Yourish.com

10/30/2009

Briefly

Filed under: Iran, Israel, Jews, News Briefs, The One, World — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 10:00 am

Obama administration forces Honduras to let anti-Semitic nutjob back in power: So, the guy who said that Mossad agents were poisoning him is going to be back in charge of Honduras in some fashion, forced there by the United States and the OAS overriding Honduras’ Supreme Court decisions and the laws of the nation. Way to go, Obama! Way to work for the rule of law. Oh, wait. It’s the Chicago Way. I keep forgetting.

Awesome: Congressional nitwit puts private ethics investigation data on public website. You have to love the internet age, because people being people, there are still just as many idiots as there were before everything was online. Only now when they make mistakes, we get to see what’s really going on behind the scenes in Congress.

Postcards from the IDF: Yossi Klein Halevi on Israeli citizens’ receipt of a postcard that details how much time they have to get to the nearest bomb shelter in the event of a missile attack. A sobering read.

No. Ya think? Best headline yet on the Iran cheat-and-retreat strategy: “Iran accused of playing games on nuclear deal.” The Telegraph wins the Keen Grasp of the Obvious award for that one.

But—but—this totally blows away the “European colonialism” argument! Genetic proof that Jews were from the land of Israel, and the man behind the science. (Of course, he’s a Jew.)

10/07/2009

Israeli Jew wins a Nobel, world boycott movement in shock

Filed under: Israel, Jews — Meryl Yourish @ 10:10 am

Go ahead, world. Boycott Israeli academic institutions. It totally makes sense, because it’s not like Israeli students will grow up to do Nobel-prize winning work or anything like that.

Israeli scientist Ada Yonath, 70, was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry for showing how ribosomes function, work that has important implications for antibiotics, the prize committee said on Wednesday.

She’s a native-born Israeli, just the type we keep being told are the usurpers in the land. Funny, she’s older than the modern state of Israel. How did she manage to usurp the land?

A renowned scientist, Yonath serves as the director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

She was a co-recipient of the 2006 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, along George Feher, and in 2008, became the first Israeli to win a lifetime’s achievement award from L’Oréal and UNESCO for her vital work identifying how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.

Now she has become the first Israeli woman to win a Nobel Prize.

The would-be head of UNESCO from Egypt threatened to burn any Israeli books he found in Egyptian libraries. Ada was so poor as a child, she couldn’t even afford books.

I’ll have to readjust the Jewish Nobel count, but I think I’ll wait until they’re all in.

Update: Linked by Yahoo! News again. A typical comment (that I’m not approving): “Such hate…” Get it? Pointing out that Israelis are contributing to the world is hate. I think it’s safe to respond: Such idiots….

10/05/2009

Best of The Jewish/Israeli Blogosphere #237

Filed under: Israel, Jews — Jack @ 1:33 am

Every week we run a blog carnival called Haveil Havalim. It is a collection of the Best Posts of The Jewish/Israeli Blogosphere.

I am pleased to let you know that the 237th edition of the carnival is now live.

As a point of information the carnival is a pluralistic exercise. It draws posts from all sides of the spectrum and thus offers readers a chance to read perspectives and postiions that they might not otherwise be exposed to.

Go read it and let us know what you think.

09/18/2009

Rosh Hashanahs past

Filed under: Jews — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 11:30 am

The New York Times has a couple articles about past celebrations of Rosh Hashanah.

In one article the Times tells about how Barbara Ann Paster relives what it was like to observe Rosh Hashanah in 1919 in Portsmouth New Hamphsire.

As Mrs. Shapiro, the wife of a pawnbroker with a 9-year-old daughter, Mrs. Paster cooks dishes that follow the rhythm of the seasons, and the Jewish calendar.

She may make strawberry jam for her strudel in June, or pickle cucumbers with dill from her garden, or put up Reliance peaches with brandy in August.

For Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which begins on Friday evening, she excitedly pinched rolled-out strips of pasta dough into bowtie noodles to use with leftover kasha stuffing from her roast chicken, and made traditional honey and poppy seed cakes.

Mrs. Paster, 61, has been portraying Mrs. Shapiro since the Shapiro house opened in 1997. ?My entire life was made for this job,? Mrs. Paster said with a laugh. ?I married an Orthodox man. I?m Jewish from Russia, so I know the rules of kashrut and family purity. I am also a storyteller.?

The real Shapiro family arrived in the United States just a few years before my father’s grandfather did.

And A soldier’s voice recovered is the story of the first Rosh Hashanah service in Germany since the rise of Hitler – on Armed Services Radio with the sound of mortars in the backgound.

L’Shana Tova Tikatavu!

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

07/20/2009

Monday morning snark news

Filed under: Hamas, Israel, Jews, Lebanon, News Briefs, The One — Meryl Yourish @ 8:00 am

Despicable, if true: Settlers burn Palestinian fields as a consequence of having illegal outposts removed. I have no snark for this, only contempt.

Labor to Israel: Netanyahu and Obama have their wires crossed, which is detrimental to U.S.-Israel relations. Meryl to Labor: Gee, ya think?

Swiss to Israel: Neutral on Hamas? Hey, they’re a major player. Hey, if the Swiss could stay neutral on the Nazis, why not with the Nazi’s heirs? It’s not like you have to take a stand anymore. Who’s going to invade Switzerland? And besides, there’s still the matter of all that Nazi-era Jewish wealth the Swiss have refused to investigate or give back, so it’s not like they’re doing anything unexpected here.

If the Palestinians fire on the IDF from Gaza, and Israel doesn’t invade, did it really happen? Of course, if the IDF goes into Gaza to kill Palestinian terrorists who are trying to kill them, the “cycle of violence” has been restarted and it is, of course, the fault of the defenders rather than the offenders. Just trying to give you the narrative before it’s even written.

Obama’s advisers: They’re as dumb as he is. Really. Read this:

President Barack Obama’s advisers are urging critics of their health care overhaul to wait for Congress to finish writing legislation before issuing verdicts.

Really? They’re voting on legislation without even reading it, and they’re telling us to wait until they’ve finalized a multi-thousand page bill? Oh, that’s not hypocritical at all, is it?

Obama’s approval ratings drop below 50%: Looks like you can’t fool most of the people most of the time. By the way, if you read the article, check the polling data. The Obamedia tends to skew the figures to say what they want them to say.

Hillary: I broke my elbow, not my larynx. See, I toldja there was no rift between Hillary and Obama. She’s not positioning herself away. She’s just as eager to bash Israel as her boss.

UNIFIL covering for Hezbollah, again: This is no surprise. The UN knew about the arms cache that exploded—months ago. I know you’re just as shocked as I am.

The source said UNIFIL had precise information about the cache and a number of other installations where Hezbollah is storing rockets, but that UNIFIL had done nothing.

And what’s the UN going to do about it? Why, what the UN does best.

A discussion is scheduled in the UN Security Council for late August on renewing UNIFIL’s mandate in southern Lebanon.

And that’s it for today. Time to go to work.

07/19/2009

Obama ups the ante on “settlements”

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Israeli Double Standard Time, Jews — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 8:14 am

The Obama administration shows its hand by demanding that Israel stop building in eastern Jerusalem. No word yet if anyone ever objected to Jordan’s near destruction of the city’s ancient Jewish Quarter (including synagogues and Torahs) which was—wait for it—in eastern Jerusalem.

There is going to be some kind of showdown, methinks.

Israeli officials said the country’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, was summoned to the State Department over the weekend and told that a project being developed by an American millionaire in the disputed section of the holy city should not go ahead.

[...] According to Army Radio, the U.S. has demanded that planning approval for the project be revoked.

Amazingly, the AP understands that some territories recaptured in the Six Day War are “disputed” territories—but apparently only when the dispute is whether Jews may live there.

The current narrative utterly ignores the Jewish history of the city, including the fact that there were 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem in 1948, many of whom lived in the Jewish Quarter in the eastern half of the city:

East Jerusalem is an especially volatile issue because it is the site of key Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites. The Palestinians want the traditionally Arab sector of the city to be the capital of their future state.

“The traditionally Arab sector” is a lie. The Jewish quarter was in eastern Jerusalem, which makes it, let’s think—a traditionally Jewish sector as well—but the news services can never seem to mention this.

And here, buried in the very bottom of the story, is something that is absolutely pertinent to why the Obama administration has no right to tell Israel to stop this project:

The east Jerusalem project is being developed by Irving Moskowitz, an influential supporter of Israeli settlement in east Jerusalem who purchased the Shepherd Hotel in 1985 and plans to tear it down and build apartments in its place.

The Jerusalem municipality issued a statement saying the purchase was legal and it had acted with “full transparency” in granting building permits.

The Obama administration is telling Israel to ignore its own laws. Why? Because the Obama administration is going with the narrative that there can be no Jews in “traditionally Arab” Jerusalem.

And how did the Prime Minister of Israel react to this demand?

On Sunday, Netanyahu told his Cabinet there would be no limits on Jewish construction anywhere in “unified Jerusalem.”

“We cannot accept the fact that Jews wouldn’t be entitled to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem,” Netanyahu declared, calling Israeli sovereignty over the entire city “indisputable.”

The Israeli public is solidly behind Netanyahu on this. Just as Obama is trying to ignore American public opinion on any legislation he wants to push through (cf: ObamaCare’s sinking poll numbers).

Once again, we have an example of the Obama administration dictating only to Israel, and giving the Palestinians a pass.

This man is no friend of Israel. The 78% of Jews who voted for him were fooling themselves.

07/17/2009

Wily Jews may have found a cure for radiation poisoning

Filed under: Israel, Jews — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 6:00 am

Wow, won’t this suck for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: If this is true, he can’t destroy Israel, after all.

Medication that can protect humans against nuclear radiation has been developed by Jewish-American scientists in cooperation with a researcher and investors from Israel. The full story behind the dramatic discovery will be published in Yedioth Ahronoth’s weekend edition.

The ground-breaking medication, developed by Professor Andrei Gudkov – Chief Scientific Officer at Cleveland BioLabs – may have far-reaching implications on the balance of power in the world, as states capable of providing their citizens with protection against radiation will enjoy a significant strategic advantage vis-à-vis their rivals.

You know, I really don’t know enough about the process to make a judgment, other than the facts that Jews found a vaccination for polio, developed the Intel microchip, firewalls, cellphones, instant messaging, drip-irrigation technology, the camera pill, the—well, you get the picture. And if you don’t, it’s right here.

Oh. And Jews were the driving force behind the Manhattan Project, which gave America nuclear weapons. And then there’s the whole Albert Einstein thing.

I sure hope this turns out to be true, because it will utterly change the rules of the game in the current drive by rogue states for nuclear weapons. Granted, it won’t stop them from being able to kill many thousands with one missile—but if radiation is no longer an issue, nuclear blackmail is over.

07/14/2009

A masterful assuaging

Filed under: American Scene, Iran, Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, Jews, Politics — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

Last year those of us Jews who didn’t support President Obama in his bid to be elected president were subjected to ridicule. If we didn’t support him it was because we were prejudiced or misinformed. This mocking didn’t just come from his partisans, but also from the media. In a particularly blatant bit of electioneering, the New York Times’s Jodi Kantor reported from Florida that Jews who supported Obama were generous and wonderful but that those who opposed him were narrow minded bigots. In it we got this lecture:

Mr. Obama is Arab, Jack Stern’s friends told him in Aventura. (He’s not.)

He is a part of Chicago’s large Palestinian community, suspects Mindy Chotiner of Delray. (Wrong again.)

Mr. Wright is the godfather of Mr. Obama’s children, asserted Violet Darling in Boca Raton. (No, he’s not.)

Al Qaeda is backing him, said Helena Lefkowicz of Fort Lauderdale (Incorrect.)

Michelle Obama has proven so hostile and argumentative that the campaign is keeping her silent, said Joyce Rozen of Pompano Beach. (Mrs. Obama campaigns frequently, drawing crowds in her own right.)

Mr. Obama might fill his administration with followers of Louis Farrakhan, worried Sherry Ziegler. (Extremely unlikely, given his denunciation of Mr. Farrakhan.)

No substantive reason for doubting the candidate’s concern for Jewish issues was raised. After all candidate Obama sat in church where the pastor expressed antisemitic sentiments for twenty years. Instead the Times manufactured a false “factoid” that it could dismiss. A politician who was praised by Rolling Stone for being a radical is not one who is going to be sympathetic to Israel.

Since the election we’ve been subjected to slightly more honest reporting. Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post has written admiringly of the President’s Jewish influences. One of them was Rabbi Arnold Wolf who advocated for a Palestinian state back in 1973, which was way out of the Jewish mainstream.

When he prepared for his speech to the Muslim world, the President seemed to gather a pretty wide range of Muslims in order to ensure that he didn’t offend his target audience. But yesterday when the President gathered Jewish leaders, giving offense wasn’t really a concern. The President convened a mostly receptive audience. While there were certainly mainstream Jewish organizations represented, the President made sure that partisan organizations such as the NJDC, J-Street and APN – all headed by Democratic Party activists – were there. Even AIPAC is now headed by individuals who are allied with the President..

So yesterday’s gathering was less a matter of assuaging Jewish leaders as the blog entry at the New York Times is headlined, but rather to declare to American Jews that he knows best how to bring peace to the Middle East. And his mostly worshipful audience complied.

The only reported sour note was that Malcolm Honlein questioned the President’s commitment to put Israel on the spot.

Participants said some of the toughest questioning of Mr. Obama came from Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Two said that Mr. Hoenlein told the president that diplomatic progress in the Middle East has traditionally occurred when there is “no light” between the positions of the United States and Israel. But Mr. Obama pushed back, citing the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

“He said, ‘I disagree,’ ” said Marla Gilson, director of the Washington action office of Hadassah, the women’s Zionist organization. “He said, ‘For eight years, there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished.’

The proper response to such glib obfuscation is that during the Clinton administration, when there were clear disagreements between Israel and the United States ended up in the violence of the so-called “Aqsa intifada.” Even if President Obama denies that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza even happened during President Bush’s term in office – given the President’s commitment to end all settlements, one wonders why he ignored this – is open warfare really a better result than nothing?

Additionally Yaacov Lozowick points out:

Nothing got accomplished? Let’s see. The Palestinians launched the worst wave of suicide murders anyone had ever seen (the various factions in Iraq later outdid them). Israel figured out how to beat them, in spite of the 100% of contemporary observers worldwide who said this couldn’t be done and Israel must cave in. Later on, Israel unilaterally left Gaza, disbanding all its settlements on the way out. The Palestinians responded by democratically electing Hamas to govern them, and cheered as Hamas and it allies (including some Fatah elements) escalated the rocket attacks on Israel.

Of course that would confirm something the President would never acknowledge: that there is a military solution to terrorism.

While Ira Forman of the NJDC and Jeremy Ben Ami of J-Street both described the President’s performance as “masterful,” Jennifer Rubin points out that his commitment to engagement with Iran was hardly reassuring.

On that front, representatives of two groups in attendance related to me that there was little resistance to the plan of the president looking for positive signals by September from Iran before looking at sanctions. One explained that “if the Iranians will demonstrate seriousness on the nuclear issue, we have a package for engagement.” (Does a single one of the sixteen not understand that the mullahs are expert at giving positive and entirely meaningless signals, thereby indefinitely stringing us all along?)

While the President complained that it’s a “misperception” that he’s unduly pressuring Israel, the fact that he stacked his meeting with organizations that are sympathetic to his policies and excluded two organizations that were likely to be critical shows that the President’s idea of outreach to Jews is to dictate to them. That’s what happens when the President knows he can take your support for granted.

The question those American Jewish organizations who uncritically support President Obama’s Middle East policy now have to answer is this: given that the President has decided to reset America’s relationship with Israel in a way that a vast majority of Israelis – including leftists – object to, how can still describe yourself as pro-Israel?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

07/13/2009

Pat Buchanan’s buddy charged with Nazi war crimes

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Jews — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 am

Expect more outraged columns by the modern-day Lindbergh on how innocent this poor old man is. And yet, he’s being charged.

German prosecutors on Monday charged suspected Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk with helping to kill about 28,000 Jews in World War II, in what will be one of Germany’s last big Nazi-era war crimes cases.

“State prosecutors in Munich have today charged the 89-year-old John Demjanjuk as an accessory to murder in a total of 27,900 cases,” prosecutors said in a statement.

And expect the Buchananites to show up in the woodwork here. They do crawl around a lot, doing their master’s bidding on the web.

07/10/2009

Dershowitz doubles down

Filed under: Israel, Jews, Politics — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 8:30 am

Alan Dershowitz defends his (flawed) defense of the Obama administration’s stance on the Israel.

This is precisely the situation American supporters of Israel want to avoid. We do not want to replicate the horrible situation that currently exists in Phillips’ Great Britain. We want Israel to remain a bipartisan issue and an issue that does not divide generations. During the Bush administration, Republican support for Israel – which they linked to their failed Iraq policy – alienated many younger and more liberal voters who despised Bush, Cheney and their policies.

Among the reasons that I supported Obama, having first supported Hillary Clinton, is because I believed, and continue to believe, that a young, extremely popular African American President who supports Israel, even if he disagrees with its policies regarding settlement expansion, would be far more influential with mainstream Americans and with people throughout the world than an old conservative republican, who also supported Israel. That is why I gave, and continued to give, President Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt in his dealings with Israel. I take him at his word that he seeks to bring about peace, by means of a two state solution pursuant to which all the Arab states recognize Israel’s right to thrive as a Jewish democracy, while agreeing that any Palestinian state must be demilitarized and incapable of waging war or terrorist attacks against Israel.

I also take him at his word when he says that the United States will not accept a nuclear-armed Iran, and I believe that he has a better chance of achieving that goal through diplomacy – including sanctions if necessary – than would a tough talking and non-negotiating Republican administration.

Dershowitz deserves credit for defending Israel when Israel is unfairly condemned, but his commitment to the Democratic Party blinds him to what is going on. Prominent left wing blogger, Matthew Yglesias sees what’s going on though. (h/t the Provocateur)

It now seems that while Obama was alarming some of his fans, he was also lulling his opponents into a false sense of complacency. In the past couple of months, he has adopted a tough stance against Binyamin Netanyahu’s government and his approach has flummoxed the pro-Israel lobby.The first major sign of change came at a meeting of the lobby’s flagship organisation, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), on 5 May. The annual gathering attracts big-name politicians from across the political spectrum and this year’s session was no exception. But the message from some of the most influential Democrats did more than attempt even-handedness.

“Israel must work toward a two-state solution,” said Vice-President Joe Biden, “not build settlements, dismantle outposts, and allow Palestinians freedom of movement, access to economic opportunity and increased security responsibilities.” Senator John Kerry went further, hailing the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 as an important step and arguing that “nothing will do more to show Israel’s commitment to making peace than freezing new settlement activity”.

As the Provocateur explains Yglesias’s position:

He supports Obama’s Israeli policy because he sees it as sufficiently anti Israel.

Yglesias calls it “evenhanded,” but for people like him that means objectively anti-Israel. But this shouldn’t be surprising as recent polls show that Republicans are more supportive of Israel than are Democrats. The bipartisanship that Dershowitz seeks in support of Israel isn’t being compromised by Republican Jews criticizing President Obama; the bipartisanship has been eroding for some time. In other words, it is up to Israel’s defenders – especially those like the passionate and articulate Dershowitz – to look at the Obama administration’s policies critically and not give it a free pass.

Jonathan Tobin concludes:

But when faced with a Cairo speech troubling even for Dershowitz, a ginned-up dispute about settlements that ignores the reality of there being no Palestinian peace partner, Obama’s repudiation of past commitments to Israel made by previous administrations, and a presidential commitment to “engagement” on Iran that has all the earmarks of appeasement, Democrats like Dershowitz are still unwilling to hold Obama’s feet to the fire. This isn’t a matter of asking Democrats to become Republicans. If, as Dershowitz avows, pro-Israel Democrats have influence on the administration, then let them use it in the same way conservative evangelicals did in 2002 when statements by Secretary of State Colin Powell made it appear as if a Republican administration was taking a similarly “even-handed” approach to Israel’s attempts to defend itself against a Palestinian campaign of suicide attacks. They deluged the White House with calls for strong support for Israel and got results.

If the current trend towards a de-emphasis on the alliance with Israel continues without a strong negative reaction from Jewish Democrats, then we are entitled to ask why they are either silent or rationalizing a policy that they know is wrong. Rather than fending off critiques from those who want him to put his influence to work on behalf of Israel’s interests, what Dershowitz ought to do is use his considerable influence to lead his fellow Democrats in demanding that Obama keep his promises of solidarity with Israel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

06/25/2009

A Hebrew robocall?

Filed under: Jews, Life — Meryl Yourish @ 8:35 pm

Someone in the marketing department in some company that has my phone number really screwed up. Because I got a robocall in Hebrew late this afternoon.

It was the greeting that tipped me off that something was, er, not kosher.

“Shalom!”

From there, I spent the next minute trying desperately to recognize some words. I got “olam” somewhere in the middle, but I think I was laughing a little too hard to get many of them. Oh, and the last word was “shtayim,” but by the time I hit the two key, the robocall had ended, so I didn’t find out if I was correct in thinking the last sentence was, “If you’d like to repeat this information, press two.”

The best Sarah and I can come up with is someone at the local JCC messed up. At least, I’m hoping. Because my number is unlisted, and I moved recently, and I’m on the national Do Not Call list, so I’m thinking whoever called me with a Hebrew robocall is waaay off the mark.

06/10/2009

Dhimmitude on display

Filed under: Iran, Jews — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 9:00 am

Iranian Jews are the finest example of how Jews were treated in Muslim nations during the good old days of the Caliphate.

Witness:

Besides their support, Mutai stressed that “ever since the revolution, the Jewish community has tried very hard not to publicly intervene in election propaganda and to keep clear of the political establishment, since the race between the four candidates has entered a circle of actual physical violence and street fights between supporters of Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. They do not participate in support rallies and certainly do not organize any.”

Professor David Menashri, Director of Tel Aviv University’s Center for Iranian Studies said he also believed that the Jewish votes in Iran are reserved for Ahmadinejad. “The Jews in Iran usually follow the ruling stream in everything to do with internal political power struggles and keep a low profile. They will stay quiet and immediately support whoever wins,” he said.

How can that be? I thought that Jews are cherished and protected under the Iranians—it’s only the Zionists that are despised, is it not?

Not. And this is why:

“The votes are allegedly secret, but in hindsight are not so secret. So the Jews plan to ensure they are on the winning side. In any case, they have no problem supporting whoever is elected,” Ezri said.

They have to support whoever is elected. The Jews of Iran are an endangered species, just as the Jews of the Arab world are pretty much gone from those nations. Yemen is currently the best examples of how Muslims treat The People of the Book. For more examples of that, go look for Christians in Saudi Arabia. You won’t find any publicly practicing their religion, because that’s illegal. Filipinos are regularly arrested for holding private worship services in their homes. Obama has an interesting take on this lack of tolerance.

And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

Yes, the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality exist, but not so much under Islam.

06/09/2009

The studiously avoided refugees

Filed under: Israel, Jews — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

In his speech in Cairo last week President Obama referred to himself as a “student of history.” A number of writers have pointed out that there’s a dimension of the Middle East’s history that the President failed to mention.

A half year ago Reut Cohen wrote:

My paternal grandfather vividly recalls his experiences living as a Jew in Baghdad and the Farhud pogrom, which was a Nazi pogrom coordinated by Haj Amin al-Husseini. In a two-day period Arab mobs went on a rampage in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq. Nearly 300 Jews were killed and more than 2,000 injured; some 900 Jewish homes were destroyed and looted, and hundreds of Jewish-owned shops were robbed and destroyed. My older family members recall witnessing how Iraqi soldiers pulled small children away from their parents and ripped the arms off young girls to steal their bracelets; pregnant women were raped and their stomachs cut open. My grandfather hid his baby brother underneath his t-shirt when the violence began and ran home. My great-grandfather saved his entire family during the riots that broke out in Baghdad by claiming to be a Muslim when Iraqi troops came into their home with the intent of looting, raping, and killing. Eventually, when being a Jew was practically criminalized, my father’s family escaped to Israel with only the clothes on their backs — their belongings were confiscated — leaving behind everything that they knew. Their experience was not a unique one and was shared by several thousand Baghdadi Jews.

Other Islamic countries treated their Jewish populations similarly. My maternal grandmother escaped from Syria during the mid-1940s. Her parents had died and she was forced to live with an older sister. As a 16-year-old girl, she decided to pay a Druze man with the gold her mother left to her and made the long, tedious journey to modern-day Israel. Because Syrian officials would incarcerate any Jew fleeing in the direction of Israel, my grandmother and other individuals making their way from Syria to what eventually became Israel would only be able to walk at night. Several Syrian Jews found it nearly impossible to flee. The last few Jews from Syria made their escape in the early 1990s. Our male relatives who arrived in Israel in the 1990s shared their stories with us. They were taken by Syrian authorities and tortured for unspecified amounts of time, experiencing unspeakable cruelty at the hands of Syrian officials.


Daniel Dagan writes (h/t Crossing the Rubicon):

For much too long Israel has been portrayed as a project of Western immigrants who seized a foreign country in the Orient and drove out its population. Yet I am an Israeli, and I come from the Orient. So I know for sure that I don’t fit this routine story – and I am certainly not alone. Nearly half the Jewish population in Israel are refugees from Arab or Muslim countries. Considering their plight is an indispensable part of any debate on promoting accommodation between Muslims and Jews, let alone between Arabs and Israelis.

Andre Aciman, in a similar vein writes:

With all his references to the history of Islam and to its (questionable) “proud tradition of tolerance” of other faiths, Mr. Obama never said anything about those Jews whose ancestors had been living in Arab lands long before the advent of Islam but were its first victims once rampant nationalism swept over the Arab world.

Nor did he bother to mention that with this flight and expulsion, Jewish assets were — let’s call it by its proper name — looted. Mr. Obama never mentioned the belongings I still own in Egypt and will never recover. My mother’s house, my father’s factory, our life in Egypt, our friends, our books, our cars, my bicycle. We are, each one of us, not just defined by the arrangement of protein molecules in our cells, but also by the things we call our own. Take away our things and something in us dies. Losing his wealth, his home, the life he had built, killed my father. He didn’t die right away; it took four decades of exile to finish him off.

Yaacov Lozowick comments:

Still, it’s worth noting the many things Obama got wrong, not to denigrate him but to retain clarity. While I certainly hope Obama’s aspirations materialize, pretending history didn’t happen is a fine tactic for a speech, but a poor strategy for changing things.

By juxtaposing the mention of the Holocaust with his mention of the Palestinians, President Obama effectively endorsed the view that Israel was founded as a response to the Holocaust. The Arab world has little problem with this. Their approach, in general, is “the Holocaust was European crime, why should the Palestinians suffer?”

So instead of encouraging reconciliation the President’s approach more likely perpetuated the grievances.

Mentioning the Jewish refugees would have accomplished two things. The first, is that it would have served as a reminder that Israel serves as a refuge to all Jews whose hosts no longer want them. Jews in Arab and Muslim lands have suffered depredations; the population of those countries are just as responsible for the creation of a Jewish homeland as are the Europeans. (And yes, it still goes on today.)

And given the integration of Oriental Jews into Israel, also shows that self determination need not be the responsibility of others. President Obama clearly stated that he held Israel responsible for the failure of the Palestinians to have a country of their own. But this absolves their leadership from its own failures to create the institutions of civil society. The contrast in the treatment of Jewish refugees and Arab refugees from 1948 is stark, and the President would have done well to mention it. After all he’s the one who called for “honesty” even if it’s inconvenient.

(h/t Crossing the Rubicon)

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

05/17/2009

Jewish/Israeli Blog Carnival #217

Filed under: Israel, Jews, Religion — Jack @ 2:34 pm

If you want to get a sense of what sorts of issues, thoughts and ideas are buzzing through the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere you need to go check out our blog carnival.

It is called Haveil Havalim and is one of the oldest blog carnivals around. This week we are pleased to announce the 217th edition.

05/11/2009

Hugo the horrible

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Jews — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 12:00 pm

On May 1, Melanie Kirkpatrick wrote about the deteriorating condition of the Jews in Venezuela.

In 1998, the year Hugo Chavez was elected president, there were 22,000 Jews in Venezuela. Today the Jewish population is estimated at between 10,000 and 15,000.

Those numbers tell a story, and it’s not a happy one. The Jews of Venezuela are fleeing to Miami, Madrid and elsewhere because of the anti-Semitism they face at home. In an interview this week in Washington, D.C., the country’s chief rabbi sounds a warning bell: “There’s anxiety in the Jewish community because of what has happened,” says Rabbi Pynchas Bremer, “and of course because of what may happen.”

Sounds like a place Roger Cohen would like to visit.

Kirkpatrick also points out that Catholics are also being targeted by Chavez. But this is really disturbing.

In January, a professor published an article online calling on citizens to boycott Jewish-owned businesses and confiscate the property of Jews who support Israel. He urged Venezuelans to “summon publicly every Jew found in the streets, squares, shopping malls, etc. and force them to take positions, screaming at them slogans in favor of Palestine and against the abortion-state of Israel.” Change the language from Spanish to German, and this could be an anti-Semitic tract from the 1930s.

No wonder an American Rabbi who recently visited Australia concluded:

Rabbi Herzfeld is blunter: “I think we’re in the early stages of something catastrophic.”

Scapegoating Jew makes for a handy diversion while the economy’s tanking. But President Chavez isn’t sitting on his hands:

Troops were mobilised over the weekend to assist Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, in seizing the assets of some 60 oil service companies, after a law was approved last week that paves the way for the state to take increasing control over its all-important oil industry.


Instapundit comments:

More stuff for him to run into the ground. “The move is the latest sign of the deepening cashflow crisis that has bedeviled the state oil company for at least two years as it has become overburdened with responsibilities far removed from its core business – in particular funding and running the massive social programmes that have become the bedrock of Mr Chávez’s support.” And capital is being scared away, because of “regime uncertainty.”

Is there a cost to refusing to stand up to the likes of Chavez?

Lorne W. Craner, a former assistant secretary of state for human rights under Bush, said he thinks Obama and Clinton had strong records on human rights before they came into office. But he said he has been surprised at the administration’s initial steps.

“I am finding these guys very reactive and not creative. You can’t just offer hope to Castro, Chávez and Mubarak,” Craner said, referring to the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Egypt. “You have to offer hope to others” toiling in those countries for greater liberties.

Obviously the Obama administration differs:

Administration officials counter that they have a consistent vision of how to emphasize human rights in international discourse, which includes taking on tough issues but in a respectful and less rhetorical manner. “Any fair reading of this set of issues over the course of a broad sweep of time underscores that it’s a fundamental issue for the president,” said Denis McDonough, director of strategic communications at the National Security Council.

However as Abe Greenwald observed:

In President Obama’s very first interview (on Al Arabiya television) he was deferential toward the theocratic regime in Iran and effusive about the bravery of the oppressive Saudi king. He offered not a word of encouragement or solidarity for the Muslim world’s reform movements. Then came Hillary Clinton’s dismissal of human rights concerns in China, silence on human rights in North Korea, hints of easing sanctions on Burma and Sudan, and a loosened trade relationship with the Castro dictatorship. People focused on the Venezuelan handshake, but Obama’s biggest shame in Latin America was his failure to criticize Hugo Chavez’s bullying domestic policies.

If you don’t oppose, you encourage.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

04/19/2009

Jewish/Israeli Blog Carnival Time

Filed under: Israel, Jews — Jack @ 11:51 am
The 213th edition of Haveil Havalim, the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere’s weekly blog carnival is up at The Real Shaliach.

03/09/2009

Happy Purim!

Filed under: Holidays, Jews — Meryl Yourish @ 11:00 pm

On this holiday, we celebrate the survival of the Jews against yet another enemy who would have killed us all—this one, in ancient Iran.

May the Holy One, Blessed be He, keep the modern-day Hamans of Iran from harming today’s Jews.

03/01/2009

Best of The Jewish/Israeli Blog Carnival

Filed under: Israel, Jews — Jack @ 11:14 am

Are you looking for some good morning reading?

Head on over to The Israel Situation and take a look at: Haveil Havalim 206 – The I Love Adar Edition.

02/22/2009

Jewish/Israeli Blog Carnival

Filed under: Israel, Jews, Politics — Jack @ 3:36 am

G’day Mate. I don’t say that as well as Sarah does, but that is because she is authentic and I am an American with a bad Aussie accent.

Anyhoo, I’d like to invite you to take a moment to review Haveil Havalim 205 – From Down Under, the weekly Jewish/Israeli blog carnival.

Crossposted at Random Thoughts- Do They Have Meaning?

02/09/2009

South American antisemitism

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Jews — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 12:00 pm

The Washington Post reports that a number of South American countries are becoming inhospitable to their Jewish residents.

Anger at Israel’s recent military strikes in the Gaza Strip against the Islamist group Hamas have sparked demonstrations here and in two countries closely allied with Venezuela: Bolivia and Argentina.

But Jews in these countries are concerned about the growing anti-Semitic tone of the protesters, who frequently equate Israel with Nazi Germany, a theme increasingly evident on placards that juxtapose the Star of David with the swastika and in some public pronouncements.

In Argentina — which has the largest Jewish population in Latin America, about 250,000-strong — Jewish leaders describe a tense climate in which swastikas have been painted on Jewish schools, and graffiti demanding that Jews leave the country have been scrawled on walls. Protests have taken place at the Israeli Embassy, and demonstrators have also gathered in front of the InterContinental Hotel, which is owned by a prominent Argentine Jewish businessman, Eduardo Elsztain.

“It has created a climate of worry, a climate of terror,” said Julio Schlosser, secretary general of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, whose building was destroyed by a bombing in 1994 that killed 85 people. Prosecutors have accused the Iranian government and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement in the attack.

I’m bothered that the article frames it in terms of a reaction to Israel’s war against Hamas. The ties between these countries and the Arab world is part of what’s driving the antisemitism. The recent increase in incidents may be attributed to the war in Gaza, but that’s because it’s a pretext that so many are willing to accept.

Prosecutors haven’t just accused the Iranian government in the terror attack, they’ve build a case against Iranian officials.

Regardless of the focus of the article it’s still a much needed look at an area where Jews are being scapegoated.

For more please see these two posts (via Haveil Havalim). Also see Venezuela: More antisemitism.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

01/18/2009

Since Meryl is so humble…

Filed under: Jews, Media — SnoopyTheGoon @ 4:33 pm

I shall do it for her. A honorable mention in JP today:

Latest hasbara weapon: ‘Army of bloggers’

The article is going on about that army, its potential, blah blah blah…

“Israel’s newest weapon on the public relations front is “an army of bloggers,” according to a statement issued by the Absorption Ministry Sunday afternoon.”

And Absorption Ministry is on top of this task too, so everything is cool. But my point is that to illustrate the article they’ve used the following screenshot:

Cool. Although – how do they count Meryl as a success case for the Absorption Ministry is left unclear…

Anyhow – congratulations!

01/16/2009

MacLeod-ing the issue

Filed under: Jews, Juvenile Scorn, Media Bias, Music, Religion — Soccerdad @ 11:00 am

The trio of Scott MacLeod, Tim McGirk and Andrew Lee Butters who write for Time Magazine might have the worst collection of anti-Israel activists writing for any American publication. I’ll call them the “terror troika,” given their enthusiasm for Hamas. MacLeod tries his hand at math.

Is the world reacting with sufficient outrage and urgency to the horrendous humanitarian toll in Gaza? When, in just 20 days, the Palestinian people have lost more than 1,000 dead– in per capita terms the equivalent of 30,000 American lives, 10 times the number who died on 9/11? That kind of extrapolation, by the way, is a favorite debate tool of former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. He uses it to drive home how a few hundred Israelis killed in terrorist attacks is a national catastrophe for Israel. Few Palestinians are in doubt that they, too, have unjustly fallen victim to a staggering loss of life.

First of all MacLeod shows that he’s less than scrupulous about accuracy as he quotes casualty figures from Hamas. Stephanie Guttman cites that the inflated death toll when Israel fought Fatah in Jenin to show that the Hamas’s figures are propaganda and that to accept them is to be a dupe. Furthermore, MacLeod condemns Israel by the numbers alone. But let’s take an inflated number. Hamas is now claiming that 42 percent of those killed were civilians. That would mean that the equivalent of 17,500 soldiers were threatening the 860,000 Israelis living within 24 miles of Gaza. That’s roughly 12% of Israel’s population. Clearly the ratio of Hamas terrorists to civilians is higher than the Hamas claim, which was made to convince the incurious. And clearly, regardless of the number of people threatening Israel, no country in the world would tolerate such a situation.

Finally, the question of culpability for the deaths comes up. And again, MacLeod doesn’t care about the dictates of international law.and simply uses number to condemn. As Ralph Peter observed:

Israel hasn’t killed a single civilian in the Gaza Strip. Over a hundred civilians have died, and Israeli bombs or shells may have ended their lives. But Israel didn’t kill them.

Hamas did.

Folks like the “terror troika” don’t apply international law evenly. It can be used a cudgel against Israel. But if it works against Israel’s enemies, then it’s conveniently ignored and numbers substitute for legality.

MacLeod and his colleagues at time are not motivated by a sense of justice. No one could misconstrue facts and law like this by accident. No, they are terrorist cheerleaders and staunch anti-Zionists. They believe that Israel is the one country in the world that is not allowed to defend itself. Most of all they are propagandists in the service of Hamas, they are not reporters.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

01/15/2009

It’s not anti-Zionism—it’s anti-Semitism

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Jews — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 7:00 am

Fifty-five anti-Semitic incidents in France in the last two and a half weeks:

A total of 55 anti-Semitic incidents occurred in France since the start of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, said President of the French Jewish Students’ Union Raphael Haddad on Monday.

“This is a higher number of incidents than that of 2001 after the second intifada started,” Haddad said in a meeting with Secretary of State for Urban Policies Fadela Amara.

Way to go, France. Twenty percent of the total number of attacks in 2007 in only 18 days.

According to Haddad, a total of 271 anti-Semitic incidents were noted in 2007.

By the way: Now it’s 57 incidents.

Two synagogues in France have been vandalized, one with a swastika scrawled on it, a Jewish organization said Wednesday, in what some observers believe to be a result of tensions over the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

[...] In Lille, the vandals scrawled graffiti including a swastika on the synagogue’s facade and shattered a window. In Mulhouse, the vandals wrote “hateful slogans” on the synagogue, the group said in a statement. It did not provide further details.

Shall we stop pretending that violence against Israel isn’t violence against Jews? Because it’s certain that the attackers of these synagogues are making a statement about Israel.

01/12/2009

The opposite of hate mail

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Jews — Meryl Yourish @ 10:04 pm

Got this email of support today.

I’m a straight, white, male, Baptist by religion, living in southwest Missouri, card carrying cynic and full blown smartass. And I back Israel to the bloody end if needed.

As you said, “anti-Semites, just die already.”

I know Jews have said never again will they rely on others for their safety, and I can understand why, but I will say I am one you can count on to always stand with you.

God bless, and keep up the good fight.

Thanks, SWMB. SWFJ appreciates the sentiment.

(No, I’m not making fun. I just saw the opportunity for some good-natured snarking.)

Seriously, I do appreciate the letters of support. They make a nice counterbalance to the hatemail.

We are all Georgians now

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israeli Double Standard Time, Jews — Tags: — Meryl Yourish @ 8:00 am

See the title of this post? When you Google it, the only person you read about who said “We are all Georgians now” is—John McCain.

Last summer, Russia invaded Georgia, launched tons of missiles, armor, explosives, ground troops, took over part of a country that is not Russia’s, and the world—tut-tutted. And oh, yeah—Russia violated the cease-fire agreement.

There were no UN resolutions. Of course, Russia, as a permanent member of the UNSC, would veto it. But the General Assembly was silent. The Human Rights Council was silent. Liberal bloggers shook their fingers at John McCain and mocked his words.

Compare what happened in South Ossetia and Georgia last summer with what is happening now. There are protests all over the world, with more fools than there were in 2006 proclaiming “We are all Hezbollah” marching and declaring “We are all Hamas” today.

100,000 in Spain. 30,000 in Belgium. Thousands in London, Paris, Germany. All of them marching against Israel’s assault on Hamas. Yet none of them marched against the war in Georgia.

Why is that, we wonder? Why did they ignore the war that caused scenes like these?

Russian violations of the agreement also took place in nearby villages, where tall plumes of smoke were visible.

Witnesses said that Russian troops had entered the villages, then allowed South Ossetian militia members to plunder houses and steal cars.

“Our village is burning. They are taking everything out of our houses,” said Dodo Gagnidze, who was standing on the side of the road near Gori. “The Russians said everything was over. Is this what they mean?”

Human Rights Watch issued a statement Wednesday saying that its researchers had seen South Ossetian militias burn and loot Georgian villages on Tuesday. The organization quoted a village official in the Gori area saying that at least three villages had been burned.

Why are they ignoring Sri Lanka, where the fight against the Tamil Tigers has cost 70,000 lives? Why not a word about how “We are all Sri Lankans now”?

Why are they not marching against the massacres in Africa?

Why is it that they only march when Israel is involved in a conflict?

I think we all know the answer. None of those other conflicts involve Jews. Only Jews are not allowed to defend themselves. Only Jews are not allowed to respond to force with force. Only Jews are supposed to stand still and let whichever enemy of the moment destroy them.

Sixty years ago, out of the ashes of the death camps arose a slogan for the Jews: Never again. Too many people have mistaken the meaning of that slogan. Let me reiterate the true meaning of “Never again”: Never again will Jews stand by and allow our people to be slaughtered. Never again will Jews depend on the world to protect us. Never again will we rely on anyone but ourselves for protection.

And that is the key to why the world gets unhinged when Israel wins wars, or pushes back the terrorists. Because in the history of the world, for the last two thousand years, Jews were expected to be the victims, not the victors.

Get over it, world. We’re not going back there ever again.

So to the asinine emailer who said this:

It’s incredible that fundamentalist Jews are now acting as the Nazis did in WW2. The abused has become the abuser and in the the process is fast losing sympathy around the world. People are tired of being reminded about the holocaust as though it was the only act of mass ethnic cleansing in the 20th century. Of course to say that, one would be branded an anti-semite, the one stop term to guilt the gentile.

Stop being arrogant, oppressive, self righteous “chosen people” and others will stop trying to kill you and will let you live in peace.

Bullshit. You have never allowed us to live in peace. Not when we were the oppressed minority throughout Russia. Not when we were the oppressed minority throughout Arab lands. Not sixty years ago, not a hundred years ago, not a thousand years ago—not ever in the Diaspora. And now, not when we’re back in Israel, our ancestral homeland.

So, take a good long look in the mirror, you anti-Semitic schmuck. And then do me a favor: Listen to a rousing chorus of the Yourish.com mantra.

Anti-Semites of the world, just die already.

01/06/2009

The Cheapest Blood

Filed under: Israel, Jews — Jack @ 1:04 am

There is an ongoing discussion among my Jewish friends and I. Actually there are many ongoing discussions but for the purpose of this post we’ll focus on one. What is our role as a Jew. It is not so much a religious discussion as a question of what does it mean when you’re the only Jew in school or the office.

You see for whatever reason many of us seem to feel that when we are the only Jew around we have to assume the mantle of spokesperson for the Jews. It is especially noticeable during the holiday season or times like now when Israel is at war. Because now people start to approach us to ask questions or make statements about Israel.

Now let’s be clear about something there is no one person or organization that speaks for all of us. And there are many Jews who have never been to Israel or are relatively uneducated about it. They don’t know much about the history and can’t really discuss the politics with any degree of expertise. If you ask me that is ok. I play basketball with a Chinese guy who can’t tell you a thing about Chinese politics. He is an American who was born and raised in Los Angeles. He happens to be Chinese, but that doesn’t mean he knows Mao from Kung-Pao.Although I frequently ask him to Free Tibet.

The point is that there shouldn’t be a reason why a Jew who doesn’t live in Israel has to be an expert on what happens there. But the world is a funny place and my friends and I have found that while we shouldn’t have to know, it is helpful. Because for better or worse what happens in Israel impacts us.

If you have spent any time reading about the protests against the war in Gaza you’ll be aware that they don’t just focus on Israel, but also on Jews.

Victor Davis Hanson in an article called Creepy Times writes:

“There is something especially nauseating about the latest Middle East war — scenes of worldwide Islamic protests with photos of Jews as apes, protesters (in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida of all places!) screaming about nuking Israel and putting Jews in ovens, parades of children dressed up with suicide vests and fake rockets, near constant anti-Semitic vicious sloganeering,”

It wouldn’t take any effort to provide additional examples including video and pictures of the actions of these people. I could relate personal experiences I have had with Anti-Israel protesters lament that Hitler should have finished the job. Sadly that is not hyperbole, it is reality.

As it happens I have been to Israel many times and have a lot of friends and family who live there. So when things happen I am always concerned. As I write this I worry about their safety including younger cousins who have been called up. The connection is personal so it is easy for me. I like knowing what is going on. I like being able to give an intelligent answer to the questions I receive.

Still, I am American. Been here all of my just short of my 40 years of life. I vote in every election, recite the pledge, sing the national anthem (poorly) and have a barbecue on the fourth of July. So when people come to me and ask why Israel is acting in a certain manner I sometimes shake my head. Ben-Gurion didn’t bestow me with any special honors. I am an ordinary American Joe who happens to love Israel.

But these protesters remind me that some people think otherwise. It is a peculiar thing if you ask me. They protest a war and allege that there is a humanitarian crisis. Yet in the process of working towards sainthood they dehumanize me and my fellows. They curse and threaten us and suggest that a genocidal maniac should have been successful in his efforts to eradicate us.

Earlier today I played in my weekly pickup basketball game. While sitting in the locker room a Nigerian man approached me and asked me to explain what was going on and to get my opinion. Midway through the discussion I looked at him and said, “To some Jewish blood is cheap, but the cheapest blood of all is African.”

For a moment I wondered if I had offended him and then he nodded and gave a wistful smile. He paused and responded, “Jack, no one cares about Africa. Most Americans don’t know much if anything about it all. They can’t tell me a thing about my country. And the world, well the world ignores the pain and suffering because we have nothing that they can sell for money. You’re right, African blood is the cheapest.”

Crossposted on Random Thoughts- Do They Have Meaning?

01/02/2009

Tonight at Shabbat

Filed under: Israel, Jews — Meryl Yourish @ 4:00 pm

Say a special prayer for the soldiers of the IDF.

Here’s Chabad’s Shabbat candlelighting times.

And remember tonight, at synagogues all over the world, Jews will also sing Oseh Shalom—a prayer that asks for peace for Israel and for the world.

All Jews have ever wanted was to be left in peace to live and worship as we choose. It seems to be too much to ask.

01/01/2009

American Jewish kids still love Israel

Filed under: Israel, Jews — Meryl Yourish @ 12:00 pm

I thought young American Jews don’t care for Israel anymore. This doesn’t make any sense, then.

Instead of spending their winter vacation with their families, 120 American college students have come to volunteer in the Negev – despite the proximity to the war in Gaza.

The students, participating in the Jewish National Fund’s weeklong Alternative Winter Break, had to raise a minimum of $950 each toward construction of a JNF protected indoor playground in Sderot, set to open later in 2009.

“Even though there’s a war, I wanted to show my support and that I wasn’t going to be afraid to go to the place that I love,” said Jesse Golodner, 23, from Philadelphia. He studies at the University of Central Florida, and arrived in Israel on Tuesday night.

Golodner and his fellow students spent the day painting inside a community center in Arad, and were personally greeted by Mayor Gideon Bar-Lev.

“Everyone else was more scared for me than I was,” said Jennifer Schwarz, 19, from Rockville, Maryland, and a student at the University of Maryland.

Amazing how when American Jews show their solidarity, they do something positive. When American Palestinians show their solidarity, they attack American Jews.

We’ll give Jennifer the last word:

“My coming was an act of solidarity,” she said. “My Israeli friends are happy that I came, but still think I’m crazy.”

Update: You can donate to the Jewish National Fund, which sponsors kids like these, here.

12/31/2008

Dhimmitude

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Jews, Religion — Meryl Yourish @ 10:00 am

Certain defenders of Iran are fond of pointing out that Iran has the largest population of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel. What they never mention, of course, is that Jews are restricted from traveling abroad (they must leave a family member as hostage and cannot take large sums of money out of the country), and that Iran will not allow Jews to observe the Jewish Sabbath, and Muslims are in charge of all Jewish schools.

So when I see a story like this, I don’t believe that it’s anything other than Jews today doing what Jews used to have to do throughout the ages: The bidding of the state that could, at any moment, obliterate the Jewish community.

Members of Iran’s small Jewish community staged a demonstration outside of the United Nations’ office in Tehran, to protest the Israel Defense Forces’ operation in the Gaza Strip.

The official Iranian news agency, IRNA, reported that community members, alongside Jewish parliamentarian Siamak Mara-Sedq, urged Israel to do its part to return quiet and security to the region.

The chairman of Iran’s Jewish Union, Rahmatullah Raafi, said the community had come out in support of the Palestinian people.

“We are here to express out support and sympathy for the Palestinian nation,” he said, adding that Muslim nations could rise up as a single large force against Israel. He also said that the victors of the current conflict were the residents of Gaza.

A people who are under threat cannot be expected to be speaking freely. Which is why I think the Jews of Yemen are behaving like the dhimmis that they have been for millennia, also:

Yemeni Jews have condemned the recent Israeli massacres in the Gaza strip, saying what is happening in the strip is denied by all religions.

Rabbi Yahya said that what the Israeli military is committing in the strip forces Jews in Yemen to stay home in fear of intimidations by some people who don’t like to understand that Yemeni Jews are not part of Israeli military actions in Palestinian territories.

For his part, Jew Suleiman Bin Yaqup said Israeli crimes in Gaza are unacceptable by Yemeni Jews as killing people is unlawful.

Yemen’s tiny Jewish community is in danger of extinction by Jihadis.

Before Israel was created, Jews made no waves, kept their heads down, and publicly went along with whatever the prevailing sentiment was in their country. The Jews were essentially a subject people in every nation (save America), putting up with pretty much everything the host nation dished out, quietly, and without fighting back.

Sadly, the Jews in Iran and Yemen are perfect examples of the Jews of the past. They’re the Jews that Hamas and Fatah want to see in the faux state of Palestine. They’re the Jews that the world sighs for in nostalgia—and in secret. Or maybe not so secret. Because one of the things that the world has been unable to accept these past sixty years is a strong defense of Jews, by Jews, for Jews.

That’s why you have so many people calling for Israel to stop their war against Hamas. Because we’re not the good little dhimmis we were in Europe and Arabia. We’re no longer standing quietly for pogroms and murders.

Don’t tell me how great Jews had it in Muslim lands before Israel was created. That is a lie.

Dhimmis were excluded from public office and armed service, and were forbidden to bear arms. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels, to build synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct houses higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in public. They were not allowed to pray or mourn in loud voices-as that might offend the Muslims. The dhimmi had to show public deference toward Muslims-always yielding them the center of the road. The dhimmi was not allowed to give evidence in court against a Muslim, and his oath was unacceptable in an Islamic court. To defend himself, the dhimmi would have to purchase Muslim witnesses at great expense. This left the dhimmi with little legal recourse when harmed by a Muslim.

The Jews of Iran and Yemen could tell you all about it—if they didn’t fear for their lives for telling the truth.

12/28/2008

Haveil Havalim

Filed under: Bloggers, Jews — Meryl Yourish @ 2:24 pm

Haveil Havilim is here.

And Jack rounded up posts about Gaza here.

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