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Monday, June 17, 2013
David Gerstman's invitation is awaiting your response
Friday, June 14, 2013
Rabbi Shafran's questions
I am in Israel and don't have the email address for Chukas parsha questions. I have not received them yet. please send. Shabbat shalom
Arnold Cummins
Arnold Cummins
Monday, June 10, 2013
David Gerstman's invitation is awaiting your response
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Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Invitation to connect on LinkedIn
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Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Soccer Dad
Soccer Dad |
| Posted: 07 Sep 2010 03:49 AM PDT This weeks' Time Magazine has a cover story that explains, "Why israel doesn't care about Peace?" Israelly Cool dismisses it with: Real serious journalism here. A provocative title and they've spoken with a couple of Tel Aviv condo salesmen. All in the name of demonizing the Jewish state. Elder of Ziyon (who is seconded by FresoZionism) writes: The title on the cover, and the cover itself, are very clearly implying that Israelis do not care about peace itself. The Time editors do not seem to understand basic English. Right now, there is peace, by and large. Daled Amos questions Time's methodology and JoshuaPundit, its timing. Mere Rhetoric goes through Time's history of questionable taste regarding israel, and My Right Word shows that the cover echoes a Newsweek one of years' past. Bret Stephens remembers a rhyme from Time Magazine. In May 1977, when Menachem Begin was elected Israel's prime minister, Time magazine set out to describe the man, beginning with the correct pronunciation of his last name: "Rhymes with Fagin," the editors explained, invoking the character from Oliver Twist. Modern Israeli leader; archetypal Jewish lowlife: Get it? Instapundit summarizes VDH's critique as Those Jews Sure Like Money, Don't They?. VDH declares (via memeorandum) I know it's commonplace to read in the latest issue of Time or Newsweek that Obama is a god, that Islamophobic Americans are collectively prejudiced against Muslims, that the response after 9/11 was overblown and unnecessary (over 30 subsequent terrorist plots have been foiled, and, for some reason, renditions, tribunals, Guantanamo, Predators, intercepts, etc., have all been embraced by the Obama administration), but the recent Time piece on Israel by a Karl Vick is probably the most anti-Semitic essay I have ever read in a mainstream publication. Ironically, last week's cover story asked Is America Islamaphobic. The article concluded with: In Sheboygan County, the good old-fashioned American sense of community came through for Mirza, Hamad and the Khans. But when it comes to Muslims and Islam, America's better angels are not always so accommodating. Which sounds like a disapproving "yes" to me. But when the question "is this publication antisemitic?" Time Magazine seems to be leading the charge to say "yes" proudly. Crossposted on Yourish.      |
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Monday, September 06, 2010
Soccer Dad
Soccer Dad |
- Mizrachi Jews and new sorties in the "War of Ideas in the Middle East"
- The "world is flat" award for the columnist who tries hardest to emulate thomas friedman goes to ...
- Fareed must have learned cause and effect from fox butterfield
- 4 years
- Lockport
| Mizrachi Jews and new sorties in the "War of Ideas in the Middle East" Posted: 06 Sep 2010 10:11 AM PDT As you may know, Martin Gilbert has just published a book called "In Ishmael's House, a history of Jews living in Muslim lands." The book includes what happened to the Mizrachi Jewry after 1948 and Gilbert joins the not terribly large group of historians who have tackled this important subject in any detail. (The Jews of Islam by Bernard Lewis, if I remember correctly, deals with its subject in very general terms.) MondoWeiss excerpts the final four paragraphs from a review of the book by New Historian Avi Shlaim: Nowhere is Gilbert more strikingly one-sided than in his account of the consequences of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In the course of this war, the name Palestine was wiped off the map and 726,000 Palestinians became refugees. In its wake, around 850,000 Jews left the Arab world, mostly to start a new life in the newborn State of Israel. For Gilbert, these Jews are simply the other half of the "double exodus" and he persistently refers to them as "refugees." With few exceptions, however, these Jews left their native lands not as a result of officially sanctioned policies of persecution but because they felt threatened by the rising tide of Arab nationalism. Zionist agents actively encouraged the Jews to leave their ancestral homes because the fledgling State of Israel was desperately short of manpower. Iraq exemplified this trend. The Iraqi army participated in the War for Palestine, and the Arab defeat provoked a backlash against the Jews back home. Out of a population of 138,000, roughly 120,000 left in 1950-51 in an atmosphere of panic and peril.One has to wonder (and certainly the inquiring minds of MondoWeiss don't inquire in that direction): does Shlaim appreciate his freedom? Does he think he would be free, or as free, to pursue his intellectual interests and speak his mind if somehow the Jewish community of Iraq had survived and he was part of it? What do all those nice distinctions ("victims," but "not refugees in the proper sense of the word") mean? Since he has introduced his own family into the discussion, did they have property? If so, what became of it? The story of the Mizrachi Jews in Modern times is, in all frankness, not that lachrymose in its ending. The great ugly truth that everyone is too polite to mention is that having one's property looted by one's Arab Muslim overlords is not such a bad deal if the package includes ultimately being free of them. Mizrachi Jews left under various circumstances, as did the Palestinians. And while Mizrachi Jews may ultimately have encountered a happier fate than the Palestinians did, there is no justification for the suffering and injustice imposed on them by an Arab world that turned on its loyal Jewish citizens in a spirit of revenge. As far as supposed wrongs to the Palestinian people as a whole are concerned, I don't think any serious historians argue that the Yishuv could have acted differently in 1947 and 1948. The New Historians have perhaps corrected an erroneous David-Goliath sense of the relative strength of the two sides, and the more extreme views regard 1948 as the rinse-cycle of the born-in-sin Zionist movement, but in practical terms, non-Goliaths who threaten your existence have to be defeated. The Mizrachi Jews, in contrast, did not threaten anybody. And Shlaim's conclusion is breathtaking. Muslim "multi-culturalism" is "the best model we have for a brighter future"? Really? Is there a contemporary example of it somewhere we could hold up as a shining banner? If downplaying this supposed "best model" is the book's major shortcoming according to Shalim, I'd say that counts as an endorsement. Crossposted on Judeopundit   |
| The "world is flat" award for the columnist who tries hardest to emulate thomas friedman goes to ... Posted: 06 Sep 2010 04:36 AM PDT Kathleen Parker for her silly Facebook and social media offer the potential of peace column the other day. At the State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sits between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. There is much gray hair among them. Of course they're not in their home countries, so this is hardly telling. But there was this observation. Meanwhile, evidence mounts that sentiments are shifting among younger people, whose worldviews are broader than those of previous generations. Recent polling by Frank Luntz found that American Jewish college students are more willing than their elders to question the Israeli position. They resist groupthink and desperately want peace. Jewish college students? Hold on. The academy is one of the places where one is subjected to relentless anti-Israel propaganda. This isn't just a function of student organizations, but often occurs in classes. This is precisely an example of groupthink. Young impressionable people without a full understanding of a situation being led to conclusions by those in authority. As Evelyn Gordon observed regarding the Luntz poll: But it's also a travesty because it shouldn't be hard for any Jewish leftist to explain why Israel, for all its flaws, is still a far better example of the left's one-time values, such as freedom, democracy, tolerance, and human rights, than any of its enemies. And of course there was Parker's followup observation. Might Palestinian youth feel similarly? Alas, I could find no similar polls. Hmm. I wonder why (not). Before she finishes with the column she leaves us with this chilling thought. If I were dictator for a day, I would arrange for every young person to "friend" another in the enemy camp of their choice, creating virtual student-exchange programs in every neighborhood on the map. While the old folks bicker over their sandboxes, the children could begin building fortresses of friendship. Kathleen Parker as dictator. Yikes! That's a frightening thought. So like Thomas Friedman, Kathleen Parker believes that technology will bring us all together. She also demonstrates a fondness for dictating to others. Fortunately, unlike Thomas Friedman, she doesn't necessarily pine for Chinese Communism. Unfortunately she betrays a desire to be one herself. There was a time when I thought that Parker was reasonable. Now that time seems distant. Crossposted on Yourish.   |
| Fareed must have learned cause and effect from fox butterfield Posted: 06 Sep 2010 04:36 AM PDT One of Best of the Web Today's James Taranto's favorite targets is Fox Butterfield of the New York Times. As Taranto summarizes an occasional theme promoted by Butterfield: It's a little like the old Fox Butterfield fallacy: Prison population growing despite reduction in crime. Apparently Fareed Zakaria learned the lesson well. (via memeorandum) He writes in What America has lost: Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? Since that gruesome day in 2001, once governments everywhere began serious countermeasures, Osama bin Laden's terror network has been unable to launch a single major attack on high-value targets in the United States and Europe. While it has inspired a few much smaller attacks by local jihadis, it has been unable to execute a single one itself. Today, Al Qaeda's best hope is to find a troubled young man who has been radicalized over the Internet, and teach him to stuff his underwear with explosives. Since Al Qaeda's not effective now it never was a threat! Brilliant. Patterico, Political Byline, Powerline and others, have similar takes. At first I was about to say that with writing like this, it's no wonder that Newsweek sold for $1.The more I think about it, 1 dollar seems like overpayment for this sort of foolishness.   |
| Posted: 06 Sep 2010 04:12 AM PDT At 1:15 AM she turned 209 weeks old. Today, isn't really her birthday. However both she and her now 9 year old sister were born Labor Day, so I chose today to write. What do you feel when your youngest starts school? (Even if it is pre-nursery.) Well the carefree days of babyhood are mostly gone. She's not a baby. And she'll tell you that - emphatically - if you tell her otherwise. (Unless, she's in a mood when she wants to pretend that she's a baby so you'll cradle her in your arms.) Last night before she went to bed she put her own "babies" to bed, explaining that one was sharing her blanket with her two "sisters" - who didn't have their own - so they wouldn't be cold. I was very impressed with the generosity of the doll. It's been awhile since I've done this because as a child reaches a certain point, she doesn't change so much from month to month. Or at least she doesn't change in obvious ways. So yes I miss the babyness, though I still enjoy watching the new milestones. Such as starting school. Or egging the challahs. She has this habit of reaching into the cookie containers and taking one whenever she feels like it. (Not too long ago when one of her friends visited. She helped him to a cookie. Just pulled up a chair, took a cookie and gave it to him.) She does seem to adjust to new situations well and she loves following around her big (not her biggest) sister and pretending that she's one of the girls. In fact when her Imma dropped her off at school she chose not to be walked in separately, but walked in with the rest of the bigger girls. So we no longer have a baby, we have a little girl. Previous related entries: 38 months, 36 months, 35 months, 34 months, 33 months, 32 months, 31 months, 30 months, 29 months,   |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2010 08:29 PM PDT Before we visited Niagara, we stopped in Lockport, New York. Lockport is a stop along the Erie Canal, roughly a half hour west of Buffalo. In addition to seeing some of the locks up close. (These are the original locks. The Canal's been upgraded with wider locks now in use.) The real hero of Lockport is a man named Birdsill Holly. Holly was an inventor and entrepreneur. He leased the water power of the canal to build a number of industries in Lockport. Among American inventors, he holds the second greatest number of patents - that's second to Thomas Edison. Holly's ingenuity led to the creation of three businesses along the canal in Lockport: Holly Manufacturing Company, Richmond Manufacturing Company and Lockport Pulp Company. All that's left of the Holly Manufacturing Company are the entrance to the tunnels through which the water flowed. You can enter the what's left of the Lockport Pulp company building and explore the tunnel that brought the water in. Lockport provided a glipmpse of a fascinating bit of America's industrial history.   |
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Sunday, September 05, 2010
Soccer Dad
Soccer Dad |
| Posted: 05 Sep 2010 03:56 AM PDT Last week, in New Chance for Peace the editors of the New York Times observed that: There are other positive currents. Violence against Israelis is down. Palestinian security forces are increasingly competent at policing the West Bank. Palestinian authorities have clamped down on incitement, including removing imams and teachers who encourage attacks against Israelis. More can still be done.Last week's terror attack, I think, raises questions about the competence of the security forces. The murders of the Israelis was clearly planned suggesting an infrastructure. Yet apparently the Palestinian police were unaware of the cells or unwilling to take action against the planners. The ability of Hamas to operate even where the PA is nominally in control, is certainly a sobering reminder of the PA's weakness. Nor should we forget that, in the past, the PA police have been responsible for terror. During an investigation by the Shin Bet security service, the two let it be known that a third person was also involved in the incident: They said that Fadi Jama', also in the National Security organization of the Palestinian Authority, gave them the weapons they used in the attack.And while the PA may be taking action against some who preach incitement, it's hardly comprehensive. (More likely the PA's taking action against Hamas affiliated preachers and teachers as part of a power struggle.) The leaders of the PA continue to engage in incitement so at best its effort is selective. So when the Times featured a followup editorial maybe it would demonstrate some dampened enthusiasm for the Palestinian commitment to peace. Yesterday, in Another start for peace talks, the editors were even more enthusiastic. We have long been skeptical that Mr. Netanyahu really wants a deal. But he insisted he had come to "find a historic compromise" that would end the conflict and that he recognizes that "another people shares this land with us." He even told Mr. Abbas, "you are my partner in peace." We will soon see if it was all political theater. Mr. Abbas came to the table reluctantly. He is the weaker party and most at risk of being blamed for any breakdown. Still, he promised to "work to make these negotiations succeed" and said security -- a major issue for Israel -- "is vital for both of us."It is kind of funny. Netanyahu didn't walk away from negotiations; Abbas did. Maybe that's why Abbas is more at risk for being blamed for any breakdown that may occur. Still the next paragraph is awful. Predictably, peace opponents tried to torpedo the talks. But Mr. Netanyahu didn't walk out when Hamas rejectionists killed four Israelis near Hebron. And Mr. Abbas not only condemned the attack but his security forces went after those responsible. He didn't walk out when some Israeli settlers began new settlement construction even before a Sept. 26 moratorium is to expire.A terror attack that killed Israelis is equated with Israelis building new homes. Worse, as David Horovitz noted: Netanyahu, the security hawk, rapidly outflanked his dovish predecessor Olmert in removing roadblocks and checkpoints and easing freedom of movement for Palestinians in the West Bank - including in the area near Kiryat Arba where four Israelis were murdered on Tuesday night - taking "calculated security risks" to enable the Palestinian economy to flourish, in the hope that "economic peace" would eventually galvanize Palestinian support for the real deal.Try as they might to ignore it; Israeli CBM's entail real risks. My thinking is similar to Aussie Dave's: No, actually the goal is to kill Jews. Embarrassing the PA is a bonus at best.Nor is the main goal it to torpedo peace talks. And yet despite all this what must Israel do? Sept. 26 is the next flashpoint. The Washington conference would have had far more impact if the two sides announced an agreement to deal with that. Mr. Netanyahu should extend the moratorium.If Abbas were really committed to peace why should Israeli building of communities in Judea and Samaria be a "flashpoint?" We're not talking about a campaign of violence that Israel, as a matter of course, usually does not respond to, regardless of the toll. Why is it that Israel must offer even more CBM's, when the Palestinians don't observe the basic elements of peace? Crossposted on Yourish.   |
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