VNN’s FTL 4/13/7 Show Notes
April 13, 2007
VNN’s FTL 4-13-7
Particulars
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Opening
News Bits
Opening (Topics include)
Quick News
Monday’s show
Tuesday’s show
Jean-Marie Le Pen has stepped up his criticism of the European Union and
its symbols, calling the euro “the currency of occupation” in France.
The 78-year-old firebrand, campaigning in his fifth and
likely last presidential election, complained that France “no longer is
sovereign over our borders, no longer sovereign over our country”.
“The currency of the nation is the franc,” Le Pen said on RTL
radio, referring to the currency France phased out along with 11 other EU
countries on January 1, 2002.
HILLARY GOES TO
RUTGERS
A Mouth Exclusive:
The Mouth has learned that Hillary Clinton is following up her e-love efforts
for the Rutgers women’s basketball team with something more tangible — a
real-life visit on Monday.
The trip to see the Scarlet Knights comes
after she used her campaign Web site to have supporters e-mail messages of
support to the Imus-bashed hoopsters.
ALLENTOWN, Pa. - A radio station
fired its longtime morning DJ Wednesday after he encouraged listeners to repeat
talk-show host Don Imus’ racially charged comments in an on-air contest.
Gary Smith told
WSBG-FM listeners to call and say “I’m a nappy-headed ho” for
Tuesday’s “Phrase that Pays” contest, said Rick Musselman, executive
vice president of station owner Nassau Broadcasting Partners L.P.
Australian PM says no entry to immigrants with HIV
Australia’s Prime Minister, John Howard, provoked outrage among health
campaigners and human rights activists today by suggesting that people who are
HIV positive should be banned from settling in Australia.
When asked by a radio interviewer whether immigrants who have the condition
should be allowed to enter and live in Australia, he said: “My initial
reaction is no.”
Poster urges revenge for ‘Zebra Murders’ Berkeley, CA
Some Berkeley residents found a poster on their doorsteps
this week from a white supremacist group calling for skinhead “death
squads” to take up arms in an “Aryan people’s insurgency.”
The materials also included a flyer saying, “Avenge the Zebra
Murders,” a reference to the 1973-1974 Bay Area killing spree of 14 white
victims by what prosecutors described as a black racist cult. The material was
published by a group in Oroville (Butte County) linked to former KKK leader Tom
Metzger, said Anti-Defamation League regional director Jonathan Bernstein.
The language is too vague to fall under Berkeley’s hate crime law, said
police spokesman Ed Galvan. Greg Withrow, leader of the group promoting the
pamphlets, said Berkeley was targeted because “people there enjoy flying
their little Communist flags.”
Muddonna to open Kaballah Centre in NYC
Details about the proposed center are scarce for now, but it’s sure to
attract a fair share of celebrity trendsters. Madonna introduced Britney Spears
to Kabbalah, and Lindsay Lohan (a deep brooder if ever there was one) has been
spotted wearing a red string around her wrist. Perhaps Britney and Lindsay will
find the center’s proposed Lower East Side location especially enticing: After
dinner and drinks, they can stumble over to Ludlow Street for a late-night
study session.
One person who probably won’t be making an appearance is Roseanne Barr. The
talk-show host once told USA Today that she recites kabbalistic meditations
while sitting in traffic. Recently, however, she used her blog, Roseanne World,
as an outlet for a long-winded rant about Jewish “separatism”; “abusive
cult-programming that is done to Jewish children, beginning with genital
torture,” and “woman hating.”
The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt
He was the ultimate keeper of secrets, lurking in the
shadows of American history. He toppled banana republics, planned the Bay of
Pigs invasion and led the Watergate break-in. Now he reveals what he’d always
kept hidden: who killed JFK
Around the Blogsphere
Tech
News
Gap Narrows Between Male, Female Births
Some Experts Say Environmental Factors Might Be to Blame; CDC Says Gradual
Decline Inconclusive
April 9, 2007—
- A new study has renewed the debate among public health experts over figures
that seem to show a gradual but persistent decrease in the ratio between the
birth of baby boys and baby girls.
The authors of the study, published in this week’s edition
of the online journal Environmental Health Perspectives, point out that the
proportion of baby boys being born has fallen each year in the United States
and Japan since the 1970s, according to public health records in both
countries.
They say this downward trend may point to the impact of
environmental pollutants on male fertility and fetal development — “a
serious matter,” the authors note in the study.
Taken together, the study’s authors say, the numbers add up
to an overall decline of 17 males per 10,000 births in the United States and a
decline of 37 males per 10,000 births in Japan since 1970.
This means, according to the authors, that since 1970,
135,000 white males in the United States and 127,000 males in Japan should have
been born but were not.
The reason for the difference, says Christopher Wills,
professor of ecology, behavior and evolutionary biology at the University of
California at San Diego, is that Mother Nature stacks the deck in favor of male
births. Nature gives males an edge at birth because male fetuses and babies are
less hardy than female fetuses and babies. So, by the time males reach the age
at which they can reproduce, there should be a one-to-one ratio.
“Generally speaking, males are at a disadvantage
compared to females,” he says. “In general, as a species, you would
want to end up with a roughly one-to-one ratio. The only way to do that is to
start out with a much more skewed ratio, and that’s what Mother Nature has
done.”
In 2002, however, this number was 104.6 for babies born in
the United States.
Researchers say the decline could be due to environmental
factors, such as prenatal exposure to certain environmental pollutants. These
chemicals, she says, could be disrupting the hormone balance of both fathers
and fetuses, leading to changes in the SRY gene — a sex-determining gene on
the Y chromosome that determines the sex of a fertilized egg.
She says such a downward trend, when considered alongside
findings in other smaller studies, paint a broader picture of what pollution is
doing to our ability to reproduce.
“What we do know is that studies have been done in
highly exposed work forces, and in these groups, men are sometimes rendered
sterile,” she says. “But in some cases, they produced children but
only girls. The question is, what explains this?”
“The trend was first observed a couple of years ago,
and people thought it was a quirk then,” one researcher says. “As
we’ve gone back and looked at the records, indisputably, the trend has
continued.”
Nifong’s Attorney Responds to Critics
This is a partial transcript from “On
the Record,” April 12, 2007, that has been
edited for clarity.
“To the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved to be
incorrect, I apologize to the three suspects that were wrongly accused.”
He does take some affront at some of the personal comments made about him.
Nifong’s statement:”Obviously they,” meaning the North Carolina
attorney general and his assistants, “have had access not only to all the
evidence that I had, but also to additional evidence that I have not seen,
which they developed during their 12 weeks of independent investigation. I have
every confidence that the decision to dismiss all charges was the correct
decision based on that evidence.”
NIFONG’s STATEMENT: “At the same time, we all know that no system based
on human judgment can ever work perfectly. Those of us who work within that
system can only make the best judgment we can based on the facts available to
us.”
Does this explain why he didn’t even talk to the accuser about the events
that night?
Presidential
Candidate: U.S. In Danger of Dictatorship
Congressman Ron Paul warns elite believe they own
us and are “always prepared” to take our liberties
Presidential candidate Ron Paul has warned that the US is now at a crisis
point because the people have been so neglectful of protecting their liberties
and big government has been so effective in eroding them. He warned that the
elite are prepared to concoct events
to scare the American people and asserted that the 2008 Presidential election
is a contest between the people who care about their freedoms and those who are
willing to succumb to the temptations of dictatorship.
“I think they are always prepared and
everyday they have more powers than before because under these emergency powers
acts, the President now has more authority than ever. And the contest that is
really going on in this Presidential election is are there enough of us that
care about our freedoms versus those who are willing to succumb to the
temptations of dictatorship. Just think of the attitude, what it was like right
after 9/11 when they passed the Patriot Act, I said ‘you know it’s not even
available, you can’t even read it and we’re getting ready to vote’ they said
‘it doesn’t matter, the people want us to do something, this looks like we’re doing
something, it sounds good, there’s no way I’m even gonna question this’, so
they voted for it. They got their signals from the people. it is true that
there are a lot of people who wanted something done, the big question is are
there more of them or more of us?” Paul commented.
in further reference to 9/11 the Congressman stated:
“I think freedom’s been sliding for a long time and it got a lot worse after
9/11 and I’m always afraid of some concocted event that will scare the American
people…. The people in this country need a little bit more reason to go along
with the President, but unfortunately our leaders in this country too often
have been able to provide the incident that unifies the country behind more
militarism.”
We implore our readers to listen to the entire interview here and support
Ron Paul’s campaign. His voting record speaks for itself and he represents a
genuine chance to attempt to put things right in America today.
To support Ron Paul you can visit his website at www.RonPaul2008.com , where
you can donate online or find out how to donate via other methods.
China urges calm over Italian riots
CHINA has urged the Italian Government to safeguard the rights of
overseas Chinese in Milan after clashes between police and the Asian community
erupted in a “sidewalk revolt”.
“We hope that the Italian side can fairly handle this matter, earnestly
consider the reasonable demands of the overseas Chinese people and fully
safeguard their legal rights,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.
Both the Chinese foreign ministry and its consulate generale in Milan have
raised representations with the Italian Government, he said.
About 15 people were injured in Milan during yesterday’s clashes that
involved hundreds of residents of the northern city’s Chinatown over a parking
ticket, Italian media reported.
A shopkeeper of Chinese origin was loudly protesting a fine of €40 euros
($65) for parking illegally when a crowd gathered that swelled to around 350,
according to the all-news channel Sky TG24.
Dozens of police were deployed as the situation degenerated into running
battles that left 15 injured including 11 police officers.
The violence produced banner headlines in newspapers across Italy decrying a
“sidewalk revolt” that broke out over a parking ticket.
Detente Is the Talk of Town In Damascus
Syria Claims Mediation Role in West’s Standoffs
With Hamas and Iran
| Fri. Apr 13, 2007
Damascus — While Republicans and Democrats in Washington
trade blows over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syria last week,
officials and pundits in this ancient capital describe the political feuding as
a distraction from a more important
truth. From their viewpoint, Pelosi’s visit was not a freelance bid for
American-Syrian thaw but rather the latest step in a larger Syrian-Western
rapprochement that has been under way for months.
Sources here acknowledge that the substance of Pelosi’s talks with President
Bashar al-Assad hardly deviated from American policy: demands that Syria stop
supporting Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups, help secure the release
of Israeli soldiers, refrain from meddling in Lebanon’s politics, and prevent
arms and militants from crossing into neighboring Iraq.
For the Syrians, all this was less important than Pelosi’s mere presence.
The visit by the highest American official in two years was taken by the regime
as evidence, the clearest to date, that a Western policy of isolating Syria —
prompted by accusations that Damascus was behind the February 2005 slaying of
former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri — was on its last legs. Coming
on the heels of a slew of visits since last summer by Western European
officials and by legislators of the United States, the Pelosi junket was interpreted
here as evidence that the growing chorus of calls in Washington and Jerusalem
to engage Syria was making inroads despite the reluctance of the Bush
administration.
“What mattered to the Syrians was that she was in Damascus,” said political
scientist Sami Moubayed of al-Kalamoun University. “Whether she came with a
peace offer from Israel or a truce from Washington, they welcomed her as a
guest of honor, with red carpets in the Syrian capital.”
Syrians point to two hardly known recent diplomatic events as evidence of
their eagerness to join the pro-Western fold. Damascus played a key role in
pushing Hamas and Fatah to reach an agreement earlier this year on a Palestinian
national unity government, which Syrians view as a Hamas concession toward
Israel. Even though the deal was signed in Mecca under the auspices of Saudi
King Abdullah, a Western diplomat confirmed Syrian claims that most of the
heavy lifting was done by Damascus, where Hamas leader Khaled Meshal resides.
In addition, Syrian foreign minister Walid Mouallem told Arab media that
Damascus had helped, at Britain’s request, to mediate the release of the 15
British sailors captured last month by Iran for allegedly entering its
territorial waters.
God, Back On The Trail Mounting
fears from Jewish leaders of a religious test for candidates
For Jewish leaders concerned about
the growing mingling of sectarian religion and presidential politics, the
surging campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is taking some
ominous turns.
The Republican Romney, facing polls indicating that only 29% of Americans
believe the nation is “ready” for a Mormon president, has been working
frantically to reinforce his religious credentials with the conservative
Christian leaders who could play a big role in deciding the outcome of key GOP
primaries next year.
And those credentials aren’t entirely confined to his positions on the issues
so-called “values” voters care about the most.
In a recent conference call with voters in Iowa, he said “my faith includes a
fundamental belief that we are all sons and daughters of a loving God,” and
added that “I happen to believe that Jesus Christ is my personal savior and the
son of God.”
Romney’s urgent quest to prove he is a “genuine” Christian by publicly airing
the kind of religious statements once considered personal reflects the growing
emphasis on religion in major campaigns and the growing power of a handful of
Evangelical leaders who have set themselves up as the
religious judges of candidates.
“It’s not just that religion is an important factor for voters; we’re seeing
the creation of a de facto religious test for high office,” said Rabbi James
Rudin, senior religious adviser for the American Jewish Committee and author of
“The Baptizing of America: the Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us.”
A handful of religious leaders are demanding a public accounting of every
candidate’s religious views and practices, he said — and politicians in both
parties are complying.
The results, Rabbi Rudin said, boosts extremists who claim America is a
“Christian nation” and want to alter public policy to reflect that belief.
“Candidates’ religious views are becoming an issue,” he said — and in a nation
with a big Christian majority, that will ultimately undercut the huge political
gains Jews and other religious minorities have made in recent years.
Increasingly, the media cooperates by focusing on the religious beliefs of
candidates and featuring pundits who assess those beliefs.
“The Constitution says the government can’t impose a religious test,” said the
Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, President of The Interfaith Alliance, a church-state
watchdog group, in a recent fundraising letter. “But apparently they don’t have
to since the media is happy to do it for them.”
Some top Jewish leaders are troubled.
“Every four years, it rises up a notch,” said Abraham Foxman, national director
of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). “We’re hearing more of it in this campaign,
and we’ve just started; it’s taking on a life of its own.”
Foxman, who criticized Sen. Joe Lieberman in 2000 for repeatedly raising his
Judaism on the campaign trail, said that it’s more of an issue today because so
many “values issues” — like abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage —
have moved to the fore in public policy debates.
It gets difficult, he conceded, because “values have been made a political
issue, and for most Americans, values come out of their religious beliefs. So
there’s more of an embrace of religiosity and faith. And how do you establish
your values without talking about your faith?”
But more and more, Foxman continued, religious interest groups are setting
religious tests for candidates — and “the problem comes when the candidates
respond.
Some voters are fed up, analysts say, especially with a GOP that they see as
too tied to Evangelical Christian activists like James Dobson, the powerful
head of the Focus on the Family mega-ministry.
“There has been a backlash against the GOP in suburbs populated with
upper-income, highly educated people who do not identify at all with the
socially conservative positions of Dobson,” said University of Virginia
political scientist Larry Sabato. “Look at the large skew to the Democrats
among graduate-educated Americans, who used to be heavily GOP.”
Sabato pointed to a particularly graphic illustration of the willingness of
prominent evangelical leaders to make political judgments based mostly on the
candidates’ personal faith.
Earlier in the month Dobson seemed to dismiss former senator and TV star Fred
Thompson — a not-yet-announced candidate for the Republican nomination — as not
“Christian” enough.
“Everyone knows he’s conservative and has come out strongly for the things that
the pro-family movement stands for,” Dobson told Dan Gilgoff of U.S. News and
World Report. “[But] I don’t think he’s a Christian; at least that’s my
impression.”
And that, Dobson said, could make it hard for Thompson to win the support of
the party’s Evangelical base.
That kind of comment could spell trouble for the Republicans, Sabato said. “The
Republicans’ challenge is to show that they are not controlled by the narrow
likes of Jim Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and the others,” he said. “Dobson’s comment
about Fred Thompson was truly outrageous. Who is he to determine such things?”
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), a favorite punching bag for the religious right,
has talked more about the role of religion in her life and career. Late last
year, she beefed up her campaign with a faith-based adviser, and the campaign
let it be known that Clinton participates in two Washington prayer groups —
including one led by a member of a suburban Washington church known for its
lineup of conservative Christians.
Despite the risks, Democrats and Republicans alike are playing the religion
game with growing fervor as the 2008 campaigns begin in earnest.
“Everywhere we’re seeing campaigns saturated with religiosity,” said Rabbi
James Rudin. That poses a danger for the Jewish community
on two levels, he said.
“Strategically, if it’s repeated enough that you have to be a certain kind of
Christian, and get the approval of the Dobsons for any high office, it begins
to be perceived that this is a Christian nation.”
And tactically, Rabbi Rudin continued, the growing focus on religion will work
against all religious minority candidates, including Jews. “In the future, it
may make it much harder for an acknowledged Jewish politician to win elections
as we move toward this kind of religious test,” he said. “And the politicians
who go along with this are contributing to the problem.”
Anti-Semitism in Israel?
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TEL AVIV (JTA)
– Ari Ackerman, a student from Switzerland, was walking home after a late-night
swim along the Tel Aviv beach when he and a friend were jumped by a gang
singing Nazi songs and displaying swastika tattoos.
The perpetrators, a group of Russian-speaking teenagers, eventually ran off.
Ackerman and his friend, their faces bruised and bloodied, set off to the
closest police station only to have their case shrugged off.
“Israel is a country that faces the same problems any other country
faces,” Ackerman said, trying to make sense of what he experienced.
“There is a phenomenon of neo-Nazism, even if it is fringe, but to
acknowledge it is to go against the country’s own narrative.”
In recent years sporadic acts of anti-Semitism have hit Israel, most of them
carried out by disaffected immigrant youths from the former Soviet Union.
Although the youths came to Israel under the Law of Return, they are among
those who identify not as Jews but as ethnic Russians.
Under Israel’s Law of Return, a cornerstone of Israel’s identity as a haven
for all Jews, anyone with a Jewish parent or grandparent is permitted to
immigrate and be granted citizenship.
Experts say the perpetrators of such acts feel rebuffed and marginalized by
Israeli society, so they turn their furor into the same anti-Semitism with
which they may have been tormented in their countries of birth.
Recent incidents occurred at a school in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam,
where its mezuzahs were torn down and burned. About three months ago a club for
Russian-speaking immigrant veterans of World War II was desecrated with
swastikas.
Zalman Gilichinsky, who immigrated to Israel from Moldova, started a center
for victims of anti-Semitic attacks or harassment.
“Neo-Nazism is the same development they see in Russia and they
transplant it here,” he said, referring to the youth.
Gilichinsky said he has been frustrated by what he sees as the relative lack
of seriousness with which Israel has taken the issue.
Knesset hearings, however, have been held, and the Ministry of Immigrant
Absorption says it is working to reach the type of disconnected young
immigrants who might be drawn to committing such acts. Officials also stress
that the numbers involved in such activities are very few and not at all
representative of most young immigrants from the FSU.
Gilichinsky claims Israel is embarrassed by the issue, which he said stems
from too many non-Jews being allowed into Israel under the Law of Return.
“Israel wants to maintain its image as a refuge from anti-Semitism and
neo-Nazism, so they don’t want to publicize anything that would go against that
image,” he said.
Gilichinsky said that according to the calls his center receives, there are
almost daily incidents. They are exacerbated, he said, by connections forged
online between young immigrants here and their counterparts in the FSU through
neo-Nazi Web sites and chat rooms.
Arieh Turkiments, an immigrant from Vilna, is among those who contacted the
organization after he was slapped in the face by another immigrant and cursed
for being a Jew. He was standing outside a Jerusalem yeshiva, where he had been
attending classes on Judaism.
“It is a terrible feeling here in the Land of Israel that we have to
hear such insults,” Turkiments’ wife, Maria, said. “The reality is
that it is sometimes worse being here than in the Diaspora.”
Maria Turkiments herself took issue with the Law of Return.
“It lets all sorts of people in who should not be here,” she said.
Avinoam Bar-Yosef, director-general of the Jewish People Policy Institute
think tank, downplayed notions that Israel might be facing anything close to a
phenomenon when it comes to imported anti-Semitism.
“It’s not really significant. This is a fringe issue,” Bar-Y osef
said. “When you have major waves of aliyah, you are going to have members
of families of Jews who are not Jewish.
Part of the problem, he said, “comes from suffering the trauma of
moving from one place to another.”
“It should be monitored and anti-Semitic acts should be dealt with
everywhere, but it is not a real problem in Israel,” Bar-Yosef said,
arguing that most immigrants from the FSU integrate well into Israeli society.
Sara Cohen, director of social services at the Ministry of Immigrant
Absorption, said those youth at risk either do not see themselves as Jews or
are not considered Jewish.
“These are youth with a confused identity,” Cohen said. “In
Russia they are called Jews and in Israel they are called goyim. Part of the
confusion over identity can lead them to feel disconnected.”
The ministry sponsors several programs to help immigrant youth at risk feel
more int egrated into Israeli society.
Roughly one-quarter of immigrants who have come to Israel since the major
wave of immigration began from the FSU in the early 1990s are not considered
Jewish according to halacha, or Jewish law.
In Israel only Orthodox conversions are considered valid. Alex Selsky, a
Jewish Agency for Israel spokesman for the Russian language media who emigrated
from Russia in 1993, said if Israel accepted Reform and Conservative
conversions, many more immigrants from the FSU would try to convert.
He said Jewish education courses such as Nativ, sponsored jointly by the
Jewish Agency and the army, are one way young immigrant soldiers from the FSU
are forging a stronger connection to both Israel and their Jewish heritage.
David Zelventsky runs a museum at an immigrant club in Hadera about Jews who
fought for the Red Army during World War II. He said much still needs to be
done to t ackle anti-Semitism around the world, including in Israel.
It was hard for him to see the swastikas and slurs against Jews
spray-painted on the center’s walls, but he was not necessarily surprised.
“I’ve seen many things in my lifetime,” said Zelventsky, whose
father was a World War II veteran. “What I know is that it is too early to
lay down arms in the battle against anti-Semitism.”
TJB
Chipping at foundations of belief
Omar Ahmad, The Electronic Intifada, 11 April 2007
Imagine if Iran decided to build a museum on the site of a
1,000-year-old Jewish cemetery, or if the Egyptian government threatened to
destroy an ancient Jewish temple. Both scenarios would likely be met with
outrage. Members of Congress might make indignant speeches decrying
anti-Semitism. They might even threaten to tighten the spigot on aid to Egypt.
They would be right to protest such acts.
Yet both offenses against another religion are being committed today — by
Israel. And the outrage is conspicuously missing.
The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center has partnered with the Israeli
government to build a new “Museum of Tolerance” in Jerusalem.
According to former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meron Benvenisti, the museum site
encompasses a Muslim cemetery seized by Israel in 1948 and long-since paved
over. What does a shrine to tolerance mean when it is constructed — literally
– over the dead bodies of a Palestinian population that was expelled from its
homeland.
Since occupying Jerusalem in 1967, Israel has striven to solidify Jewish
dominance over this city that is sacred to three faiths. The Al-Aqsa mosque stands as perhaps the most visible obstacle.
In 1967, the Israeli army’s chief rabbi, Shlomo Goren, urged Israeli forces
commander Uzi Narkis, to use 100 kilograms of explosives to “get rid
of” Al-Aqsa “once and for all.” Narkis, as quoted by Israeli
historian Avi Shlaim in The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, had
the wisdom to refuse the rabbi’s request.
Al-Aqsa has been set on fire, Jewish terrorists have entered the mosque and
fired on worshipers, explosives have been planted and several plots to blow up
the mosque have been foiled. In parallel with these unofficial acts, Israeli
government excavations and construction projects continue to chip away at the
mosque’s foundation. In 2004, what is believed to be an ancient Muslim prayer
room was discovered at the excavation site. For three years, Israel hid this
spectacular finding from the world. Does this show respect for Jerusalem’s
Muslim heritage?
Muslim communities around the world feel the same pain and anxiety that
Catholics would experience if the Vatican were being violated — or Americans
would feel if the Statue of Liberty were being systematically desecrated.
Israel is the largest recipient of American foreign aid, yet she is violating
American principles of equality for all religions. American leaders must insist
that Israel’s respect for Jewish religious sites extend equally to Muslim and
Christian sites in Jerusalem, a city holy to billions of people around the
globe.
Police called to Adelaide shul scuffle
AS the acrimonious dispute between the board of Adelaide
Hebrew Congregation (AHC) and its former rabbi, Yossi Engel, descended into a
brawl last week, a senior community figure launched a blistering attack on the
Sydney Beth Din, accusing it of “trying to impose shari’a law” in its efforts
to resolve the stoush.
Police were called to the shul last Friday after Rabbi
Engel encountered two female board members packing up his office.
Both the AHC board
members and Rabbi Engel traded accusations that they were assaulted during
the noisy incident in the shul office, within earshot of pupils at the adjacent
Massada College.
The District Court of South Australia found last week
that Rabbi Engel’s contract with AHC had expired on December 31. Rabbi Engel is
appealing the decision, and claims a stay of proceedings entitled him to access
his shul office and to remain in his house.
Meanwhile, Norman Schueler, the president of the Jewish
Community Council of South Australia, described demands by the Sydney Beth Din
that the issue of the rabbi’s employment be heard before the Jewish high court
as “tantamount to telling the [civil] court to impose shari’a law”.
Sydney Beth Din registrar Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence said the
Jewish court “regrets the dispute has become so public and acrimonious”.
‘Bell Curve’ Scribe Mulls Roots of Jews’ Brainpower
| Fri. Apr 13, 2007
One of the most controversial and influential public intellectuals in
American life is weighing in with a new theory on the roots of Jewish
intelligence.
Charles Murray, famous for “The Bell Curve,” his book on the racial basis of
intelligence, has published an article in this month’s Commentary, titled
“Jewish Genius.” In the essay, Murray theorizes that the preponderance of very
smart Jews throughout the ages can be traced back to evolutionary processes
that began even before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
“There is reason to think that selection for intelligence antedates the 1st
century C.E.,” writes Murray, a scholar at the conservative-leaning American
Enterprise Institute. “From its very outset, apparently going back to the time
of Moses, Judaism was intertwined with intellectual complexity.”
At the beginning of his article, Murray says that he, a “Scots-Irish
Gentile,” was writing about the topic because his Jewish colleague and
co-author, Richard Herrnstein, was always hesitant to take it on. And his
article was published barely a year and a half after the media was set ablaze
by an academic article positing an evolutionary link between the high IQ scores
of Ashkenazic Jews and Jewish life in the Middle Ages.
One of the authors of that previous study, Gregory Cochran, has already
taken fire at Murray’s effort in the same field.
“I would call it pure speculation,” said Cochran, who is a researcher in
Utah. “I don’t think there’s any evidence he’s right.”
Both Cochran and Murray start from recent evidence that Ashkenazic Jews tend
to have higher IQ levels than other ethnic groups. But Murray goes beyond
Cochran to argue that in the Middle Ages and the first millennium, both
Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews exhibited unusual levels of intelligence. As one
piece of evidence, Murray points to the Jewish role in writing both the old and
new testaments of the Bible.
Murray acknowledges that his work is based more on historical impressions
than on rigorous science, but it is already provoking debate in a corner of the
intellectual world that tends to make Jews very uncomfortable: genetics.
In “The Bell Curve,” Murray and his co-author argued that African Americans,
as a group, were less innately intelligent than white Americans. The work was
attacked by many commentators who took issue with Murray’s methodology and with
his reliance on funding from right-wing foundations. Still, Ostrer said that
Murray’s new work “asks some interesting questions.”
Murray sets out to find periods of history when the Jewish population was
subjected to a dramatic change that may have resulted in survival of the more
intelligent members. He points to the Babylonian captivity, when the best and
brightest Jews were carted away to what is now Iraq. He also looks at the
effect of an edict in 64 BCE that mandated universal education for all Jewish
males. He argues that this, along with the talmudic mode of Jewish religion
after the destruction of the Second Temple, may have pushed out
less-intelligent members of the community.
Ostrer said that these theories eventually might be tested by geneticists
doing regression analysis. For now, though, to Ostrer, the most interesting
element of the debate is the continuing controversy about the subject.
“We’re really in this period of Judophilia right now,” Ostrer said. “Clearly
in the mainstream western Christian world, Christian academics and
intellectuals like and admire Jews a lot.”
He isn’t an anti-Semite. He’s right
Micheal Ray Richardson said Jews are ‘crafty’ and adept at
security. Correct on both counts.
By Zev Chafets, ZEV CHAFETS is the author of “A Match
Made in Heaven: American Jews, Christian Zionists and One Man’s Exploration of
the Weird and Wonderful Judeo-Evangelical Alliance.”
April 3, 2007
UNTIL LAST week, Micheal Ray Richardson (that’s how he
spells it) was slightly famous for having once told a sportswriter that his
team, the New York Knicks, was “a sinking ship.” When the writer
asked how far the ship might sink, Richardson replied, “The sky’s the
limit.”
That remark, however, wasn’t what got Richardson into trouble; repeated drug
use did. He wound up banned from the NBA, a vagabond basketball player in
Europe. Lately he has been making a comeback as coach of the Albany Patroons in
the Continental Basketball Assn.
But the comeback hit the skids on Wednesday. Once again, sportswriters were
involved. Asked about his contract negotiations, Richardson said he didn’t
expect problems because “I’ve got big-time lawyers. Big-time Jew
lawyers.”
Alarmed, the reporters warned Richardson that his words could be considered
insulting because they fit the stereotype of Jews as crafty and shrewd.
Richardson didn’t even blink. “Are you kidding me?” he demanded.
“They’ve got the best security system in the world. Have you ever been to
an airport in Tel Aviv? They’re real crafty. Listen, they are hated all over
the world, so they’ve got to be crafty. They got a lot of power in this world,
you know what I mean? Which I think is great. I don’t think there’s nothing
wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they’re run by Jewish
people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more
businesses, they’re run by Jewish [sic]. It’s not a knock, but they just some
crafty people.”
For these observations, Richardson was suspended by the Patroons, forbidden by
team owner Ben Fernandez to even attend practice. Predictably, Abe Foxman, the
national director of the Anti-Defamation League, praised this punishment and
demanded an apology: “Micheal Ray needs to understand that when he
suggests that all Jews are crafty, that Jews have a lot of money and power, he
is conjuring up classic anti-Semitic stereotypes…. We hope that Micheal Ray
will realize the pain his words have caused to many people and make clear that
he understands why his remarks about Jews were so inappropriate and
offensive.”
‘Committed Zionist’ To Buy Papers With Troubled Ties to Community
When Sam Zell, a Chicago real estate mogul and soon-to-be media magnate, was
a junior counselor at a Jewish summer camp, he regularly transfixed his campers
with tales of his family’s escape from Nazi-occupied Poland.
The Zell family traveled through Russia and Japan, pretending to be tourists
at the Bolshoi Ballet so as not to stand out. Fred Margulies, a camper in
Zell’s bunk, said that the tale — told after lights out — was the most
memorable part of the summer, and a prototypical display of Zell’s
preternaturally magnetic personality.
“He was a great storyteller, and he captivated us,” said Margulies, today a
rabbi and businessman in Chicago.
Zell’s storytelling skills may be put to a new use when he becomes the owner
and CEO of one of America’s most powerful media companies, Tribune Company,
which owns 23 televisions stations, a baseball team and many major newspapers,
including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. His winning bid for
the $8.2 billion company comes after a career in which he has made himself rich
— to the tune of $4.5 billion — by turning around flailing companies with his
brash, unconventional style. His skill at reviving the near-dead has given him
the nickname in which he’s said to revel: “the grave-dancer.”
The irony of Zell’s latest success is that it will likely make him the owner
of a company that has been the very antithesis of the Jewish summer camp
culture in which Zell was molded. The Chicago Tribune, the company’s flagship
publication, has had a famously antagonistic relationship with the Jewish
community in Chicago — historically because of its right-wing, isolationist
stance during World War II, and more recently because of its critical coverage
of Israel. Newspaper watchers say that Zell and the Tribune will be an
interesting mix.
“The paper has a reputation for having a thick glass ceiling for Jews,” said
Michael Siegel, who for 25 years has been the rabbi at Chicago’s Anshe Emet
Synagogue, where Zell is a member. “For someone like Sam Zell, who is noted as
a grave dancer, here is he is more of a grave spinner. There are probably some
past owners and executives who are spinning in their graves right now.”
Even before the Tribune went with Zell’s bid to take the company private, it
was clear that the white, Anglo-Saxon culture of the Tribune would be
challenged by a Jewish businessman. The major bidder besides Zell was Los
Angeles Jewish businessman Eli Broad and his business partner, Ronald Burkle,
(who has widely but wrongly been described as Jewish). The deal for the Tribune
is not closed, and Broad and Burkle still could be able to best Zell’s offer of
$34 a share.
Another Jewish businessman, Hollywood supermogul David Geffen, is said to be
in talks now with Zell to buy control of the Los Angeles Times. The Times is
the largest single property owned by the Tribune and has a contentious history
with the Los Angeles Jewish community, strikingly similar to the Tribune’s in
Chicago.
Despite being co-religionists, the bidders for the Tribune properties
represent a wide spectrum of American Jewish experiences, and their ownership
would mean very different things for the papers. Both Broad and Geffen give
generously to Jewish causes in Los Angeles and in Israel, but Broad, a Detroit
native, is best known for his work as a civic booster in Los Angeles. Geffen
fits more into the classic mold of the liberal New Yorker who has dedicated
much of his wealth to gay rights, liberal causes and national Democratic
politics. Zell, by contrast, has a reputation for conservative politics and a
more intimate involvement with Jewish and Israeli causes.
Given that Zell appears to be close to closing the deal for the Tribune,
much media scrutiny has shifted toward how his background might shape the
papers. One question that is asked frequently is whether Zell will follow the
model of Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, who has pressed his political views on
his media properties, or whether he will concentrate only on the business side.
In an interview with the Tribune last week, Zell suggested that he would not
be involved editorially. “Do I look naive enough to think I have any influence
about what people write?” Zell asked in his blunt fashion.
Still, Zell has made it clear that he does have an interest in the things
his new media properties cover. In the interview last week, he said that his
favorite newspaper columnists are Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Friedman and
David Brooks, all of whom are Jewish and two of whom write frequently and
sympathetically about Israel.
Zell himself is a major donor to causes in the Middle East. His donations
include a $3.1 million donation to the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center in
Israel and separate donations to the Israel Center for Social and Economic
Progress, a right-wing Israeli think tank. In the United States, he has given
major gifts to such Jewish causes as the American Jewish Committee and a
Chicago Jewish day school named after his father. All this is on top of his
political donations, which have gone mostly to Republican candidates.
Siegel, the rabbi at Zell’s synagogue, said that Zell is a “committed
Zionist” and a “generous supporter of Israel,” along with “a member in good
standing” of the synagogue who “comes on the holidays often.”
Among media watchers, this has been fodder for conversation. Ken Reich, a
former Los Angeles Times reporter who operates a blog about the paper, said he
assumes that Zell will shape the policy of his papers to some degree.
“If he cares about the State of Israel, he won’t want his newspaper to be
out there chipping away at Israeli interests,” said Reich, who reported mostly
on politics during his 39 years at the Times.
Reich said that at the Times, shifting the editorial policy would require
only that Zell be consulted in the hiring of the new editorial page editor — a
position that was recently vacated.
“It would not take very much tweaking by him to sharply alter the Times
editorial policy on the Middle East,” Reich said. “I tend to expect this to
happen.”
Other media critics have taken Zell at his word that he will stick to the
business side. Siegel said he was interested to see which direction Zell would
take, but he does know that Zell is a “very astute reader of world affairs — an
avid newspaper reader — so you’re going to have to keep his interest.”
Siegel himself has been one of the leading critics of the Chicago Tribune’s
Middle East coverage. He has organized multiple protest rallies outside the
Tribune, most recently in 2003, when the Tribune published a cartoon showing a
hook-nosed caricature of the Israeli prime minister following a trail of money
laid down by President Bush.
The Tribune eventually apologized to the Jewish community, and Siegel said
that the paper has been responsive to the concerns of the Jewish community
since then.
Media watchers in Chicago say that Zell’s more immediate effect at the
Tribune will likely be on the corporate culture.
“It’s a traditionally corporate environment,” said Abe Peck, a journalism
professor at Northwestern University. “They’re the dominant paper in town, and
they act like it and dress like it. Here comes this guy who never wears a tie —
who comes on his motorcycle — and who brings a whole different style.”
The Tribune’s button-down culture today is an extension of the paper’s
historical ownership by Colonel Robert McCormick, who earned the ire of Chicago
Jews with his isolationist, right-wing posture during the Nazi era. A similar
family of owners, the Chandlers, prevailed at the Los Angeles Times until the
1960s, when Dorothy Chandler began reaching out to the Jewish community to
fundraise for local civic causes.
Since the Tribune purchased the Times from the Chandlers, the company has
instituted a series of cost-cutting measures that have not gone down well in
Los Angeles. Many civic leaders in the city were eagerly hoping that either
Geffen or Broad and Burkle would buy the paper from the Tribune, not least
because Los Angeles is a liberal city and Geffen and Broad are known for their
liberal leanings, both in their secular and Jewish giving. Both men, for
instance, are donors to Bet Tzedek, a Jewish legal aid organization. But both
men have also tended to put non-Jewish civic causes ahead of their Jewish
giving.
“They are both Jewish and very proud of it, but for both of them their
primary involvement is not the Jewish community,” said Donna Bojarsky, a
consultant in the Los Angeles political and Jewish worlds. “There are not many
places to have influence in this city, and the paper would really be it.”
Zell’s arrival at the Tribune has been met with some disappointment in Los
Angeles. That has included newspaper staffers who have expressed anxiety over
the financial deal structured by Zell whereby he uses employee
pensions to finance most of the deal, putting in only $315 million
himself and pushing much of the risk onto the employees.
It may yet turn out that Geffen will take control of the Los Angeles
property. Zell flew into Los Angeles for dinner with Geffen last Friday night
in Malibu, where both men own beachfront houses. Despite their differences, the
two men have spoken respectfully about each other, referencing the
straight-shooting, unconventional style that inevitably comes from being an
outsider.
As Siegel put it about Zell, “He has a great sense of humor — a real love of
life — and no patience for baloney or arrogance.”
Next Shoah: Will We Know?
Fri. Apr 13,
2007
Sixty-two years after the defeat of Nazi Germany, the terrible events that
have come to be known as the Holocaust loom larger than ever in the world’s
collective imagination. Despite the passage of time and the disappearance of
the surviving eyewitnesses, the Nazis’ mechanized attempt to exterminate the
Jewish people stands out as an open wound on the conscience, a challenge to our
sense of human honor and dignity.
It sometimes seems otherwise, but the evidence is all around us. “Hitler”
remains the worst epithet imaginable, in almost any language. Incidents of
injustice — real or imagined, monstrous or trivial — are routinely labeled
“holocaust” in order to win sympathy for the victims from a world that
understands precisely what “holocaust” means. The United Nations has created an
international day of remembrance, coinciding with the liberation of Auschwitz
in January, to recall the Nazis’ atrocities and warn against new ones.
Here and there, handfuls of madmen seek to deny the obvious truth, to blot
out the evidence still crying out from the earth. But few take their ravings
seriously; indeed, it often seems that they themselves don’t believe their own
words, but speak their lies in pursuit of some sordid grudge.
For the rest of us, the challenge isn’t to establish what happened during
those terrible years. We know the facts. Our challenge is to understand what it
means. How should we now view our world, given the awful knowledge we have
acquired of humanity’s capacity for evil? How are we to act?
Most important, what does it mean to vow that these things will never happen
again? How will we know them when we see them?
Some see the Holocaust in mass killings by one group of another group — in
Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda — because the Nazis engaged in mass murder of Jews. But
the analogy is not perfect; the Nazis, unlike the Sudanese, Serbs or Hutus,
were not using brutal means to quell a rebellion or insurgency. There was no
Jewish insurgency. The Nazis simply wanted to rid the world of Jews, because
they hated them with a methodical passion unmatched before or since.
Others see the Holocaust in attacks on the Jewish people, whatever their
nature: in Palestinian terrorism, Iranian nuclear threats, Soviet efforts to
suppress Jewish culture and religion, even the silent effacement of Jewish
identity through individual choices of assimilation or interfaith marriage. But
the Nazis were not out to change the Jews’ behavior or political structures.
They did not offer alternative ways they might have preferred the Jews to live.
They simply wanted them dead.
Still others see the Holocaust in any perceived overuse of force by a strong
army against a weak population: America in Vietnam or Iraq, Israel in Gaza or
Lebanon. To this line of thinking, little answer is needed, except for this: It
was the American army that stopped the Nazis before they could complete their
scheme of enslaving the world. It is the Israeli army that guarantees the
survival of the Jewish home built as a retort to the Nazis and a haven for
their victims. These cannot be the new Nazis, for they are the Nazis’ very
antithesis.
What, then, is the Nazi threat that we commanded to guard against? Mass
violence and murder? Abuse of power? Collective humiliation? Or is it, perhaps,
each of these?
The debate will never end, alas, so long as groups and nations continue to
fight for their pride and honor and to challenge that of their neighbors. For
that reason, it is fitting that we continue to remember and teach the events of
the Holocaust — not their symbolism or their modern analogues or even their
moral lessons, but the specific deeds themselves, so that others may continue
the debate.
This coming Sunday and Monday, April 15 and 16, Jewish communities around
the world will gather to mark Yom Hashoah, the day set aside by the Israeli
Knesset as Holocaust Remembrance Day. The date was chosen to commemorate the
beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on Passover Eve, April 19, 1943. On
that day, a handful of young Jewish men and women stood up against the Nazi
battalions, armed with little more than pistols, and showed the world the meaning
of courage and defiance. Each time we honor them, we strike a light against the
darkness and teach one more lesson of the Holocaust.
‘It’s not too late to convict Nazis’
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Despite the more than 60 years that have passed since the Holocaust, the
number of Nazi war criminals being convicted is on the rise, a report released
Thursday by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles shows.
Nineteen Nazi war criminals were convicted over the last year, up from 16 a
year earlier and five the year before that, according to the center’s seventh
annual report. Fourteen of the 19 Nazis found guilty last year were convicted
in absentia in Italy.
“Despite the somewhat prevalent assumption that it is too late to bring
Nazi murderers to justice, the figures clearly prove otherwise, and it is clear
that numerous cases of such criminals will continue to come to trial during the
coming years,” said Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the group’s chief Nazi-hunter and
author of the document.
The report slams Germany, Austria and Poland for failing to achieve
“any progress” against the war criminals over the last year despite
hundreds of cases under investigation.
“While it is generally assumed that it is the age of the suspects that
is the biggest obstacle to prosecution, in many cases it is the lack of
political will, more than anything else, that has hindered the efforts to bring
Holocaust perpetrators to justice, along with the mistaken notion that it was
impossible at this point to locate, identify, and convict these
criminals,” Zuroff said.
The center commends Italy for becoming the second most successful country,
after the United States, in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, even if the
Italian convictions were carried out in absentia and the criminals have yet to
be extradited or to serve jail terms.
The report, which covers the period between April 1, 2006 and March 31,
2007, aims to focus public attention on the issue and to encourage all the
governments involved to maximize their efforts to ensure that as many as
possible of the Holocaust perpetrators who have not been prosecuted will be
held accountable for their crimes.
While heaping praise on the United States and Italy, the report condemns the
“abject failures” of countries like Austria, Germany, Poland and
Canada, which failed to bring any Nazi suspects to justice during the period
under review.
The report notes that Sweden and Norway refuse to investigate Nazi war
criminals due to a statute of limitations, faults Syria for ignoring the issue,
and blasts the Lithuanian and Latvian governments for failing to deal with the
issue, primarily due to a lack of requisite political will.
Other countries that were cited for poor performances on the issue include
Australia, Croatia, Estonia, Great Britain and Ukraine.
The report also listed the 10 most wanted Nazi war criminals, and their
whereabouts, if known.
Topping the list is Alois Brunner, a key operative for Adolf Eichmann who
was responsible for the deportations of tens of thousands of Jews to death
camps. Convicted in absentia by France, he has been living in Syria for
decades.
Brunner is followed on the list by Dr. Aribert Heim, a doctor in various concentration
camps who is suspected of murdering hundreds of Mauthausen camp inmates by
lethal injection.
Heim disappeared in 1962 prior to planned prosecution; his whereabouts are
unknown but the report cites “strong evidence” that he is still
alive.
Ivan Demjanjuk, who was ordered deported from the US and is under
investigation in Poland, is third on the list.
Milivoj Asner, a former police chief in Croatia who has recently been
uncovered and indicted by Croatia is fourth on the list. Austria has refused a
Croatian request for his extradition, the report states.
The remaining suspects on the list - and whose whereabouts are known -
include Dr. Sandor Kepiro (Hungary), Mikhail Gorshkow (Estonia), Erna Wallisch
(Austria), Soeren Kam (Germany), Karoly “Charles” Zentai (Australia),
Algimantas Dailide (Germany), Algimantas Dailide (Germany) and Harry Mannil
(Venezuela).
Berezovsky calls
for overthrow of Putin
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LONDON (AFX) - Exiled Russian multi-millionaire Boris Berezovsky has
tempered his call for the use of ‘force’ to overthrow President Vladimir Putin,
saying he was not advocating violence.
The tycoon issued a statement to ‘clarify’ his comments in British newspaper
The Guardian, interview hours after the British Foreign Office condemned the
remarks and Russian authorities renewed a call for his extradition.
‘Elections are not a viable means of ensuring democratic change in Russia.
Therefore I do support using other methods to push for a change back towards
democracy,’ he said.
‘However, I wish to make very clear that all of these methods would be
bloodless … I do support direct action. I do not advocate or support
violence.’
In response to his comments in the Guardian, a Foreign Office spokesman
said: ‘We deplore any call for the violent overthrow of a sovereign state.
‘We expect everyone living or working in or visiting the UK, whatever their
status, to obey our laws.’
The Guardian had quoted Berezovsky as saying: ‘We need to use force to
change this regime.
‘It isn’t possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can
be no change without force, pressure.’
Asked if he was effectively fomenting revolution, he said in the Guardian:
‘You are absolutely correct.’
AXED PLAZA EXEC: ISRAELI ‘BIAS’ WASN’T KOSHER
By DAREH GREGORIAN
PrintEmailDigg ItStory Bottom
March 29, 2007 — A former bigwig at
the real estate company that bought The Plaza hotel says he got thrown out on
his tuchus because he didn’t speak Hebrew.
In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme
Court, John Bove says he was fired from his job as chief financial officer of
the Israeli company Elad Properties “because he’s not Israeli.” Bove,
a U.S. citizen who’s not Jewish, “was discriminated against because of his
national origin,” said his lawyer, Daniel Kaiser.
Elad, which bought The Plaza for
$675 million in 2004, denied the charges.
“The allegations have no
foundation,” the company’s lawyer, Robert Gosseen said. “Indeed, Mr.
Bove’s replacement is an Indian national and U.S. citizen” who’s
multilingual - but doesn’t speak Hebrew.
Kaiser, however, said his client was
replaced by an Israeli national after he was axed last year.
Bove went to work as the real estate
giant’s chief financial officer in the spring of 2005, and “received
nothing but accolades” and received a 27 percent pay hike.
Things started to change last July,
when the company started importing Israeli nationals into key positions, the
suit says.
Bove suddenly found several of his
duties were being taken away.
In October, he was told not to go to
any more monthly board meetings even though he’d always gone to them.
One of his new Israeli bosses
explained to Bove that his attendance “was no longer useful” because
the participants would be speaking only in Hebrew, the filing says.
He was fired a few days later.
The Road to Anti-Semitism is Paved
We repeat once more: Not all criticism of Israel is
anti-Semitism. But it also needs to be repeated that anti-Zionism is
all-too-frequently a reflection of anti-Semitism. Recent events in England show
how thin the line really is.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has been
around for years demonizing Israel in the worst possible terms:
“apartheid,” “Nazi,” you name it.
Leading figures like Sue Blackwell are well known for
regarding all Israelis, men, women and children, as colonialist tools who
deserve to be shunned by “civilized” society. Others like Tony
Greenstein are, predictably, Jews who use their Jewishness as a tool to attack
Jews who live in Israel. All these people believe that Israel is a racist state
that should be dismantled by whatever means necessary.
But now the anti-Israel Jews are on the defensive
because — surprise, surprise — the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has rejected
several of their resolutions that condemned the racist anti-Semites and
Holocaust deniers that now dominate the movement and infest much of the British
far left.
When racist anti-Zionists are the voices of reason
against racist anti-Semites, whose goals they share, the world has gotten even
crazier than we thought. And when Jews argue against anti-Semitism because it
looks bad for the anti-Zionist cause to hang out with Nazis, one is speechless.
What are the lessons for us? Anti-Zionism is not
necessarily anti-Semitism, but when it starts using terms like Nazi, apartheid
and conspiracy, that is exactly where it will lead. These demonic terms must be
combated wherever they occur before they end up infecting the entire political
Left. This is already underway in the United States where it is common to hear
these words thrown around in religious groups, labor unions and universities.
On purely logical grounds, this sad situation shows
that anti-Zionism that isn’t accompanied by a uniform standard of opposition to
all nationalism, a uniform standard of behavior applied to all states, and a
uniform concern for all refugees everywhere and not only to Jews, is, de facto,
anti-Semitism.
The affliction of anti-Semitism
The Diary of Petr Ginz,
1941-1942
Edited by Chava Pressburger, translated by Elena Lappin
Atlantic Monthly Press, 192 pages, $24.
When the Columbia space shuttle exploded in February 2003, there was a
drawing on board — a moonscape by a young Auschwitz victim named Petr Ginz. In
the aftermath of the explosion, news reports mentioning the Ginz drawing
reached the Czech Republic, where a Prague resident made a significant
discovery: He was in possession of Ginz’s pre-Auschwitz wartime diary.
Apparently, it had been collecting dust in his attic for decades. Now, more
than 60 years after 16-year-old Ginz died in a gas chamber, his sister — a
survivor — is publishing the diary.
Perhaps because the circumstances surrounding the diary’s discovery are so
cinematic, the publicity campaign for “The Diary of Petr Ginz, 1941-1942” has
been somewhat frenzied. Ginz’s moonscape and a few short stories found along
with the diary indicate that the Prague teenager had artistic ambitions, so the
Atlantic Monthly Press has tried to market Ginz as a symbol of lost talent.
Reviewers have followed suit. The International Herald Tribune, for example,
compares Ginz to Anne Frank and calls the teenage victim “a budding Czech
literary and artistic genius whose life was cut short by the Nazis.” Die Welt,
a German newspaper, describes Ginz as “a talented and courageous youth.”
Emphasis on talent makes good sense when discussing Anne Frank, a truly extraordinary
prose stylist. Yet talk of genius seems exaggerated with reference to Ginz.
Perhaps Ginz would have grown up to lead the Czech literary scene, perhaps not.
His diary is spare — more of a log than a journal — and the entries are short,
most often just one or two lines. After recording the date, it was Ginz’s habit
to describe his whereabouts and activities without analysis or comment. One
typical entry from May 17, 1942, read: “Homework in the morning. In the
afternoon outside.” Two days later, on May 19: “In the morning at home and in
town. In the afternoon at school.” Then, on May 22: “Home all day, nothing
special.”
Not every entry is quite so laconic. The diary includes a mature poem in
which Ginz enumerates the restrictions placed upon Jews in Nazi-occupied
Prague: “the outcast Jew/must give up all habits he knew:/he can’t buy clothes,
can’t buy a shoe,/since dressing well is not his due.” After receiving a
transport summons, Ginz provides a heartbreaking description of his last day at
home: “While walking, I tried to absorb, for the last time, the street noise I
would not hear again for a long time.”
Nevertheless, “The Diary of Petr Ginz” is not literature. Why, then, have
some members of the media treated it as such? The simple answer is that a
literary journal is more marketable than a collection of notes. But there’s
something else at work here: the impulse to commemorate Holocaust victims, and
to convey the horror of the Holocaust itself, by pretending that every victim
was somehow extraordinary or singular. That impulse is terribly misguided. If
there had been no Anne Franks, if there had been no “budding geniuses,” if each
and every one of the 6 million victims had been perfectly ordinary, the
Holocaust would have been no less horrific.
It’s better to see Petr Ginz as he really was: an ordinary boy who found
himself, to quote Art Spiegelman, “on the fault line where World History and
Personal History collide.” The diary is certainly worth reading — not for the
sporadic poetic passages but as a historical document, or as a case study of
adolescent psychology under duress.
Kurdistan’s Covert
Back-Channels
How an ex-Mossad chief, a German uberspy, and a gaggle of top-dollar GOP
lobbyists helped Kurdistan snag 15 tons of $100 bills.
Laura Rozen, Mother Jones
| April 11 , 2007 In June 2004, journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker that So I was intrigued when, last summer, I read in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz For much of the past year, I have been digging into the story of Shlomi What I found was not the story I had expected. Instead of Michaels being part Yatom met me in the lobby of the Tel Aviv Sheraton at 7:30am on a Sunday, the Yatom said he and Michaels were introduced to key Iraqi Kurdish players by a Shlomi Michaels was similarly elusive, despite messages left at several of When the United States was preparing to invade Iraq, Michaels evidently saw Even as he helped connect the Kurds to those who lobbied for them to receive More covertly, the Israeli newspapers Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz have Whatever the reasoning, the execution of the “Camp Z” project was The story kicked up controversy—Israeli operations are a source of paranoid Skeptics dismiss the probe as a PR gesture aimed at the Turks, whose goodwill None of this activity has geopolitical implications, insists the Kurdish As Talabani walked me out after my interview, we passed a poster advertising Plenty of non-Kurds would like to help—and make a little profit along the Russell Wilson, a former senior professional staffer for the House In the end, Yatom and Michaels’ business activities may well be evidence, as Reporting for this project was supported by the Nation Institute. |
In the shadow of the SHOAH
Michael L. Jordan
View all
articles by Michael L. Jordan
Inside the Vilnius Zveryno High School, the Lithuanian teens
greet a guest to their Tolerance Center as they would a teacher — standing at
attention.
Striking Holocaust images painted by the teens cover the
blackboard: mostly watercolors of Jews deported, torn from loved ones, trapped
behind barbed wire.
The students of Vilnius Zveryno High School stand with their teacher and
principal in front of some of their Holocaust-themed artwork. Michael J. Jordan/JTA
In the back of the classroom, a cabinet has become a
permanent exhibit, its doors opened to reveal a miniature concentration camp
built of wood, clay and paper.
“We need to learn our country’s history and what our
ancestors did — it was very cruel,” says Ruta Vastakaite, speaking, like
her classmates, in near-flawless English.
“Some thought they were better than the Jews,”
Linas Budrys adds, “and that Jews should have no rights.”
Holocaust-themed artwork by a Vilnius Zveryno High School student. Michael J.
Jordan/JTA
“Only when we know our own history can we prevent it
from happening again,” Ieva Kerzaite concludes.
The words are an encouraging sign, considering that not a
single student in the class is Jewish. That’s not surprising in a country that
before World War II was a center of Jewish life but that today has no more than
5,000 Jews.
As in the neighboring Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia,
Holocaust education in Lithuania is a tricky business. Not only were the Jewish
populations in the Baltic countries decimated by the Nazis, many of their own
countrymen took part in the killings.
Approximately 220,000 of the 250,000 Jews in Lithuania were
killed, and 90,000 of 100,000 in Latvia. Only seven of the estimated 1,000 Jews
survived the onslaught in Estonia.
Teaching children about those atrocities may mean
implicating their own grandparents and denting national pride that was allowed
to grow only with independence 16 years ago.
Critics charge that some in these small ex-Soviet republics
tend to deal with this complexity with a form of Holocaust denial: not denying
the Holocaust per se, but rejecting local culpability and pinning blame
entirely on the Germans. Indeed, in contrast to other European countries, no
Baltic nation has ever imprisoned a local Nazi war criminal.
“You have to be very savvy about the Holocaust
education being taught,” says Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center’s Nazi-hunting office in Israel.
Five years ago the office launched “Operation Last
Chance,” which offers cash rewards for information leading to prosecutions
of war criminals from the Baltics and other countries.
“Is local complicity an important component?”
Zuroff asked. “Or are they engaging in Holocaust deflection, dealing only
with the easier part — what Germany and the Nazis did?”
One more question can be added: Are the Vilnius Zveryno
students the rule or the exception?
In Latvia, which has about 200 sites where Jews were killed,
some youth are in the dark about what happened or feel disconnected from it,
says Gita Umanovska, executive director of the Riga Jewish community.
“Maybe in their town of 3,000, 1,000 Jews were killed
in the woods,” Umanovska says. “Maybe they don’t know, or don’t want
to know. They may feel it happened over there, but we’re over here; it’s not a
part of my history, my town, my family.”
In some cases, the government isn’t helping.
President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has apologized for Latvian
participation in the Nazi slaughter, but an official Latvian history book —
produced in 2005 — described Salaspils, the country’s main concentration camp,
as a “corrective working camp.” In reality, some 50,000 people were
killed there.
Complicating the picture is that while Lithuania, for
example, had one of Europe’s highest rates of collaboration with the Nazis, Yad
Vashem has honored 693 Lithuanians as “Righteous Gentiles” among the
more than 21,700 so recognized. From Latvia, 103 righteous have been
identified; from Estonia, three.
A memoir of more than 100 Lithuanian ghetto and camp
survivors, “With a Needle in the Heart,” cites countless instances of
ordinary folks helping Jews.
In addition, the Baltic states endured their own wartime
trauma: The Soviet “liberators” deported hundreds of thousands of
people to Siberia and executed or imprisoned many others. More attention to
crimes against Jews might not resonate here, nor would puncturing these
nations’ own sense of victimization.
The Holocaust itself was a taboo topic for a half-century.
Soviet propaganda would refer generically to the “Soviet victims of
fascism,” never the “Jewish victims.”
Compared with Western countries like France and Austria,
which took four decades to confront their past, “I’d say Holocaust
education in the Baltics is moving in a positive direction, but the question is
the speed and intensity,” says Rabbi
Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs for the American Jewish
Committee. “One can understand, if you’re talking about the Holocaust in
general, there’s little opposition — the United Nations itself has recognized
it. But when it comes closer to home, it increases sensitivity.
“Here we are trying to peel back decades of history to
address a problem never critically reviewed,” he says. “It’s
difficult for people who see themselves as victims to imagine their
grandparents may also have been perpetrators or bystanders.”
Nevertheless, once the Soviet regime crumbled, the Baltics
joined fellow Eastern European countries in saying the right things:
apologizing for the Holocaust and vowing to commemorate it, resolving issues
like restitution, and prosecuting war criminals.
Holocaust education essentially was a precondition for any
country presenting itself as a decent, modern society with hopes of joining
exclusive Western clubs like the European Union or NATO.
The Baltic countries joined both organizations in 2004. But
backing up words with action has lagged, leading some to question the sincerity
of the mea culpas.
When Council of Europe member nations declared their
intention in 2000 to commemorate the Holocaust, Estonia, facing domestic
resistance, designated Holocaust Day on Jan. 27, 2003 — not pegged to any date
symbolizing local participation but to the liberation of Auschwitz.
Lithuanian officials, though, note that their Holocaust Day
was created a decade earlier, before they learned they would join either
institution.
“We were doing this for ourselves because everybody
knows what happened to the Jews here,” says Rimantas Jokimaitis, a
historian who is responsible for history textbooks in Lithuania’s Education and
Science Ministry. “I think we do a lot because it’s impossible to discuss
Lithuanian history without the Holocaust. It’s a part of our history.”
The ministry also sponsors an annual writing competition for
teens entitled “My Grandparents’ Neighbor Was Jewish,” and has
compiled the best essays into books. It also provides some funding for the 46
Tolerance Centers like the one at Vilnius Zveryno High School.
But these centers aren’t in every Lithuanian high school,
and their activities are voluntary, held after school.
Lithuania also has no specifically designed
Holocaust-studies course. Instead, lessons are folded into the broader history
curriculum for students in the fifth, 10th, and 12th grades.
Jokimaitis shows a visitor a history book for 16- and
17-year-olds. The Holocaust chapter starts with “Destruction of the
Lithuanian Jewish Community.”
Subsections highlight telling anecdotes from the era: a
Lithuanian police officer’s letter to superiors explaining how the police
killed Jews; a police report questioning what to do about a priest who wouldn’t
let killers of Jews into his church; a newspaper advertisement proclaiming that
Lithuanians who help Jews would share their fate.
Yet the chapter runs just six pages.
“It wasn’t treated as something separate, just a part
of history,” Benjaminas Krumas, 23, recalls of his high school lessons in
Kaunas, known to Jews as historic Kovno and home to a ghetto liquidated by the
Nazis in 1944. “Perhaps the teacher had her own point of view on it or was
afraid to discuss it more. But we learned more about it from our
grandparents.”
Indeed, history teachers like Arija Melaikiene play a
pivotal role. Both the Ministry of Education and the Lithuanian Jewish
community recommended the Tolerance Center that Melaikiene founded at Vilnius
Zverynas.
It was seven years ago that Melaikiene had an epiphany. She
had assigned her students to draw up family trees as a springboard to
discussion of Lithuania’s various regions and names, as well as other topics.
One girl, by the name of Finkelsteinaite, turned in her
assignment with half the tree lopped off.
“Everyone had died in 1942 or ‘43,” Melaikiene
recalls. “At first I thought she was too lazy to draw a real family tree.
Then I realized what had happened.”
It was cathartic, Melaikiene says.
“I decided that I hadn’t been a very good teacher
because I hadn’t been paying attention to the most important facts,” she
says.
That led to an immersion in Jewish history, Jewish
contributions to Lithuanian culture, visits to Auschwitz and Yad Vashem — and a
commitment to preach tolerance.
Melaikiene speaks of three categories of Lithuanians during
the Holocaust — those who killed, those who turned a blind eye, and those who
helped Jews in some way — but admits to treading carefully when broaching the
first two categories with students.
“I have to find a middle ground, talking about both
good guys and bad guys,” she says. “If there are some students who
don’t believe it, I don’t want the other students to think badly of them
because they’re rejecting what I’m saying.
“I don’t know whose grandfather did what, but I can
guess: If there’s a usually very active student, then we talk about the
Holocaust and his activity disappears, I tell them, ‘Don’t hate your
grandfather if he killed somebody because he’s still your grandfather and you
love him.’ But if he killed someone, then it’s a fact and we have to say this.
It’s a tragedy for that family.”
Others trying to connect with students are the Holocaust
survivors themselves — like Kaunas-born Fania Brancovskaja-Jocheles, 84, who
escaped the Vilnius ghetto alone. Her mother, father, and sister were among 50
relatives killed.
In recent years, Brancovskaja-Jocheles has shared her story
with classes in Lithuania. She also has traveled to Germany and Austria to
recount her experiences.
“I tell them not only who was killing us but who was
saving us, which is why I also tell them to talk to their grandmother and
grandfather,” Brancovskaja-Jocheles says, pulling mementos from her
shelves to show a visitor.
“I don’t want to threaten people, only for them to know
the truth,” she says. “Those who were killed cannot speak, so I must.
And if you tell them from your heart, even in a little way it may go to their
brain and help them prevent bad things from happening in the future.”
Despite such campaigns, observers say the Baltic countries
remain prone to anti-Jewish eruptions, especially in the media or on the
Internet.
That’s most evident in the torrent of vitriol unleashed amid
stalled negotiations to return Jewish property or bring accused Nazi-era war
criminals to justice.
“Excluding the good efforts of hundreds of teachers and
historians devoting their time to the memory of the Holocaust, the level of
reaction and distrust is so great, I’m shocked by the reality 16 years after
Lithuanian independence,” says Emanuelis Zingeris, the lone Lithuanian
Jewish parliamentarian, who is among the lobbyists for restitution.
With the carrot of Western integration digested, the stick
has vanished as well.
Lacking that leverage, Jewish activists like Baker say they
now rely on a network of Baltic politicians, historians and teachers like
Melaikiene.
Ultimately, though, there is no way to gauge if any of this
Holocaust education “works.” As Latvia’s Umanovska says, “We
have no special system to check it.”