Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Posted By Gary Rosenblatt
Bloggers Are Us/Gary Rosenblatt in New York
The question posed at the Columbia Journalism School’s First Amendment Series breakfast this week was “Bloggers: Are They The Future of Journalism?” The answer from the three panelists was a definitive “yes,” even from a self-proclaimed newspaper “dinosaur” like Arthur Browne, the veteran editorial page editor of The Daily News, who added: “But so what? And welcome to the party.”
“It all comes down to audience, interest and economics,” Browne told a packed room of about 200 people at the Columbia University Club in midtown. Any enterprise that can accomplish all three – be they bloggers or newspapers – will succeed.
He noted that “what sets blogs apart” are speed and unlimited space. But facts count, he insisted. Browne said he already sees a “melding” of blogging and journalism, with both striving to become “useful and interesting” to readers.
Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University and advocate of blogging, said that “bloggers are not about to replace journalism” but they “expand the press,” which is a good thing. He cited several examples of niche blogs that, in their specialized interest, ferreted out important information leading to major media coverage. One was firedoglake.com, a liberal blog that raised funds from readers to send six experts to cover the federal “leak” trial of “Scooter” Libby, the vice presidential aide, and transcribe and post the proceedings.
The third panelist, Jen Chung, is editor of the successful website Gothamist.com, now in more than a dozen cities, including New York, where it claims to be the most popular of local blogs. She described how the site began four years ago and combines news summaries, food blogs, social events and a live news map of incidents and accidents around the city.
With a background in marketing and consulting, Chung doesn’t claim to be a journalist, but she said the Gothamist sites are viewed by young men and women who want to know what is happening in the city but “don’t have time to read newspapers.”
She said she is continuing to seek press credentials from the New York Police Department.
Overall, the panel’s message was clear. Blogging has more than its share of crackpots, and most of its content is of narrow interest and opinion-oriented. But the fact that it has its serious participants shedding light on so many more topics than the mainstream press could ever explore means that the field will continue to grow in size and importance, and should be welcomed – with caution.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Posted By Gary Rosenblatt
Solidarity And Socializing/Gary Rosenblatt in New York
“Today we pray with our feet,” Lior Sinai of the American Zionist Movement, told hundreds of Jewish students rallying on Tuesday in front of the United Nations for the release of Israel’s kidnapped soldiers.
The protest was one of about 50 planned by the Jewish Agency for Israel and other groups for the same day in communities and college campuses in the U.S. and another 30 in countries around the world, from Australia to Ukraine. It was billed as a “world solidarity day” for the prisoners.
The great majority of those gathered at the UN were yeshiva high school students who chanted “Bring Them Home” and “Let Them Go,” and were addressed by a number of student leaders as well as community and political officials, the new Israeli Consul General, and the mother of one of the kidnapped soldiers.
“Help free our son, your brother,” urged Miki Goldwasser by phone from Jerusalem. Her son, Ehud, now 32, was abducted by Hezbollah in the north in July 206, along with Eldad Regev.
Gilad Schalit was taken by Hamas several weeks earlier.
“This may happen in your backyard” someday,” she warned.
Despite the painful circumstances, the air was festive at the UN event – these were high school students, after all -- and many of the youngsters socialized during the steady string of brief speeches. “It’s camp reunion central,” observed Cynthia Dweck, a senior at the Magen David Yeshiva High School in Brooklyn. She and schoolmate Leona Ashkenazi, a ninth grader, urged bystanders to sign a petition on behalf of the three Israeli soldiers missing for almost a year and a half, and handed out flyers asking people to call the Red Cross and urge the organization to visit the prisoners, which has not happened.
Rachel Klapper, a Baruch College student who organized a campaign to collect signatures on behalf of the missing soldiers, told the crowd how she delivered 3,000 letters “from you” to the families in Israel this summer. “Always use your own power to make a difference,” she said, “and understand the power of your activism.”
Observing the scene, a community organizer asked rhetorically, “How often can we hold a major rally?” He noted that a larger gathering was held at the same spot last month. But how can the community not cry out against the injustice of kidnappings that fly in the face of international law?
It’s an unanswered question, and an impossible situation.
Posted By Gary Rosenblatt
Solidarity And Socializing/Gary Rosenblatt in New York
“Today we pray with our feet,” Lior Sinai of the American Zionist Movement, told hundreds of Jewish students rallying on Tuesday in front of the United Nations for the release of Israel’s kidnapped soldiers.
The protest was one of about 50 planned by the Jewish Agency for Israel and other groups for the same day in communities and college campuses in the U.S. and another 30 in countries around the world, from Australia to Ukraine. It was billed as a “world solidarity day” for the prisoners.
The great majority of those gathered at the UN were yeshiva high school students who chanted “Bring Them Home” and “Let Them Go,” and were addressed by a number of student leaders as well as community and political officials, the new Israeli Consul General, and the mother of one of the kidnapped soldiers.
“Help free our son, your brother,” urged Miki Goldwasser by phone from Jerusalem. Her son, Ehud, now 32, was abducted by Hezbollah in the north in July 206, along with Eldad Regev.
Gilad Schalit was taken by Hamas several weeks earlier.
“This may happen in your backyard” someday,” she warned.
Despite the painful circumstances, the air was festive at the UN event – these were high school students, after all -- and many of the youngsters socialized during the steady string of brief speeches. “It’s camp reunion central,” observed Cynthia Dweck, a senior at the Magen David Yeshiva High School in Brooklyn. She and schoolmate Leona Ashkenazi, a ninth grader, urged bystanders to sign a petition on behalf of the three Israeli soldiers missing for almost a year and a half, and handed out flyers asking people to call the Red Cross and urge the organization to visit the prisoners, which has not happened.
Rachel Klapper, a Baruch College student who organized a campaign to collect signatures on behalf of the missing soldiers, told the crowd how she delivered 3,000 letters “from you” to the families in Israel this summer. “Always use your own power to make a difference,” she said, “and understand the power of your activism.”
Observing the scene, a community organizer asked rhetorically, “How often can we hold a major rally?” He noted that a larger gathering was held at the same spot last month. But how can the community not cry out against the injustice of kidnappings that fly in the face of international law?
It’s an unanswered question, and an impossible situation.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Posted By James Besser
More on Sudan: Be Wary of War Option / Rabbi Steve Gutow
(Editors Note: recently Shoshana Bryen, special projects director for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, wrote a Machers Blog item chastising Jewish groups involved in the fight to end the genocide in Darfur for their unwillingness to consider military solutions to the problem.
Here is a response from Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs – and the board chair of the Save Darfur Coalition.)
Goodness, Shoshana's simple answer seems so easy. Why not walk in with troops and teach those animals in Khartoum once and for all that we mean business and that their genocide must stop? The United States could do that. Our power is great. Thursday, I took a taxi to Reagan in DC and listened to a cab driver from Sierra Leone attack a "bullying" United States in a way so venomous that I had to shout back just to maintain my conscience.
I hate the policies of the Khartoum regime, hate them enough to fill up my days as co-chair of the interfaith, intergroup Save Darfur Coalition---no rest for the weary, particularly when Sudan’s devastation of Darfur is the main genocide in town. I have toyed with, challenged the State Department with, and tried to ingest the idea of unilateral war as the answer. It is not.
There is a world of worries and they are not minor ones. At the outset, I enter this debate as one who believes that 'war is hell' not to be entered into lightly without a moral and just reason, without a winning plan, and without an easy to understand and embrace endgame.
Sudan-- even though it would be difficult to deny that the main perpetrator is al-Bashir, there are many unclean hands among the tribes of Darfur. That does not obviate the idea of military action but it makes it less simple. We are doing this to take power from one tyrant and give it to_____? Or are we assuming that we will just maintain the place ourselves? Not often a good plan!
Add the DC taxi-driver factor into the mix--much of the world sees us as bullies who cannot keep our greedy hands to ourselves. Iraq is not seen by third worlders, second worlders, or allied first worlders as a moment of American idealism. Our standing, our ability to lead is at a nadir and we have some major challenges ahead.
If we walk in to Sudan as bulls in china shops, will we merely infuse the Arab and Moslem world with a sense of deja-vu; of we need to stop the 'great Satan'; of let's rally around he flag of Allah and stop these evil monsters before they eat us. If we do this little 'let's have a fight on the playground' scene, will Europe just sit back and say, 'There they go again' and lessen its already tenuous connections to a nation they used to see as an ally. Is there an end-game? G-d knows that whatever endgame we imagined in Iraq when the warriors decided that we should engage there has taken us into an unintended and seemingly endless purgatory.
I do not want 'war' off the table. I want to think about the efficacy of war, unilaterally and more optimistically, in coalition. If not war, there may well be other strong avenues of force such as no-fly zones and strategies to stop flows of arms to Sudan but to suggest that there are no more peaceful avenues to resolution may sound good in some corners but they do not hold water in the real world.
Looking at the recent success in North Korea might give the libido for armed conflict a little pause; most recognize the power of sanctions and political pressure in stopping apartheid in South Africa. Moreover, the horrific slaughters in South Sudan by this same Khartoum regime were stopped by economic and political pressure just a few short years ago.
Those of us who want to stop the slaughter will continue to do all the things that Shoshana seemed to dismiss. We will hang banners, support divestment, urge the country and the world to take stronger and stronger economic and political action. We will try and pressure China to exert more pressure and we will use the Olympics to help increase such pressure. When we say 'war', we are walking in a very dangerous minefield.
Perhaps, we should go in that direction but not flippantly and without the kind of full analysis and thought that should precede any such action. War is Hell for sure and we best be very, very wary of hell.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Posted By James Besser
And where are Jewish groups? Mostly silent.
Stay tuned.
Posted By James Besser
Jews Still Mostly Mum on Mukasey / James Besser in Washington
At first, it looked like his nomination would pass muster with many Democrats who expected an appointee with a more strident ideological past.
But opposition to the confirmation of retired Judge Michael Mukasey as Attorney General is surging in the Democratic ranks. This week three Democratic presidential hopefuls – Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.), Sen. Joe Biden (Del.) and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) – signaled opposition to the Mukasey nomination because of his positions on presidential authority and his refusal to say that “waterboarding,” a controversial interrogation technique, is a form of torture.
And it’s not just Democrats; some key Republicans, including Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC) are unhappy about Mukasey’s vagueness on the subject.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which called Mukasey’s nomination “wise” and predicted strong bipartisan support, has stayed mum as the Mukasey fight heats up. So has the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), which has actively opposed many Bush administration judicial nominees.
Ditto the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress.
“We certainly aren’t going to say anything before all the answers are in,” said AJ Congress legal director Marc Stern.
The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism may be taking a somewhat more skeptical view as the Mukasey controversy heats up.
“We have been following his testimony closely,” said RAC associate director Mark Pelavin. “Although we do not have a position on the nomination, his testimony does raise some significant questions – both concerning his views on what is and what is not torture, and on his analysis of the limits or lack of limits on Executive power.”
Monday, October 29, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Posted By James Besser
Hillary and the ‘P’ Word / James Besser in Washington
Blogger Steve Clemons had an interesting take on this weekend’s national leadership conference of the Arab American Institute in Dearborn, Michigan.
Clemons noted that of the huge pack of Democratic and Republican presidential contenders, only Republican Ron Paul and Democrats Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson “took the time to be at this important assembly of Arab-Americans.”
More interesting was the videotaped message to the group by Sen. Hillary Clinton, the current Democratic frontrunner who has worked hard to take on hard-line pro-Israel positions.
Clinton, Clemons reported, seemed “genuinely interested in the importance of Arab Americans.
But the New York senator “just did not say ‘Palestine’ or ‘Palestinian state’ in her taped message.”
While Clinton officially supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, she appears unwilling to utter the “P” word, and in doing so is joining the stampede away from Bush administration policy that has made Palestinian statehood a centerpiece.
Which isn’t to say that if elected, most of these candidates are likely to stand American policy on its ear.
“A two-state solution means Palestinian statehood,” said a longtime pro-Israel lobbyist in Washington. “It may be bad politics to talk about it during a campaign, but it’s hard to imagine the next president will stray very far from the course this administration has charted.”
Read the Clemons piece here.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Posted By James Besser
Jewish Dems, Thinking Ahead, Slam Huckabee / James Besser in Washington
Some political analysts say former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is the man to watch as a slew of contenders for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination fight for support from the important evangelical wing of the party.
Apparently the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) agrees; this week the partisan group leveled a broadside against the former Baptist preacher.
According to NJDC leader Ira Forman, Huckabee is “way out of the mainstream,” which is why he may be emerging as the “new favorite candidate” of the religious right.
Polls show Huckabee running well behind the GOP frontrunners, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
But both have problems with Christian conservatives – Giuliani because of his past support for abortion and gay rights, Romney because of his Mormon faith. The affable Huckabee is expected to do well with that segment, especially if a strong finish in the early Iowa caucuses convinces GOP big givers to shift their giving to his campaign.
Huckabee’s appeal to Jewish Republicans is hard to gauge, especially since he did not attend last week’s presidential forum held by the Republican Jewish Coalition, where Giuliani was the clear favorite.
Despite his dark horse status, NJDC may be worried about Huckabee for another reason: his support for Christian right “values agenda” issues is mixed with what John Fund, writing in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, called his “liberal-populist on some economic issues.”
That, some analysts say, could prove an effective mix if Huckabee manages to overcome the long odds and win the GOP nomination.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Posted By James Besser
New Saudi School Flap in DC Suburb / James Besser in Washington
Some interesting back and forth on a roiling controversy in Fairfax County, Va. involving a school funded by the government of Saudi Arabia.
According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the Islamic Saudi Academy is part of a Saudi religious outreach system that teaches intolerance. The group is demanding the school, housed in a former public high school in the Washington, DC suburb, be closed. Read their analysis of the school here.
For a good look at the arguments of those concerned about the school, check out the Micah Report , a blog by terrorism analyst Micah Halpern. In an entry headlined “The School of Extreme Hatred," Halpern describes a “school that has chosen to teach hatred - pure, evil, hatred. And that hatred is directed at you and me.”
But a Washington Post editorial on Friday complained that critics haven’t bothered to actually read the books used in the school and reported that Academy officials have been very open with local officials responding to the controversy.
And while drawing the line at the teaching of violence, the Post raised a church-state argument: “It is worrisome anytime government tries to weigh in on what's appropriate for a religious school. Many such schools teach what outsiders might consider intolerance: that homosexuality is a sin, for example, or that only those who believe in Jesus Christ are destined for heaven.”
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Posted By James Besser
Trying Again at COEJL / James Besser in Washington
Ask any major Jewish organization and they’ll be quick to tell you energy independence is a top priority for them, and many will add their concern about environmental issues such as global warming.
But there is little consensus on the best way to deal with those priorities. Conservation or new oil exploration? Jewish groups haven’t agreed on the proper balance. Action on global warming? But what to do?
Coordination and cooperation between groups is rare; the group set up to do that, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), has had a hard time dealing with the differing priorities of various Jewish groups and complex problems of turf and leadership politics (big donors, reflecting big business, are often out of synch with the more liberal views of the Jewish rank and file.)
Now COEJL is trying again. The group, under the auspices of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), has hired a new climate and energy director.
The goal, according to JCPA leaders: to move the Jewish community to action on both energy and environment-related issues, and to provide a measure of coordination.
“Many groups have policy on these issues, but it’s hard to know exactly what to do,” said Hadar Susskind, JCPA’s Washington director. “There are a number of Jewish orgs that are active on environmental and energy policy, but there isn’t a clear community consensus on specific policy. The goal of COEJL and the JCPA is to help create consensus.”
The tough assignment is going to Jennifer Kefer, an environmental lawyer and longtime activist. Kefer starts her new job on November 1.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Posted By Gary Rosenblatt
You Fuse You Lose / Gary Rosenblatt in New York
Posted By Gary Rosenblatt
You Fuse You Lose / Gary Rosenblatt in New York
Jewish educators would do well to encourage teens to pursue their interest in the arts without trying to make them produce Jewish art – at least not at that age.
That was the advice of Rabbi Daniel Lehmann, founder of BIMA-The Berkshire Institute for Music and Art, a summer program for Jewish high school students, at a panel on “Fusing Arts and Culture Into Jewish Learning” at the second annual Sidney Krum Jewish Culture Conference.
Better known as Shmooze `07, the two-day gathering of about 175 serious professionals dealing with various aspects of Jewish art, was held at UJA-Federation headquarters in New York, and was the brainchild of music entrepreneur Michael Dorf. (Actually, Dorf says the inspiration for the conference came from his participation several years ago at The Conversation, a conference retreat sponsored by The Jewish Week.)
When it comes to fusing arts and culture into Jewish learning, as the topic suggested, Lehmann is against it, proclaiming at the outset: “I want to speak against integration” – in contrast to the previous speaker, and to conventional wisdom on the subject.
Lehmann, whose work as founding headmaster of Gann Academy-New Jewish High School of Greater Boston earned him a Covenant Foundation Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, described the serious time provided to the arts at the school and camp he heads, including playwright David Mamet teaching creative writing. “Not Jewish creative writing,” he noted, “just creative writing.”
Lehmann said teens don’t want adults “giving them pre-packaged integration; they reject it.”
His advice: let the young men and women develop a true love for art and instill in them the idea that the Jewish community cares about them as people and as artists without “using” them to produce Jewish art.
Let the students do their work in an intensely Jewish setting and then sit back and observe. “Interesting things will happen,” he said, if not in the short term then at some point in their careers.
It was a refreshing take on a much-discussed topic among Jewish educators.
That was the advice of Rabbi Daniel Lehmann, founder of BIMA-The Berkshire Institute for Music and Art, a summer program for Jewish high school students, at a panel on “Fusing Arts and Culture Into Jewish Learning” at the second annual Sidney Krum Jewish Culture Conference.
Better known as Shmooze `07, the two-day gathering of about 175 serious professionals dealing with various aspects of Jewish art, was held at UJA-Federation headquarters in New York, and was the brainchild of music entrepreneur Michael Dorf. (Actually, Dorf says the inspiration for the conference came from his participation several years ago at The Conversation, a conference retreat sponsored by The Jewish Week.)
When it comes to fusing arts and culture into Jewish learning, as the topic suggested, Lehmann is against it, proclaiming at the outset: “I want to speak against integration” – in contrast to the previous speaker, and to conventional wisdom on the subject.
Lehmann, whose work as founding headmaster of Gann Academy-New Jewish High School of Greater Boston earned him a Covenant Foundation Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, described the serious time provided to the arts at the school and camp he heads, including playwright David Mamet teaching creative writing. “Not Jewish creative writing,” he noted, “just creative writing.”
Lehmann said teens don’t want adults “giving them pre-packaged integration; they reject it.”
His advice: let the young men and women develop a true love for art and instill in them the idea that the Jewish community cares about them as people and as artists without “using” them to produce Jewish art.
Let the students do their work in an intensely Jewish setting and then sit back and observe. “Interesting things will happen,” he said, if not in the short term then at some point in their careers.
It was a refreshing take on a much-discussed topic among Jewish educators.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Posted By James Besser
Getting It on the Environment / Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin in Baltimore
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why more people don’t get it. The truth is this: we are killing ourselves, and it is happening a lot faster than we thought. The glaciers are melting; the sea-level rising; droughts are persisting; floods are raging; crops are failing; people are dying all because we are entrenched in a dead-end, cat-in-a-sack misguided pursuit of energy sources.
Cushioned Americans may be the last to feel it. But here’s the bottom-line: there is nothing that we do that does not begin and end with the earth and its treasures. If we trash them or exhaust them or otherwise debase and abuse them, they will either rear up and attack us (as in hurricanes and floods) or collapse in a heap before us (as in our water tables, wildlife and perhaps even life-giving bees). Either way, we are doomed.
You don’t have to be an environmentalist or activist or visionary to be moved to do something. You only need to be a realist to see that our Twentieth Century technologies and our Twenty First Century appetites are bound in a self-destructive embrace. We have to intervene and realign these two.
The good news is that the solution is within our grasp. To make it happen, the Jewish community must get in the game big time. Now. We must focus on two things:
(1) We must use our celebrated minds and means to lead the charge in the next technological revolution. We need to re-focus our resources and creativity on designing and financing truly green energy, the kind that never runs out and that doesn’t leave any waste; the kind you don’t have to wrest from the earth but capture in mid-flight: sun rays, wind power and ocean movement. We should not spend a penny more on extracting fuels but on harnessing them. We should be designing ways to convert the inexhaustible pulsing of the universe into energy that lights our cities, runs our businesses, warms our homes, preserves our food and powers our transportation.
Jewish money and Jewish brains can once again help change this world for the better. It is something that the altruist and the greedy and all the folks in the middle can all agree on. For there is no doubt this frontier, like all those that came before it, will reward its pioneers with riches. But this time, everyone, including the earth, will benefit.
(2) We must use the teachings of our tradition to re-center our values. Modern society has made an idol out of engorgement. Bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger pay checks; bigger body parts; bigger portions. When the product is small, we market it with bigger packaging. We believe that bigger is happier, safer; that more is better. But we know, and studies tell us, that we are not one wit happier, and hardly healthier, have no more friends and no more leisure and no more pleasure, than our “smaller” parents and grandparents before us. The bulky, bulgy, bloated life doesn’t get us to Paradise. And yet we somehow delude ourselves into thinking that while this purchase or that paycheck or the last deal didn’t get us there, the next one surely will.
Sustainable satisfaction, true contentment, comes from a life lived in seeing the goodness we have, not the stuff we don’t. Judaism teaches us to dream and explore; to dare and innovate. It encourages enough dissatisfaction for progress and growth to thrive. That is what we do on the six work days. But it also teaches us to pause and rest and look and appreciate, and to see how little it takes to truly feel full. That is the magic of Shabbat, and a lesson the world needs to learn once again.
Shabbat does not come when our work is done. If that were the case, Shabbat would never come. Rather, our work is done when Shabbat comes. Amidst all that we don’t have, Shabbat shows us what we do have. Amidst our yearning for more, Shabbat shows us what we have in abundance. Paradoxically, it is in doing nothing but being with our friends and family; eating with them, talking with them and basking in their company; acknowledging our dependence on others and the world, that we grow sated, wise and happy.
Learning to hold these two in balance, desire and contentment, appetite and ease, is the grand message of Shabbat that we must again teach ourselves, and the world. And we haven’t a moment to lose.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Posted By James Besser
Rebirth in New Orleans / Steve Lipman in New York
He’s 24 years old, he entered Saturday morning services with the name of Nash, and left with the name Noah. In New Orleans Noah nee Nash is another symbol of a Jewish community rebuilding itself.
On Parshat Noah, when the biblical Torah portion about the ark and 40 days of rain are read in synagogues, Nash showed up for the first time at Congregation Beth Israel, the city’s major Modern Orthodox synagogue.
I was there on assignment last week, chronicling New Orleans Jewry’s attempts to recoup from the losses it sustained in Hurricane Katrina two years ago. The community lost a third of its residents, including many of its prominent members and leaders.
In the last year, hundreds of Jews have settled again in New Orleans, among them rabbis like Uri Topolosky of Beth Israel, and teachers like Nash.
Rabbi Topolosky’s and Nash’s decisions to move to a decimated city are symbols of New Orleans’ potential future. The Jewish community needs leaders. And it needs regular members.
The rabbi has already met scores of Jewish New Orleanians in shul, in his house, in the city’s pair of kosher restaurants. He invites everyone – virtually none of them Orthodox – to his interactive Shabbat services. There is singing, Carlebach style. There are impromptu Torah discussions. There are responsive readings in English. There is an unorthodox tone for an Orthodox synagogue.
So Nash showed up Saturday morning with his girlfriend, also a young idealistic teacher.
Rabbi Topolosky offered him an aliyah. Nash declined. It turned out he had no Jewish education, no bar mitzvah, not even a Hebrew name.
Finally Nash agreed to be called to the Torah. By what name? The rabbi asked for suggestions. “Noah” was the best name offered. The rabbi read the Hebrew name that conferred on Nash the Hebrew name Noah ben Abraham. Haltingly, he read a transliteration of the Hebrew blessings. Everyone broke out in a round of “Simon tov u’mazel tov,” a traditional bar mitzvah song.
“This,” Rabbi Topolosky announced, “was the first bar mitzvah this congregation has had in a long time.”
On Parshat Noah, the Jewish community of New Orleans gained another member.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Posted By Gary Rosenblatt
Posted By Gary Rosenblatt
Senior Moments / Gary Rosenblatt in New York
Amid all the kvetching (including my own) about the fear of losing disengaged young Jews, so many of whom show little concern for Israel and affiliating with American Jewish organizations, let us offer a word of praise for their parents and, more likely, grandparents who make up the majority of attendees at so many mainstream Jewish events.
These thoughts come to mind after attending an all-day conference on Sunday at the East Midwood Jewish Center in Brooklyn. More than 350 people turned out for the program, titled “Can We Talk About Israel? Enhancing The Dialogue,” sponsored by The Institute for Living Judaism in Brooklyn and the Hadassah Brooklyn Region.
The majority of attendees were senior citizens, and while they were slow to navigate the stairs, they were quick with their questions and comments.
At the session I addressed, on Jewish journalism, they were knowledgeable and engaged on the issues, and their concern about future generations was palpable.
When I asked how many read The Jewish Week, nearly every hand went up.
Where are their grandchildren? They shrug and acknowledge that young people today have other interests, especially on a lovely Sunday morning.
Jewish groups are right to focus on attracting younger people, but Sunday’s impressive event was a reminder that the backbone of the active and organized community are those who remember and remain touched by the Holocaust and the creation and struggles of the State of Israel. Our challenge is to find new and positive reasons for younger Jews to continue to engage.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Rudy Spurned by "Values Voters" / James Besser in Washington
Posted By James Besser
Rudy Spurned by "Values Voters" / James Besser in Washington
Although nobody took a poll, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani seemed the clear favorite at last week’s Republican Jewish Coalition presidential candidates forum.
But even though he has been polling well among evangelical voters, Giuliani got a dose of bad news at the “Values Voter Summit” over the weekend, an event sponsored by the conservative Family Research Council.
In a straw poll among 1500-plus activists at the convention and another 4500 online, Giuliani finished eighth out of nine candidates, despite his into-the-lions-den appearance and his promise to appoint only conservative judges.
“People of good conscience come to different conclusions about whether abortions should be legal in some circumstances,” he told the group. “But you and I…share the same goal: a country without abortion, achieved by changing the minds and hearts of people.”
The official winner was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has been fighting hard to overcome the anti-Mormon views of many evangelical Christians.
But the big winner may have been former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who finished just a few votes behind Romney. Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, told delegates “I come today as one not who comes to you, but as one who comes from you. You are my roots.’’
Huckabee also stands to gain from last week's decision by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) to end his cash-starved quest for the GOP nomination -- despite telling the RJC crowd that he'd stick it out to the Iowa caucuses. Brownback and Huckabee have the strongest connections to the Christian conservative faction of the party of any of the current contenders.
As for Giuliani, University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said his eighth place finish in the “values voters” straw poll isn’t necessarily terrible news for Giuliani.
“In my view, Rudy actually gained from that appearance,” Sabato said. “He was never going to get their votes in the primaries, but they saw that he doesn’t have horns and he took some positions that will make it easier for most of them to swallow hard and vote for him in November, should he be the GOP nominee.”
Huckabee, he said, still faces two big obstacles: money and organization. But Sabato added this: “I’d add this: there is no real favorite for the GOP nomination. Almost anything can happen.”
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Posted By James Besser
SCHIP Veto Plants Seeds for 2009? / James Besser in Washington
Posted By James Besser
SCHIP Veto Plants Seeds for 2009? / James Besser in Washington
As expected, the House on Thursday failed to override President Bush’s veto of a bill expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Jewish groups were quick to express their disappointment, but the flurry of press releases barely concealed its depths.
“The failure to renew this bipartisan program will have real-life consequences for millions of children and their families for whom insurance is unaffordable or even simply unavailable,” said Phyllis Snyder, president of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW).
Groups like NCJW and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism went all out to beat the veto, but leaders of the SCHIP push conceded it was an uphill fight from the start.
Why did SCHIP, which funds state programs that help provide coverage to children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, too little for private insurance, take on such urgency for Jewish groups?
Part of it was simply the obvious imperative of expanding what even many Republicans agree is a successful program and starting to make a dent in the growing population of the uninsured.
“People really felt that a lot of factors were coming into alignment,” said NCJW’s Sammie Moshenberg. “It had bipartisan support; it involved children’s health. It was a real opportunity.”
But the effort also had a lot to do with the desperate politics of human services in these days of tax cuts, tight budgets and government cutbacks.
Backers of a strong government health and human services safety net have been engaged in a fighting retreat for years. They believe the idea of the SCHIP program is so basic that it was an appropriate place to draw a line in the sand.
With a loss on SCHIP, despite significant Republican support and Democratic control of both Houses of Congress, what chance do they have of expanded programs to cover the 40-million-and-rising population of Americans without any health coverage?
That also explains why some conservatives are so vehemently against it, calling it the foot in the door to socialized medicine. If they can beat the Democrats on basic insurance coverage for kids, you can kiss more ambitious proposals good bye.
Congressional and administration officials are expected to start negotiations over a compromise SCHIP package, but in private many Jewish leaders say the fight for a major expansion is probably over for now.
Still, Mik Moore of the Jewish Funds for Justice said all is not lost in the wake of the veto override failure; the huge commitment to SCHIP by groups across the political spectrum and around the country laid the groundwork for broader efforts in the future – especially if there is a political realignment in Washington after the 2008 elections.
“In a way, it was a win-win situation,” he said. ‘You’re either winning a victory for 4 million children who need health coverage – or you’re building a movement for expanded health care for all Americans.”
For a good analysis of the thinking of Jewish groups supporting the SCHIP expansion, check out this item on JSPOT, the Jewish Funds for Justice blog.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Odd Political Twist in Mideast Debate / James Besser in Washington
Posted By James Besser
Odd Political Twist in Mideast Debate / James Besser in Washington
In an odd political twist, Democratic contenders for their party’s 2008 presidential nomination are mostly supportive of President Bush’s policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although nobody’s rushing to talk about it, while Republican candidates are running away from the centerpiece of administration policy: Palestinian statehood.
First former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani came out against Palestinian statehood, at least anytime soon; former Arkansas Gov. Mick Huckabee, running hard for support from a Christian right faction that includes many right-of-center Christian Zionists, told the Jewish Week that he might support Palestinian statehood – but not in the lands the Palestinians want.
Now Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) has announced support for major portions of a plan by Knesset member Benny Elon that would effectively foreclose the possibility of a Palestinians state on the West Bank and recognize Jordan as the sole representative of the Palestinians people, effectively eliminating the Palestinian Authority as a diplomatic entity.
In a press video shown in Jerusalem and posted on YouTube, Brownback called the plan “a different way forward…so we don’t go back to old solutions that haven’t been working.”
At Tuesday’s Republican Jewish Coalition candidates forum, nobody had a good word to say about the upcoming Annapolis summit called by President Bush for November, and one – former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- was openly scornful.
"How could you possibly have a peace conference at this stage? Who would you talk to?” he said.
How do Jewish Republicans explain the seeming contradiction between their contention that President Bush is the most pro-Israel president ever and the growing opposition to an idea – Palestinian statehood – that has become the centerpiece of his Middle East policy?
“It’s the State Department,” said an official with one of the GOP presidential campaigns. “President Bush’s support for Israel’s security is unchanged, but the State Department seems to be moving in a different direction.”
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Posted By James Besser
Drive-By Outrage / James Besser in Washington
The Chicago Tribune this week called her the “Queen of the Drive-by Outrage,” and there’s not much doubt about it: conservative commentator Ann Coulter has outraged Jews across the political spectrum with her televised insistence that Jews need to become Christian to be “perfected” and her view of the Republican Party as a bastion of happy Christians.
And don’t even mention her view of New York City as a Christian Garden of Eden.
Appearing on the CNBC “Big Idea” show, Coulter was asked this question: “If you had your way…what would this country look like?”
Her answer: “It would like a lot like New York City during the (2004) Republican National Convention. In fact that is what I think heaven is going to look like. People were happy. They’re Christian. They’re tolerant. They defend America.”
Host Donny Deutsch, sniffing pay dirt, followed up by asking “It would be better if we were all Christian?"
You can guess Coulter’s answer by the indignant press releases churned out by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress and some Jewish members of Congress.
Coulter, either unaware of how her comments would be received or eagerly aware that they would keep her in the national spotlight, went on to explain that Jews shouldn’t be insulted by her implication that the nation would be better off without them because Christians just want Jews to be “perfected,” like Christians are, by accepting Jesus.
The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) leapt into action with a campaign to reduce Coulter’s presence on the airwaves.
“While Ann Coulter has freedom of speech, news outlets should exercise their freedom to use better judgment,” said NJDC executive director Ira N. Forman. “Just as media outlets don’t invite those who believe that Martians walk the Earth to frequently comment on science stories; it’s time they stop inviting Ann Coulter to comment on politics.”
The group is also calling on the Republican presidential candidates to repudiate her statements; at Tuesdays' Republican Jewish Coalition presidential forum, none of the five major candidates mentioned her name.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said “Ms. Coulter has shown time and again that she is willing to demonize non-Christians in order to promote herself and her agenda. She should be ashamed of herself for promoting anti-Semitism and intolerance and should apologize."
Jewish Republicans, already facing tough prospects in 2008, weren’t happy, either.
“I strongly, strongly take issue with her comments,” said Matthew Brooks, the RJC director. “I think she’ absolutely lost her mind and far over the line of what’s acceptable in terms of political discourse. It’s interesting to me that she speaks of tolerance when she herself speaks so intolerantly of others.”
But Brooks said he doesn’t expect real political fallout from her comments.
“People know she’s outrageous and outlandish. I don’t see any political linkage. But I doubt she’ll be asked to speak at any political fundraisers.”
Democratic lawmakers issued indignant press releases -- but so far, the GOP contingent in Congress and the Republican National Committee have been mum on the issue.
Still, Coulter’s comments came only two weeks after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) raised some Jewish hackles up with his agreement that the Constitution created America as a “Christian nation” and a month after a poll showing that a majority of Americans agree with that proposition.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Posted By James Besser
Hard Times A'coming / James Besser in Washington
Pastor John Hagee, president of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), has been understandably shy about talking about Bible prophecy at the pro-Israel events he has sponsored around the country.
But in an interview with CNN’s Glen Beck, he laid it all out , but with one exception: he never talked about what happens to the Jews when the “antichrist” allies with Russia to invade and ravage Israel.
Read the transcripts of the interesting interview here.
While you’re at it, check out journalist Max Blumenthal’s video of attendees at this summer’s CUFI convention.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Try and Try Again / James Besser in Washington
Posted By James Besser
Try and Try Again / James Besser in Washington
Sixty two years after the end of World War ll, the Holocaust remains a hot topic for legislators, especially ones from districts with lots of Jewish voters and contributors.
This week it was Rep. Carolyn Maloney , a Democrat who represents parts of Manhattan and Queens. Maloney has re-introduced her bill to “hold railroad companies that worked with the Nazis accountable in U.S. courts,” according to the lawmaker’s office.
The specific target: the companies that transported more than 75,000 French Jews to Nazi concentration camps.
According to Maloney, the measure gives plaintiffs the rights to seek damages in Federal Court against the French National Railway. The French government claims immunity from legal action in such matters; the bill is meant to counter that.
Maloney has had lots of practice; she has been introducing the measure since 2003, but it hasn’t grabbed the attention of congressional leaders in either party.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Posted By James Besser
More Than a Newspaper / Gary Rosenblatt, Editor and Publisher
Posted By James Besser
More Than a Newspaper / Gary Rosenblatt, Editor and Publisher
Three projects founded by The Jewish Week are launching anew this week.
First is this web site, which now includes more content from videos to exclusive blogs to unique features than we are able to publish in print each week. We hope you will keep coming back to the site as it continues to grow in quality and quantity, and we welcome your suggestions.
A second project is Write On For Israel, our advocacy through journalism program for high school students, starting its sixth year this Sunday. Created at the height of the intifada, with funding from the Avi Chai Foundation, Write On is committed to teaching high school students a mix of modern Zionist history and skills in journalism and communication so that when they get to college, they will have the knowledge and moral confidence to become the leaders of pro-Israel advocacy activities on campus.
Each year about 30 high school juniors are chosen for the two-year program from about 100 applicants. The group is made up of students from public, private and Jewish high schools in the metropolitan area. They will spend one Sunday a month during the school year in instruction and discussion, hearing from educators, journalists, Mideast experts and media analysts.
The first year culminates with a 10-day free trip to Israel where the students meet Israeli political leaders, journalists and military and diplomatic experts while touring the country.
In their senior year, the group will take on a special project of its own. One of the things we have learned in keeping in touch with graduates of the program is that they become leaders of pro-Israel programs even as freshmen in college.
Also this Sunday, The Jewish Week will sponsor the third annual conference known as The Conversation, a two-day meeting of 65 American Jews who are leaders or emerging leaders in a variety of fields, including the arts, business, journalism, philanthropy and science. Held this year at a retreat near Atlanta, The Conversation is focused around the theme of “being Jewish in America in the 21st century,” giving participants 48 hours to meet, network, discuss, debate, dream together and inspire each other.
Our primary partner in this exciting venture is CLI (Center for Leadership Initiatives), with core funding from philanthropist Lynn Schusterman. Several other foundations are sponsors as well.
What is unique about this conference is that there are no plenaries or panels, no keynote speakers and no planned outcomes. Rather, the participants are invited to propose the topics on the spot that they want to talk about, and then they do.
The program is off the record so that participants can speak openly without concern about being quoted directly. But I hope to report on the themes and points of view that emerge, so stay tuned.
And here you thought The Jewish Week was "just" a newspaper.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Posted By James Besser
Posted By James Besser
A Darfur War Strategy / Shoshana Bryen, special projects director for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)
From a synagogue Listserv: “A CLEAN CAR AND A CLEAN CONSCIENCE: Stop by on Memorial Day – between noon and 3:30 to support my tzedakah project and have your car washed. All donations to the Save Darfur Coalition. Thank you for your support!”
It was a Bar/Bat Mitzvah project, no doubt, and not to be mocked. But it begs the questions, “What are adult Jews doing about Darfur, and are we able to move beyond our political comfort zone even in the circumstance of genocide?”
Everybody wants to “Save Darfur.” Sermons, banners and “awareness raising” projects are fixtures in the Jewish community, but produce little more than the self-satisfaction of being ahead of the churches. Paying for “feeding stations” in refugee camps under attack is a sop to our conscience. Food is good, but in 1943 would it have been enough to demand that the Jews ate in Auschwitz? (“Never mind that oven over there.”) Enough to demand financial sanctions on Hermann Goering? Bombs on the railroad tracks would have been better.
President Bush has announced sanctions for Sudan, but sanctions hurt the weakest people, and anyhow have no traction in the UN where China protects Sudan’s government in exchange for oil drilling rights. Negotiations? Even the UN Special Envoy for Darfur admits, “Our peace strategy so far has failed. All we did was pick up the pieces and muddle through, doing too little, too late.” He asked the UN for a “force of… peacekeepers with the authority to use violence to prevent attacks against civilians and disarm militias.”
The death of nine "peacekeepers" in September makes it clear he means warfighters.
Militias, with government assistance and Chinese protection, are waging genocidal war against Darfur, and warfighters – people with the authority to use violence – are needed to protect the refugees and kill, yes kill, the perpetrators. Our own history tells us there is no reason to believe anything less will stop the ravaging of an already ravaged people.
The people of Darfur need American Jews – who have the political clout they don’t have – to argue the case for their salvation. But as a community, we rarely acknowledge that war can serve the interest of peace and have been unable to demand military intervention where it is needed. Instead we have made the case for ensuring that the victims die full.
To the extent that we only clean our cars for Darfur, we are cleaning our collective conscience at their expense.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Posted By James Besser
In a Stew Over "In the Mix"
Posted By James Besser
In a Stew Over "In the Mix"
If you think dealing with the issues surrounding intermarriage is easy, just ask any rabbi -- or Jewish newspaper editor.
Julie Wiener's "In the Mix" column about the challenges facing intermarried couples continues to draw heaps of reader mail --some of it positive, some absolutely outraged.
For a sample of the latter, here's something from Jay Saltzman, a reader in Woodmere, who raises an interesting dilemma. Saltzman argues that publishing Wiener's monthly column "undermines what (Jewish Week editors) seem to believe is important to the survival of the Jewish people."
Saltzman goes on to state that "rather than publishing a monthly column about intermarriage, how about a monthly column about the struggles of parents to send their children to private Jewish day schools, the failure of the Jewish 'establishment' to help make tuition affordable and the failure of rabbis to speak out against this utter disaster?"
Publishing "In the Mix," Saltzman writes, is "antithetical to American Jewish survival."
Jewish Week editor Gary Rosenblatt acknowledges that the inclusion of Wiener's column may outrage some readers -- a lot of readers, actually -- but argues it provides an important service to many others who are wrestling with similar issues in their own lives.
"We believe that publishing Julie's column about one intermarried woman's attempts to raise her children as Jews, and the issues she struggles with, is not an endorsement of intermarriage but an effort to explore a situation faced by an increasingly large percentage of families in American Jewish life," Rosenblatt said.
The Jewish Week faces a difficult choice, he said.
"We could ignore or confront these and other delicate issues; we choose to bring them to light and welcome the resulting debate, as long as it is not hurtful on a personal level."
So debate away, and let us know what you think.
