March 2008

During his three years in the U.S. Senate, Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s voting record and statements have generally been quite supportive of Israel. In an op-ed piece which appeared in the New York Times on February 11, Roger Cohen quotes Obama and seeks to reassure Jewish voters that the Illinois Senator is, indeed, a supporter of Israel.

Shortly after launching his own Presidential campaign Ralph Nader, speaking on CNN, complained that Obama was pro-Palestinian prior to entering the Illinois Senate and urged the candidate to abandon his support of Israel. He followed that up on NBC by claiming that Obama is too pro-Israel. That Nader is staunchly anti-Israel is old news. The question he raises isn’t: Is Barack Obama, in his heart of hearts, more sympathetic to the Palestinians than to Israel? Is his support for Israel a position he adopted for the purpose of running for public office rather than something he truly believes? Would an Obama administration continue the special relationship between Israel and the United States or would it condition that relationship on Israeli concessions that would seriously undermine Israel’s security in the short term and its survival in the long term?

Senator Obama has precious little foreign policy experience of his own. He will undoubtedly depend heavily on his key foreign policy advisers. I think the best way to answer the questions I’ve posed is to take a look at the positions and records of his foreign policy and military advisers.

Robert Malley was a special assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs under President Bill Clinton. He is also the only member of President Clinton’s negotiating team at Camp David in 2000 who places the blame for the failure of the Oslo preace process squarely on the backs of the Israeli government. Prime Minister Sharon, who took the oh-so-controversial step of a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was repeatedly accused by Malley of “unswerving goals […] for the last 30 years, to vanquish Mr. Arafat, and more recently, to undo the foundations of the Oslo agreement” while presenting Arafat as a man unswervingly dedicated to peace in spite of all evidence to the contrary. He also blames Israel and American foreign policy, not Hizbullah, for the 2006 Lebanon War. Malley has repeatedly called for providing Hamas with international aid and has equated the policies of Hamas terrorists with those of the Israeli government. Malley has called for a radically different approach to the Middle East, an approach which would not be supportive of Israel.

Would you want a man with these views to have the ear of the President of the United States? Malley has been touted as a possible Secretary of State in an Obama administration. I find that prospect worrying indeed. Yet, of all of Obama’s close foreign policy and military advisers, Malley is the least objectionable to supporters of Israel. In Part 2 we’ll take a look at those advisers: people who will inform Obama’s decisions on how to deal with what they consider to be “an apartheid state.”

As I mentioned in a comment on Ariel’s last post, “Israel, soon to be 60 years young,” when I was a high school senior in Detroit I wrote an article for the Detroit Free Press about Israel’s 50th anniversary. I think this is a fitting time to reprint what I wrote. It was one of a series of columns written by local Jewish leaders. However, I noticed at the time that all the people writing were over the age of forty and none were Orthodox. I took it upon myself to write one from a young perspective and from an Orthodox perspective. This is what I came up with:

Too Young to remember, but choosing not to foget
By Joshua Skarf
Detroit Free Press
April 29, 1998

Israel’s 50th anniversary has been turned into more than a simple celebration. Around the world, people are coming to terms with what Israel means to them, how they have seen it grow and change in the past half century, its struggles and triumphs, growths and setbacks.

A popular angle on this story seems to be “How Israel has changed the situation of the Jews.” This is perhaps the most important angle, and I am staunch in my own view that the establishment of the State of Israel has been the most significant event of our time, both for the general population and for Jews worldwide. Israel has provided us with a means for unification, hope and freedom from persecution.

However, I have a problem with this slant. Although I can easily recognize and agree with the statement being made, it is harder for me to claim the same personal leel of understanding. Like the majority of Jews in the world today, I was born after 1948. Not just a few years after, when Israel was still as uncertain as a baby taking its first steps, but over 30 years later.

Throughout my life, Israel has been something to be taken for granted. In school I studied in the Torah of a time when Jews had their own state, and on television, I saw the modern Jewish state, as if the two had never been separated by 2,000 years of turmoil. Obviously, this tendency to take Israel for granted was quickly eliminated as my education progressed, but the point is that my mistake was easily made because both Jewish nations seemed so concrete.

My misunderstanding was short-lived for a reason: Like most Jews, I feel it is crucial for us to remember the horrors of all Jewish history, whether that be the Crusades, the Chmelnitzki Massacres, the Holocaust or any other event from a long list of anti-Semitic atrocities.

But me early mistake reveals a significant aspect of Israel’s 50th birthday: The number 50 in my mind marks the second generation of the country, for now there is a majority of people who were not around when Israel was founded. People like me, high school students and younger who are the future of Israel, were not even around for the Six Day War in 1967 or the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The closest we have ever come to seeing the State of Israel in peril was the Persian Gulf War in 1991, and that was by no means of the same caliber as the other wars Israel fought. For us, Israel is firmly rooted, like an old tree in our backyard.

The true triumph of the 50th anniversary isn’t our being able to forget the times of Jewish peril. It is that given the choice, we have not. Too often people lose touch with their heritage and history. Before we celebrate Israeli Independence Day, we have Memorial Day, when we look back at the wars Israel has fought and the soldiers that have given their lives for Israel to have a 50th birthday. And that in turn is preceded by Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was celebrated last week. As we move ahead, we do not leave anything behind.

So as I and many other Jews in America celebrate these state holiays and think of Israel’ future, we can all, even those of us who are not half the age of Israel, meaningfully reflect on the history of the Jewish state. Even though I did not live during its struggle to survive, I remain strongly connected by my education, activities, hopes and dreams.

Everyone can share the feelings of safety and exultation that come with Israel’s 50th. That is what makes it so special.

Joshua Skarf is regional director of Bnei Akiva, an international Orthodox Zionist youth movement. He is a senior at Akiva Hebrew Day School

It seems like only yesterday when our baby State was born. Ok–maybe not. Most of us reading this blog have never known a time when the State was NOT formed — which is why Israel’s 60th in our experience will be rather different than Israel’s 60th as experienced by even our parents’ generation.

To celebrate this occasion, PresenTense Magazine is putting out a special edition…and here is a sneak peek.

Interested in subscribing? Click here. And if you run an organization that would like to reach a young Jewish audience, or distributing a collection of stories by young Jews and exploring the young Jewish reaction to Israel at 60, contact Simi@presentensemagazine.org.

Ehud Olmert’s office is proposing building a “central portal” for the world Jewry that will contain information on Judaism, Jewish culture, and a window into Israeli government policy.. Interesting idea, and glad to see someone in the Prime Minister’s Office is thinking about how to use the web in service of policy, unity, and education. However, from the tone of the article, it sounds like it is going to be a centrally designed info portal, and that is a big mistake–way too yesteryear. It is important to understand that it is highly unlikely that a website not incorporating large amounts of user driven content will successfully grasp the attention of world Jewry. Facebook today is probably the largest “Jewish” website in the world, and the most interesting and original Jewish content on the web is appearing on hundreds of sites and generated by even more users. So if the process is still early enough, the planning committee should think seriously about how it intends to make the site a platform and not merely a product. Beyond that, how can the site push content to users and to other sites, rather than expect to become a catch all generalist destination.

Tomorrow is the Jewish festival of Purim. One of the big mitzvot associated with Purim is Mishloach Manot, sending food gifts to your neighbors. This practice was encouraged mainly to increase the level of brotherhood felt among the Jewish Nation - although we often choose to give gifts to our friends and family, it is also an excellent opportunity to give to people with whom you are not yet close friends, as a way of encouraging friendship.

This morning on Israeli radio, I heard an interview with a number of residents of Sderot and the surrounding areas, who are under an almost daily bombardment. One person interviewed was kindergarten teacher Daphna Solomon, who described how the city has been inundated with Mishloach Manot. Packages have been arriving from all over the country and from around the world. Her genuine happiness at this was heartwarming. She explained that each of her kindergarteners is going home with two or three packages. As a class, they open each package, look on a map of Israel to see where it is from, and then write a thank you letter. Daphna said that it was like getting a big hug from the entire country.
Afterward, the mayor was interviewed. He said

“This nation is the best nation in the world. There is no house that has not received twice or three times.”

Let’s hope that on this Purim we can all find a way to spread as much joy.
Happy Purim.

This comes to BoZ from Calev Ben-Dor, an analyst at the Reut Institute:
MiShenichnas Adar Marbim Besimcha – when the Hebrew month of Adar begins, our joy is increased. The new month signals the upcoming festival of Purim – when by working behind the scenes God saved the Jews from complete destruction, a reason for celebration if ever there was one.

Yet what happens when Adar comes and happiness does not increase?

Last Thursday evening, as Jews welcomed in this month of joy, a gunmen walked into a Yeshiva and sprayed between 400-500 bullets, murdering 8 young men who were pouring over holy Torah texts. A week on, I still can’t bring myself to look at pictures of the carnage that was left in the study hall.

And over and above the shock, anger and sadness at the attack, I felt an overriding sense of nascent fear – that perhaps this signaled the start of something more, a return to darker days; where catching or missing that morning bus or deciding on pizza rather than a movie could make the difference between life and death; where every attack sent a host of phone calls and text messages to friends and loved ones; where Israelis stopped feeling safe doing the most normal of things. Where hope for a better future all but disappeared.

The week after Purim we read of the tragic death of two of the High Priest’s sons, Nadav and Avihu. Their death occurred on one of the happiest days of Aaron’s life, the dedication of the tabernacle. And as Moshe tries to comfort his brother with theological justifications (”This is what the Lord meant when He said: Through those near to be I show myself holy and gain glory before all the people”) Aaron doesn’t cry out in pain or anger, he doesn’t try and rationalize or apportion blame. His response is simply silence.

And perhaps Aaron - known as the ‘lover and pursuer of peace’ - teaches us that sometimes the appropriate responses to tragedies are not discussions over how there will never be peace with the Arabs, or how it was an inevitable response to Israeli actions in Gaza, or why the gunman’s home town of Jebal Mukaber is considered part of the eternal undivided capital of Israel.

Sometimes, the only response is silence…

So as Israelis prepare to celebrate a festival of joy against a background of terror in Jerusalem, hopelessness in Sderot, rockets on Ashkelon, the failures of Lebanon and casualties in Gaza, its difficult to feel the happiness increasing. Yet in many ways this is perhaps the archetypal Israeli experience, of sadness being mixed with joy, of delight colored by poignancy…because even during our darkest days Jews continued to believe in the potential for a better (Messianic) world; even our national anthem emphasizes that ‘Od Lo Avda Tikvateinu’ – our hope was not lost.

So let’s hope we can be strengthened in these difficult days and pray that one day we’ll not only love and pursue peace but also achieve it…and that just like Bayamim Hahem, in those days, there is some sort of hand working behind the scenes to save the day.

The 7th of Adar is the day on which Moses died. It’s also the day that the State of Israel commemorates soldiers who have died but whose bodies were never recovered. This is done deliberately, as the ceremony began with the reading of some of the final verses of the Torah:

And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Bet Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

I thought that the ceremony was particularly moving. The army’s chief rabbi begged forgiveness of the dead soldiers for having not succeeded in bringing them to be buried in our Holy Land. A few stories of missing soldiers were told, some who were killed as long ago as 1948. Yet it still seemed fresh and genuine. I think the tie-in with Moses was the key.

One of the mains of anti-Semitic propaganda has always been the sexual deviance of Jews. And so it is only proper for Zionism to see, to normalize Sex as they have normalized the Jews as a Nation, argues Roi Ben-Yehuda:

In some sense the original erotic impulse of Zionism was sublimated into the conquest, submission, and fertilization of the land. The marriage, to use Buber’s phrase, of Adam (Human) and Adama (earth). In effect then, what events like the sextival are actually doing is bringing back the transformative and sexually creative potentiality of Zionism. Or as Philip Roth would say, putting back the Id in Yid.

While Herzl may not have approved of lap-dances, and Golda may not have purchased the latest model of the Rabbit, their call for normalization is in accord with the goal of the sextival – i.e. to normalize sexuality.

And it sure makes Israel a more interesting place, too.

That’s right, if you’re a “young innovator or leader” you should be applying for the annual ROI120 conference. I’ve been to two of them and have met some of the greatest young Jews on the globe (literally, folks come in from Mumbai, Moscow, Budhapest, Jo’berg, Sydney, Rio, etc.). Apply right here.

…at least that’s what Rav Dan Segel has to say.  He is predictably [and outrageously] attributing the attack last Thursday, which killed 8 students, to the sin of religious Zionism.  His statements are a reminder of the great controversy that still surrounds the movement that Rav Cook founded more than a half-century ago, and which has steadily expanded its influence through the years. Of course, Rav Segel’s comments are not just inflammatory, but deeply offensive and morally repulsive, evocative of claims by some ultra-Orthodox that sinful Jews were to blame for the Holocaust.

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