November 2006

Linguist Ghil’ad Zuckermann has been trying to get people to stop using the term “Hebrew” to refer to the language that is spoken by the majority of people in Israel. What Zuckermann is trying to do is to get people to start calling the language “Israeli”. The reasoning behind this drive, besides to acquiesce the ignorant people who actually think we speak “Israeli” here, is that according to Zuckermann:

“Israelis are brainwashed to believe they speak the same language as (the prophet) Isaiah, a purely Semitic language, but this is false…It’s time we acknowledge that Israeli is very different from the Hebrew of the past,” Said Zuckermann, who points to the abiding influence of modern European dialects - especially Yiddish, Russian and Polish - imported by Israel’s founders.”

Zuckermann’s lectures have met with some tough criticism from Israeli academia:

“His attitude toward modern Hebrew is less that of a professional linguist than of someone driven by the agenda of post- (if not anti-) Zionism,” Wrote an Israeli contributor to the American newspaper Jewish Daily Forward.

Professor Moshe Bar-Asher, president of Israel’s Hebrew Language Academy, likened Zuckermann to Noam Chomsky, a renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist who in recent decades became a freewheeling critic of U.S. Foreign policy.

I think Zuckermann is a very good scholar, but he risks wasting his efforts by mixing up linguistics with politics,” Bar-Asher said. “He stirs up a lot of antagonism.”

I personally think that in this case linguistics is completely intertwined with politics. Hebrew was revitalized and made the official language of Israel and before that of the Zionist pioneers because of its historical significance to the Jewish people. The language has been called “Hebrew” for hundreds if not thousands of years. Regardless of whether or not it is linguistically accurate to call it “Israeli”, we would be turning our back on our people’s history if we were to call it anything besides what it is, Hebrew.

I received this e-mail at work today…

Posted by: “david david”

Wed Nov 29, 2006 2:40 pm (PST)

Hi everyone
I just wanted to bring to your attention to our new Blog. This is the official Blog of the state of Israel, the first state Blog out there. It’s edited by our team of young professionals here at the Israeli Consulate in NY. The team here at the Consulate is constantly searching for new materials and cool stories to post. If you have any ideas, stories, photos,
videos, etc… send them our way.
Let us know what you think?

Here’s the link www.isrealli.org
please forward to your contacts.
Thanks,
David Saranga
Consul for media and public affairs
New York

I know that I’m a bit late (it’s been up for about a year) and I’m sure it’s already been posted somewhere. But for those of you (like myself) who are blogging latecomers, beteyavon…

Amira Hass, whose controversial coverage of the Palestinian experience has not gained her many friends amongst a large part of the Zionist spectrum, writes a fascinating and provoking article in Haaretz today concerning the affect checkpoints have on both the Israeli and Palestinian youth.

In tens of thousands of homes in the West Bank live others, who may have not ended up in the hospital, but who every day accumulate harsh impressions of the nature and behavior of almost the only Israelis whom they encounter - the soldiers at the checkpoints. The non-Palestinians who pass through the checkpoints can also reach a similar conclusion - that most of the soldiers stationed at them are crude, arrogant, boastful and definitely hardhearted. All too often it appears that the soldiers intentionally cause the line of cars and people to dawdle at a checkpoint for a very long time. All too often they are seen laughing and grinning at the sight of the hundreds of people jostling and crowding in the slow line behind the narrow inspection turnstile.

The Palestinians are not interested in, and do not need to be interested in, the explanations that Israel will give: It’s a difficult mission; the soldiers are afraid; maybe someone will come bearing an explosive belt; they’re young, still children; they’re defending the homeland; if they weren’t posted at checkpoints in the middle of the West Bank, suicide terrorists would be free to enter Israel.

True, they are not interested, but we must be interested in protecting Israeli lives, too. As such, it is time for the Government of Israel to issue a plan to significantly cut back on checkpoints inside the territories. Since doing so will most probably mean that the government will have to increase the portions of wall between Israeli and Palestinian population blocks, the Zionist Left should make clear that a border between peoples in a fact of life–and, therefore, the construction of a fortified border between Israeli and Palestinian territories is our People’s first priority. Yes, they might get Kassams into the West Bank, and yes, rockets could fall. But I’d rather contend with tens of Kassams as in Gaza than to continue to prejudice our future and distort the youth through the experience of passing through and manning checkpoints.

Palestinian journalist Laila al-Hadad writes about waiting with her family in Egypt for the border to open to get into Gaza. Hadad beautifully illustrates her frustration of being stuck in Egypt waiting with seemingly no end until the Israelis will open up the crossing into Gaza. 

And my heart begins to twinge, recalling the last time I tried to cross Rafah; recalling how I could not, for 55 days; 55 days during which my son learned to lift himself up into the world, during which he took his first fleeting steps, in a land which was not ours; 55 days of aloneness and displacement.

Hadad continues to explain the situation on the border near the crossing;

During times of extended closure, like this summer, and last year, al-Arish becomes a Palestinian slum. Thousands of penniless Palestinians, having finished their savings and never anticipating the length of the closure, end up on the streets.

While I feel bad for Laila and her family and the Palestinians waiting to get into Gaza and aren’t allowed to, there is of course a reason for all of this. In March the Palestinian people excercised their democratic right, and with that brought the terrorist Hamas into power. After this of course, as everyone knows the International community shut off aid to the Palestinian Government until it met certain conditions, namely recognizing Israel’s right to exist and renouncing violence. Neither of these things have happened.

A few months later in June terrorists ignited the current crisis by crossing the border into Israel, killing two Israeli soldiers and kidnapping Gilad Shalit. While I feel for Laila and her family, she fails to realize or more likely, to mention any of this in the article.

All of the current problems that the Palestinian people face are not because of the “occupation”. Israel pulled out its people and army from Gaza over the summer so we have no presence there except for the raids launched to prevent kassam strikes and other terrorist attacks. The current crises amongst the Palestinian people and government are only because of their own decision to put Hamas into power and its results.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for democracy and elections. That said, people have to realize that when they elect a government, whatever that governments belief’s, they have to deal with the repercussions of that decision. The Palestinian people decided to put a terrorist organization into power. Palestinians need to start taking responsibility for their own actions and the results of those actions.

What if Arik woke up, today?

[HT: EK]

Thinking seriously about the Middle East conflict as a new arrival to Israel is a bit like waking up on a subway platform after being kidnapped. You wake up groggy and confused to see trains screeching to a halt on either side of the platform and people running in opposite directions. You ask a passerby where the train on the right is going and in broken English he replies, “This is the only train you can take to leave this station. Any other train will lead to existential doom.” Adrenaline shoots through your veins and you turn to ask someone else about the train on your left, “This is the only train that will take you out of the station. Any other train will take you back to where you started.” You spin around and dash for one of the trains suddenly unsure if you chose left or right.

Once on the train, you sit down to recover your wits. What time of day is it? What am I looking for? You ask the man in front of you for the time. “It’s been about 2000 years since this city hit its peak. Time for a renaissance, don’t you think?” he replies, but something about his clothes seems a bit odd, so you politely walk across the train and ask a middle age woman. “Its about 40 years since they started renovated the subway system. Time to remove the scaffolding, don’t you think?” she says. Still uncertain, you find a young man anxiously waiting to jump out the doors at the next stop. “It is about two years before this train tunnel collapses. Time to stop relying on the government to fix the thing and buy yourself a car, don’t you think?” he yells over the noise.

Confused you make your way down the car to the map on the wall. “Where are we?” you wonder. The subway system seems to be designed as a triangle of sorts. At one hub of the triangle is the stop “Self-determination.” In bright green another hub reads “Security.” The final hub, in bright red, is the stop “Moral Rectitude.” You notice that you are biting your fingernails so you instinctively reach for a cigarette though you don’t smoke. You don’t know where you want to go, but you know you want to get to a central neighborhood so you can figure out how to get home. The blue, green, and red hubs of the system all seem promising. You decide that you will wait, listening for the conductor announcing the next stop over the loudspeaker, and
then make your way to the closest hub. You lean back against the map and let out a sigh. “Either Self-Determination, Security, or Moral Rectitude – whichever is closest,” you think.

The train slows to a halt and a feeble voice comes over the loudspeaker, “This is a passenger of this train speaking. The conductor has just had a nervous breakdown and is unable to operate this train. We must bring the train into station without him, but we do not know which station makes the most sense. Please raise your left hand if you think we should head towards Moral Rectitude, your right hand if you think we should head towards Security, or both hands if you prefer Self-Determination.” Suddenly arms shoot up left and right around you and the voice on the loudspeaker can be heard counting quietly. “Yo, you…you in front of the map ,” yells an old man from the other side of the train car who looks a lot like your grandfather. “Son, you’ve already been on this train for five minutes. Don’t you think it’s about time you got your hands out of your pockets.”

In terms of Israeli sports, the most well known Israeli team, by far, is Israeli and European basketball league powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv. Among your average world citizens, Israel is far better known for its champion basketball team than for its advances in medicine, science, or technology. Seen in this light, it is ironic that most of the players who actually get playing time on the team that best represents Israel to the world, are not even Jewish. In fact, all the teams in Israel’s first league make heavy use of foreign players-both European and Americans–so much so that many very talented Israeli players have been forced to leave Israel to play for European teams because they were being overlooked for playing time simply because they were Israeli. Ask any frustrated Israeli player and they will tell you that Jewish players are repeatedly discriminated against in Israel.This dominance of foreign players has gotten to the point that watching an Israeli game is like watching an unsatisfying wanna-be NBA game. The “Israeli” in the Israeli league has been relegated to the bench.

Israel’s second league, called the National League, appeals much more to my Zionist convictions. In this league there is only one foreign player allowed, compared to the four in the top league, which allows for Israelis players to actually step on the court to exhibit their talent.
If the teams in Israel’s top league actually gave Israeli players ample playing time, rather than relying on imported foreigners, it would probably become apparent that we have sufficient homegrown Zionist talent to proudly represent ourselves to the world, just like we do in so many other areas.

Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg passed away yesterday in Jerusalem. Rabbi Waldenberg was a great posek, especially recognized in the field of medical ethics. Some of his most well-known opinions:

• A fetus may be aborted to the end of the second trimester if it has a lethal defect, such as Tay-Sachs.
• Smoking is not halachically acceptable, because it endangers life.
• Purely cosmetic surgery–when the patient has no pain or sickness–is not halachically acceptable.
• One who is hard of hearing may use an electronic hearing aid on Shabbat. In this case, the consideration of “kavod ha briut” supersedes the usual rules of Shabbat.  

Rabbi Waldenberg was a great scholar, critical in many areas of halacha in the contemporary world. He will be missed.   

The foundation of modern legal and political philosophy is Thomas Hobbes’s idea of a social contract. Without social contracts in place, according to Hobbes, life ”is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” To avoid that type of life, groups of individuals construct social contracts, each person looking out for his own self-interest. Each individual is prevented from harming others, and the society provides some insurance against poverty. This approach to social values is amoral in the sense that it ignores the idea of a greater good and judges solely on adherence to the social contract.

Jewish behavioral rules, in contrast, go way beyond the social contract. While the idea of a social contract is central, Judiasm also prescribes and proscribes innumerable actions beyond the social contract. Judaism contains 613 “commandments,” plus many other guidelines–with the goal of orienting society toward a greater good. As we say in Aleinu after every prayer, our goal is “to perfect the world under the sovereignty of God.”

In modern Western societies–amongst Jews as well as the general population–the idea of the social contract has come to replace morality, even in private life. Many individuals live only according to the social contract, without the sense of striving toward some greater good. Where there is Tikun Olam (perfecting the world), it often stands on its own, without the critical second part of the phrase: ”under the sovereignty of God.” And yes, Western civilization has made much progress while leaving behind the idea of God, or a greater good.

The Jewish state, however, must be different. Unlike other modern, liberal, democratic states, Israel must maintain Jewish morality in addition to the amoral social contract. Zionism and Israel draw their legitimacy from the Jewish tradition. The Jewish people exist only because of the Jewish moral tradition. Israel exists in the context of Jewish tradition, history and religion, and cannot be removed from that context. To remain legitimate–not in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of Judaism–the Jewish state must preserve Jewish morality. 

NOTE: FOR SOME PRACTICAL DISCUSSION OF THIS ISSUE, SEE ZACK’S POST ON SHABBAT IN ISRAEL.

Kofi Annan has finally said something good in his career regarding the Anti-Israel situation at the UN. Annan is set to end his term as Secretary General and he just spoke to reporters in Geneva for the last time before he steps down. He spoke of how the UN Human Rights Council should stop focusing solely on Israel and start focusing on other atrocities around the world. Here are some highlights:

Annan said the council’s preoccupation with Israel’s actions in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories while ignoring the situation in Darfur had caused some to wonder whether it had “a sense of fair play.”“They [the council members] have tended to focus on the Palestinian issue, and of course if you focus on the Palestinian-Israeli issue without even discussing Darfur and other issues, some wonder ‘what is this council doing?”‘ he said. 

Even further adding to the fire is the new report from the council on the war in the north, which accused Israel of “a significant pattern of excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force… against Lebanese civilians.” and had no mandate to look at Hezbollahs conduct of firing Katyusha’s into cities and towns directly at civilians.
Now, I am glad that Annan said something, but it doesn’t do much good while he is on his way out. This should have been something said years ago, not now when he is a lame duck.

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