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Reporting on the Middle East, Science, and Education for July 28, 2010 - י"ז אב תש"ע
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This year, Tisha B’Av (the annual Jewish fast day commemorating the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem) once again reminded us of the dangers of “gratuitous hatred” without rhyme or reason for one’s fellow Jews; the kind of hatred for its own sake, which seems more recently to have become part of our everyday Israeli reality. Divisions between Ultra-Orthodox and Secular Jews or the bitter antagonism towards the settlers in the West Bank are of course not new, but they have lost nothing of their malevolent edge. No less distressing are the actions of those Israeli lecturers who defend the international anti-Israel boycott in the name of academic freedom and the much larger numbers of those who denounce any criticism or sanctions against these boycotters as “McCarthyism”.
Such harsh polemics are happening at a time of unprecedented hatred towards Israel as a nation within the international community. The hysteria surrounding the Gaza flotilla brought this trend to new heights of hypocrisy. It reflects the ongoing campaign of branding Israel as the “Jew” of nations – libeling it as a racist, bloodthirsty, pariah-state. At the same time, American Jewish support for Israel’s policies, especially among liberals, has also been increasingly eroded. This has potentially dangerous consequences for our relations with the Diaspora, already tense over the issue of non-Orthodox conversions.True, the majority of Americans still show remarkable empathy with Israel’s dilemmas and President Obama has more recently chosen to adopt a somewhat friendlier tone to Israel’s prime minister. Many European leaders, while less supportive than the United States, are by no means blind to Israel’s security needs, to the Iranian threat or to the disastrous implications of Hamas’s violent rule in Gaza. Nevertheless, the international weakening of Israel’s legitimacy as a state remains deeply troubling. It has been accompanied by an unprecedented explosion of global anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism during the past few years. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on July 28, 2010 - י"ז אב תש"ע at 9:43 am
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The Palestinian Right to Israelby Dr. Alex Grobman
[Note: Readers who purchase through www.balfourstore.com will get a discount and an extra 10% discount on the price of the book, so it will cost $16. Please use the following password:INN2010 when purchasing]
The Arab/Israeli conflict is among the most intractable disputes in the world today. In this meticulously researched and well-written work, Dr. Alex Grobman, a renowned historian trained at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, systematically and methodically exposes the myths and lies about the Arab right to the land of Israel.
Grobman traces the historical, religious and spiritual connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel after the end of Jewish sovereignty in 70 CE; dispels the Arab claim that Palestine is a “twice promised land,” because the British pledged it to both the Arabs and the Jews; examines the Arab reaction to the Balfour Declaration and Jewish immigration to Palestine that established a precedent for dealing with Arabs that continues to this day; and examines Arab activities during WWII to thwart an Allied victory.
Grobman shows that the Arabs have never accepted the right of Jews to re-establish their sovereignty in the land of Israel, and how they continually try to refute the Jewish connection to Israel, especially the city of Jerusalem: by destroying Temple Mount artifacts to eliminate any evidence of a Jewish past, by accusing Israeli archeologists of manipulating authentic archeological evidence to justify the Jewish people’s right to Israel and by charging that the Jews are not a people at all, and are consequently not entitled to a country of their own. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, News Articles, Opinion, Recent Posts on July 25, 2010 - י"ד אב תש"ע at 8:10 am
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By Tzofia Hirschfeld, YNet News, July 21, 2010
The Jewish people’s personal belongings are scattered all over the world: It has synagogues, prayer books, tombstones and cemeteries in various countries. Jews no longer reside in some of these places, and all they left behind is slowly disintegrating.
The “Journey to Jewish Heritage” project, initiated by Beit Avi Chai and the Zalman Shazar Center, aims to locate and document the remnants of Jewish life. Budgetary constraints now threaten the project’s existence, and if it is shut down, an entire world will be lost with it.
“We may be losing out last chance to document important evidence of Jewish existence in the Diaspora,” said Hannah Holland, the project’s director. “We are talking about disappearing communities – some of them diminished because of the Holocaust, some of them because of emigration. When we visit these places, we are met with remains of a splendid past and try to salvage last pieces of evidence of what once was, but now is gone. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Judaism, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 21, 2010 - י' אב תש"ע at 10:21 am
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THE YIDDISH VOICE, Boston’s weekly Yiddish-language radio show, will feature a conversation in Yiddish with historian David Fishman, who edited _Droshes un Ksovim_, the 2009 book of writings in Yiddish by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, on Wednesday, July 21, 2010, 7:30-8:30 PM, on WUNR-1600 AM. Info at yiddishvoice.com, or email radio@yv.org, or call 617-730-8484.
Dos Yidishe Kol: Prof’ Fishman Vegn Horav Soloveitchiks Yidishe Ksovim
Dos Yidishe Kol, di vekhntlekhe Bostoner radio-program af Yidish, vet transmitirn a shmues mitn historiker Prof’ Dovid-Elyohu Fishman, redaktor fun nay aroysgegebenem band _Droshes un Ksovim_ fun Horav Yosef-Ber Soloveitchik, kumedikn Mitvokh, dem 21stn Yuli 2010 fun 7:30 biz 8:30 in ovnt af radio-stantsye WUNR 1600 AM. Vayterdike informatsye ken men dergeyn afn vebzaytl: yiddishvoice.com, oder telefonish: 1-617-730-8484, oder durkh blitspost afn adres: radio@yv.org Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Judaism, Recent Posts on July 19, 2010 - ח' אב תש"ע at 11:04 am
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By DANIEL GORDIS, Jerusalem Post, May 28, 2010
Instead of trying to convince ourselves that it’s not really raining and that there are only a few clouds in the sky, we should be asking a few basic questions on the relationship between Israel and young American Jews
In October 1994, several days after kidnapped IDF soldier Nachshon Wachsman was killed in a failed attempt to save him from his terrorist captors, I was scheduled to teach my weekly graduate seminar at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. But given the horror of what had just transpired, I couldn’t even imagine simply teaching as planned. I no longer recall what had been scheduled for that day. But what I do remember is that I decided to scrap the usual fare and that I taught a text in memory of Wachsman.
As the seminar drew to a close, it was obviously quiet in the room. But just as the students were preparing to disperse, one looked at me and asked, “What does any of this have to do with us?”
More than 15 years later, I can still picture that moment, frozen in time. I remember exactly where she was sitting. I recall the looks of discomfort on the faces of some of the other students, but the nods of agreement with her question from others. And I remember that I had no idea what to say.
And I remember feeling unbearably lonely and wholly out of place. Lonely because it was clear that she was not the only one wondering why in the world we were thinking about Nachshon Wachsman, when my own heart was breaking, and out of place because I had no idea how to engage those students in a conversation about why he mattered to me. I didn’t know where to begin.
What I didn’t know then, of course, was that a question that seemed to me an aberration would soon become the norm. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on May 29, 2010 - ט"ז סיון תש"ע at 10:29 pm
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By Philip Klein , American Spectator, May 17, 2010
In the past, I’ve remarked to friends that the difference between a Jewish liberal and a Jewish conservative is that when a Jewish liberal walks out of the Holocaust Museum, he feels, “This shows why we need to have more tolerance and multiculturalism.” The Jewish conservative feels, “We should have killed a lot more Nazis, and sooner.”
I thought of this as I read Peter Beinart’s new essay, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” which argues that “liberal Zionism” is in danger unless groups such as AIPAC start to take a more critical view of Israel’s actions. Beinart, using a Frank Luntz survey of young American Jews as a jumping off point, writes:
Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster — indeed, have actively opposed — a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.
The problem, however, isn’t with leading Jewish organizations that defend Israel, but with liberalism. As sickening as it sounds, Jewish liberals see their fellow Jews as noble when they are victims being led helplessly into the gas chambers, but recoil at the thought of Jews who refuse to be victims, and actually take actions to defend themselves. It isn’t too different from American liberal attitudes toward criminal justice or terrorism, where morality is turned upside down and the lines between criminals and victims become blurred, and in certain cases, even reversed. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on May 18, 2010 - ה' סיון תש"ע at 12:56 pm
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Selections from classical Torah sources
which express the special relationship between
the People of Israel and Eretz YisraelReprinted for Shavuot 5770
In our Pesach Special we called attention to the arrangement of the long list of expressions of gratitude to Hashem in the “Dayenu” song which suggests that the gift of Torah was an indispensable prerequisite to the gift of the land of Israel. For our Shavuos Special, focusing on the Festival of the Giving of the Torah, we offer the following insight on the special dimension which Eretz Yisrael lends to the quality of Torah observance.
In the second chapter of the Shema which we recite each morning and evening we repeat Hashem’s warning that turning away from Him to worship idols will result in being exiled from the land which He has given us. This is immediately followed by the commandments of tefillin and mezuza.This connection is explained by the Midrash (Sifri Parshas Eikev) with a parable.
A king became angry with his wife and sent her off to her parents’ home. As he banished her he instructed her to continue wearing her royal jewelry even while she was away so that she would be familiar with them when she eventually returned to his palace. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Judaism, Middle East, Monotheistic Religions, Recent Posts on May 18, 2010 - ה' סיון תש"ע at 10:21 am
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OpEdNews
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Talking-with-Itamar-Marcus-by-Joan-Brunwasser-100507-213.html
Talking with Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch
By Joan Brunwasser
My guest today is Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch. Welcome to OpEdNews, Itamar. Please tell our readers what Palestinian Media Watch is and why you felt compelled to create it.
Itamar Marcus
PMW was established 14 years ago. Since then, we have been reading the three daily Palestinian newspapers, watching and video recording Palestinian Authority official TV and studying all their schoolbooks. Our goal is to get an accurate picture of the internal Arabic language Palestinian world and especially what Palestinian leadership is saying to their children. We feel that if there is to be peace, it has to start with children and has to be founded on peace education. Therefore, what children are being taught in schools and what they are learning from music videos and children’s media are a better indicator of the real beliefs and goals of the leaders, and will also determine if we have peace in the next generation.
Our conclusion, unfortunately, has been that there are two different worlds: the English language world for foreign consumption and the Arabic language for internal consumption and there is often no resemblance between the two.
How different is that from what goes on in Israel? You enjoy real freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Israel. So, Arabs, and especially Palestinians, are often vociferously attacked in the Israeli media, aren’t they?
Arabs and Palestinians are never attacked in Israel for what they are. In fact, in Israel, it is against the law to incite. Palestinians are verbally attacked for terror promotion and terror support. After the terror attack in 2008, in which 8 Israeli teenagers were murdered by a Palestinian terrorist who murdered them while they were studying in a high school library, the New York Times reported that 84% of Palestinians supported the attack and killings. This is the kind of thing that makes Israelis angry and critical of Palestinians. The Palestinians have named summer camps and soccer tournaments for kids after Palestinian suicide terrorists. This likewise brings anger and condemnation. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion on May 10, 2010 - כ"ו אייר תש"ע at 10:05 am
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By ABE SELIG, Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2010
An education system made up of multiple sectors, like Israel’s, is an acceptable model with potential for success, as long as all of those sectors are held to the same standards and the same level of accountability, New York City School Chancellor Joel Klein told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Sunday.
“Different systems are fine,” said Klein, who sat down for the brief interview before addressing a conference on education reform, sponsored by the Jerusalem Municipality and Hakol Hinuch – the Movement for the Advancement of Education in Israel, at the Jerusalem International Convention Center (Binyamei Ha’uma).
“But no matter what the system is, when a child graduates, he or she has to be college- or career-ready,” he said.
While Klein stressed that he was speaking only through the lens of his experience in America, the chancellor’s eight-year tenure as the head of the United States’ largest public school system – it has more than 1.1 million pupils in more than 1,420 schools – has seen the implementation of a number of highly successful, albeit controversial, reforms that have turned New York City’s educational institutions around.
Asked what steps the Israeli education system could take to mirror such success, Klein said that ensuring the equality of skills among pupils emerging from secondary school – regardless of whether they were modern Orthodox, secular, haredi or Arab – was among the most important. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Middle East, News Articles on May 10, 2010 - כ"ו אייר תש"ע at 6:16 am
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By: Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D., Jewish Press, April 28 2010
University officials need to make clear their campuses will allow many different views and perspectives and not countenance the exclusion of unpopular thought from the proverbial marketplace of ideas.
Of the many intellectual perversions currently taking root on college campuses, perhaps none is more contradictory to what should be one of higher education’s core values than the suppression of free speech.
With alarming regularity, speakers are shouted down, booed, jeered, and barraged with vitriol, all at the hands of groups who give lip service the notion of academic free speech – and who demand it when their speech is at issue but have no interest in listening to, or letting others listen to, ideas that contradict their own world view.
Earlier this year, two Israeli officials, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon and Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren had the unpleasant experience of confronting virulent anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Muslim students whose ideology on academic debate seems to be “free speech for me, but not for thee.”
Ayalon, who spoke at Oxford University, had his speech interrupted by several audience members, including one who yelled incessantly and called Ayalon a “racist” and “a war criminal” while waving a Palestinian flag, another student who loudly read passages of the incendiary Goldstone report, and a third student who remained standing for the entire balance of the lecture while she hurled anti-Israel invective. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on April 30, 2010 - ט"ז אייר תש"ע at 11:11 am
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