Jewish Russian Telegraph

Example of a Community Newspaper

(click to enlarge the picture)

For a community Jewish school like Shaloh House to have as a guest a fellow Russian Jew, an Israeli Minister, who has such great influence on the President, was an unbelievable experience. This was a great event  for the community, the students, and their parents. In preparation for the meeting  the students were  reading from Sharansky's book,and rehearsing a song for him. Natan Sharansky was visibly touched. He spoke with a lot of emotion and conviction about the role of the Russian Jews, about the need for Jewish education, and Jewish continuity. The Jewish Advocate, in its story about the event, missed all of that by writing only four words about where the event took place and by whom it was organized. It is interesting that Brookline Bulletin gave a totally different, community oriented coverage to the whole event. (Brookline Bulletin) 

posted by: jrtelegraph
 

In Defense of Dan Rather

(Hat tip: G.M.)

These are not easy days for Dan Rather. The once invincible anchorman, who got accustomed to be treated as royalty at CBS, (see "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg) was forced to quit his position as a result of a scandal known as Rathergate. During this scandal, CBS went with a story bashing President Bush's National Guard service based on fake documents.The documents were so obviously fake, that they could not withstand even superficial scrutiny. The name of the scandal applied to Dan Rather is ironic -- he was first noticed for an obnoxious exchange with President Nixon:

Rather attracted notice in 1974 for an exchange with Richard Nixon. At a National Association of Broadcasters convention in Houston, Rather  was applauded when he stood to ask a question, drawing Nixon's query,   "Are you running for something?" Many saw Rather's quick retort, "No, sir, Mr. President. Are you?" as an affront to Presidential dignity. [link]

Now, in a turn not unusual for a cut-throat business of the mainstream media, former colleagues and friends of Dan Rather are disparaging him.

       Daily News reports:

Some of Dan Rather's best-known CBS colleagues say they don't watch the embattled anchor's "CBS Nightly News."

"He's not as easy to watch as [Peter] Jennings or [Tom] Brokaw," said "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace in this week's The New Yorker magazine.

"He's uptight and occasionally contrived. ... It's his style, and it's been a very effective style. God knows, I believe him. But I don't find him as satisfying to watch," Wallace said.

Legendary anchor Walter Cronkite, who recommended Rather for a job years ago, told the magazine he preferred watching Brokaw - who retired last year - because Rather looked like he was "showboating" - playing the part of a reporter on TV.[link]

But Dan Rather is not without his own defenders. Admittedly, the defense came from an unexpected source; Russian President, Vladimir Putin.
 
         Time magazine reports:

George Bush knew Vladimir Putin would be defensive when Bush brought up the pace of democratic reform in Russia in their private meeting at the end of Bush's four-day, three-city tour of Europe. But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. "Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather," says a senior Administration official. "It was like something out of 1984." [link]

The solution is simple. Mr. Putin! Please take Dan Rather with you. As a matter of fact why don't you take the New York Times and the Boston Globe as well.

posted by: jrtelegraph

 

Powerline: Israel's Politicians Seem Almost Retarded

Powerline is a blog with a name and a reputation. Time magazine named it the blog of the year in 2004.
Here is a great and sober assessment of Israel's political class by Powerline's Big Trunk:

As a distant lover of Israel, I have been genuinely puzzled by its failure to produce a statesman equal to the challenges faced by the country over the past 20 years. In every area of modern life the country boasts a genius that on a per capita basis must be unrivaled. Yet on the world stage its politicians seem almost retarded.

The country has never had a public accounting for the utter disaster that was Oslo. Its politicians seem to keep the country's citizens in the dark about the nature of its national security strategy and the actions taken to pursue it. I have previoulsy observed that Ariel Sharon's deal coalition deal to make Shimon Peres his "deputy premier" seems to me a metaphorical expression of the problem.

Symptomatic of the delusional political thinking that has brought Israel so much grief is the fact that there has as yet been no public accounting for the disaster of Oslo itself. Vital advocates of Oslo such as Peres are still respectable public figures playing significant roles and urging the same policy. It is as if Neville Chamberlain (if he had still been alive -- he had the grace to die in 1940) were still advising Winston Churchill on the statesmanship of appeasement in 1942. [link]

We should add to the list of such advisers, our very own Alan Solomont. The man who spent more nights in the Lincoln bedroom, than Lincoln himself, who cheered for Oslo, Geneva, you name it -- if Meretz and Arafat are for it, Alan is never far behind. Here is what Alan had to say about Abu Mazen:

Boston philanthropist Alan Solomont said Abu Mazen's "unambiguous commitment to a peaceful solution" was impressive, particularly given his "very fragile position." Asked about Abu Mazen's reluctance to commit himself to a confrontation with terrorists, Solomont said: "Show me the alternative. For the last three years we have seen the alternative," namely violence and suffering. Abu Mazen, he said, "is the partner that we have sought, with whom we can pursue peace."[link]

Abu Mazen, at least, is more frank and sober. Abu Mazen called Oslo -- "the biggest mistake Israel ever made". (See Commentary January 2005, Arafat Lives, by Efraim Karsh).

How do you say in Arabic: a sucker is born every minute? And the biggest suckers invariably end up as Jewish "Leaders".

 

posted by: jrtelegraph

Peres Peace Dividend

Who me? Yes, you, Mr. Peres.

Shimon Peres (AP)

WorldNetDaily reports:

JERUSALEM – Israel's Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres is being investigated for alleged involvement in a private technology fund coordinated with the Palestinian Authority while he was a government minister -- a move some are charging was a conflict of interest requiring him to step down from his government position, WorldNetDaily has learned. [link]

We should ask the way Bostonians are asking their politicians on radio talk shows: "Shimon, could you explain us, why you are not in jail?" Massachusetts hacks usually have a quick, funny and somewhat cynical comeback. We doubt that Mr. Peres has any answer at all.

posted by: jrtelegraph

Deb Saunders to Summers: Don't Apologize. Be a Man.

 

 

 

  Deb Saunders via Powerline:

Mob Rule in Academia
By  Deb Saunders

Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers apologized yet again at a meeting with Harvard professors Tuesday for remarks he made some five weeks ago about the lack of substantial "presence of women in high-end scientific professions."

I can't believe I am even writing this column.  The furor should have died down weeks ago, but thanks to a fiercely intolerant streak in most Harvard professors               (who were emboldened by Summers' propensity to self-immolate), the controversy lives on as a mob of angry academics tries  to run Summers out of Cambridge.

He keeps apologizing and promising to be more sensitive and a better listener when he ought to be blasting his critics for their intolerant rush to exile people who express unpopular ideas.  

My advice to the Harvard president:
Don't apologize and promise to be a better listener. Be a man. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

 

Words as Weapons of War

A few definitions:

In his August 5, 2001 column, On Language, Safire wrote: "Words have       connotations. In the disputed territory known as the West Bank, an Israeli village is called a settlement, implying fresh intrusion; a small Palestinian town, even one recently settled, is called a village, implying permanence." Of course, his use of "disputed" rather than "occupied," or for that matter, "liberated," in another example of the importance of the terminology one uses. [link]

But what defines a settler?
According to one web definition it is: " a person who steals land, kills it's occupants and burns their olive trees...all in the name of God." This is a definition coined by the islamo-fascist Palestinian propaganda machine. Next time we hear the civilized world investing the same meaning into this word, we should stop and correct them. Settlers are Jews who want to live and do live on the territory of the Land of Israel and who are under a threat to be removed from this land because of the successful propaganda operation of the murderous enemies of the Jewish people, America and of what ever is left of the civilized world. Careful with the words.


posted by: jrtelegraph

 

Don't Disengage from the Truth

   
FrontPage magazine:

It is interesting, however, to consider the situation [Jewish settlers in Gaza] in reverse. Let’s say that about a million Jews live in an area that also happens to be of historical and religious importance to Muslim Arabs. Mainly for that reason, a population of about eight thousand Muslim Arabs also live there. The Jews in this area of land find this intolerable and are driven to murderous passion by the sight of the Arabs’ communities. In an attempt to force them to leave, they bombard them ceaselessly with mortars and missiles, blow up their school buses, invade their communities with knives and axes and guns.

Who, in this situation, would be considered the “zealots” and “fanatics”? Yet in the actual situation in the Gaza, the Jews who merely want to live in the area are considered the fanatics while their attackers are more or less accepted as a fact of life, if not cheered by their admirers on the Left and in the Arab and Muslim worlds. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

The Bravest Jewish Warrior Since Bar Kochba Speaks Out

By way of Yoni 4 Knesset.

IsraelNationalNews reports:

Har-Tzion, who was a founding member of the famous counter-terror Paratrooper Unit 101 together with Sharon in the 1950’s, has been a close personal friend of Sharon for decades. In a rare interview with Maariv he now claims that “Sharon has gone crazy.”

In the interview, Har-Tzion tries to understand what caused Sharon to pursue his disengagement plan, which Har-Tzion refers to as a “holocaust.” His conclusions are not complimentary of the Prime Minister. “Arik Sharon is crazy - the great fighter is running away. He has become a very dangerous man.”

Moshe Dayan referred to the famed fighter, Har-Tzion as the bravest Jewish warrior since Bar Kochba--the heroic warrior who fought against Roman oppression along with Rabbi Akiva after the destruction of the Second Temple. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Payback Time for Summers from the Haters of Israel

New York Sun's editorial by way of Jewish Current Issues:

It's hard to escape the impression that Israel is at the center of the current imbroglio, no doubt stemming from the fact that one of the things Mr. Summers did, shortly after acceding, was confront the haters of Israel on campus. In a speech delivered in 2002 at Memorial Church, he at tacked the movement to get Harvard's endowment to divest from Israel. He noted that the petition would "single out Israel among all nations as the lone country where it is inappropriate for any part of the university's endowment to be invested, "and he said the signers were" anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent."

One persistent critic of Mr. Summers, Everett Mendelsohn, is the author of a 1982 report for the American Friends Service Committee that called on America to reduce aid to Israel and open negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization, a terrorist group pledged to Israel's destruction. Back in 1970, he was one of five Harvard faculty members who announced their plans to withhold payment of their taxes in protest of the Vietnam War, according to the Crimson's archives, which say he also proposed that Harvard cancel classes for 11 days prior to congressional elections to allow students to work for anti-war candidates. The motion was rejected by the faculty in the face of opposition from giants like Bernard Bailyn and Isadore Twersky(Talner Rebbe, ZT'"L). Other Summers critics frequently quoted in the press, professors Ken Nakayama and J. Lorand Matory, were among the signers of a petition calling on Harvard to divest from Israel. [link]

See more about the issue -- Veritas Day at Harvard.

What's wrong with these self-haters? Why such love for killers of Jews and hatred of Israel? One day we will know, but for now, let's concentrate on the mundane business of survival.

posted by: jrtelegraph

Is the Russian Jewish Community Invisible to The Boston Jewish Advocate?

The Jewish Russian Telegraph talked to the leaders of the Boston Russian Jewish community about the meeting with Natan Sharansky. Here is what they said--- First, Ary Rotman, President of the newly formed Russian Jewish Community Foundation:

This was a tremendous meeting. It was great to meet with Natan after so many years. At first, he did not recognize me during our brief conversation at Harvard. But then, when I showed him pictures from over thirty years ago, he immediately recognized me and all the other Jewish activists. (click on pictures to enlarge).
At the event, we launched our new organization- the Russian Jewish Community Foundation.Our main goal is to preserve and enhance the Jewish identity among Russian Jews. We distributed our mission statement to the audience. Just think about it -- to have Natan Sharansky at the launch of the organization. What a great way to kick it off! RJCF Mission Statement. During and after the meeting I received a ton of emails and phone calls from people willing to join and participate. One thing saddened me though, about a week before the event we were contacted by a correspondent of the Jewish Advocate. She was looking for access to Natan. We offered her an invitation to come. She did a fine job covering Sharansky's speech and views. But how could she be so oblivious to her surroundings?! How could she miss the most important part of the meeting -- the community! I don't blame the reporter, I believe the attitude is coming from Richard Ferrer, the new editor. We offered him a personal invitation. He lacked the courtesy even to acknowledge it. They used to call us 'the Jews of Silence'. It looks like the Jewish Advocate is turning us into the Invisible Jews.

Greg Zvi Margolin, Editor and Publisher of the Jewish Russian Telegraph is not surprised. Margolin says:

You have London based owners trying to build a hip, American Jewish newspaper targeting a certain demographic group. Something like a Jewish USA Today. They are not interested in the community, at least not in the Russian Jewish Community. The previous editor, Richard Asinoff made a distinct effort to build bridges with the Russian Jews. In a way, the fact that the Jewish Advocate's reporter knows and calls us is the result of Asinoff's work, but the good will is wearing off fast. Richard Asinoff fell casualty to the London take over and so far, Richard Ferrer, the new editor, brushed off all attempts on the part of our community to establish contacts. This is the right of the new owners. They just need to take the word 'community newspaper' from their masthead. And it seems they already have. The word 'community' is still on the masthead of the  Advocate's print edition. But it is already gone from the Internet edition of the newspaper. We often can see an ad with Barry Shrage, CJP's President, promoting the Jewish Advocate as the community newspaper. I wonder what Barry Shrage thinks about the new direction the Advocate is heading towards.

Are the Jews of Silence of Russia turning into the Invisible Jews of Boston? Hell, NO!!!
We never were the Jews of Silence in the first place!

The masthead of the print edition of the Jewish Advocate says:
"Celebrating 103 Years of Service to the Jewish Community"

The masthead of the Internet edition of the Jewish Advocate says:
"Celebrating 103 years of service as Boston's and New England's leading Jewish newspaper"

The change is under way. Is it a welcome change?

posted by: jrtelegraph