July 2009

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
      1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31  

July 06, 2009

William Kristol on Sarah Palin: Elites Are Protesting Too Much

Washington Post:

By William Kristol
Monday, July 6, 2009 5:14 PM

I like Sarah Palin (though I don't know her well). I respect her (though I'm aware of some of her limitations). I wish her well (though I'm not convinced she should be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee).

I am convinced, though, that she should have a chance to compete and make her case. In this, I seem to differ from many of my friends in the mainstream media and the Republican establishment. They tend not only to dislike and disdain Palin, they also want to bury her chances now as a presidential possibility. What are they so scared of?

It's silly to claim Palin has no chance to win the nomination or the presidency. The fact is, despite a rough campaign in 2008, Palin has been (for what it's worth at this stage) a co-front-runner in polls of GOP primary voters for 2012, along with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. In a recent Pew survey, she had the strongest favorable-unfavorable numbers of the likely candidates among Republicans.

She has fervent supporters, which would presumably help her in primaries and caucuses. Among the general public, she has a not-great but not-unmanageable 45-44 favorability rating.

Will her poll numbers fall because she has opted to step down early from the Alaska governorship? Perhaps. But the short-term effect of that decision will soon be swamped by judgments people make as they see her out and about, speaking and opining on the issues of the day.

She'll be able to make the case effectively that she should be the nominee, or she won't.

The odds are that she won't -- just as the odds at this point are against any one of the GOP candidates. It's a wide-open race. And Palin may not even run. But the panic among mainstream media commentators and the GOP establishment suggests real worry that if she does, she might pull off an upset. Why else the vehement assertions that she's clearly made a terrible mistake? Why else the categorical insistence that her political career is finished? Aren't they all protesting too much? [Read the rest]

posted by: jrtelegraph

AmeriCorps IG scandal Goes On

Washington Examiner:

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
July 3, 2009

Key Republicans in both the House and the Senate are accusing the White House of giving “incomplete and misleading” information to investigators probing the president’s abrupt firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin.  In return, the White House is hinting that documents concerning its actions in the Walpin affair may be protected by executive privilege.

Both developments are part of an escalating conflict between GOP lawmakers and the Obama administration.  Republicans are deeply skeptical of the White House explanation for the June 10 firing of Walpin, a tough investigator who had been probing misuse of AmeriCorps money by Sacramento, Calif., mayor — and prominent Obama supporter — Kevin Johnson.  And the administration seems determined to conceal its dealings with AmeriCorps and the organization that oversees it, the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Walpin was dismissed without warning on June 10, when he received a call from Norman Eisen, the special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform.  Eisen told Walpin he had one hour either to resign or be fired — an apparent violation of a law giving special job protections to inspectors general.  When Walpin refused to quit, he was terminated.

After lawmakers demanded an explanation, the White House said Walpin had been “confused, disoriented [and] unable to answer questions” at a May 20 meeting with the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service.  The Johnson case was discussed at that meeting, with Walpin harshly criticizing board members for their support of a decision to let Johnson off easy.

There’s no question that members of the board, both Democrat and Republican, were unhappy with Walpin’s criticism of them.  They agreed that Alan Solomont, the Democratic fundraiser appointed by President Barack Obama as chairman of the board, should tell the White House what had happened.

But now, at least three board members have told congressional investigators they did not specifically recommend that the administration fire Walpin.  Instead, they simply wanted the chairman to express their concerns.

The White House claims it investigated the matter; Eisen told House and Senate aides that officials did an “extensive review” of complaints about Walpin’s performance before deciding to fire him.  But there are serious doubts as to whether the White House did, in fact, conduct a serious investigation before getting rid of Walpin.

The three board members have told Congress that the White House did not contact them during the review.  (One was told about Walpin’s firing at about the time it happened, and the other two were contacted days later.)  No one from the White House contacted Walpin himself, or his top assistant, as part of the review.

All were present at the contentious May 20 meeting. If officials at the White House were really trying to discover what happened at that session, congressional investigators say, it would have wanted to hear their version of events.  But no questions were asked.

In particular, investigators are puzzled by the White House’s failure to contact Walpin concerning the charge that he was “confused” and “disoriented” at the meeting.  Was he, in fact, confused?  If so, was it the result of some medical condition or other problem the board might not have known about?  Some other distraction?  The White House never asked. 

All in all, the “extensive review” appeared more of a sham review — an exercise designed to support a decision that had already been made.  Nor has the White House been open about it.  “Information provided to my staff by Mr. Eisen has been incomplete and misleading,” Republican Rep. Darrell Issa wrote in a July 1 letter to White House counsel Gregory Craig. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph


Charles Jacobs and Dennis Hale: Extremist-led Islamic Center opens in Boston

Boston Globe:

By Dennis Hale and Charles Jacobs

July 5, 2009

LAST WEEKEND marked a milestone in the history of interfaith relations in Boston. On Friday, local Muslims, public officials, and interfaith leaders celebrated the opening of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury - a religious complex paid for largely by the Saudis and run by what federal authorities describe as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Some milestone! The city has helped the Wahhabi clerical establishment - purveyors of the most intolerant religious teachings on the planet - and the Muslim Brotherhood - genesis of all Sunni terrorist organizations - set up shop in the Cradle of Liberty, flying a false flag of moderation. And to make matters worse, this sad milestone is praised as a great victory for diversity and a boon to local Muslims.

Meanwhile, those who criticize this arrangement are branded as bigots and dragged into court, while the press and public officials ignore the links between the leaders of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center and Islamist hatred and terrorism. These claims are supported by tens of thousands of pages of evidence - much of it delivered to us by the society as a result of the discovery process triggered by their own lawsuit.

So why worry? What will the following facts portend for the future of interfaith harmony in Boston and of the venerable and moderate Muslim community of Boston?

  • The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center offers courses from the Islamic American University, whose vice chairman is Jamal Badawi, a trustee of the center, and headed by Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a hate-mongering preacher from the Gulf who has been banned from Egypt and the United States. As the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, he praisessuicide bombers, debates the correct way to murder homosexuals, and has urged that the Jews be murdered "to the last one.''
  • Trustee Walid Fitahi has claimed that according to the Koran, Jews are "killers of the Prophets,'' responsible for the "oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah.'' Yet Fitahi was chosen to read Koranic passages at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
  • ISB records show that the organization has both received money from and donated money to organizations that were later investigated or shut down for terrorist activities. Among the recipients of ISB largesse are the Benevolence International Foundation - an Al Qaeda charity - and the recently convicted Holy Land Foundation - a Hamas charity.
These are the people who will now be ministering to the spiritual needs of the local Muslim community and bringing to the center preachers who share their views.

Case in point: The ISB invited Yasir Qadhi to speak at its Cambridge mosque in March. Qadhi is a Holocaust denier who preaches that Jews want to destroy Muslims and that Christians are theologically "filthy.'' An earlier ISB preacher, Salah Soltan, claims that the Israelis use the skulls of Palestinian babies as ashtrays.

Are these invitations or the warped views of Qaradawi, Fitahi, and Badawi simply irrelevant to the future of interfaith relations in Boston? Or does the city's willingness to cooperate with such people constitute a great betrayal of the local Muslim community?

While we were demonstrating against this extremist leadership outside the mosque last week, we got a chilling look at the future of diversity in Boston. One of the imams who came over to talk with us denied the existence of slavery in the Sudan and said that preaching death for homosexuals is an "opinion'' to which Qaradawi is "entitled.'' And an angry Muslim youth from the mosque informed us that it was common knowledge that the Jews had tried to assassinate and "betray'' the prophet Mohammed. Consequently, he claimed that Jews could be discriminated against "to some extent.''

No sensible person believes that this is what multiculturalism is supposed to mean - and it is way past time for sensible citizens to demand answers to questions about the leaders of the new Islamic Center in Roxbury.

Dennis Hale is a member of the Political Science Department at Boston College. Charles Jacobs is president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance. Both headed organizations that were sued by ISB.


posted by: jrtelegraph

July 03, 2009

Human rights and Khodorkovsky

Cathy Young:

A group of American pundits which includes people as different as William Kristol and Leon Wieseltier is appealing to Barack Obama to make democracy and human rights a priority on his Moscow visit.  Grani.ru reports (in Russian) that, according to Obama’s top Russia advisor, Michael McFaul, about half of the President’s time on his Moscow trip will be devoted to interaction with “unofficial” persons.  Specifically, nearly all of Day 2 of his three-day visit will be spent in meetings with activists, members of the business community, and youth groups (hopefully not Nashi!).   And Gazeta.ru reports that on the first day of the visit, July 6, Obama will attend a “Civic Summit” of non-governmental organizations including Memorial, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House.  (Dmitry Medvedev is also expected to attend, though this is not officially confirmed.)   So far, this sounds like good news.

Meanwhile, a resolution urging the Russian government to dismiss the new charges against imprisoned former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and co-defendant Platon Lebedev — a case that reeks of politics and outrageous injustice — has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by U.S. Reps. James McGovern (D-Mass.)  and Frank Wolf (R-Va), co-chairmen of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission,  and Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe.  A similar bipartisan resolution was submitted in the Senate earlier.

Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who was in Moscow this week as head of a visiting Congressional delegation, was asked about this on Ekho Moskvy radio (where he appeared with his Russian counterpart, Konstantin Kosachev).

Berman’s reply:

I am the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and I have never heard of this resolution.  There is a tremendous difference between resolutions submitted by members of Congress and the laws Congress actually passes.  I would not focus on the isolated proposals of isolated members of Congress.  We should focus on what constitutes U.S. policy, what legislators enact, not the statements of some politicians.

Not only does Berman not support his colleagues’ human rights initiative; he goes out of his way to dismiss it as an insignificant and isolated political move.  Nice work, Congressman. [read the rest]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Mazel Tov, Dima!

Chabad.info:

235989


Photography by: Alex Gorokhov (click to enlarge)

Boxer Dimitry Salita, has been causing waves with all sorts of news agencies ever since leaunching his career. Dimitry, famous for never fighting on Shabbos, as he is a proud Frum Jew, and a Lubavitcher Chossid, celebrated his engagement this week to Allona Aharonov. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Lieberman: Concern Over Settlements Out of Proportion

JPost:

"We cannot suffocate people and life in the territories," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a conference of Druse Israel Beiteinu members in the Arab city of Shfaram in northern Israel.

Foreign Minister Avigdor...

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, center, walks with Knesset Member Hamad Amar, right, during a visit in the northern Israeli Arab town of Shfar'am, Thursday.

Photo: AP

Lieberman was responding to a statement made earlier Thursday by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who called on Israel to halt settlement construction completely, "otherwise we will not come to the two-state solution that is urgently needed."

Lieberman asked cynically whether "on the background of what happened today in North korea, which fired three missiles, after all the warnings and sanctions by the international community, it is appropriate to continue obsessing with the same house in Yitzhar, Tekoa or Bet El."

"Is this not out of proportion? Should this be the top of the international community's agenda after the recent events in Teheran? We need to explain to our true friends, the US and Germany too, that we cannot suffocate people, and life, in the territories."

Lieberman also said the new government in Israel was elected so that it could negotiate a "give and receive" peace deal with the Arabs, and not a "give and give some more" deal.

The foreign minister told his Druse constituents the government intends to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and was "not afraid to take responsibility, but responsibility does not mean conceding time after time."

He reminded his audience that "it is no coincidence that since Oslo in 1993 we have failed to resolve the conflict, even after we transferred territories over to the Palestinian Authority and after the disengagement from the Gaza Strip."[link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Stalin Vs. Schneersohn

Rabbi YY Jacobson:

82 Years Later: Who Won?

If there was ever a battle fought in vain, this was it. Or at least, so it seemed at the time.

The year is 1924. Vladimir Lenin, the father of the communist revolution, is dead; Over 900,000 people pass through the Hall of Columns during the four days and nights that Lenin lay in state.

Josef Stalin succeeds him as the new leader of the Soviet Union. During the following thirty years, he would murder 20 million of his own people. Jews and Judaism would be one of his primary targets. He sets up a special government organization, the Yevsektzye, to ensure that Russian Jewry in its millions embrace the new ethos of Communism, introducing a paradise constructed of bullets and gulags. 

Stalin would rule with an iron fist till his death in March 1953, when four million people would gather in Red Square to bid farewell to the tyrant revered and beloved by much of his nation and by many millions the world over.

At his home in Leningrad (today Petersburg), a 44-year-old rabbi, heir to some of the great Jewish leaders of Russian Jewry, summons nine young disciples. He offers them an opportunity most would refuse: to take responsibility for the survival of Judaism in the Soviet Union; to ensure that Jewish life and faith would survive the hellish darkness of Stalin’s regime. He wants them to fight “till the last drop of blood,” in his words.

They agree. He gives his hand to each of them as a sign that they are accepting an oath, an oath that would transform their destiny forever. "I will be the tenth, he says; together we have a minyan"...

An Underground Revolution

The nine men were dispatched throughout the country. With assistance from similar minded colleagues, they created an impressive underground network of Jewish activity, which included Jewish schools, synagogues, mikvaot (ritual baths used by Jewish woman for spiritual feminine reinvigoration), adult Torah education, Yeshivot (academies for Torah learning for students), Jewish text books, providing rabbis for communities, teachers for schools, etc. Over the 1920's and 1930's, these individuals built six hundred (!) Jewish underground schools throughout the U.S.S.R (1). Many of them last for only a few weeks or months. When the KGB (the secret Russian police) discovered a school, the children were expelled, the teacher arrested. A new one was opened elsewhere, usually in a cellar or on a roof.

One of the nine young men was sent to Georgia. There were dozens of mikvaot there, all shut down by the communists who buried them in sand and gravel. This young man decided to do something radical. He falsified a letter written supposedly by the KGB headquarters in Moscow, instructing the local offices in Georgia to open two mikvaot within 24 hours.

The local officials were deceived. Within a day, two mikvaot were open. Several months later, when they discovered the lie, they shut them down again.

And so it went. A mohel (the person performing the mitzvah of circumcision) was arrested, and another one was dispatched to serve the community; a yeshiva was closed, and another one opened elsewhere; a synagogue was destroyed and another one opened its portals in secrecy.

But it sure seemed like a lost battle. Here was an individual rabbi, with a small group of pupils, staging an underground rebellion against a mighty empire that numbered in the hundreds of millions, and aspired to dominate the world. It was like an infant wrestling a giant, an ant attempting to defeat a human. The situation was hopeless.

Finally, in 1927 – eighty-two years ago -- they lost their patience with him. The rabbi behind the counter-revolutionary work was arrested and sentenced to death by a firing squad. Foreign pressure and nothing less than a miracle convinced the KGB to alter the sentence to ten years in exile. It was then converted to three years, and then -- quite unbelievable in the Soviet Regime where clergy and laymen alike were murdered like flies -- he was completely exonerated. This Shabbos, July 4, the 12th of the Hebrew month of Tamuz, marks the 82nd anniversary of the day he was liberated from Stalin’s death sentence and imprisonment.

The individual behind the mutiny was the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (1880-1950), who became the leader of Chabad in 1920, after the passing of his father. He selected nine of his young pupils to battle with him. The one sent to Georgia, falsifying the KGB document, was my grandfather, Simon Yakabashvili, my father’s father (1900-1953). He, together with hundreds of his colleagues, Chassidim throughout the Soviet Union, was arrested in 1938, tortured mercilessly and given a 25-year sentence in the Gulag. Most of his eight colleagues who accepted the oath never made it out of Stalin’s hell. They perished in the Soviet Union. (My grandfather made it out but died several years later in Toronto).

Investing in Eternity

More than eight decades have passed. This passage of time gives us the opportunity to answer the question, who won? Stalin or Schnueersohn?

Eighty years ago, Marx's socialism and Lenin’s communism heralded a new era for humanity. Its seemingly endless power and brutality seemed unreachable.

Yet one man stood up, a man who would not allow the awesome war machine of Mother Russia to blur his vision, to eclipse his clarity. In the depths of his soul he was aware that history had an undercurrent often invisible to most but discernable for students of the long and dramatic narrative of our people. He knew with full conviction that evil might thrive but it will die; yet G-dliness -- embodied in Torah and Mitzvos -- are eternal. And he chose to invest in eternity.

He did not know how exactly how it would work out in the end, but he knew that his mission in life was to sow seeds though the trees were being felled one by one.

Cynics scoffed at him; close friends told him he was making a tragic mistake. Even many of his religious colleagues were convinced that he was wasting his time and energy fighting an impossible war. They either fled the country or kept a very low profile.

But 80 years later, this giant and what he represented have emerged triumphant. Today, in 2009, in the republics of the former Soviet Union stand hundreds of synagogues, Jewish day schools, yeshivot, mikvaot, Jewish community centers. As summer is about to begin, dozens of Jewish day camps are about to open up throughout the former Union with tens of thousands of Jewish children who will enjoy a blissful summer coupled with the celebration of Jewish life.

Last Chanukah, a large menorah stood tall in the Kremlin, casting the glow of Chanukah on the grounds where Stalin walked with Berya and Yezhov. On Lag Baomer (a Jewish holiday), thousands of Jewish children with kippot on their heads marched the streets of Moscow with signs proclaiming, "Hear oh Israel... G-d is One." Jewish life is bustling in Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, etc.

Comrade Stalin is dead; communism has faded away as hopelessly irrelevant and destructive. The sun of the nations is today a clod of darkness. The ideology of the Soviet Empire which declared "Lenin has not died and Stalin will not die. He is eternal," is now a mockery. Stalin and Lenin are as dead as one can be. But the Mikvaot built by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1927, they are still here.

If you will visit Russia this coming Shabbos, I am not sure you will find anybody celebrating the life and vision of Stalin or even Khrushchev and Brezhnev. But you will find tens of thousands of Jews celebrating the liberation of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1927 and the narrative of one man’s triumph over one of the greatest mass-murderers in human history, sharing his vision, committing themselves to continue his labor of saturating the world with the light of Torah and Mitzvos.

L’chayim!

1) This figure was given to me by Rabbi Sholom Ber Levin, chief librarian of the Central Lubavitch Library.

posted by: jrtelegraph

Symon Petliura Street?

Kyiv Post:

The Jewish Forum of Ukraine has protested against the Kyiv City Council's decision to rename Comintern Street to Symon Petliura Street.

"The Jewish Forum of Ukraine believes that the names of historically controversial personalities should not be given to streets and cities, and it is better to return to them their original geographical and historical names, and what counts more, that these names be far from politics," Jewish Forum of Ukraine Director Arkadiy Monastyrsky told Interfax on Friday.

Monastyrsky said he had addressed Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky to veto the Kyiv City Council decision.

It is believed that Petliura's troops are responsible for particularly cruel Jewish pogroms in Ukraine in 1918-1919. After the so-called Ukrainian Directory led by Petliura was crushed by Red Army in late 1919, Petliura fled to Warsaw. From the end of 1924, Petliura lived in Paris, where Jewish anarchist Sholom Schwartzbard assassinated him on May 25, 1926, saying that, in doing so, he avenged the murder of his relatives, including parents, during the pogroms.

The investigation into Peliura's assassination lasted 16 months, after which a jury at a French court acquitted Schwartzbard. [link]

Please don't tell Barack Obama that the name Comintern street is becoming available. He will rename Pennsylvania avenue.

posted by: jrtelegraph

June 28, 2009

CONVERSATION WITH RABBI ADIN EVEN YISRAEL STEINSALTZ

Lubavitch.com:

NEW YORK -- (June 25, 2009)
Baila Olidort

This week marks the 15th anniversary of the passing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. In honor of the occasion, lubavitch.com interviewed Rabbi Adin (Even Yisrael) Steinsaltz. 

Rabbi Steinsaltz, a noted rabbi, scholar, philosopher, social critic and a prolific author on a wide range of Jewish topics, is most commonly known for his popular commentary and translation of the Talmud into Hebrew, French, Russian and Spanish. A Chasidic scholar as well, Rabbi Steinsaltz has translated the Tanya, the primary source text of Chabad Chasidism, into English and written numerous works on Chasidic and Kabbalistic themes.

In 1988, he was awarded the Israel Prize, Israel's highest honor, for Jewish studies.

T

T HE REBBE TODAY

Baila Olidort: In the last fifteen years since that day in June 1994, now referred to as Gimmel Tammuz, so much has been written about the Rebbe, his life as an individual, as a leader, and  his legacy. What happens to the Rebbe over time?

Create a Comment Print this story

Rabbi Steinsaltz: It’s a complex thing. The Rebbe is unlike so many heroes whose biographies you can’t sell a year after they’ve died. The Rebbe remains a very active figure even though he doesn’t move with us in this world. 

When the Rebbe was alive, he was not just a spiritual leader; he was in many ways, a king, a commander of an army, and he made people move. 

Now he is becoming spiritualized, he is becoming a force, a figure like Elijah the prophet. 

We’re not really uncovering new stories about details or parts of his life. Instead, what appears is a picture of an individual who is almost a supernatural being. 

The Rebbe is becoming very much—and perhaps this is not the right term—a mythical figure. The Baal Shem Tov, for example, is now a power of nature. And the Rebbe is becoming like that.  

BO: We often hear people take what the Rebbe said and find in it their own meaning, their own interpretations. At times, these interpretations seem arbitrary, or worse, simply not what the Rebbe intended. Does it matter?

RS: Of course it matters, the Rebbe was very clear about what he said. He said, “Don’t make interpretations of what I said. If want to say something, I can say it clearly and sharply. 

So whatever you make of the Rebbe, if it is not true, the Rebbe would object to it. 

BO: But what of the theory that once something is out there, it becomes the domain of the public, and intent doesn’t really matter? 

RS: When you write poetry or fiction, that's a fair question, because possibly the poet doesn’t know himself. Possibly the poet is not the best source of interpretation for his own poetry. Much before the deconstructionists, Plato writes that the poet doesn’t understand his own poetry. 

But with the Rebbe, he was very clear, he was very sharp about keeping his message as it was. If I water it down, or honey it up or pepper it—that’s not right.   

REDEMPTION

BO: In the 1980s, the Rebbe said that all the obstacles in the path of Moshiach have been removed. And he sparked a sense of the imminence of the redemption. What are we to make of his statement today, thirty years later? 

RS: As I see it, the coming of Moshiach is the end of history. It’s not just by chance that the redemption is likened in the sources to giving birth, and is referred to as “birth pangs.” Some deliveries take a long time, and there’s lots of suffering and bleeding and crying. So when we speak of the coming of Moshiach, we are talking about a world being born, and the framework of the birth pangs may be longer than we expected.  

BO: When we spoke last time, you talked about the evolution of society, science, history as being a sign of progress and movement towards radical change in the as signs of the eventual Redemption. And in a certain respect we can see how the world has changed. We see greater tolerance, compassion, a wide embrace of Judaism’s universal values, and in this way, more progressive attitudes. But that usually goes together with having less tolerance for the particulars of Judaism. 

RS: Yes, well, being tolerant in our world is true in the Pickwickian sense. The tolerant are tolerant only within a certain framework. There is a dictatorship of the intolerance of the tolerant. 

As for change, we can point to certain things are moving in a certain direction, but are they progressive? That’s a very loaded word and probably shouldn’t be used in any intelligent conversation. 

Things are changing in all kinds of strange ways. A stronger monotheism is coming to the world, for example, with Islam. The Rebbe pointed out many years ago, that the importance of Islam needs to be taken into account, and it is being underestimated.

Humanity has not conquered disease. But today, to speak of living till 120 is no longer a joke. So again, there is change. But it is uneven.

Of course, if change would come as we dream it should, that itself would mean that Moshiach is here.   

BO: What of the anti-Semitism that we’re seeing today? That doesn’t look like change in a good direction.

RS: Most of the modern type hatred of Israel and Jews, comes from a belief that the Jews are somehow superior. Because of that there are much higher demands on our behavior. The anti-Semitism begins from a strange belief that the Jews are superior and so they have no right to behave as ordinary people. It’s as if they are saying to the Jews, “You are children of the Almighty—yet look how you behave, like us!”

So it is painful, but it is an admission that you haven’t heard in many years. 

ISRAEL

BO: What do you think the Rebbe’s vision was, for the State of Israel? On the one hand, he exhorted the government to honor Jewish principles. On the other, the idea of religious coercion by the State would never work. 

RS: The issue really is the attitude in Israel. As an example, the Israeli government brought in large numbers of Russian non-Jews as immigrants, which created a real problem, and the Rebbe was very concerned about that. The Israeli agency wanted numbers, so they got numbers and they didn’t care for the results. 

Now if the atmosphere in Israel was different, these immigrants would convert. Most of them were partly Jewish. And in the past, they had to convert to be accepted as full Jews.  Today, Israel—not as a state but as a society—accepts these half or quarter Jews as Jews, so there’s nothing pushing them to convert. 

BO: So there’s an example of how there’s less interest or sympathy for the particulars of Judaism. 

RS: Yes, but we can trace it back to the development of Israel as a state. You know, the founding fathers of America were religious. By contrast, the founding fathers of Israel were atheistic socialists. They completely cut themselves off from everything that came before them.  

The famous Israeli writer S. Yizhar (Yizhar Smilansky) once told me, “You know, I never had a grandfather as you did. My father just cut off every part of life that existed before he came to Israel. Nothing else was there.” 

In fact, in those early years, Israelis grew up believing that they are a different race—different from the Jews. 

And this created a serious gap, a real disconnect. Israel has really lost a part of its Jewishness as a result of the estrangement and distance, not only from the practice of Judaism, but also from all knowledge of it. 

That was of deep, deep concern to the Rebbe. The idea that generations of Jewish children are growing up in Israel with no knowledge of Tanach, of the fundamentals of Judaism—means that the gap is not because of the laws or the particulars, per se, but because of the atmosphere that is destroying their Jewishness. This is what the Rebbe wanted to repair.  

OPTIMISM

BO: Generally, the Rebbe took an optimistic tone in his talks. But in his 40-plus years of speaking, there were maybe a handful of occasions—one specifically comes to mind, when a young mother was murdered in Crown Heights, and the Rebbe addressed the tragedy, expressing a visceral grief. Listening to him then, one heard almost inconsolable pain of a father, faced with a colossal loss, rather than words of spiritual redemption. 

RS: The Rebbe was the vehicle that contained the tears of the Jewish people. The Rebbe heard pain and suffering, not just day after day, but minute after minute, so he had to contain all the pain. From time to time the weight of these tears, all the pain, all the suffering, was revealed. 

But the pain is a pain that says to G-d, “You have to do something about it, we cannot take it anymore.” He in effect was crying out to the Almighty that He should do something about all the suffering. It’s as if one says, “If I as a human being am suffering so much, you the Almighty, who feels the suffering much deeper—how can you stay behind and not do something about this?”

BO: You remember of course, the statement he made a few years before Gimmel Tamuz, which resounded with resignation or great despair, when he said, “I’ve done all I can, now it’s up to you.” This struck a chord with everyone, because it seemed so out of character for the Rebbe who generally exuded a sense of optimism.

RS: The optimism of the Rebbe was not always light. It was not a point of view that saw a rosy existence. His optimism meant that if you are willing to fight and work hard, there is a better future. 

Even his last statement, which you may say was a statement of deep despair, doesn’t mean that he gave up the desire, the dream and the ideas. He said, “I did to the utmost of my ability, I tried to do on my own what I could, so I am now leaving it in your hands.” 

He did not abandon his vision. So he wasn’t an optimist in the sense that he would say, you just rest, everything will be alright, you’ll wake up, the sun will shine, your dead wife will come back and your estranged children will come running to you. Rather, he said that if you work on it, if you go on, if you fight for it, then you have a good chance of getting yourself into a better position. 

And he believed that you can do it. That was his message to everyone. In fact, that’s what he said to the Ribbono Shel Olam [God]: “You can do better.” 

Watch the video  [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph


Children of Boston to Children of Sderot -- Smashing Success

Masha Rifkin reports:

On June 14th, hundreds packed into Newton North High School’s largest auditorium to witness the show Children of Boston to Children of Sderot. Produced and directed by Boris Furman and Olga Faybushevich, the show featured 12 different children performance groups, ranging from dance, to singing, to theater. Whether it was gracing the stage with elegant ballroom dancing, impressing the audience with flawless operatic endeavors, infusing the room with comedy with KaBH type sketches, or performing excerpts from Chekhov’s plays, the children performed for one cause: to stand unified for the Children of Sderot. Perhaps as great as the effort on stage was the effort off – the auditorium was constantly bustling with volunteers helping out hours before and after the show. These volunteers, mostly former and future counselors of the Boston Sderot Winter/Summer camps, worked tirelessly to manage the dozens of children and prepared for weeks in advance by advertising, creating t-shirts, and raising funds. These efforts, combined with that of other volunteers, as well as the brilliant direction of Furman and Faybushevich were clearly visible throughout the show. Completely professional, these little performers, ages 5 – 16, raised funds for the Camps by throwing their passion for the arts full force into the purpose of the night. And they succeeded! By the end of the night, the show raised over $5,000 for the camp this summer.

posted by: jrtelegraph

Gulag For Palestinians Made by USA

Hudson New York: 

June 24, 2009  6:30 AM
by Khaled Abu Toameh
Journalist

The leaders of the Palestinian Authority do not want the international community to hear anything about massive abuse of human rights and intimidation of journalists that its security forces are practicing almost on a daily basis in the West Bank.

They do not want the world to see that, with the help of the Americans and some Europeans, they are building more prisons and security forces than hospitals and housing projects for the needy.

They want the US and the rest of the world to continue believing that peace will prevail tomorrow morning only if Israel stops construction in the settlements and removes a number of empty caravans from remote and isolated hilltops in the West Bank.

The Palestinians do not need a dictatorship that harasses and terrorizes journalists, and that is responsible for the death of detainees in its prisons. In the Arab world we already have enough dictatorships.

The Palestinians do not need additional security forces, militias and armed gangs. In fact, there are too many of them, both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

American and European taxpayers' money should be invested in building hospitals, schools and housing projects. Investing billions of dollars in training thousands of policemen and establishing new security forces and prisons will not advance the cause of peace and coexistence.

There is no doubt that many Palestinians would love to abandon the culture of uniform and weapons in favor of improved infrastructure and medical care.

As for the international media, it's time to abandon the policy of double standards in covering the Israeli-Arab conflict. For many years, the mainstream media in the US and Europe turned a blind eye to stories about financial corruption under Yasser Arafat. The result was that Arafat and his cronies got away with stealing billions of dollars that had been donated to the Palestinians by the Americans and Europeans.

Back then, many foreign journalists said they believed that the stories about financial corruption in the Palestinian areas were "Zionist propaganda." Other journalists said they would rather file an anti-Israel story because this way they would become more popular with their editors and publishers.

Recently, a Palestinian TV crew was stopped at a checkpoint in the West Bank, where soldiers confiscated a tape and erased its content.

This incident, hardly received any coverage in the mainstream media in the US and Europe.

The reason? The perpetrators were not IDF soldiers, but Palestinian Authority security officers. And the checkpoint did not belong to the IDF; it was, in fact, a Palestinian checkpoint.

The story of the detention of the TV crew -- which, by the way, belonged to Al-Jazeera and the erasure of the footage did not make it to the mainstream media even after Reporters Without Borders, an organization that defends journalists worldwide, issued a statement strongly condemning the assault on the freedom of the media.

"Journalists must be able to work freely," Reporters Without Borders said. "The erasure of this video footage proves that the Palestinian security forces try to cover up their human rights violations. This incident should be the subject of an enquiry by the Palestinian Authority."

Walid Omari, the head of the Qatar-based satellite TV station's operations in the West Bank, told Reporters Without Borders that his crew was preparing a report on the death of a detainee at the Palestinian Authority detention center in Hebron that might have been the result of torture.
"We were the only ones to investigate this case and we did it despite strong pressure from the Palestinian Authority," Omari said.
Al Jazeera's Hebron correspondent went with a cameraman to the victim's home in the village of Dura, where they interviewed the family and filmed the body.

As they were returning to Hebron in a vehicle displaying the word "Press," they were detained by Palestinian Authority security forces at a checkpoint and taken to a police station, where the video footage they had just recorded was erased. They were allowed to go after an hour.

One can only imagine the international media's reaction had the TV crew been detained by Israeli security forces. Anti-Israel groups and individuals would have cited the incident as further proof of the "occupation's brutal measures" against the freedom of the media.

Moreover, it is highly likely that Israeli human rights organizations like Betselem would have dispatched researchers to the field to investigate the incident had IDF soldiers been involved.

Yet foreign journalists and human rights activists working in Israel and the Palestinian territories either chose to ignore the story or never heard about it simply because it was lacking in an anti-Israel angle.

One can also imagine how the media and human rights organizations would have reacted had a Palestinian died in Israeli prison after allegedly being tortured.

Haitham Amr, a male nurse, was detained by the Palestinian Authority's US-backed and trained General Intelligence Force on suspicion of being affiliated with Hamas. He was one of more than 700 Palestinians who are being held without trial in West Bank prisons that are run by security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

These security forces, which are being referred to by many Palestinians as the Dayton Forces [a reference to ret. US general and security coordinator Keith Dayton], claimed that Amr was killed after he jumped from the second floor of a building where he was being held in Hebron. The family and human rights organizations insist that Amr died as a result of severe torture.

If the Palestinian Authority really had nothing to fear, why did it send its police officers to detain the TV crew and confiscate the tape? Is the Palestinian Authority trying to hide something?

True, Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayad hold more moderate views than Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal.

But Abbas and Fayad do not enjoy enough credibility among their own people, largely due to their open ties with Israel and the West. The security and financial support that the Americans and Europeans are giving to the Palestinian Authority is nothing but a bear hug.

That is perhaps why they chose to ignore the story about the male nurse whose family says was tortured to death by security officers who receive their salaries from US and European taxpayers money. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Washington Post Calls Hamas's Attacks on Sderot "Armed Resistance"

Camera Blog:

Washington Post Sanitizes Hamas Attacks

In "Palestinian Premier Sets 2-Year Statehood Target" (June 23), The Washington Post continues a loaded and misleading word choice. In reporting a speech by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the newspaper says that "the United States and others have called on Hamas to end its armed resistance [emphasis added] and to join the other Palestinian groups that recognized Israel under the 1993 Oslo accords." "Armed resistance" hardly describes Hamas' actions; it sanitizes them.

What is Hamas "resisting"? Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in September, 2005. In January, 2006 Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election and formed a new PA government. And Israel became the target of incessant rocket and mortar attacks mostly by Hamas and its allies. This is not resistance, but aggression. Hamas continues to refuse to abide by agreements the Palestinian Authority made with Israel, refuses to recognize Israel, and refuses to end anti-Israel terrorism-- The Post's "armed resistance" - as demanded by the United States, United Nations, European Union, and Russia. And Hamas' charter remains unchanged; it continues to call for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, and its replacement with an Islamic theocracy, as well as for death to the Jewish people. "Armed resistance," or murderous intransigence?

Hamas and its allies and surrogates, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees have continued to stage or attempt terrorist attacks from Gaza and from the West Bank. Is that too "armed resistance"? This peculiar usage has become a pattern, having appeared also in earlier articles about Hamas terrorism, "Israel's Attacks on Gaza Deepen Palestinian Rift," January 1, and "Carter Decries Gaza Curbs, Asks Israel to Halt 'Abuse'," June 17.

In reference to terrorist groups elsewhere, The Post seems to acknowledge a different view. In "Blasts Kill 22 Across Baghdad," June 23, printed next to "Palestinian Premier Sets 2-Year Statehood Target," Wael Abdel Latif, an Iraqi lawmaker, is quoted commenting on "the so-called resistance" of extremist groups in Iraq. Those organizations use many of the same terrorist tactics, and carry a similar Islamic extremist ideology, as Hamas. The Post can quote an Iraqi official who denies the legitimacy of these groups' "resistance," but in its own words justifies Hamas violence. What Hamas "resists" is a Jewish state within any borders. It carries out its resistance by armed aggression, that is, by terrorism. The Post's euphemism is not only inaccurate, it echoes Hamas' propaganda.

sderot2.jpg
RESISTING HAMAS’ RESISTANCE: Ayelet with her one-month-old baby Chanan in a Sderot bomb shelter after a Jan. 17, 2008 rocket attack. The baby’s room was hit in an earlier attack. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

National Jewish Democratic Council "Promotes" Daniel Pipes

That is from a "conservative flack" to a "prominent conservative".

Daniel Pipes:

posted by: jrtelegraph

Natan's Coronation: The Story Behind The Story

eJewishphilanthropy.com:

Sharansky at JAFI: Can He Move The Organization Forward?

Yesterday afternoon, in a room aptly named Zion Hall, the coronation of Natan Sharansky as Chair of the Executive of the Jewish Agency took place. But, despite the unanimous vote, anyone who reads too much into the love fest that followed severely misreads the events of the week - and particularly the previous twenty-four hours.

For what culminated in both Sharansky’s election and approval of the updated governance procedures for JAFI was partially about the raw use/abuse of power - and a real microcosm of contemporary life here in Israel. We watched as the [mostly] American fundraisers squared off against the ‘do-nothing’ hacks of the Israeli political establishment; we witnessed several instances of coalition politics and the continuing feud between Likud and Kadima (where the latter actually holds one seat more) interfering with the real work of the WZO and JAFI; we saw the Diaspora fundraisers push the Prime Minister to the wall; and we looked on as Natan Sharansky removed himself from the grasp of a prominent Diaspora philanthropist.

As to Sharansky, his election was an unplanned side-show to the events of the week. A move has been under way for close to two years to change the relationship between the WZO and JAFI. In its simplest form, JAFI and WZO will begin to function more as independent organizations, including in the ranks of senior professionals and budgetary needs. The WZO received a parting gift from JAFI worth $80-100 million - ownership of the Jewish Agency’s Tel Aviv headquarters building and the resulting rental and air rights income. Direct budget allocations end in 2013.

The WZO itself is adrift. First, no one is quite sure what their mission is today, or even should be going forward. Second, the failure of Israeli coalition politics to agree on how to ‘divy up’ the spoils had Kadima renege on an agreement negotiated earlier in the day thereby forcing the WZO professional leadership to continue in limbo for another year. And if the Americans weren’t happy with the previous arrangement, just wait until Shas enters the WZO picture next summer.

In fact, the Americans were so adamant about splitting the leadership role between JAFI and the WZO, [before formally nominating him] they insisted on a written pledge from Sharansky not to accept any other position concurrent to his JAFI role. Bibi told him not to sign; Sharansky balked, but didn’t walk, and eventually a slightly re-written letter was signed concurring.

There is no question Sharansky himself has a mixed agenda. On the one hand he was looking for redemption for his humiliating withdrawal from the same race four years ago. He also has a mixed legacy from his foray into Israeli politics; he clearly wants to succeed Shimon Peres as the next President of Israel and he sees the JAFI position as a natural stepping stone. And lastly, Sharansky was looking for a diplomatic way to remove himself from the unknown future of Adelson funding. Like other organizations where most, or even all, funding comes from one source life is precarious. Adelson’s financial problems have been front page news in Israel for a long time. The closing, while not unexpected, of The Adelson Family Foundation offices in Israel less than two weeks ago, increased concern as to the foundation’s future funding priorities.

All of which brings us to today:

Updated governance policies are now in place. Natan Sharansky has been elected Chair of the Executive. All that’s left is JAFI’s little task of defining their mission and strategic direction for the future.

It’s going to be an interesting year. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

J-Street's Great Night in Boston

J-Street is a well-funded organization whose primary goals are creation of a Palestinian state and removing all and any traces of the Jewish character of the state of Israel.
On June 18th they had a great night in Boston. Below is a review done by  Solomonia of the so-called Jewish community debate where, per Solomon's expression,  the left had a chance to debate the far-left.
By any means take time to read it.

posted by: jrtelegraph

Keep in Touch with the Jewish Russian Telegraph


  • Add to My Yahoo!
  • SIGN UP FOR UPDATE
    Email Address *
    Last Name
    First Name
    * = Required Field

Search JRTELEGRAPH


Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards