Goldstone debunks the "Israeli apartheid" slander

I don't have the time to say much about this right now, but Richard Goldstone (of Goldstone Report fame or infamy) has just written an op-ed piece for the New York Times, entitled Israel and the Apartheid Slander, which demolishes the accusation that Israel is an apartheid state.

One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.

Jews and Halloween

Inspired by Jared's post on zombie Halloween, I decided to do some investigation about Jews and Halloween. I grew up, like most American children, celebrating Halloween by going out in a costume and trick-or-treating. This was in the 1960s, before parents got involved in taking their children, and I remember on at least one occasion being chased by some older kids - we were also warned not to take apples, lest they have razor blades in them. I also remember how much fun it was, how much candy I collected (and then ate), and the one year that a neighbor created a haunted house, including the darkened room with spaghetti in a tray that we were told was intestines. I was never told anything about a Jewish attitude towards Halloween (but then, I didn't grow up in a very religiously Jewish home).

So what do religious Jews have to say about Halloween? Should Jewish children "trick-or-treat"? Should Jewish houses welcome children in to give them candy? I now live in a neighborhood in Ithaca that is very child-friendly, and lots of people trick-or-treat - parents even driving in with their children  from neighboring towns to go from house to house. If you don't want to take part, you have to make sure that there are no lights on at any doors, or just leave for the evening.

An article in My Jewish Learning, by Rabbi Michael Broyde (who is Orthodox), argues that Jewish children should not go out and collect candy on Halloween. He writes, quoting a newspaper article:

"According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Halloween originated with the pagan Celtic festival of Samhain, a day on which the devil was invoked for the various divinations. 'The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on this day', Britannica says, 'and the autumnal festival acquired sinister significance, with ghosts, witches, hobgoblins ... and demons of all kinds said to be roaming about.' In the early Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church instituted All Hallow's Eve on October 31 and All Saints Day on November 1 to counteract the occult festival. It did not work. All Hollow's Eve was simply co-opted into the pagan celebration of Samhain."

Since Halloween is rooted in a pagan holiday, he argues that Jews should not celebrate it. He concedes that the vast majority of Americans who celebrate it do not know of its pagan origins and do not celebrate it in order to observe Samhain, yet he still thinks it should not be celebrated by Jews. This is because of the injunction not to imitate the customs of the Gentiles (Leviticus 18:3: “You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelt, or of the land of Canaan to which I am taking you; nor shall you follow their laws” ). Rabbi Broyde writes:

Tosafot [a medieval Talmud commentary] understands that two distinctly different types of customs are forbidden by the prohibition of imitating Gentile customs found in Leviticus 18:3. The first is idolatrous customs and the second is foolish customs found in the Gentile community, even if their origins are not idolatrous. Rabbenu Nissim (Ran) and Maharik disagree and rule that only customs that have a basis in idolatrous practices are prohibited. Apparently foolish--but secular--customs are permissible so long as they have a reasonable explanation (and are not immodest). Normative halakhah follows the ruling of the Ran and Maharik. As noted by Rama [Rabbi Moshe Isserles, c. 1525-1572]:

"Those practices done as a [Gentile] custom or law with no reason one suspects that it is an idolatrous practice or that there is a taint of idolatrous origins; however, those customs which are practiced for a reason, such as the physician who wears a special garment to identify him as a doctor, can be done; the same is true for any custom done out of honor or any other reason is permissible."

Rabbi Isserless is thus clearly prohibiting observing customs that have pagan origins, or even which might have pagan origins. His opinion, the most lenient found in normative halakhah, is the one we follow.

Rabbi Broyde believes, therefore, that Jewish children should not go out and collect candy on Halloween. What about giving out candy?

The question of whether one can give out candy to people who come to the door is a different one, as there are significant reasons based on darkhei shalom (the ways of peace), eva (the creation of unneeded hatred towards the Jewish people), and other secondary rationales that allow one to distribute candy to people who will be insulted or angry if no candy is given. This is even more so true when the community--Jewish and Gentile--are unaware of the halakhic problems associated with the conduct, and the common practice even within many Jewish communities is to "celebrate" the holiday. Thus, one may give candy to children who come to one's house to "trick or treat" if one feels that this is necessary.

Magical images from Sefer Raziel

For a more journalistic, and non-halakhic discussion of Jews and Halloween, see the article in the Baltimore Jewish Times - Jews and the Halloween Dilemma.

For an article on Jews and magic/the occult, see this article in Tablet Magazine from two years ago: Under a Spell.

An interesting article by a Reform rabbi on Halloween - the comments are also interesting - Is Halloween Good for the Jews?

Ancient Zombies for Halloween

A great post by Jared of Antiquitopia on Ancient Zombies (his Halloween post):

As everyone begins preparations for the most important religious holiday of the year--Halloween (what else would it be? Yom Kippur? Easter? Diwali? Ramadan?)--I thought I would provide some seasonal cheer for your undead pleasure.

While the jury is still out on whether or not Jesus was a zombie, who did come from the dead and encourage us to drink blood and eat flesh (although drinking blood lends itself to a more vampiric reading), zombies appear to be as old as civilization itself. The earliest reference I know of occurs in Mesopotamian stories of the Descent of Ishtar and, perhaps a bit more well-known, the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Jewish Annotated New Testament just published

I just received an email from Marc Brettler, the editor, that the Jewish Annotated New Testament has just been published. I contributed the article on "Divine Beings." There are going to be two sessions at the SBL about it - one a panel discussion, one a reception (see below).

Some blog commentary on it:
Annotated Jewish New Testament, first impressions, on the BLT blog.
The Jewish Annotated New Testament – First Impressions on the Baker Book House Church Connection.

----------------------------------------------------

M20-300
Publication of Jewish Annotated New Testament and Jewish/Christian Relations
11/20/2011
4:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Room: 3009 - Convention Center

Theme: Sponsored by the Oxford University Press
The Jewish Annotated New Testament is a complete edition of the New Testament in the New Revised Standard Version, with scholarly comment and contextualizing essays by Jewish New Testament scholars, Greco-Roman historians, and theologians. It aims to open up new perspectives on this text for Jewish and Christian readers, and for all who are interested in expanding their reading of the New Testament.

Amy-Jill Levine, Vanderbilt University, Panelist
; Marc Zvi Brettler, Brandeis University, Panelist
; Adele Reinhartz, University of Ottawa, Panelist

M20-315
The Jewish Annotated New Testament Reception
11/20/2011
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Room: Atrium Lobby - Marriott Marquis

The release of Gilad Shalit and the 405 bus attack in July, 1989

I was visiting Israel in the summer of 2006 when Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, and I remember the two-week mini-war that his kidnapping caused (and which has since been forgotten, since that was also the summer of the Second Lebanon War). I wrote a blog post then, but haven't written anything else about Shalit since then.

In my subsequent visits, I was puzzled by the emotion that my Israeli friends felt about Shalit, and about the many signs posted everywhere calling for his return home. As Ethan Bronner in the New York Times has noted, most Israelis see Shalit as being almost a member of their families - a son or brother who is missing in an unknown location, held by ruthless killers. I still don't quite get the emotion, since I'm not Israeli and don't have the same visceral connection to him. The only thing I can really compare it to in the United States is the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979-1980 - I remember watching "Nightline" with Ted Koppel, with the banner on the screen, "America Held Hostage." Even then, it was nowhere near as personal.

I do, on the other hand, feel more personally about some of the terrorists who are being released in return for Shalit, one in particular - Abd al-Hadi Rafa Ghanim, who attacked the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv bus 405 on July 6, 1989.

I was living in Jerusalem at the time. The bus was on its way to Jerusalem, and had just passed Abu Ghosh. The terrorist grabbed the steering wheel and drove the bus into the abyss. The road is very steep at that point in the climb up to Jerusalem, and there is a deep fall into the valley at that point. The bus tumbled into the ravine and sixteen people were killed, some of them being burned alive.

The attack was a horrible shock to everyone. Anyone living in Jerusalem had taken the 405 to and from Tel Aviv. It was so easy to imagine being on that bus as the terrorist wrestled the steering wheel out of the driver's grip. I remember taking the bus after that and peering out, trying to discover where the attack had occurred.

The Jerusalem Post article published the next day on the attack (retrieved via LexisNexis) is available after the jump:

Why did Yasser Arafat deny the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem?

Interesting article on Palestinian Jewish Temple denial and where it comes from, by Yitzhak Reiter in the American Interest. He explains why Yasser Arafat asserted in the 2000 Camp David peace negotiations that "the Temple never existed in Jerusalem, but rather in Nablus." Longstanding Muslim tradition never denied the existence of Solomon's and Herod's Temples in Jerusalem, but instead assumed them. It's only since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war that denial of the existence of those temples had spread among Palestinians and in the wider Arab world.

Steve Jobs is dead

I just saw on TPM that Steve Jobs has just died. I find myself quite sad, which surprises me, because the death of public figures usually doesn't touch me. But I feel a quite personal attachment to Apple Computers, as many people do, I suppose, because I've owned an Apple since 1985, when I started graduate school at Harvard. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on a typewriter (which meant that I had to retype it several times....), and vowed that for graduate school I would get a computer.

I remember reading a little booklet on how to choose a personal computer, and the Macintosh seemed much better than the clunky PCs with DOS machines - I liked the more intuitive interface, with icons, and WISYWIG, and different fonts. (I spent several years as a typesetter and was definitely into fonts). I've had one ever since, going from the Macintosh 128K, then to an upgrade to a 512K. I then went to Israel for two years and first used my roommate's DOS machine (I still have 5 1/2 inch floppy around somewhere) and then the next year rented something in a heavy metal box that ran Wordstar. When I returned to the US I bought another Macintosh (bequeathing the 512K machine to an old roommate) - I don't remember which one now. The next time I went to Israel I brought a rather heavy laptop - 5300 something. I wrote my doctoral thesis on this one, and ended up printing out the whole 450 page behemoth on an Apple Stylewriter (which I had bought in Israel the previous year).

Eventually I got an iMac, then a better laptop, and now my MacBook. I still feel the same fondness for Apple Computers, and I hope that the company continues to prosper and build more fantastic computers and other devices.

R.I.P., Steve Jobs.

Hussein Ibish on Atzmon and Mearsheimer

Excellent discussion by Hussein Ibish on Gilad Atzmon and John Mearsheimer: self-criticism, self-hate and hate.

Why Mearsheimer found Atzmon compelling in spite of these attitudes, even if they are largely concealed, implicit or downplayed in his book, is a very disturbing question. Ever since he and Walt began criticizing the role of the pro-Israel lobby (Jewish power in Israel and the United States being a subject that deserves serious interrogation of the kind being done by Peter Beinart, among others), Mearsheimer (far more than Walt) has been developing an outright vendetta with the Jewish mainstream that, I fear, has become deeply personal and therefore distorted.

Last year he gave a dreadful speech at the Palestine Center in Washington in which he abandoned his long-standing good advice to Arab and Muslim Americans to develop an alliance for a two-state solution with peace-minded Jewish Americans. Instead, he counseled Palestinians and their allies that Israel would never agree to the creation of a Palestinian state and that because of demographics and other factors, Palestinians would ultimately prevail, and that in effect they need do nothing to achieve that victory (save, he noted, engaging in the kind of violence that might rationalize another round of Israeli ethnic cleansing). In response to that worst of all possible advice, I dubbed him the “Kevorkian of Palestine,” because I believe he was preaching a form of assisted suicide. He was repeating the siren song Palestinians and other Arabs have been telling themselves about Israel and Zionism since the 1920s: that demographics are destiny and steadfastness alone would secure a victory over the Israeli national project. To say that history has proven this logic incorrect, and led from defeat to defeat, would be a gross understatement.

Debate between Calvin Smith and Stephen Sizer on Israel - November 9

Conor O'Riordan submitted a comment (to an old post of mine) about an interesting debate coming up on November 9 in the UK.

Live televised Debate: Israel and The Church: Replacement or fulfillment?
Place: Revelation TV London UK in front of a studio audience
Date: November 9th 2011
Time: 9 pm to 10:30 pm UK time (please adjust for local time) broadcast live via SKY TV in Europe and live streaming worldwide at this link: http://www.revelationtv.com/watch_now

Participants: Calvin L Smith and Stephen Sizer

Defending the position that the nation of Israel as it exists since 1948 still has a place in end time Biblical prophecy will be Calvin Smith, principal of Kings Evangelical Divinity School.

Opposing this and giving a different Biblical view on Israel and the Church will be Stephen Sizer ,who is vicar of Christ Church Virginia Water Surrey UK and founding member of the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism.

E-mails and texts will be intermittently read out and tallied to ascertain which position garners most support from the public.

Note: Viewers in USA with a ROKU BOX can now watch Revelation TV and so view the debate through this medium.

Revelation TV is the most popular UK Christian television station www.revelationtv.com

Dr Calvin L. Smith

Dr Calvin L Smith is principal of Kings Evangelical Divinity School, editor of the Evangelical Review of Society and Politics, author of numerous books including The Jews, Modern Israel and The New Supercessionism. He lectures in theology and hermeneutics. He is an academic researcher conference and Church speaker.

Stephen Sizer

Stephen Sizer is senior pastor of Christ Church, the community church of Virginia Water in Surrey UK. He is a founding member of (ISCZ) Institute for the study of Christian Zionism. He is a member of the advisory council of Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding. He co-authored the Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism signed by the heads of Churches in Jerusalem. He has an extensive international ministry teaching regularly in Churches, seminaries, and universities in the USA, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

Update - Dr. Smith has posted about the upcoming debate on his blog.

Who else endorsed Gilad Atzmon's "The Wandering Who?"

There's been several blog posts recently on John Mearsheimer's endorsement of Gilad Atzmon's book, The Wandering Who, but there are several other remarkable (or appalling) blurbs on the book:

1) Richard Falk has a blurb on the front cover of the book: "Gilad Atzman has written an absorbing and moving account of his journey from hard core Israeli nationalist to a de-Zionized patriot of humanity and passionate advocate of justice for the Palestinian people. It is a transformative story told with unflinching integrity that all (especially Jews) who care about real peace, as well as their own identity, should not only read, but reflect upon and discuss widely." Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University, author of over 20 books, and United Nations Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestinian Territories. It appears that he has now also decided that he should be ashamed of his Jewish identity. He appears to be a frequent contributor to Counterpunch.

2) James Petras - not a surprise (he is the inventor of the phrase "Zionist Power Configuration" as the new term for the international Jewish conspiracy - we've got to move on from the Protocols, after all. He is a frequent contributor to Counterpunch). He writes: "‘Gilad Atzmon's The Wandering Who is a series of brilliant illuminations and critical reflections on Jewish ethnocentrism and the hypocrisy of those who speak in the name of universal values and act tribal. Relying on autobiographical and existential experiences, as well as intimate observations of everyday life, both informed by profound psychological insights, Atzmon does what many critics of Israel fail to do; he uncovers the links between Jewish identity politics in the Diaspora with their ardent support for the oppressive policies of the Israeli state. Atzmon provides deep insights into “neo-ghetto” politics. He has the courage - so profoundly lacking among western intellectuals - to speak truth to the power of highly placed and affluent Zionists who shape the agendas of war and peace in the English speaking world. With wit and imagination, Atzmon’s passionate confrontation with neo-conservative power grabbers and liberal yea sayers sets this book apart for its original understanding of the dangers of closed minds with hands on the levers of power.This book is more than a “study of Jewish identity politics” insofar as we are dealing with a matrix of power that affects all who cherish self-determination and personal freedom in the face of imperial and colonial dictates."

3) Alan Hart: "THE WANDERING WHO? is a magnificent title for this challenging and incredibly controversial book. Author Gilad Atzmon quotes Israel Shahak: “The Nazis made me afraid to be a Jew and the Israelis make me ashamed to be a Jew.” In what Gilad calls this Study of Jewish Identity Politics is the explanation of why he, too, is ashamed to be a Jew."

4) Robert Wyatt: "A seriously funny writer and the wittiest musician since Ronnie Scott…We’re lucky Gilad Atzmon is around. "

5) Karl Sabbagh: "A book by a professional saxophone player, a philosopher, and an anti-Zionist Jew promises to be an unusual read, particularly since they are all the same person. Gilad Atzmon’s book, The Wandering Who? is as witty and thought-provoking as its title. But it is also an important book, presenting conclusions about Jews, Jewishness and Judaism which some will find shocking but which are essential to an understanding of Jewish identity politics and the role they play on the world stage."

6) William Cook: "Atzmon’s insight into the organism created by the Zionist movement is explosive. The Wandering Who tears the veil off of Israel’s apparent civility, its apparent friendship with the United States, and its expressed solicitude for Western powers, exposing beneath the assassin ready to slay any and all that interfere with its tribal focused ends." He is professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy, The Rape of Palestine, The Chronicles of Nefaria, and The Plight of the Palestinians

7) Samir Abed-Rabbo: "The Wandering Who? is a pioneering work that deserves to be read and Gilad Atzmon is brave to write this book!’" According to the Zero Books website: "He is director of the Center for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Brattleboro, Vermont and the former Dean of The Jerusalem School for Law and Diplomacy."

PLO ambassador says Palestinian state should be free of Jews

There's been a lot of depressing and discouraging news lately in the US - awful flooding just south of where I live in Ithaca (the flooding of Binghamton, Owego, and Candor by the Susquehanna River as a result of the torrential rains brought by hurricane Lee, leaving devastation behind), the horrible state of the American economy, the fear that the European economy is about to take a dive which will bring us down with it, Obama's decreasing popularity and the grim possibility of a Republican president being elected in 2012, not to mention the depressing news coming out of the Middle East - the storming of the Israeli embassy by a mob in Cairo, Turkey's prime minister Erdogan doing his best to stir up further hostility to Israel by threatening to escort any future flotilla to Gaza with Turkish warships, his expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Turkey, and now this disgusting statement: PLO ambassador says Palestinian state should be free of Jews.

The Palestine Liberation Organization's ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that any future Palestinian state it seeks with help from the United Nations and the United States should be free of Jews.

"After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated," Maen Areikat, the PLO ambassador, said during a meeting with reporters sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. He was responding to a question about the rights of minorities in a Palestine of the future.

Such a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews, said Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. National Security Council official.

Israel has 1.3 million Muslims who are Israeli citizens. Jews have lived in "Judea and Samaria," the biblical name for the West Bank, for thousands of years. Areikat said the PLO seeks a secular state, but that Palestinians need separation to work on their own national identity.

The Palestinian demand is unacceptable and "a despicable form of anti-Semitism," Abrams said. A small Jewish presence in a future Palestine, up to 1% of the population, would not hurt the Palestinian identity, he said. "No civilized country would act this way," Abrams said.

Israel has often complained of anti-Semitic views in Palestinian discourse. Palestinian media frequently publishes and broadcasts anti-Semitic sermons by Islamic religious leaders, while the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV shows programming for preschoolers that extolls hatred of Jews and suicide bombings, according to a 2009 State Department human rights report.

The PLO seeks a U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood when the U.N. General Assembly meets in New York City next week. Areikat said Palestinian negotiators have been stymied in peace talks with the Israelis because of the two sides' unequal status before international legal institutions such as the U.N. and the International Criminal Court, where Israel is a full member and the Palestinians are not. The Palestinians hope the increased pressure will push the Jewish state to agree to their demands.

"We are trying to preserve the concept of a two-state solution," Areikat said. "And to make the Israelis understand there will be consequences for their actions."

The Obama administration has promised to veto the statehood bid if it reaches the U.N. Security Council. "This shortcut is not going to create a Palestinian state," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said. "We continue to urge them and convince them that would be self-defeating."

I have supported the two-state solution since the late 1980s, when I first understood that in fact, there was a partner for peace on the Palestinian side. I heard Faisal Husseini (former PLO leader in Jerusalem, son of a distinguished Palestinian nationalist family) speak in 1988 and say that it was time for both peoples, the Israelis and the Palestinians, to give up on their dream of possessing all of Palestine, and dispossessing the other.

I oppose racism both in the United States and in Israel, in my own small way - in Israel I believe that non-Jewish citizens should be treated equally before the law in all ways (which they are not), and I consider it a betrayal of the principles of the Israeli declaration of independence that Arab citizens are not treated equally. I feel the same way in the United States about our shameful history of slavery, Jim Crow, and continued discrimination against people of color.

What, then, should my response be when the PLO ambassador to the UN says that the future Palestinian state should be empty of Jews, even of Jews who agree to live peacefully under Palestinian rule? This is racism, pure and simple. I understand that a Palestinian state would not want to contain people who are actively fighting against it, which would be true of some of the settlers who live in areas that would come under Palestinian sovereignty - but that is far different from categorically stating that no Jews could live in a state of Palestine. Imagine the worldwide protest if Israeli prime minister Netanyahu had just announced that no non-Jews would henceforth be allowed to live in the state of Israel.

The ambassador's statement also highlights the utter hypocrisy of official Palestinian statements that they will not recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. Israel is supposed to recognize a Palestine where no Jews can live, yet to refrain from declaring its own national identity?

Remembering September 11, 2001

I was trying to figure out what to write here on the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, and I started looking through the collection of emails I have from immediately after the attacks. I found an email that I wrote to a number of my friends, and I find that it still expresses my feelings. I reproduce it here.

September 16, 2001

Dear friends and family,

These are some of my thoughts on the events of the last week....

Since the terror attacks in New York and Washington, I've been listening to the radio late at night (since I haven't really wanted to go to sleep). NPR has continually broadcast news since the attacks, and on each night, starting around 10:00 p.m., they've been opening up the phones for callers from around the country. Each night they've asked people a different question. On the first night it was: "how has everything changed since the attacks." On the third night it was, "what are you doing to survive – how are you coping with the attacks." I must say that I have a real hunger to hear the news, to know what's going on, and to hear what a variety of people are saying around the country. I'm very glad they haven't gone back to the regular schedule yet.

I woke up on Tuesday morning when I received a phone call from a friend inviting me to dinner the second night of Rosh Hashanah. I turned on the radio, and heard that a plane had struck the World Trade Center in New York. I immediately jumped up and went downstairs to turn the television on. I then saw the replay of the second plane striking the second tower – the unbelievable scene that I'm sure you've all seen, of the plane going through the tower. I couldn't believe what I was seeing – and then a few minutes later, to hear that the Pentagon had been struck by yet another plane. I was in shock.

In the afternoon I had to go into the office to start getting ready for my evening class. I wasn't sure what to do. Had classes been cancelled? I arrived on campus, and found students wandering around, watching television, talking on the telephone, trying to reach family and friends, and talking to each other about their worries and fears. Classes weren't cancelled, but professors had the choice of whether to meet. On Tuesday night the class met very briefly – it was clear that students were not able to focus. One student was missing – apparently she was very worried about someone from her family. Another student just kept talking nervously. A third student stared into space.

On Tuesday night, the local Jewish community met at Temple Beth El downtown for a memorial service. This included the usual evening prayers as well as the Jewish prayer for the dead – "El Malei Rahamim" ("God who is full of mercy"). The Conservative and Reform rabbis both officiated – it was very moving.

The next day (Wednesday) three of my classes met, and we spent most of each class session discussing the attack the previous day. It was clear that my students were confused, and often didn't know the first thing about who Osama bin Laden was, or even where Afghanistan was. In my Jewish history class we abandoned our discussion of the wars of the Maccabees (second century B.C.E.) for a quick overview of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and Islamic fundamentalism. I think that on Monday I will hand out some further information on these topics (including a map of central Asia) and then, I hope, proceed to talk about our planned class subjects.

On Friday at Ithaca College there was a service organized by the president of the college, Peggy Williams, and the chaplains: two Catholic, a Protestant, and a Jewish chaplain. Students also participated, as musicians (we have a great music school). We sang some songs, including Amazing Grace and a really beautiful round in Latin called "Ubi Caritas." The Jewish chaplain led us in the Kaddish. There is no Muslim chaplain, because there aren't very many Muslim students, but the regular imam (prayer leader) for the Jumaa (Friday) prayers was asked to speak. I'm glad he participated. The president of the college spoke. Many people came, about 2,000 (we have a total student body of around 5500). I heard that a similar gathering at Cornell drew 15,000 (out of a total population of 30,000).

Then, tonight (Saturday) I went to a candlelit vigil organized by the local Tibetan Buddhist monastery (only in Ithaca!) – the monks chanted in Tibetan, the rest of us held candles, we walked around the Commons downtown, and then dispersed. Interestingly enough, at both the Ithaca College service and the Buddhist prayer vigil there were American flags flying.

At the end of the Ithaca College service, after the official part was over, a group of student starting singing the Star Spangled Banner – which I had been hoping we would sing, because it just seemed appropriate – our nation has been attacked. I started crying – the first time I've really been able to cry all week.

I feel like I'm getting a grip on what love of country really is — it's not about beating our chests and saying "we're America, we're No. 1, we can beat you up!" – it's about all the people who volunteered to look for survivors in New York, all the rescue workers who died when the World Trade Center towers collapsed, and all the people around the country who are organizing their own local prayer vigils and candlelit vigils and spontaneous singing sessions (like the amateur chorale singers who got together in New York on Thursday night at Lincoln Center and just started singing patriotic songs, and the crowd started getting larger and larger), all the people who are trying to donate blood, all the folks who are giving lots of money without thinking twice to help those who were injured in the attacks, those who lost family in the attack – etc. etc. I've never seen anything like this in my country, and I'm proud of it. I now have a better understanding of why people in Israel don't leave the country when they're in danger – it's their country and they love it for all of the specific ways in which Israelis do good things. And I love this country for all the specific ways that the vast variety of Americans manage to do good. I think that militaristic patriotism feeds off this more basic, open, pluralistic patriotism – but that we don't have to let it. The flag belongs to all of us, not just xenophobes, racists, and warmongers. I think we have to remember that.

Google Translates Yiddish now!

Google Translate now translates from (or to) Yiddish - see Google זעץ.

Some online resources for the study of Jewish magic

From the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1904, which has been put on line: the article on Amulets is by Ludwig Blau.

From the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe: Amulets and Talismans (by Avriel Bar-Levav). It includes pictures of several amulets on paper. In the same encyclopedia, see also the articles on Magic, Ba'ale Shem, and Demons.

Article on the finding of a Jewish amulet from the 3rd century CE in a child's grave in the Austrian city of Halbturn.

Article by Dan Levene on Aramaic incantation bowls. He discusses one of the bowls that uses the get formula to expel demons. Here's a link to a photograph of the bowl - http://www.edshare.soton.ac.uk/5331/.

Virtual Magic Bowl Archive at the University of Southampton (created by Dan Levene).

Traditions of Magic in Late Antiquity online exhibit at the University of Michigan.

A printing plate for an amulet from Slovakia (1832). The amulet is against Lilith, to protect the mother and new-born child. From the website of the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

A short blog post on one of the Babylonian magical bowls held by the University of Pennsylvania museum (from Nippur - published by Montgomery).  It's a very nice photograph of the bowl.

Speaking of Montgomery, his Aramaic Incantation Texts (1913) is also now available from Google Books as a PDF download - very handy. The bowl mentioned in the blog post above is #2 in Montgomery's book.

My course on Jewish magic this semester

I just started teaching my course on "Jewish Folk Religion: Magic and Ritual Power." When I was putting in a book order for the course, I included Joshua Trachtenberg's Jewish Magic and Superstition (1939) because it's a classic and much of it is still very useful. I found out from the bookstore that it's now available in its entirety from Google Books (for free) and that Sacred Texts.com has also just put it online - at http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/jms/index.htm. I think the Sacred Texts version is easier to use. Both versions have all of the illustrations as well as the notes.

For those interested in seeing the course syllabus, I've posted it as a Page (see link on right side) , leaving out the sections that are only of interest to the students in the course (like the rules for how to behave in the classroom), but including everything else.

It was interesting putting together the syllabus. I first taught the course in 2004, but I wanted to include more anthropological theory (it's now cross-listed with the anthropology department), so the first three weeks are devoted to theory. At the end of the course I'm going to include more about contemporary Jewish magic, principally in Israel. I found a good article by Zion Zohar on the invention of the Pulsa DeNura curse and its use in Israeli politics - "Pulsa De-Nura: The Innovation of Modern Magic and Ritual" (Modern Judaism 27 [2007] 72-99). I'd like to find more articles in English about other manifestations of Jewish rituals to gain power in contemporary Israel - especially about the use of amulets and the contemporary use of the ritual to exorcise a demon, and how it has become politicized.

Endeavour Crater - on Mars

Another beautiful NASA photo, this time of Mars, not Earth. It was taken by the Mars rover Opportunity at the Endeavour Crater, just as it was entering the crater. For details, see Mars Rover’s Discovery Excites NASA Scientists.

When I visited the Negev this summer and saw the three large craters there, they looked like this (although they had life in them, which of course we can't see in this photo).

Jerusalem street cats

Two Jerusalem cats at 12 Elazar ha-Modai St.

 Because so many people make their way to this blog when they are searching for cats online, I decided to put "Jerusalem street cats" into Google, and discovered that this blog in fact is the first hit. There were some other interesting sites after it - one a Facebook page whose goal is protect the neglected street cats of Jerusalem. Another was an article on the cats of Jerusalem by Basem Raad in the Jerusalem Quarterly, published by the Institute of Jerusalem Studies. While the article makes a number of questionable assertions, it is also an affecting, humane meditation on the street cats and how they are mistreated by people. He writes:

Something similar happens with cats and people in the old streets of Jerusalem. Jerusalem cats stand apart; they are and are not like other cats. What is striking is the absolute non-pet nature of their existence and the feline grace some of them can exhibit, even under conditions of hardship. I am speaking of the many street cats, not the ones owned by west Jerusalem Israelis who have come from the West and imported that pet culture (and sometimes the pets themselves) with them, or the few cats kept by “aristocratic” Palestinian families in east Jerusalem who generally keep their pets locked up inside. That kind of culture comes with luxury. The “non-pets” are the many feral cats on the streets, mostly on the east side of the city or within the confines of the Old City walls.

It is actually not true that feral cats are mostly on the eastern side of the city - there are many street cats in West Jerusalem as well, and they are generally subjected to the same sad fate as the east Jerusalem and Old City street cats that he writes about.

The author argues also that the English name "cat" probably comes from North African and Asiatic roots, which I suppose is possible, but the Oxford English Dictionary's entry on the etymology of the word does not mention such an origin.

Etymology:  The Middle English and modern cat corresponds at once to Old English cat and Old Northern French cat. The name is common European of unknown origin: found in Latin and Greek in 1–4th cent., and in the modern languages generally, as far back as their records go. Byzantine Greek had κάττα (in Cæsarius c350) and later κάττος, as familiar terms = αἴλουρος; modern Greek has γάτα from Italian. Latin had catta in Martial a100, and in the Old Latin Bible version (‘Itala’), where it renders αἴλουρος. Palladius, ? c350, has catus, elsewhere scanned cātus (Lewis and Short), and probably in both cases properly cattus. From cattus, catta, came all the Romanic forms, Italian gatto, Spanish gato, Portuguese gato, Catalan gat, Provencal cat, Old Northern French cat, French chat, with corresponding feminines gatta, gata, cata, cate, chate, chatte. The Germanic forms recorded are Old English cat, catt, Old Norse kött-r ( < kattuz) masculine, genitive kattar (Swedish katt, Danish kat); also Old English catte ? feminine, West Germanic *katta (Middle Low German katte, Middle Dutch katte, kat, Dutch kat, also Swedish katta), Old High German chazzâ (Middle High German, modern German katze) feminine; Old High German had also chataro, Middle High German katero, kater, modern German and Dutch kater, he-cat. The Germanic types of these would be *kattuz (masculine), *kattôn- (feminine), *kat(a)zon- masculine; but as no form of the word is preserved in Gothic, it is not certain that it goes back to the Germanic period. It was at least West Germanic c400–450. It is also in Celtic: Old Irish cat (masculine), Gaelic cat com., Welsh and Cornish cath (feminine), Breton kaz, Vannes kac'h m. Also in Slavonic, with type kot-: Old Slavonic kot'ka (feminine), Bulgarian kotka, Slovene kot (masculine), Russian kot (masculine), kotchka, koshka (feminine), Polish kot (koczur m.), Bohemian kot (masculine), kotka (feminine), Sorbian kotka; also Lithuanian kate; Finnish katti.

On the other hand, the Arabic word for "cat" does seem very similar to the Indo-European. From Wiki Answers:

A male cat = qitt قطّ
A female cat = qitta قطّة
Cats = qitat قطط

The Hebrew word for "cat" is unrelated - it is חתול or חתולה - hatul (masc.) or hatulah (fem.).

Hurricane Photos

NASA has put up some beautiful photos of Hurricane Irene from space, including one that gives a full disk image of the western hemisphere. Notice how enormous Irene is, to the east and south of North Carolina.

Here's a photo showing how enormous the storm is.

Jews in Whispers - Roger Cohen

Roger Cohen of the New York Times has written a column that I actually mostly agree with, on "Jews in a Whisper," on the contrast between the forthright acknowledgement of Jewish identity in the United States with the half-embarrassed standpoint of (some) Jews in Britain. Nonetheless, he still has one irritating paragraph that strikes me as irrelevant to his argument.

His paragraph:

The lesson is clear: Jews, with their history, cannot become the systematic oppressors of another people. They must be vociferous in their insistence that continued colonization of Palestinians in the West Bank will increase Israel’s isolation and ultimately its vulnerability.

That — not fanning Islamophobia — is the task before diaspora Jews. To speak up in Britain also means confronting the lingering, voice-lowering anti-Semitism.

Cohen seems to saying here that the way to get rid of some forms of antisemitism in western countries is to oppose the settlements, and the Israeli occupation, in the West Bank.  Does Roger really think that opposing the settlements in the West Bank is a way to get rid of antisemitism in western countries? He's ascribing a rationality to antisemitism that simply isn't there. If Israel didn't have settlements in the West Bank, I suspect antisemites would find plenty of other reasons to hate Jews.

I also oppose the settlements (most of them) as an obstacle to peace, but I don't say so with the goal of  opposing antisemitism, or for that matter opposing anti-Muslim prejudice. It's something worth doing for its own sake, rather than worrying about what antisemites think - for the sake of the future of Israel.

In my opinion, the way to oppose antisemitism is simply to speak out against it forthrightly whenever it appears in any of its forms: if it's the supposedly genteel antisemitism that he's writing about in Britain, to call it out and say it's not funny. (And how genteel is it in fact? Such genteel antisemitism existed before WWII - was it a contributing factor in the lack of sufficient welcome to Jewish refugees from Hitler, and the White Paper that cut off Jewish immigration to Palestine?). It seems to me that the anti-Zionist antisemitism that has taken up residence among some of the British intellectuals (see the UCU - University and College Union and its attempts to forward the academic boycott of Israel) needs to be opposed by forthrightly calling it what it is, and refusing to back down in the face of the pathetic attempts to deny that it's antisemitic.

Sinai contested: Outlaws, Islamists, Israel and army

An interesting Egyptian perspective on what is happening in Sinai right now and the role of Israel in the Sinai: Sinai contested: Outlaws, Islamists, Israel and army.