The making of the nuanced ‘The Attack,’ with a crew of Israelis and Palestinians, gave Ziad Doueiri a new view of the Jewish state.
Learn the "Top 18" Kosher white, red and Israeli Wines, Read about the American kosher wine scene, Israeli wines and much more
Tourism booming in the Negev, that first teen roots journey, driving in Israel (really!), and more.
I consider any info from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel to be total lies. Kuwait and the Saudis want to keep their royal families in power and if that means selling out other Muslim countries so be it. Any distraction away from their kleptocracy is good. Israel lies to promote their Zionist agenda. The good news is the Israeli people are waking up to their corrupt government.
Latest:
It is highly unlikely that the newspaper will again print such announcements.
The reality of the boycott from the local orthodox and its threats to remove the kosher certification of any establishment that advertises in a paper carrying same-sex union announcements was just too much.
It is a business decision in the end.
http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/nj-jewish-paper-unlikely-to-reverse-decision-in-face-of-orthodox-threats/
I was not that offended by Sanchez. As a Jew, I often find myself annoyed by Stewart and his positions. His Judaism seems tangental, and his politics represent a very specific portion of the Jewish people, who can be highly self denigrating.
With friends like Kagan, Kent, Taylor, Berman Singer, Schneider, Weiner, etc. who needs …
The conduct of the Claims Conference is an embarrassment to Holocaust Survivors (HS). In the guise of helping HS and bringing a little “…justice…” the CC through their actions and rhetoric is responsible for bringing ugly, contentious and quarrelsome situations to Holocaust Survivors and the Jewish community.
The CC has been extensively criticized for their secrecy, exploitation and subjugation of Holocaust Survivors. In many ways they act like the misguided selfish Jewish leadership of Lodz and Vilna during WWII.
The conduct of the CC, especially its leadership, is so abhorrent that Survivor organizations, scholars, authors and film makers have been fighting them for decades. The degrading names used to describe the leadership of the Claims Conference, over the years, is an example of the loathing, disgust and outrage Holocaust Survivors feel toward the CC.
Where is their sense of Jewish tradition and teaching? Where is their sense of Yiddishkite?
The Claims Conference needs major reform and restructure. The first and immediate task is for adequate Holocaust Survivor representation-which has been denied us for decades. Without adequate Holocaust Survivor representation the CC lacks a mandate and credibility to do our business. With the help of the German authorities they are a hypocritical and dangerous organization that has been forced upon unsuspecting Holocaust Survivors. Try as we might we can’t wash their filth from us. They refuse to separate from us or leave us alone.
"Securing greater funds..." sounds like you are going to great lengths to wrongly influence attendees. Not the way to conduct business for Holocaust Survivors. I strongly disapprove.
Zay Gazunt
zay Gazunt
Yummy.
did the book work?
Yossi, While I agree with your assessment of the alarmist nature of this editorial, I would also share a word of caution. Any group that appears to stand as a rebellion against an establishment will, by its nature, unfortunately attract fringe players who are often narrow minded, bigoted, and sometimes dangerous. While the same can definitely be said for the far left, which clearly attracts more than its share of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic "pro-Palestine" nut jobs, a close reading of many of the blogs and comments of "supposed" tea party supporters show the same anti-Semitic, often racist tendencies. I use the term "supposed" because, as with the left wing groups, these "supporters" are often extremists who see an opportunity to latch onto something that is potentially good, and ride it for their own warped agenda.
With regard to your comment regarding the number of tax paying households, I'd be interested in seeing where you get your statistics (the 51%/49% statistic particularly). I'm self-employed, and thus pay more than my fair share of taxes (double SS contribution and a higher tax bracket than if I could find work with a company), and yet I support many of the "entitlements" (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, unemployment compensation) which the tea parties seem to rally against. I do agree with the principle espoused by many tea party supporters that government spending, both on a federal and state level, is out of control, but I feel that a rational conversation discussing ways in which to compromise to reign in spending would be more effective than staging counter rallies appearing like a bunch of angry mobs (again, both on the right and the left). Sadly, I would argue that one of the greatest problems facing our nation today is that we are fragmenting, clinging to extreme political ideals instead of finding compromise solutions to solve our problems. In saying this, I blame both the right and the left. I'd gladly support rational candidates who would govern from the center to find solutions, but sadly, the new candidates being supported by the tea party movements (e.g. Joe Miller, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Sarah Palin etc), are so radical (for example proposing eliminating Social Security and Medicaid rather than reforming them) they are really no better than those who are already in office who have lost touch with the common people.
Again, with regard to the racist and anti-Semitic accusations, I would agree that the underlying movement of people towards the tea parties is neither, but that they have attracted these elements, like moths to a flame, just as the more liberal movements have done. Sad that we can't find a non-radical middle ground.
Not sure what arrogance you're referring to. As to the spending, I understand this to be one of the premises of the Tea Party, and agree that much needs to be done to reign in spending excesses by both parties (the TARP bailouts and the billion dollar wars were gifts from George W., while the unsuccessful economic "stimulus" and the ridiculously overbroad health care reform are gifts from the Democrats and the current administration). The problem I see with the Tea Party movement is their apparent total lack of concernfor helping those who are in need, are unable to qualify for or afford health insurance, or have been forced from their homes by the mortgage collapse of 2008. In addition, much of what they are protesting as "governing against the will of the people" (such as the appointment of Justices whose interpretation of the Constitution differs from the narrow-minded read of activist judges like Scalia, Thomas et al) is the will of the people who voted, by large majority, to elect the current administration to office. Just as an example, less than 50% of the American People (and a smaller percentage of Jews in this country) support allowing the government to interfere in a woman's right to choose what is in her best interest when she discovers she's pregnant, yet many ultra-conservative tea party supporters act as if this is a mandate from "the people".
As to your last comment, and the comment of the post to which I originally responded, it continues to amuse me how the far right uses such drastically conflicting political philosophies as "communist", "socialist" and "fascist" to describe an administration they obviously loathe. Any student of political science can tell you that each of these philosophies differ greatly (and that none truly describes what is essentially an extremely liberal Democrat administration currently in power.
As a Jew I found the whole idea of not engaging in dialogue deeply repugnant. There have been plenty examples in history of Jews living alongside muslims with relative friendliness. Certainly not perfect. People are not religions. There are plenty of our own texts that speak poorly of gentiles of all forms, and many of these texts are held sacred and taken literally by plenty of Orthodox jews today. Just because it is written in a book doesn't mean people believe it. We need to engage with muslims as fellow human beings and indeed challenge them when it comes to extremists within their midst. Alienation will only make the problem worse.
I indeed wonder what the Jewish Week will decide on this issue if and when they run personal announcements.
Meanwhile, the orthodox gay community is becoming more and more visible. See www.glydsa.org for informationand resources for Orthodox gay Jews.
@Gary Dalin: Without getting into the content of your post, which is troublesome more for the dismissive, shallow, and mean-spirited tone than for the quite legitimate content, I do want to give you the opportunity to correct one inadvertent, but significant factual error. Yossi Sarid is the former head of the Meretz party, not Shinui. Meretz is the Zionist-left wing party which advocates heavily for strong freedom of religion and a strong social safety net on economic issues. Shinui was the party founded by Tommy Lapid, which also advocated strongly for freedom of religion, always couched in more hostile terms toward the "dati" and especially "haredi" populations. Its economic positions were opposite of Meretz's. Basically, Shinui was a Libertarian party -- stop taking my money for the poor, the haredi, or whatever else, and leave me alone, whereas Meretz is a more classic progressive-left party -- we're all in this together, so we can't privilege certain parties at the expense of others. Meretz is still active in politics, though now down to 3 seats in the Knesset. Yossi Sarid retired from politics and now is a journalist, writing social and political commentary (for Haaretz, I think). The party is now chaired by Haim Oron. Shinui, as far as I know, is defunct, and Tommy Lapid passed away a couple of years ago.
Yeshua is my brother not my Father- he was born, lived, and died a Jew- not something that every Christian will acknowledge. Read the Gospels- Yeshua's words- not Paul's or Peter's that corrupted Yeshua's words and thoughts to make them mopre palatble to the pagans. There is nothing there that Jews hadn't thought about or discussed. Thery are based heavily on the Prophets- notably Isaiah, and the Psalms. He was a Rabbi and, dare I say it- may have been married, as all Rabbis of his age were. He taught a gentle ethic and his followers were Jews. The great split didn't come until later.
You refer to a settlement freeze as an "enemy demand", that should be negotiated, not demanded or dictated. Which enemy are you referring to exactly, George W. Bush? He already negotiated this issue with Israel, in 2003, with a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon, of which Bibi Netanyahu was a member. Israesl agreed at that time to the Road Map for Peace proposed by the US (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2989783.stm), which contains the following clause: "Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI [Government of Israel] freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)." It's hard to get any more clear than that, is it? The fact that the US has let Israeli governments since 2003 breach their obligation, is hardly justification for allowing continued breaches by Israel. I guess by your logic, even after Israel agrees to something important, like the settlement freeze, the US has to sit down again and negotiate with them just to get them to keep their promises. Unfortunatly for those of us who are friends of Israel, and I am certainly one of them, Israel is simply dead wrong on this issue. Time to stop playing games, and start keeping our word.
I am a Long Islander, an 2nd generation Italian American, business man, professional, and have far more years of education than James Besser. As a Long Islander, like my parents before me from Brooklyn, 1/2 of everything in my life is a composite of jewish culture, thought and attitudes. From my childhood to this day, 1/2 of my friends, partners, girlfriends, family members, and associations of all kinds are Jewish.
As my grandfather used to say Jews and Italians are two peas in a pod. I tell you this simply to hold out myself as expert on American Jews to the extent that the New York Jewish population is representative of the American Jews in general.
The answer to the question is Yes. Tthe Tea Party makes the Jews unconfortable, because it is associated with hard line social conservatives of the religious right variety, not the Reagan democrats type. Of course, this is an obvious observation that any Washington correspondent could tell you. It the kind of simplistic thing they talk at correpondence dinner amongst themselves.
However as a Long Islander, we have tea partiers but no political religious right in our neck of the wood. On Long Island, an issue like abortion consists of 4 seniors, 2 on one side of the street and 2 on the other, holding up signs yelling at each other, while 1/2 million people drive by in their cars, thinking seniors have too much time on their hands.
No, the Long Island tea partiers are at worse, or best depending on your point of view, Reagan Democrats, but more likely liberterian constitutional types. If they have strong religious views on abortion, they will be the first ones to defend the individuals right to burn in hell.
Given this, we find a more complex relationship between tea party people and the Jewish mindset. One that has nothing really to do with political ideas but really has to do with identity.
Remember, we are not talking about progressive or Democratic Jews, but Republican Jews, which exist in my area in sizable numbers. To understand why a Republic Jew is not warm to the tea party, you need to understand who the tea party is?
Unlike a Washington Correspondent, I can give you there first names and tell you what house they live in. But without naming names, I will make this very general, on Long Island, you have two ways of working, you either catch the LIRR and commute to the city to work for a large organization, private or municipal, or you work locally on the Island.
The tea party people are almost exclusively from the latter group. This means nothing to you outsiders, but to us Islanders it tells alot about your livelihood. Excluding retirees, Tea Party people are either craftsman, professional, or local business owners.
Accordingly, you see plumbers, carpenters, builders and other non-union independent workers. From the Jewish perspective, theses trades consist of work "Outsiders" do. People employed in those trades drive the wrong cars, and perform the wrong labor and are just considered different on a unconscious group level.
On the other hand, you have local professional & business owners in the tea party. However, there is a little know ethic rivalry going on here that few Jews will not admit too outside of close friends. The lawyers, doctors, and business owners of the tea party tend to be of north European annestry, Irish, German & Anglo.
As an Italian- American, I can blend in with both sides and what these two ethic groups say about the other when the other is not around is outrageous.
Needless to say, politics is a very personal thing that goes to the basic identity of each of us. For my Jewish friends, this is even more the case. To many of them, Tea Parties are outsiders because they work the wrong job, drive the wrong car, or associated with their ethnic rivals.
In the end analysis, whether for better or worse, this is far more important to their political associations than any political ideas. To talk otherwise ,in my opinion is really an excuse to spin for political gain.
Of course, I am picking on Jews here becauseit is tht topic of Mr. Besser's article, and I will gladly comment on Republician Greeks, Cubans, etc should he wish to spin an ethic group for a political point of view. Thank you.
Were Rick Sanchez's Comments anti-Semitic? I don't Think So.
http://www.breakingnewshound.com/2010/10/were-rick-sanchezs-comments-anti.html
It's obvious that your only source of news is Fox. You're such a parrot of their nonsense that you should be on their payroll.
Read the Tea Party for what it is....entitled White Christians who can't handle the fact that our President is Black, a Citizen of the USA (Hawaii was a US territory then). They are scared to Hell by about one who does not meet their level of Americanism. They don't care about the Widow, the Orphan, the Stranger. Republican Jews forget that part of the Torah also. Jews should be aware..a Tea Party Hitler is a railroad car ride away.
Anybody who starts calling Obama and Clinton anti-Semites is a joke. Not to be taken seriously. You are to be ignored or sneered at.
We at PresenTense fully agree! I have to admit that we debated Marla's application (she was a Global PresenTense fellow this past summer, 2010), and when we realized that the only reason we were debating was tied to age, we kicked ourselves for our blindness.
Marla's venture is a wonderful step in the right direction - and our community would be stupid not to take this wonderful resource and run with it.
More important even than the specific issue of anti-gay bigotry is the apparent choice by the concerned sector of the Orthodox rabbinate to engage in the blackmail of threatening economic sanctions, and the obvious choice of the newspaper to lie down and play dead for the blackmailers.
The Jewish Standard's craven capitulation also invokes the law of unintended consequences -- their action in this situation diminishes the credibility of the Anglo-Jewish press everywhere, and it emboldens the blackmailers to further efforts at media control. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this particular imbroglio, the Standard has put all its peers in danger of the same kind of threatened reprisals. And maybe I demean the rest of the Jewish media by elevating the Standard to the level of being their peer.
When JStreet was formed a short two years ago all of my friends thought that this organization came from nowhere with alot of money. First they denied they took money from questionable sources. Then Ben Ami admitted that they took money from Arab donors (yeah they're pro Israel). Then Ben Ami denied that George Soros donated money. Well it is now known that Soros just didn't give money to JStreet; he gave enough money to choke a horse! This organization stinks from the top down. It reminds me of the Jewish Communists trying to convince their fellow Jews that the Ribbentrop-Molotov Agreement in 1940 was good for the Jews! While I like to see this organization disband in disgrace it will probably not happen. Yet at the very least Jeremy Ben Ami must resign now!
Greed, selfisness???? Correction the tea party members are fed up with the arrogance, spending and the governing against the will of the people! As far as a communist holding office, you really don't have to look any further than the oval office and all the Czars! How clueless and blind you be!
You're 110% right!
how many more wars does islam want to lose?
hecker married an indian woman but does not practice at all. he's milking his loose affiliation with judaism to get positive press in a jewish community he knows will be exceptionally skeptical, even those jewish republicans he's likely targeting.