January 2008

Yesterday Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, speaking in Bushehr, where an Iranian nuclear facility is expected to come on line in October, promised Israel’s “imminent demise”. Oh, he didn’t use the name Israel, which Iran refuses to recognize, but rather referred to the “filthy Zionist entity”.

Here’s some of what Ahmadinejad had to say:

“…abandon the filthy Zionist entity, which has reached the end of the line.

[…]

…stop supporting the Zionists, as [their] regime reached its final stage. Accept that the life of Zionists will sooner or later come to an end. What we have right now is the last chapter [of Israeli atrocities] which the Palestinians and regional nations will confront and eventually turn in Palestine’s favor.”

[…]

“It has lost its reason to be and will sooner or later fall. The ones who still support the criminal Zionists should know that the occupiers’ days are numbered.”

That last bit is a threat aimed at the United States, of course.

Yet thanks to a National Intelligence Estimate that contradicts Israeli intelligence reports, the Bush administration is pretty much ignoring Iran these days. Certainly action in this election year now seems highly improbable at best. Prime Minister Olmert, who has been singularly responsive to U.S. pressure to act or not act based on American interests, seems unlikely to do anything about the Iranian nuclear program in general or Bushehr in particular.

For the first time in a long time I’m wondering if aliya really is a good idea. Yes, I’d like to live in Israel. I have no desire to die there in a nuclear holocaust anytime soon. Right now both American and Israeli policy towards Iran seems to have been inspired by the ostrich: ignore Ahmadenijad and maybe the problem will go away. It won’t.

It’s a true honor to be included as a finalist with four exceptionally brilliant candidates–and rather humbling. As it is, the idea entered into the contest is the fundamental set of assumptions according to which we have built PresenTense as an organization — and BlogsofZion as a blog — so it is less my idea and more the idea of a tremendous amount of collaboration, mainly of course with my activist chevruta Aharon Horwitz, and the unbelievable crew at the helm of our magazine and the Institute. In that way, this opportunity to be heard is an opportunity for all of us in the PresenTense Network to share our thoughts with the Jewish community — so please contact me to share your thoughts on the proposal.

What amazes me is the field into which the presentation will be shared: as the JTA reports,

The finalists are Jerusalem Post editorial page editor and columnist Saul Singer; Harvard doctoral candidate Yehuda Kurtzer; author Anita Diamant; Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the founder of the Jewish Values Network; and Ariel Beery, the publisher of PresenTense magazine.

Or, to go into more depth–as the award letter stated:

Shmuley Boteach - “Bringing Judaism to the Mainstream”, executive director and founder, Jewish Values Network and host of Shalom in the Home, national television series on TLC
Anita Diamant - “Minhag America”, author of numerous books including The Last Days of Dogtown, Good Harbor, The Red Tent
Yehuda Kurtzer - “The Sacred Task of Rebuilding Jewish Memory”, Instructor, Hebrew College, Newton, MA, Wexner Graduate Fellowship recipient and 2008 Harvard University Jewish Studies doctoral candidate
Saul Singer - “From Survival to Purpose”, editorial page editor and author of
weekly column for the Jerusalem Post

Wow. I look forward to hearing their presentations — and here is the gist of mine, if you’re interested.

Today two friends of Israel, John Edwards and Rudolph Giuliani, dropped out of the race for the White House. Senator Edwards was the only candidate I really felt good about — one I would vote for because I believe he’d make an excellent President, just not that he’d be less of a disaster than the opposing candidate. Mayor Giuliani was the only Republican in the race that wasn’t totally unpalatable to me. There are a lot of Giuliani’s positions that I’m uncomfortable with but from the Republican field he was the best available.

Of the choices remaining I have no doubt that Senator Hillary Clinton would make the best President. She is a two term U.S. Senator with what I consider an excellent voting record on the issues important to me. If I go by issues and not personality or campaign style there is no question that she has the qualifications and experience to be President. I don’t believe the same can be said for Senator Obama.

The number one key issue to me is support for the State of Israel. I believe anyone who doesn’t understand Israel’s importance to the United States as a strategic ally in the Middle East doesn’t have much of a clue about foreign policy. Since entering the Senate Hillary Clinton has been a steadfast supporter of Israel. She admitted early in her first term that it wasn’t always so and many on the right will never forgive her for a certain meeting and photo up with Suha Arafat when she was First Lady. Senator Clinton claimed after entering the Senate that studying the issues in the Middle East forced her to alter her position. Whether that change was heartfelt or a political necessity for a Senator from New York I simply can’t say. I can say that her voting record, her speeches since then, and her actions show that she understands the importance of Israel now. Once again, I am not sure I can say the same of Barack Obama. There isn’t much of a record there.

Perhaps in four or eight years I’ll be convinced that Senator Obama is ready for the Presidency. Perhaps then I will look at his record and extol his virtues. I can’t do that yet and in a dangerous world we need an experienced leader. Senator Hillary Clinton is the best remaining candidate with the credentials to be that leader.

A community member, Lisa Gershowitz Flynn, is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant–it will save her life, but it needs to happen fast. Lisa is a very special person, mother of two, who lives in New York City. It is imperative that she find a donor match as soon as possible. Testing is painless, and fast, and we’re imploring anyone who can to please take the time out of their schedule to help try and save a life.

If you are in New York City, please contact the NY Blood Bank at 212-570-3441 (310 East 67th Street) and make an appointment for HLA typing.  If you’re not in NY, go to www.marrow.org or call 1-800-MARROW-2 to find the donor center nearest you.  Please let them know the test is for “Lisa Flynn” and they will know where to forward your results.  You can also contact City of Hope - Lisa’s family has been in close contact with them as well: www.cityofhope.orgBloodDonorCenter/marrow.htm

Friends, we’re asking you to please pass this around via email and on the blogs, and to act on the urgent need.

Few people realize today that one of the cornerstones of the ‘Israel Lobby,’ that is the American Jewish Committee (AJC), was an anti-Zionist organization for much of its early existence. Until the creation of the State, the AJC basically opposed those who would seek to claim that the Jews need a state of their own–saying that such talk was dangerous and seditious, if not traitorous. In fact, it was up until and through the 1950s that the AJC conducted a rather public pressure campaign on Israeli leaders–even ‘forcing’ Ben Gurion to declare that ‘American Jews are not in Exile — they are at home in America’ (what I’d call an anti-Zionism that accepts the facts on the ground — or non-Zionism for the politically correct).

Well, it could be that those times are truly in the past — the AJC recently launched a new website that seems at first glance to be an attempt to reclaim the Z-Word — Zionism, of course. The site features podcasts, a blog (which for some reason does not have an RSS feed–which means you’ll have to update me as to the content), and essays. Interesting. Let’s see if the AJC’s ghosts come back to roost.

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The strike in the Israeli higher education system points to a number of fundamental and systemic problems in the Israeli education system, one being that Israel’s highly centralized system of higher education is simply not serving the needs of the Israeli public. One of the entrepreneurs to capitalize on this need in such a way that has added immense value to Israel and the Jewish People is Jehuda Haddad, profiled by the Jerusalem Post.

The Israeli public has so much potential, so much promise, that it is a shame to maintain the bottleneck of centralized education. Moreover, there is no need to limit the potential impact of such institutions — Israel should be providing opportunities for Jews around the world, let alone humans from all nations, to learn worldly and technical knowledge in a particularly Jewish way. That is to say that we should recognize that the Jewish People have been particularly good at transmitting and innovating on knowledge over the millennia, and it has always seemed to me quite odd–let alone pathetic–that the colleges in our very own state follow the paradigm of the Germanic Institutions. It’s time for educational theorists to reach back into Jewish pedagogy and find those jewels of wisdom that have made the Jewish People the most well prepared among the nations for the Knowledge Economy. And such a search will probably start in a place in the periphery, like Shamoon.

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I came across some very disturbing news on ynet. The Muslim Brotherhood of of Jordan has gone to the streets in Amman protesting the situation in Gaza and calling on Hamas to resume Suicide Bombings. Fellow Arab Muslims calling on their brethren to resume Suicide Bombings. Rough.

Simply beyond comprehension.

I received a bit of flack from a previous post on Rudy. Seems not as many people as I thought admire “America’s Mayor”. One person who does, however, is Martin Kramer who is an American scholar of the Middle East at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Shalem Center, and the Olin Institute, Harvard University. His focus is on Islam and Arab politics.

Check out what he had to say about Rudy

Martin Kramer received his PhD in Near East studies from Princeton in 1982.

Rudy is down in the polls, and it is largely due to poor strategy on behalf of his campaign consultants. Still anything can change and we all know from New Hampshire that polls can be very misleading.

Let me know what you guys think…And please, I know this may be very difficult for some of you, but let’s try to have some discussion, rather than personal attacks which do nothing but taint the quality of this blog.

I’m pretty slow on the up-take. All this time, I did not know that there is a blog out there devoted exclusively to issues of religion and state in Israel, aptly named, “Religion and State in Israel”! It’s edited by a guy named Joel Katz and notes in its header that it is not affiliated with any organization or institution. Does anyone know anything about this blog or its editor?

In other news, there is an interesting conversation going on over at the Volokh Conspiracy regarding the historically liberal nature of American Jewry, prompted by the recent PBS documentary titled, “The Jewish Americans,” which aired a few weeks ago. I urge those who missed it to try and catch a rerun or find it online. If you have the time, check out the comments at Volokh, since it’s an interesting back-and-forth.

Dave Burnett, one of the kindest, sweetest, and most engaging people we’ve ever ever been fortunate enough to met, was tragically killed in a cliff accident during a visit to Petra. Dave will be remembered with love and affection for the brightness he brought into the lives of so many of us who met him at ROI120, LUN, or in the context of his untold number of activities on behalf of the Jewish Community. Just a few weeks ago, in a talk with an AUJS group, his name came up countless times with smiles, just because he’s the type of guy who made you smile even from thousands of miles away. It is just so hard to believe he is really gone….May his memory be an inspiration to us all, and our greatest wishes of condolence to his family and friends. Yehi zichro baruch.

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