, or were they just handy, in the way? And one also wonders if there will be any protests by the religious "leadership" in Israel against these acts of violence?

Daf Yomi

There seems to be a new phenomenon of people blogging on the Daf Yomi. I found this blog, Daf Am Haaretz, written by Neil Litt, former chair of the National Havurah Committee. And Kaspit frequently blogs on the Daf Yomi, especially as it relates to environmental issues. Reclaiming the Daf is a group blog on the Daf, which includes Kaspit.

Gay pride parade assailant charged with attempted murder

The man who stabbed three people at the Jerusalem gay pride march has been charged with three counts of attempted murder.

The man, Yishai Schlisel, an Orthodox Jew from Upper Modi'in, was quoted by state prosecutors as telling police officers who interrogated him that he "came to kill in the name of God." According to the indictment filed against Shlisel, the defendant carefully planned his actions, purchased the knife ahead of time, hid it in his waistcoat and then ambushed the marchers along the parade's route.

The Jerusalem Open House sent out an e-mail yesterday giving more details about the protest vigil, which is to occur tonight at 7 p.m., Jerusalem time.

Web Roundup

I just read a beautiful post on Mishkaneer - Beyond the Old Zionism, about what it really means to be a "New Jew."

Jen Taylor Friedman is a soferet (female scribe), whose website I found from Netivat Sofrut. Jen Friedman writes megillot Esther (the scroll of Esther), as well as other documents.

Mordechai Pinchas, a sofer, writes about his writing of a newly composed scroll, the Megillat ha-Shoah. This Megillah was composed by Professor Avigdor Shinan, working on behalf of the Conservative movement in Israel. These are the contents:

The scroll contains six chapters that include a testimony from a survivor whose job in a death camp was to dispose of bodies while removing the victims' gold teeth, including those of his dead brother; an eyewitness account of life in the Warsaw Ghetto; and an eulogy for those who perished. Its final chapter also commemorates the survivors, including those who went on to build the State of Israel.

Velveteen Rabbi is discussing the numbering of the Ten Commandments and how they differ between Jews and Christians. She says:

But disenfranchisement of those who don't share this text, or the government's chosen version of the text, is only one problem. Another problem -- at least, for me as a Jew -- is the implication that these verses supercede the rest of the Torah. Jews don't generally call this bit of text the "Ten Commandments," because we don't want to imply that they're the Big Ten and all the other ones don't matter as much. (In Torah they're called aseret ha'dvarim/ten sayings, and from Rabbinic days onward we've used the name aseret ha-dibrot/ten utterances). We place our focus on the whole path of righteous behavior, and consider it inappropriate to elevate these ten statements above the other 603 mitzvot that Torah offers. So while it's true that I'm a member of a faith-community for whom (some versions of) these words have relevance, I wouldn't be comfortable seeing them displayed in public spaces even in the original lengthy Hebrew version.

And here's a good online article about Jewish blogs, written by Sarah Bronson.

Yishai Schlissel Stabs 3 at Jerusalem Gay Pride March in 2005

The gay pride parade in Jerusalem last Thursday night was disrupted when a protester stabbed 3 marchers.

The stabbing attack was the most serious in a series of incidents involving opponents of the gay and lesbian gathering. Police said that some 200 religious protesters gathered at the parade's starting point, the downtown offices of the Jerusalem Open House, the gay and lesbian community center that organized the fourth annual parade.

Protesters tried to stop the march by throwing a stink bomb, but some 2,000 participants marched on through the center of Jerusalem regardless, braving shouts and insults from protesters, most of them young ultra-Orthodox men.

"Homo sex is immoral," read one protester's sign. As the parade neared a main intersection, the attacker jumped into the first group of marchers and stabbed a man. Blood from the victim's chest seeped through his shirt as he sat, dazed, at the side of the road before an ambulance came to take him to a hospital, where he was said to be in serious condition.

The organized protest, I am sure, came about because of the determined opposition of the ultra-Orthodox leadership to this parade - including Mayor Lupolianski's trying to ban it (the ban was overturned by the court). It's hard to imagine that the stabbing was unrelated to the extreme rhetoric used by the ultra-Orthodox and to the general atmosphere of violent protest against the disengagement from Gaza.

In my experience of demonstrations in Israel, I never saw a weapon used against demonstrators (I mostly went to demonstrations against the Israeli occupation), but I was tear-gassed four times (by the police), and many times experienced horrible curses being directed against us by right-wing passersby. One in particular sticks in my mind - when participating in the weekly "Women in Black" anti-occupation demonstration in Paris Sq. in Jerusalem (this would have been in the late 1980s, during the first intifada), we were cursed by someone wishing that Hitler had killed us too. And this was a curse uttered by a Jew against fellow Jews! I also remember going to prayers organized by the Women of the Wall for Ta'anit Esther in 1989, when we were met by a determined band of about 50 ultra-Orthodox men yelling at us and threatening us. The police fired a tear-gas canister at them, and one man picked the canister up and threw it at us in the women's section of the Kotel. We all had to leave, since it was impossible to breathe.

According to the weekly e-mail that I receive from the Open House in Jerusalem (the Jerusalem gay and lesbian center), they are planning a protest vigil against the stabbing, at the same place where it occurred (on King George St.). I'm not sure when the vigil is planned for, since a date isn't given. The notice reads: "A community demonstration to protest the incitement, violence, and the stabbings that occurred at the Pride March on Thursday." It says that it will be guarded by the police. "It is important for us to emphasize the connection between incitement and violence, and to protest in a dignified way against hatred." They were also planning for buses to bring people from Tel Aviv to participate in the protest vigil. I looked at the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz web sites, but didn't see anything about this protest vigil, so I don't if it occurred already.

For more information, see also: Gay Stabbing Victim Blames Negative Publicity, Court extends remand of suspect in Gay Pride stabbing. To see some pictures, see Gay Pride Marchers Attacked in Israel, but ignore the anti-Zionist ravings in the comments. For an example of incitement see this story from Arutz Sheva: MK Yishai: Gay Parade is a Contamination. Yishai is the chairman of the Shas party, the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party.

Sometimes people ask me if Jews still use amulets. I tell them that I've seen preprinted amulets that can be bought at Jewish book stores (I have a few in my office). But this is an example of a contemporary soferet (scribe) writing an amulet based upon the classic form of an amulet taken from Sefer Raziel, an early 18th century anthology of mystical and magical texts. Aviel Barclay-Rothschild, "the only living certified Soferet (female Jewish ritual scribe)," says about the amulet:

The top text is a series of angel names, invoked for the safety & health of the mother & child. The middle is an illustrated focal point, representing the 3 angels who have power over Lilith as birds on one hand, mysterious shapes on the other. Adam & Eve are banishing Lilith from the birthspace. The bottom text is a blessing for the mother, here referred to as "Plonit bat Plonit", or "What's-her-name daughter of What's-her-name". This space can be personalised. I sold the original work to a female obstetrician/gynecologist in St Louis, MO.

She also has an example of another amulet she has made, this time a birth-protection amulet

Jews blaming ourselves for the Holocaust

Once more on the theme of Jews blaming ourselves for the Holocaust. Over on DovBear, Toby Katz has again fallen into the pit which she herself has digged, with the following comment:

1. I said, over and over and over, that no one knows why the Holocaust occurred, that there were numerous reasons for it, and that the only people to "blame" for it are the Nazis. OTOH I did say that "it was no coincidence the Holocaust started in Berlin." That is the only sentence of mine you keep quoting, because you seem to think it shows me at my worst. Mis-nagid [another blogger] has openly admitted he's an atheist, but what about the people who claim to believe in the Torah? Do you deny Hashgacha Pratis [individual Providence - i.e., the idea that God watches over each individual]? Do you deny the validity of the Tochacha [the Rebuke - series of punishments described in Deut. 27-28, which are supposed to come upon the Jewish people if they fail to obey the covenant with God]? Do you think that whatever happened in Europe, it WAS just a coincidence? By causing people to focus their hatred against Torah-true Jews [i.e., Orthodox Jews] instead of against the failings of their own non-Torah movements, you prevent the Ge'ulah [redemption]. And how do you know for sure that it WAS just a coincidence? That Reform was not even one thousandth of a thousandth of a reason for any of G-d's protection to be withheld from His people, not even one tiny bit? Did G-d Himself tell you that the Tochacha is no longer operative?

I find this offensive in so many ways, principally because it involves a Jew blaming other Jews for mass murder inflicted upon Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. I also object to the view of God that Toby Katz (and not only her - see also the comments of a Rabbi Forsythe, A Torah Insight into the Holocaust) puts forward - as an unmerciful, vengeance-seeking, tyrant. What about the prayers that we utter during the Days of Awe, asking for God's forgiveness and being assured that God will forgive us? "And repentance, prayer, and charity/ righteousness will avert the evil decree."

I also object because Toby (and Rabbi Forsythe, and perhaps others) are arguing that this is the only "Torah-true" perspective on the Holocaust, something which is clearly not true. The best example, perhaps, is to be found in the writings of Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira, a Polish Hasidic rebbe (whom I've written about before) who led a very successful yeshiva and educational program before World War II. He was imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto after the Nazi invasion of Poland, and lived through the "Great Deportation" in summer of 1942, when the majority of the Ghetto's Jews were taken to Treblinka and killed.

His first attitude towards the sufferings the Jews were enduring at the Nazis was very much the traditional view espoused by Toby Katz & R. Forsythe, although unlike them he was going through this suffering, rather than theologizing about it after the fact. He first held that the Jews were suffering because they had left religion, were not studying Torah with the proper diligence, etc. After a while in the Ghetto, his views began to shift, and he began to believe that it was not because of the sins of the people that they were suffering. Instead, he began to see it as an unknowable mystery about which even God himself was weeping in his inner chambers - and a mystery into which a weeping Jew can enter precisely through his own weeping.

Rabbi Shapira also denied that the sufferings of the Holocaust could be compared to any previous suffering in Jewish history. In November, 1942, after the Great Deportation, he writes in a note, "Only until the end of 5702 [summer of 1942] was it the case that such sufferings were experienced before. However, as for the monstrous torments, the terrible and freakish deaths the malevolent monstrous murderers devised against us, the House of Israel, from the end of 5702 and on - according to my knowledge of rabbinic literature and Jewish history in general, there has never been anything like them. May God have mercy and deliver us from their hands in the twinkling of an eye" (p. 139 of R. Shapira's Esh Kodesh, a collection of his homilies published posthumously after the war; translation from Nehemia Polen, The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto, pp. 132-133).

One of the qualities that shines through Rabbi Shapira's writing is his love for the Jewish people and individual suffering Jews - and I believe it is this quality of his that we must emulate when writing and speaking about the Holocaust, rather than blaming the victims and besmirching the memory of the Jews were were murdered.

This is another serious issue that Rep. Hostettler took up last year, to defend the morals of the good citizens of Indiana - Hostettler mounting campaign to change the name of Interstate 69. Otherwise, from looking at his official website, he seems a fairly devoted supporter of Pres. Bush's conservative Republican policies, although he voted against the war in Iraq (and also against sending U.S. ground troops to Kosovo). He voted for that perennial favorite, moving the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but since no such thing is going to happen until there's a real peace between Israel and the Palestinians, such a vote is a cheap sop to Zionists.

E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post writes about Rep. David Obey's attempt to Keep Faith With Religious Freedom. Last week Obey offered "an amendment to the military appropriations bill calling on the secretary of the Air Force to 'develop a plan to ensure that the Air Force Academy maintains a climate free from coercive intimidation and inappropriate proselytizing.'" For his pains, Obey, a Roman Catholic, was viciously attacked by Rep. John Hostettler of Indiana, with these words:

Obey's all-American assertion of religious liberty was, for Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.), part of "the long war on Christianity in America [that] continues today on the floor of the House of Representatives. It continues unabated with aid and comfort to those who would eradicate any vestige of our Christian heritage being supplied by the usual suspects, the Democrats. . . . Like a moth to a flame, Democrats can't help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians."

This appalling statement was eventually stricken from the record, but that was cold comfort for Obey:

Obey rose to his feet and demanded that Hostettler's last words be stricken from the record, which they eventually were. "If Jesus is watching what's happening on the floor of the House of Representatives, with people behaving in such a blasphemous fashion," Obey said this week, "well, I am reminded of that passage, 'Jesus wept.' " Obey said that when he first came to Congress, "there would have been universal condemnation of Hostettler by both parties." In this case, Obey said he was approached afterward by a single sympathetic Republican. Obey was comforted that Jewish House members "appreciated that a Christian would speak out."

This last quote is very scary! Only Jewish house members appreciated what Obey said? And have we descended to the political level now that we have to be grateful that Christians are speaking out in favor of religious tolerance?

The Forward reported earlier this month on how Rep. Steve Israel of New York was also harassed when he tried to introduce two measures to require the Air Force to "submit a plan for ensuring religious tolerance" at its academy.

Several Republican lawmakers are using the controversy as an opportunity to air the view that it is Christians whose constitutional free-speech rights are being suppressed in the military. At a recent Armed Services Committee hearing, Rep. John Hostetler, an Indiana Republican, derided the "mythical wall of church-state separation" as he argued that Israel's amendment "would bring the ACLU" and "the very silliness that's been present on... several courts of justice over the last 50 years" into the United States military. Israel's measure, he added, would "quash the religious expression of millions of service personnel."...

At the hearing, Rep. Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican, suggested that, contrary to what Israel was reporting about the Air Force Academy, the problem in the military was that some evangelical Christians feel they are "not being promoted" because of their faith, and Christian chaplains say they are not being allowed to conduct prayers referring to Jesus. "There is a problem in the military.... The problem is political correctness," he declared.

No, the problem is what Andrew Sullivan has started calling "Christianism" (a term to parallel with "Islamism") - the belief that Christianity is superior to all other religions, and that this superiority must be upheld by the U.S. government.

As Steve Israel said, "The Republicans [on the Armed Services Committee] just jumped on me," Israel told the Forward. "The people who were coerced were represented as the problem. The people who coerced were represented as the victims."

I wonder what the position these Republicans take on Israel (the nation, not the individual)?

DovBear has decided to train his sights on Daniel Lapin's organization, Toward Tradition, so I thought I'd cruise on over to their web site to take a look at them. On their home page I came across a list of the "four unique programs" of their mission. They include:

1) The Macabee Project. "Combating anti-Jewish/ anti-Christian bigotry; defending Christians unjustly accused of anti-Semitism." The main point seems to be to provide coverage for right-wing Christians whose vision for America doesn't include much tolerance for anybody else. See their comments on the ADL: "The Anti-Defamation League once stood to defend the Jewish faith, as well as the Jewish ethnicity, from anti-Semitic assaults in the media, and in society. They now seem poised to turn every conflict between a secular Jewish individual and a religious Christian into a specious example of anti-Semitism. This will not help the Jewish community. In fact, Judaism seems to be under attack from liberal, secular Jews: this is defamation and anti-Semitism that seems to attract little to no attention from the ADL."

I do agree that the ADL does sometimes blow incidents of antisemitism out of proportion, but I think that Lapin is simply turning his own political disagreement with the ADL into the ADL's supposed lack of interest in defending Jews against antisemitism.

3) The American Alliance of Jews and Christians. "The American Alliance of Jews and Christians (AAJC) is led by Rabbi Daniel Lapin. The Alliance unites American Jews with Christians on behalf of traditional values. The AAJC’s Board of Advisers includes Dr. James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Charles Colson, Rev. Jerry Falwell, Rev. Pat Robertson, Pastor Rick Scarborough, as well as Rabbi Barry Freundel, Rabbi David Novak, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Michael Medved, John Uhlmann."

Well, from this list of advisors we know where their political beliefs lie - uniting with such paragons as Charles Colson, Pat Robertson, et al, and equally conservative Jews like Freundel, Novak, and Medved (although one wonders why they've gone along with such a dubious character as Lapin).

For those who wish to know more, they've published a pamphlet called "Enemies or Allies? Why American Jews Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Conservative Christians."

And finally, 4) The Ethical Capitalism Project, which begins with these words: "Much of America's strength is depleted by the animosity and disrespect heaped on business people. When an employer who has provided jobs for thousands of people is made to feel guilty for being greedy, it's time for society to reassess its values."

As DovBear Rabbi Lapin appears to be deep in the muck with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist accused of defrauding Indian tribes. So much for ethical capitalism...

Defining "lulei"

On the phrase "lulei de-mistafina," a favorite of Cloojew (and mysterious to most others), two people comment (from On the Main Line):

It's one of those words that no one in ninth grade told me what it literally meant and I never thought about it, but you pick up from context. Contextually it means something like "if I may be so bold".
S. | Homepage | 06.24.05 - 12:00 pm | #

Lit.
If not for the fact that I am less than 100% sure of what I'm saying...

LkwdGuy | 06.24.05 - 12:02 pm | #

I was just cruising through Bloghead and found a link to this hilarious post by Naomi Chana of Baraita, on the broad-ranging cross-blog fight about hagba, women's tefillah groups, and the role of women in Judaism (by the way, why don't we ever have big fights about the role of men in Judaism?). Her best line: "But I had hitherto been ignorant of how participating in groups of women praying and studying Torah together will cause said women to sprout facial hair, stop loving their children, produce Christian grandkids, do something unspecified but presumably nasty to True Judaism (tm), and start participating in incestuous cannibalistic orgies with married terrorists." Read the rest for further amusement....

I've definitely been spending too much time participating in some rather rousing discussions over at DovBear's and Miriam (and Paul) Shaviv's blogs - long arguments, mostly about women and halakhah (a very interesting discussion sparked by Miriam's participating in a women's tefilah group and getting hagba). There's been much spirited argumentation with Toby Katz, and now Lisa, on DovBear's comment threads - they defend a rather (to my mind) rigid version of Orthodoxy and especially what should be important to Orthodox women (having more babies and dressing modestly, it seems).

Two bloggers that I've encountered through these discussions and have started to read with pleasure are Orthomom and Mirty, who has also been drawn into the uproar (see this posting from her: they really don't get it).

Since I currently belong to a Conservative shul, and have never defined myself as Orthodox (even though I did belong to an Orthodox shul for a year in Jerusalem), I sometimes feel a bit of an interloper in these discussions, but one of the pleasures of the internet & especially the blogging world is that it's possible to enter into a community of sorts that one might never enter in the "real world."

I would find it interesting to be introduced to some more Conservative and Reform Jewish bloggers who are as passionate as the usual crew over at DovBear & Bloghd - the inimitable Amshinover, the halakhically correct Gil Student, the lyrically spiritual Barefoot Jewess, GoldaLeah, Conservative Apikorus... the list goes on. Anyone have suggestions?

There were several letters in yesterday's Ithaca Journal responding to the full page of opinion pieces published on May 21, 2005, responding to Sandy Wold's column criticizing Israel. (By the way, I discovered by going back to the site that my letter has made it on to the IJ's web site: "Zionist Jew" rejects inflammatory comments.)

Along with three letters critical of Israel written by other people, Sandy Wold herself wrote an angry retort in yesterday's Journal, in which she said that she is retracting her apologetic letter of May 21:

I have been deeply concerned about the presentation of the May 21 opinion page. While the Journal followed its "journalistic standards," they nevertheless made choices that placated an international group at my expense and neglected to inform readers of significant behind-the-scenes events. Readers should know that 90 percent of the hostile letters published on May 21 came from Honest Reporting", an organization of 120,000 who bombarded me with hostile emails and calls. Readers should know that the Journal publisher urged me to submit a peace-making communication I posted to the honestreporting.com blog on May 9. Readers should also know that the Journal omitted two significant paragraphs from my May 21 guest column without my permission while superfluous quotes remained.

She's right that the letters were prompted by the posting on Honest Reporting, and also by the posting on Little Green Footballs. I went to the HR website and some of the comments posted there were extremely hostile, as were those on the LGF site. While I didn't agree with what she said, some of the HR and LGF comments were over the line and engaged in personal abuse.

My critics made countless false assumptions about what I believe and the Journal misrepresented me and my message of May 21. Ironically, the volatility of my critics and the Journal's appeasement perfectly exemplify the dynamic I was describing in my original guest column of May 7.

I don't quite know what she means by the "volatility" of her critics. Yes, people were mad at her - as advocates of Israel often are at those who criticize or demonize Israel (I think her comments came closer to the latter than the former). I don't see that the Journal "appeased" them - rather, it published letters critical of her remarks - and letters that were not personally abusive. They objected to her on political, rather than personal grounds. Anyone writing in public on Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to be prepared for criticism (and sometimes personal attacks) from those disagreeing with them.

I also object to the choice of pictures for that page which demonized Arab people. Readers deserve to be reminded that not all Palestinians/Arabs agree with PLO behavior. My column and its omitted content was written in a sincere spirit of seeking understanding of the individuals within this group and simultaneously clarifying what I originally meant by the universality of the victim mind-set. I did not know that the Journal would edit my column in such a way that would collude with the agenda of this group to silence dissent; I therefore retract my letter of May 21 and will publish elsewhere.

For the information of readers who only saw the internet version of the Journal from May 21, there were two photographs placed at the top of the page, below which came first my letter, then a whole series of international letters (prompted by the posting on Honest Reporting), and then Sandy Wold's column responding to those who criticized her (specifically, the international letters, not mine). The photograph on the right depicted Palestinian men wearing masks, and aiming guns. The legend below the picture was, in the words of the Journal, "Masked Palestinian militants of the Popular Resistance Committees, a militia linked to the Fatah movement, perform a military exercise in the streets during a rally in Gaza City, Friday. As Palestinian-Israeli fighting spilled over into a third straight day, Israel warned a cease-fire declared in February is in danger of collapse." The photograph on the left depicted Jewish settlers, also armed, in Gaza, with the legend: "Jewish settlers walk toward an abandoned building located between the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom and the Palestinian town of Deir el-Ballah on Friday. Settlers intend to set up a defensive position in the building used earlier on by Palestinian militants who fired missiles and light arms fire at the Jewish settlement." Both pictures were from the AP. The placing of the photos side by side seemed to me the Journal's attempt to be evenhanded - to point out that there is violence on both sides from sources not officially authorized - Jewish settlers and the Popular Resistance Committees.

I think it's very telling that Wold only objected to the picture of the Palestinian gunman, and didn't even mention the photo of the Jewish settlers. She is only capable of seeing media bias on one side (as is true of many of the letters criticizing her).

In response to Wold's letter, the editors of the Journal wrote (June 18): "EDITOR'S NOTE: Wold was repeatedly advised by the opinion page editor that she was welcome to submit a follow-up column to her May 7 piece, but was not required to do so. Wold accepted that invitation, submitting nine versions of her reply as well as a hand-written addendum. The final version of her reply, plus addendum, was about 300 words longer than The Journal's established 750-word limit for such submissions. It was carefully edited to approach that word limit without altering its message. We stand by that effort."

It's because of stories like this - Iraqis Found in Torture House Tell of Brutality of Insurgents - that I can't support U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. We would be abandoning and betraying people like Ahmed Isa Fathil, who briefly joined the new Iraqi army and apparently was captured and tortured by terrorists (I can't bring myself to call them "insurgents" - it's much too anodyne a name for these torturers and murderers). I'm just sad and angry that our administration has screwed things up so badly in Iraq.

As Kevin Drum says, "This [Gov. Bush's insisting on keeping the Schiavo case open], though, simply beggars the imagination. What kind of human being would keep a vendetta like this alive at this point?"

When I read this in yesterday's New York Times, Gov. Bush Seeks Another Inquiry in Schiavo Case, I was astonished and disgusted. Has Jeb Bush no shame at all? He writes in a letter to the Times yesterday: "The New York Times's grotesque and chilling disrespect for the sanctity of life has never been more apparent than in your June 16 editorial 'Autopsy on the Schiavo Tragedy.'" Does he really think that the New York Times, which opposed the Iraq War, opposes the death penalty, and speaks out for those being murdered in Darfur, Sudan actually disrespects "the sanctity of life"? He goes on to write: "Terri Schiavo was a deeply loved daughter, wife, sister and friend. The fact that her brain was atrophied or that she was blind or could not have been rehabilitated doesn't change that fact. While many medical professionals said she was in a persistent vegetative state, still other highly respected neurologists said there was a chance that she was not." Which highly respected neurologiests? Sen. Frist? Anybody who had actually examined her? He finishes by saying, "Despite claims of cynicism and being "\'agenda-driven,' we will continue to strive to protect our most vulnerable citizens. All innocent human life is precious, and government has a duty to protect the weak, the disabled and the vulnerable." What a hypocrite. This is the so-called culture of life? I'm really disgusted.

Last night I went with friends to see a new Israeli movie - Walk on water. It's a story about a Mossad agent whose mission is first to find out if an old Nazi war criminal is still alive, by befriending his grandson who is visiting his sister who is volunteering on a kibbutz in Israel, and then when he discovers that the old man is still alive, to follow the grandson back to Germany to find the war criminal. The grandson is gay, and the sister is estranged from her parents because of their accepting attitude toward her grandfather. I won't reveal the climax because it's rather surprising. I thought the movie was very well made - perhaps the best made of the Israeli movies I've seen. The acting was top-notch, especially the portrayal of the Mossad agent, Eyal - a paradigmatic stoical Israeli man, whose brittle veneer is broken down completely by the end of the film. The gay grandson was also portrayed very well, and there was a fun and revealing look at the gay male culture in Israel. The ending was somewhat pat, but didn't detract from the rest of the film. I enjoyed it and would recommend it.

Steven Fine's new book, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World, has just been published by Cambridge University Press.

From the publisher's description: "Art and Judaism explores the Jewish experience with art during the Greco-Roman period - from the Hellenistic period through the rise of Islam. It starts with the premise that Jewish art in antiquity was a ‘minority’ or ‘ethnic’ art and surveys ways that Jews fully participated in, transformed, and at times rejected the art of their general environment. It focuses upon the politics of identity during the Greco-Roman period, even as it discusses ways that modern identity issues have sometimes distorted and at other times refined scholarly discussion of ancient Jewish material culture."

It sounds like a really interesting book, worthwhile for anyone interested in ancient Jewish art and archaeology. I hope that it might be of some use to me in my current research on the Babylonian incantation bowls (I'm currently writing an article tentatively called "Image and Word: Performative Ritual and Material Culture in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls," a revision of two papers given in the last two years at the Association for Jewish Studies meetings). One of the problems that always concerns me in dealing with the bowls is the question of the relationship between literary sources and material remains. Are they talking about the same thing? Do they give evidence for the same aspects of late Sassanian/early Islamic culture in Iraq? What is the relationship between unequivocally Jewish sources like the Babylonian Talmud and the incantation bowls, which clearly display a pluralism of cultural markers? What do the bowls tell us about cultural/ethnic/religious identity at that time in late antique Iraq? Steve Fine's book deals with the Greco-Roman world, but some of the same intellectual problems would arise there also.

In this Autopsy on the Schiavo Tragedy, the New York Times editorial page points out that "The autopsy results released yesterday should embarrass all the opportunistic politicians and agenda-driven agitators who meddled in Terri Schiavo's right-to-die case. There is no evidence that Ms. Schiavo's husband did any of the awful things attributed to him, and no hope that her greatly damaged brain would ever have recovered. The courts were right to conclude that she should be allowed to die after 15 years in what her doctors described as a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery."

When I was reading about the autopsy yesterday, it made me wonder if Terry Schiavo had actually even been alive before the feeding tube was removed. If her brain was half the size it should have been, and if she could survive only with the feeding tube - why do we call this "being alive"? Some of her body was alive, but not any of the higher centers of the brain, and not some of the lower centers of the brain. Why were people so eager to keep her in this state of existence?

Transience

A friend of mine just started up a blog - Quicksilver - that has as its framework a commentary on the daf yomi - the daily reading of one page of the Talmud. His commentary is very interesting, touching on many issues of the day as well as the Talmudic back-and-forth. His latest post addresses the question of "What causes cancer?" Since I've had many friends and relatives succumb to cancer, this question is of concern to me also.

What causes cancer? Why do these people get those cancers? For half a century, such questions have nagged us. The search for explanation. In the 1950s, we asked, does smoking cause cancer? Later: are there synergistic factors? (E.g., tobacco and asbestos combined.) What about pesticides? Are there cancer “hotspots” caused by hazardous waste sites? We seem to be straddling scientific research and a political / culture war. I suspect many of us gravitate to one pole, e.g. cancer is caused or facilitated by diet and lifestyle, or by toxic pollution, or by our genetic inheritance. But we are all far from able to explain the decline or rise of particular types of cancer.

I wish we could figure out what causes various cancers, and learn how to stop them. It's such an evil disease to die of. (I know, how can a disease be "evil"? "Evil" is a human category, our way of judging the morality of human actions. But still, cancer feels evil to me - especially when a friend is suddenly stricken with cancer and dies a horrible death).

Yesterday evening I took a bicycle ride over to Ithaca Falls, one of our local waterfalls (in the city of Ithaca alone there are two waterfalls - Ithaca Falls and Cascadilla Falls). The whole area of the falls looks like it was scoured out by last winter's heavy snow and cold. The path of Fall Creek flowing from the falls towards Cayuga Lake has shifted. And instead of soil and plants & trees growing from the bank, it's now mostly big and little stones. The pool just under the falls appears to be bigger also, and yesterday a family was swimming there. As I walked back from the falls to my bicycle, I couldn't help but think about the transience of life, how ephemeral human life (and everything else) is. The Fall Creek neighborhood, where I live, is built on the flood plain for Ithaca Falls. Floods are now mostly contained by various measures, so only some people this winter had their basements fill with water - but what about in a hundred years? Will the neighborhood even exist? My house was built in 1870 - will it make it another hundred years?

I just got an e-mail from Macher Search telling me that they have indexed my blog. Quoting from the e-mail: "MacherSearch is a search engine that gives users the opportunity to search through thousands of Jewish and Israeli Sites websites with just one click, and search blogs, the news, and the web-at-large as well." I'll have to check it out and see how well it works.

This is a cool story from Israel that has nothing to do with the current conflict - After 2,000 Years, a Seed From Ancient Judea Sprouts.

Israeli doctors and scientists have succeeded in germinating a date seed nearly 2,000 years old. The seed, nicknamed Methuselah, was taken from an excavation at Masada, the cliff fortress where, in A.D. 73, 960 Jewish zealots died by their own hand, rather than surrender to a Roman assault. The point is to find out what was so exceptional about the original date palm of Judea, much praised in the Bible and the Koran for its shade, food, beauty and medicinal qualities, but long ago destroyed by the crusaders.

"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree," says Psalm 92. "They shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat and flourishing."

Well, we'll see. Dr. Sarah Sallon, who runs a project on medicinal plants of the Middle East, notes that the date palm in ancient times symbolized the tree of life. But Dr. Elaine Solowey, who germinated the seed and is growing it in quarantine, says plants grown from ancient seeds "usually keel over and die soon," having used most of their nutrients in remaining alive.

The plant is now 11.8 inches tall and has produced seven leaves, one of which was removed for DNA testing.

Well, let's hope this one doesn't keel over!

Some rather strange searches recently directed people to my blog:

freemasons in amman (?!)
yentl subtitle hebrew
new york in the summer

and a couple of sad ones:

Janjaweed
pictures about famine in Darfur

And on the note of "New York in the summer" - I think I was probably writing about New York City in the summer, but it's been plenty hot here in Ithaca, New York too. On the other hand, it does mean that the vegetables are growing fast. The roses are blooming (and the Japanese beetles haven't yet arrived), as are the snapdragons (which reseeded themselves), AND the chives (the first plant to come back after the snow melted). My peonies have already finished blooming (and the blossoms were blown away in last Monday's thunderstorm), but other people's are still blooming away. The daylilies are starting to bloom.

I guess it's summer!

Thank you DovBear (Still fuming...) for fisking Toby Katz's horrendous comments about why the Holocaust occurred.

She said (in a comment thread): "Jews tried to leave Judaism but G-d reminded them that He does not allow that. When we try, there are fearful consequences, spelled out in the Torah. The same Torah also promises that our enemies will never be able to destroy us, that we are an eternal people. Individuals die but Klal Yisrael does not die." In a further comment in the same thread, she redoubled her obnoxiousness: "I don't understand those of you who claim to be orthodox & yet attack someone so vehemently for saying that the reform was a major factor in the Holocaust. The Torah at the end of Vakikra & Devorim say clearly that if the Jewish people don't follow the Torah they will be punished with terrible punishments. When the Second Temple was destroyed Chazal gave reasons to explain which sins were the primary cause. Likewise when Betar was destroyed. I think the same was done through out the generations when tragedy struck the Jewish people. In all of those tragedies the good & bad were punished together but that did not stop the Rabbis from attempting to attribute what sins were the primary cause of our punishment. If not following the Torah is the cause of our punishments, is it not logical that the reform movement should be on the top of that list? Certainly religious Jews were not perfect & I'm sure that they too contributed to the punishment, but the point remains that those who abandoned the Torah the most are the most culpable for G-d's decision in decreeing or allowing(per R' Berkovitz) the Holocaust."

Until I had read this discussion on DovBear, I didn't realize that this nonsense was still being propagated in Orthodox (or ultra-Orthodox) circles. When will Jews stop blaming other Jews for the Holocaust? How about blaming the true perpetrators, the Nazis, and their collaborators?

A good response comes from Cara, who replied to her: "Toby- Most of my mother's family was killed in Germany during the Holocaust. None lived in Berlin. Of those who survived and came to America, only my mother's children (and some distant cousins in NY) are still frum. Given my family background, I don't know what pains me more: to read the dreck you just wrote about how certain you are with regards to the reasons why the Holocaust happened the way it did, or to know that you believe what you wrote."

Nicholas Kristof again calls us to pay attention to the genocide in Darfur - Uncover Your Eyes: "Mr. Bush values a frozen embryo. But he hasn't mustered much compassion for an entire population of terrorized widows and orphans. And he is cementing in place the very hopelessness he dreads, by continuing to avert his eyes from the first genocide of the 21st century."

In this article he outlines ways in which the African Union troops, plus international aid groups, have actually saved hundreds of thousands of lives in Darfur. If we could just muster the political will to give real support to the African Union mission, perhaps we could end the genocide - if we would just pay attention...

The ADL executive board met with the superintendent of the Air Force Academy, and: Air Force Academy Chief Admits School Bias.

The superintendent of the Air Force Academy acknowledged to leaders of a national Jewish group Friday that religious intolerance permeates the military school.

"As a commander, I know I have problems in my cadet wing," Lt. Gen. John Rosa said at a meeting of the Anti-Defamation League's executive committee. "I have issues in my staff, and I have issues in my faculty - and that's my whole organization."

He said he admonished the academy's No. 2 commander, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, a born-again Christian, for sending an e-mail promoting National Prayer Day....

Rosa said he has spoken with academy critics and agrees with many of their complaints. He said he didn't learn of a Yale University memo issued last year on religious intolerance at the school near Colorado Springs until much later.

I have to admit I don't understand why he didn't know about the Yale Divinity School memo - isn't he running the school? Shouldn't he know about these things?

Mikey Weinstein said that "We need new leadership at the Air Force Academy." We certainly do! And especially leadership that pays attention to whether certain cadets are being discriminated against for their religion.

A new AP poll shows that the U.S. is the most religious nation among several surveyed, and the one where the most people are willing to countenance clergy interference in politics: Religious Devotion High in U.S.

Religious devotion sets the United States apart from some of its closest allies. Americans profess unquestioning belief in God and are far more willing to mix faith and politics than people in other countries, AP-Ipsos polling found.

In Western Europe, where Pope Benedict XVI complains that growing secularism has left churches unfilled on Sundays, people are the least devout among the 10 countries surveyed for The Associated Press by Ipsos. Only Mexicans come close to Americans in embracing faith, the poll found. But unlike Americans, Mexicans strongly object to clergy lobbying lawmakers, in line with the nation's historical opposition to church influence....

The polling was conducted in May in the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, South Korea and Spain.

Nearly all U.S. respondents said faith is important to them and only 2 percent said they do not believe in God. Almost 40 percent said religious leaders should try to sway policymakers, notably higher than in other countries. "Our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian policies and religious leaders have an obligation to speak out on public policy, otherwise they're wimps," said David Black, a retiree from Osborne, Pa., who agreed to be interviewed after he was polled.

In contrast, 85 percent of French object to clergy activism - the strongest opposition of any nation surveyed. France has strict curbs on public religious expression and, according to the poll, 19 percent are atheists. South Korea is the only other nation with that high a percentage of nonbelievers [my suspicion is that this number may include non-theistic Buddhists who would be considered religious by other measures - RL]....

But even in Italy, home to the Catholic Church, resistance to religious engagement in politics is evident. Only three in 10 think the clergy should try to influence government decisions; a lower percentage in Spain, Germany and England said the same...

The poll found Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to think clergy should try to influence government decisions - a sign of the challenges ahead for Democrats as they attempt to reach out to more religious voters.

It seems to me that there is a direct connection between my previous posting and this poll. It would be interesting to see a more nuanced poll - who are, exactly, the 40% of Americans who think that clergy should try to sway politicians? I imagine this number doesn't include very many Jews, and probably a lot of evangelical Christians and some Catholics.

This article in Haaretz, I Want You for the U.S. Air Force (but you'd better believe in Jesus), details the series of abuses at the Air Force Academy, where evangelical Christianity appears to have become the official religion. Mikey Weinstein, who served in Reagan's White House, and whose younger son is now at the academy, initiated a public campaign, which has "exposed an intentional policy going back several years of religious guidance from above, active encouragement of Christian evangelism by senior officers and prejudicial discrimination against members of other religions. Hundreds of families have approached Weinstein, and to date 117 people have filed official complaints through him. Only eight are Jews. The majority are Christians who feel persecuted by the policy of promoting evangelical Christianity on an institutional basis while employing the power of military authority." Congress has refused to do anything about this, and in fact when the issue was brought up in a Congressional committee, criticisms of the academy's bias against non-evangelicals were turned into complaints by Republican congressmen of anti-Christian bias (surely a new definition of what the word "chutzpah" means!).

And what is the Air Force Academy doing about this? "Last Friday, USAFA Superintendent Lieutenant-General John Rosa met with Anti-Defamation League activists, and for the first time admitted to them that there was a problem at the base. He said he is losing sleep over it, but noted that it might take up to six years to correct." It doesn't sound to me like he's losing very much sleep over it!

If Jews and non-evangelical Christians are being harassed in this way, just imagine how Muslim cadets might be treated there - if there are any who dare to apply. It's becoming clear that at least some of the people who are fighting the war on terror do think that it's a religious war - evangelical Christianity vs. everyone else.

And yet another excellent op-ed essay by Anne Applebaum, about Democracy Under The Veil, in the Islamic world.

Hooray for this Washington Post editorial ('American Gulag') condemning the head of Amnesty International's recent naming of the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our times." One does not have to admire what we have done there (or at Abu Ghraib or other U.S. detention facilities) to object to AI's false equivalence with the gulag of the Soviet Union. The Post editorial says:

But we draw the line at the use of the word "gulag" or at the implication that the United States has somehow become the modern equivalent of Stalin's Soviet Union. Guantanamo Bay is an ad hoc creation, designed to contain captured enemy combatants in wartime. Abuses there - including new evidence of desecrating the Koran - have been investigated and discussed by the FBI, the press and, to a still limited extent, the military. The Soviet gulag, by contrast, was a massive forced labor complex consisting of thousands of concentration camps and hundreds of exile villages through which more than 20 million people passed during Stalin's lifetime and whose existence was not acknowledged until after his death. Its modern equivalent is not Guantanamo Bay, but the prisons of Cuba, where Amnesty itself says a new generation of prisoners of conscience reside; or the labor camps of North Korea, which were set up on Stalinist lines; or China's laogai, the true size of which isn't even known; or, until recently, the prisons of Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The convenient left-wing orthodoxy, on the other hand, regards only the U.S. embargo of Cuba as unjust, without ever considering the lack of freedom, injustice, and oppression of the Cuban regime itself.

Now, I don't care about these people at all, but I do love this headline - Paris Hilton Engaged To Paris . She is now engaged to someone named Paris Latsis.

On another note, I just returned from a fun visit to New York City over the Memorial Day weekend. I went to the Jewish Museum and saw two exhibits - on the Jewish salon women (of the 18th-20th centuries), people like Rahel Levin Varnhagen and Gertrude Stein, and one on the art of Maurice Sendak, which was really fun. The weekend also included enjoyable Shabbat meals with friends, and a barbecue yesterday with more friends. I'm now back in Ithaca, where it appears that my grass grew several inches in my absence, where the peonies are now blooming, the lettuce is big enough to eat (planted a few weeks ago), and everything looks intensely green.