A newsletter on American Jewish - German relations.

1. AN AMERICAN JEWISH – GERMAN INFORMATION & OPINION
NEWSLETTER
dubowdigest@optonline.net
GERMANY EDITION
August 15, 2011
Dear Friends:
I know that many of you lucky Germans are enjoying your long summer vacations.
We here in the U.S. get a few weeks a year but most (those that are employed) grab
a couple of weeks in the summer and then it’s back to work. Pity us!
Many in the Jewish community (as well as other Americans) watch the stock market
reports every day to see how their retirement funds are doing. Most these days have
what are called 401-K retirement plans which are affected by market forces. Fewer
and fewer have guaranteed retirement income plans. So it goes in super capitalist
America.
Many Jews and others interested in events in the Middle East read the
prognostications about what the Palestinians will do in September regarding
statehood. I have written a lot about it in the past so I won’t dwell on it other than to
suggest that you read Jackson Diehl’s Washington Post article of today. Click here
to bring it up. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/will-abbass-desperate-
gambit-trigger-a-third-intifada/2011/08/11/gIQAqDCjFJ_story.html?hpid=z3
With 15 months still to go before our presidential elections the campaign is already
underway. The Republicans who have to go through a primary election race seemed
to have narrowed their number of candidates down to three, Michele Bachmann,
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. They
will have to battle it out until next year’s primaries. Meanwhile, Pres. Obama is
beginning a campaign to upgrade his popularity which has suffered during the down
time in our economy. I’m already tired of presidential politics and we still have over a
year to go before the real election. Pity us!
Enough about our problems. Let’s get on to the news…
IN THIS EDITION
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2. ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST – As if terrorism and war aren’t enough, we
also have genuine anti-Semitism.
SOCIAL UNREST IN ISRAEL – The cost of living is too high for many. Big
demonstrations but no violence.
JEWS WHO ARE NOT JEWS: POLITICAL DIRTY TRICKS? – Is saying you’re
Jewish in order to attack Israel like being an undercover terrorist?
OLDER AMERICAN RABBIS – You’re never too old…
ASSIMILATION: A RUSSIAN-JEWISH-AMERICAN PROBLEM – Many young
people start off adulthood as radicals. Not these first generation Americans.
JEWS OF COLOR – Surprise! We’re not all white.
THE ISRAELI WALL: OR IS IT A FENCE? – I, too, prefer “barrier”.
ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST
For those of us who are Jewish and supporters of Israel it’s bad enough that the
Jewish State is threatened politically and with terrorism. It now looks as if there is
some anti-Semitism thrown in to the mix to make things even a little worse.
Aymenn Jawad, an intern at the Middle East Forum and a student at Oxford
University writing in the Jerusalem Post, reports “I was recently told by my aunt in
Baghdad that there was a widespread belief among Iraqis that some external force
was behind the protests and uprisings across the Middle East. What outside
conspiracy, I wondered, could be responsible for the Arab Spring? Not to worry,
however; George Saliba – the Syriac Orthodox Church’s bishop in Lebanon – offers
us a simple answer. In an interview with Al-Dunya TV on July 24, Saliba declared
that “the source... behind all these movements, all these civil wars, and all these
evils” in the Arab world is nothing other than Zionism, “deeply rooted in Judaism.”
The Jews, he says, are responsible for financing and inciting the turmoil in
accordance with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
These remarks are not an isolated case among Middle Eastern Christians. The anti-
Semitic trend has become especially apparent in the aftermath of Iraq’s assault last
October on the Syriac Catholic Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, leaving
58 dead and 67 wounded in the worst attack on the Iraqi Christian community since
2003.
Two months after the atrocity, for example, the Melkite Greek Patriarch Gregory III
Laham characterized the terrorist attacks on Iraq’s Christians as part of “a Zionist
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3. conspiracy against Islam.”
He further affirmed, “All this behavior has nothing to do with Islam... but it is actually
a conspiracy planned by Zionism...
In an interview with NBN TV on November 9, 2010, Iraqi priest Father Suheil Qasha
claimed that the Jews consider all gentiles to be beasts, and asserted that the “real
danger” to Middle Eastern Christians came from Zionism. He went on to state that
those who perpetrated the attack on the church in Baghdad were certainly not
Muslims, but probably those trained and supervised “by global Zionism.”
Anti-Semitism extends to the Coptic Orthodox Church, which, serving around 10
percent of Egypt’s population, is the largest single church in the Middle East and
North Africa. As liberal Egyptian blogger Samuel Tadros points out, a certain Father
Marcos Aziz Khalil wrote in the newspaper Nahdet Masr: “The Jews saw that the
Church is their No. 1 enemy, and that without [the] priesthood the Church loses its
most important component. Thus the Masonic movement was the secret Zionist
hand to create revolution against the clergy.”
At this point, many would no doubt be inclined to explain away this anti-Semitism by
pointing to the anti- Jewish sentiments that are mainstream among the Muslim
populations of the region. Living in such an environment – the reasoning goes –
Christians would naturally be careful not to denounce deeply held convictions
among their Muslim neighbors for fear of provoking persecution.
However, the cancer of hostility toward Jews among Middle Eastern Christians goes
much deeper than that.
Indeed, it is telling that other non-Muslim minorities that have suffered discrimination
and violence at the hands of Islamists – including the Yezidis, Mandeans and
Bahá’íshave never blamed Jews or Zionism for their persecution; their religions
have not featured anti-Semitic doctrines.
It is clear that in general, the Eastern churches have yet to move beyond the
noxious anti-Semitic motifs repudiated by the Vatican in its Nostra Aetate
declaration issued in 1965, after the Second Vatican Council. If anti-Semitism in the
Middle East and North Africa is to be eradicated, the burden of theological reform
will evidently not be a task for Muslims alone.
It’s a sad commentary on a group that are themselves are being persecuted by
people of the Islamic faith. One would think that since they are closely connected to
the Vatican they would reject this sort of nonsense about Jews being the cause of all
their troubles. Obviously, however, they are not Western and seemingly not very
enlightened. It is this sort of vicious Jew hatred that makes it difficult for people who
are connected to these churches to come to terms with Israel and Judaism and
makes peace in the region almost impossible to bring about anytime soon.
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4. Is some Vatican intervention called for?
SOCIAL UNREST IN ISRAEL
I’m sure that the German media over the last few weeks have been reporting on the
social unrest and large weekend demonstrations in Israel – sometimes linking it to
the Arab Spring. That analysis is all wrong. My Israel colleague Ed Rettig explains it
all in an AJC blog.
He noted in an August 10 posting, “Saturday night saw the third consecutive
weekend of large-scale tent-city demonstrations throughout Israel with estimates
running as high as 400,000 participants. “An outburst of frustration with housing
prices”; “the revolt of the middle class;” “an ‘Arab Spring’ in Israel;” “a return to
socialist democracy”—some of the descriptions pundits apply to the phenomenon—
are at best only partially accurate, and in the case of the so-called ”Arab Spring,”
deeply misleading.
We see rising wage differentials between the highest paid employees and the
lowest, as globalization drives higher competitiveness. A minority rides the wave to
a higher standard of living but many, perhaps most, do not. Thus to some extent
Israel’s problem is shared by other economically advanced countries.
But a local cause that was probably more important in bringing so many out to the
streets, even though it is not as widely discussed: the dysfunction of Israel’s
parliament, the Knesset, which has created a political vacuum. For decades
coalition politics has failed to protect the level of services offered to the working
majority. The most economically productive segment of the economy has felt for a
long time that while its labor makes economic growth possible, the benefits go
elsewhere. Theoretically, the Knesset represents the citizens and their interests,
and should ensure that the vast working segment of society receives fair value for
the taxes it pays. But the Knesset is in fact chronically manipulated by small groups
that hold the balance of coalition power, and so it fails to fulfill that function.
The direct provocation that led to the demonstrations was the unwarranted (and
possibly price-fixed) rise in the cost of an Israeli breakfast staple, cottage cheese.
Hundreds of thousands joined in an organized Facebook boycott that forced the
price back down. That seems to have released the genie from the bottle. The direct
reason given by so many of the tent city demonstrators for their participation is the
sharp rise in the cost of housing.
Middle-class Israelis speak of two major dysfunctions that block a more equitable
distribution of the nation’s growing economic resources: concentration of wealth in
the hands of widely resented “tycoons” and the large distribution of welfare
payments to the Haredi (ultra religious)and Muslim Arab communities.
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5. To date, the “Arab Spring” analogy is misplaced. The tent cities of Israel are the
product of a thriving democracy, not a demand for it as in the demonstrations in the
Arab world. They are a magnificent exercise in petitioning the government for
redress of grievances. At a time when some in the Israeli Knesset have been busy
pushing undemocratic bills, they provide an invigorating push back.
I’m not sure that taking quotes from Ed’s column does it or him justice. What he has
written is much more complicated and nuanced than what I have printed above. You
can read it all by clicking here. http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?
c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=2818289&ct=11111385&notoc=1
What is important is the fact that the demonstrations and tent cities have nothing to
do with “foreign” affairs. The problems are domestic and unlike what has been going
on in the UK there has been no violence. The Government leaders have admitted
that things must change and hopefully the Knesset will work on that. Again, I implore
you to read Ed’s column if you want to understand this important development in
Israeli life.
JEWS WHO ARE NOT JEWS: POLITICAL DIRTY TRICKS?
Middle East politics brings out people doing strange things to make their political
points. How about non-Jews claiming to be Jews so that they can use their false
identity in order to pose as authentic Israel critics?
Ben Weinthal, a Berlin based journalist writing in the Jerusalem Post reported,
“Defending his participation in the latest flotilla operation in an attempt to break
Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, Gabriel Matthew Schivone, an
American university student, stressed in a late June Ha’aretz opinion piece that he is
one of a growing number of young American Jews seeking to disassociate himself
from Israel.
There is, however, a rather large factual wrinkle with Schivone’s account – he
appears to have falsified his Jewish identity. Writing in an August letter to the editor
in Ha’aretz, Valerie Saturen, a pro-Palestinian activist and acquaintance of
Schivone, noted, “In his editorial about joining the flotilla to Gaza, Gabriel Schivone
represented himself as a Jewish college student. I feel I must point out that this is
not his true identity, but one he has created in order to generate insider credibility,
shield himself from accusations of anti-Semitism, and resonate with a target
audience.
Gabriel is not Jewish, whether in terms of ethnic ancestry, religious belief or cultural
identity. He has never identified as a Jew until it became useful in advancing his
political agenda. When asked why he did this, he explained that he has a distant
Jewish relative and that ‘you use what you have.’”
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6. Schivone’s alleged use of a fake Jewish identity recalls the German case of Edith
Lutz last year. Lutz, a former school teacher, claimed to have converted to Judaism,
and proceeded to use her invented Jewish credentials to garner enormous attention
in the German media to publicize her voyage to violate Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
Lutz was a passenger aboard the Irene catamaran in 2010 during last year’s flotilla.
Many German newspapers, including the widely viewed television program ARD-
Magazin Monitor, which featured a broadcast in which Lutz was named as a
representative of “Jews from Germany,” devoted extensive coverage to Lutz. The
dogged reporting of German Journalist Henryk M. Broder exposed Lutz as a fraud,
prompting Broder to comment, “Edith Lutz is definitely a Jew, like a smoked pork
chop is kosher.”
The ARD declined to concede at the time that its method of journalistic verification
was flawed, and the message of German Jews against Israel spread across
television sets in Germany “
For those of us who are Jewish it borders on the bizarre that anyone would lie their
way into being “a member of the tribe”. Judaism (and, frankly just being Jewish)
imposes certain responsibilities on a Jew. Most would agree that there is a
responsibility for the security of other Jews. Jewish education and religious
observance even for the non-observant are, at least, out there to take part in or not –
but they’re out there. I wonder whether Lutz & Schivone feel any of those sorts of
responsibilities.
Of course, I understand the reasons for the two of them cloaking themselves in
robes of false Judaism. They’re sort of undercover non-Jewish, pro-Hamas
infiltrators using the cloak to deceive the world and do harm to Israel. What better
way for Israel to be de-legitimized than for Jews to denounce it?
My guess is that even responsible Palestinians are disgusted by such dirty tricks. I
know that I am.
OLDER AMERICAN RABBIS
Having young ordained rabbis grow old is an inevitable and old (pun intended) story.
Time marches on for all of us. However, the American rabbinate is experiencing a
new development: Middle age people seeking a second career as rabbis.
JTA reports, “…a small group of second-career rabbis who are finding their place in
the world of Jewish religious leadership in their 40s and 50s.
Various factors are propelling these individuals into the rabbinate. Some long had
harbored dreams of becoming a rabbi but wound up pursuing other careers for
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7. personal or financial reasons. Others became interested in the rabbinate later in life,
prompted in some cases by something specific.
Not all the new rabbis are pursuing congregational jobs. More professional options
exist now for rabbinical school graduates, including in the chaplaincy, education and
Jewish communal work.
Pursuing the rabbinate as a second career is not a new story in American Jewish
life, but it's more common for those in their mid- to late 20s or early 30s after
working for some time in professions such as law or medicine, said Jonathan Sarna,
a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University and the chief historian
at the National Museum of American Jewish History.
Sarna said it is unusual for those in their 40s, 50s or 60s to go for the rabbinate, and
that it's more common for older second-career clergy members among Christian
denominations.
The prevalence of older, second-career rabbis varies by denomination and
rabbinical school.
At Boston's Hebrew College, 15 students older than 50 have attended since the
rabbinical school opened in 2003, said Rabbi Dan Judson, its director of
professional development and placement. In recent years, the average age of
incoming students has dropped, drawing a more typical age range for rabbinical
students -- those in their late 20s. Still, Judson stressed, it is not unusual for 25-
year-olds to have study partners in their 40s or 50s.
In the past two years, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, Conservative
Judaism's flagship educational institution, has enrolled a handful of students in their
40s and 50s who are pursuing the rabbinate later in life or as second careers,
according to Rabbi Daniel Nevins, dean of the JTS rabbinical school.
At the New York campus of the Reform movement's Hebrew Union College, two of
the 12 rabbis who were ordained in this year's graduating class were second career
rabbis in their late 40s or early 50s, according to HUC's associate dean, Renni
Altman. She said the number of older students varies from year to year and HUC
has always had some older students, but never large clusters.
The average age of rabbinical students at Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac
Elchanan Theological Seminary is the mid-20s, according to Rabbi Yona Reiss,
dean of the Orthodox, male-only rabbinical program in New York. For the occasional
older student, the motivation is generally personal growth as opposed to
professional advancement.
By contrast, over the past decade at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College,
approximately one-third of the rabbinical students have been in their second
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8. careers, including some over 50, according to Rabbi Amber Powers, who oversees
admissions at the suburban Philadelphia school.
"Part of what makes classroom discussions so dynamic at RRC is the diverse
backgrounds of the students," Powers said. "Learning Jewish history really comes
alive when a student who was an anthropologist brings their expertise to the
discussion.”
I think it’s much easier in the U.S. than in Germany to turn around and start a mid-
life change in one’s profession. It is not unusual here (My wife went for being a
teacher to being a Certified Public Accountant and then a small community mayor).
Some congregations probably, I am sure, welcome spiritual leaders who have
greater life experience. In addition, and this is important, women who have gone
through their child bearing years and are entering the job market make great
employees. Again, life experience plus a desire to show what they can do in a
complicated profession make them very valuable. I found, when I was the director of
AJC’s 32 field offices throughout the U.S. they proved to be, time and time again, the
best regional directors we could hire.
Having said all the above, becoming a rabbi in mid life is more difficult than just
changing professions. A great deal of schooling is required and then interning before
ordination. My guess is that people who choose this path are not only highly
motivated but, in general, are made of “very tough stuff”. I applaud them.
ASSIMILATION: A RUSSIAN-JEWISH-AMERICAN PROBLEM
The uprooting of people, even when they themselves choose to be uprooted and
then settled elsewhere, obviously causes great problems for them. In addition, in the
generations that follow a different set of problems emerge as their children grow to
adulthood and are caught in between the new and the old cultures. In the U.S.,
where there is already a sizeable Jewish community, a major problem has emerged
in their relationship to rest of American Jews.
With latest Russian-Jewish immigration to the U.S. now more than 20 years old,
problems with the youngsters and how they relate to the rest of the American Jewish
community are beginning to appear. The Jewish Week recently reported, “Unlike
their parents and grandparents, who came to the United States as adults in the
1970s and ‘80s, these young Russian Jews — born or raised in America, fluent in
English and now in their 20s and 30s — grew up in the same culture and country as
their non-Russian Jewish American peers.
Now, they must figure out how to integrate into the American Jewish mainstream —
and whether they even want to.
While Russian Jews of all ages express a desire to grow closer to the rest of
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9. America’s Jews — or at least admit that such blending is inevitable — a debate is
now taking shape among younger Russians that is pulling them in two different
directions, and that may result in less than full integration into the wider community.
Several key issues are at play: a desire to influence the political debate in the wider
community, as well as a desire to retain a unique identity as Russian Jews. And
then there is the wild-card issue: the Russian community’s hard-line conservatism
on Israel — which has put some Russian Jews at odds with the mainstream.
Young Russian Jews are working out how they would deliver those right-wing views
to the mainstream. The Russian contingent’s showing in the Israel parade — a kind
of mega-event for the New York Jewish community — signifies a desire to
participate in the same events as the mainstream. But the group that sponsored the
orange float, Russian American Jewish Experience (RAJE), has also been quick to
look at Russian-Jewish Israel activism as a corrective for the failures of American
Jewry — not exactly talk of integration.
The Russian Jewish community in America has long been more right wing than the
rest of American Jewry. Polls leading up to the 2004 and 2008 elections conducted
by the Research Institute for New Americans showed that the majority of Russian
Jews in New York City planned to vote for the Republican presidential candidate —
a departure from the larger Jewish community’s Democratic character. In the 2008
presidential election, for instance, Obama garnered 78 percent of the Jewish vote.
Some see this difference in opinion and approach especially regarding Israel as a
problem. I don’t! There have always been great divergences of opinion in the
American Jewish community. As long as those differences do not result in a schism
the intra-discussion is healthy. I myself would hate to see the liberal leanings of
mainstream American Jewry turn more conservative or reactionary. However, one
has to have faith in democracy and reasonable exchanges of views. The debate has
already begun.
JEWS OF COLOR
When one thinks of American Jews one thinks of individuals with German or East
European background – all of them with “white” skin (It’s really not “white”. It’s sort of
pink – light tan). Well, things are changing in the U.S. With immigration from places
where skin tones are darker, and due to the fact that there is growing interracial
marriage, the “color” of American Jewry is changing.
It’s not happening quickly but fast enough that in California there is a children’s
summer camp for Jewish kids of color.
The New York Times (Samuel G. Freedman) reports, “Such is the mission of Camp
Be’chol Lashon (“In Every Tongue”) here in the hills of Marin County about 35 miles
north of San Francisco. For the past two years, it has provided the commonplaces of
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10. Jewish summer camp, right down to poison oak and bug juice, to an emerging
population of Jews of color.
“If there’s Christians of all colors and all kinds, and Muslims of all colors and all
kinds,” Amalia, 11, said over Shabbat lunch, “then why would Jewishness be any
different?”
One of her fellow campers, Josh Rowen-Keran, 14, who was born to black and
Korean parents and then adopted by an interracial couple in the Bay Area, sounded
similarly nonchalant. “Being Jewish isn’t looking a certain way,” he said. “I could look
at anyone and not know if they are or aren’t Jewish. You can’t know till you know the
person.”
Yet what strikes these children as the same old same old, an American-Jewish
community of multiple hues and heritages, has arrived as a seismic change.
Religiously and historically, Judaism has generally placed little emphasis on
evangelism and conversion.
While Israel’s law granting instant citizenship to any Jew has brought it a sizable
number of Ethiopians and Indians, the American Jewish picture has looked much
whiter. As the largest group of Jewish immigrants to the United States, those from
Eastern Europe have set the cultural tone since the early 1900s. Their folkways —
bagels, Yiddish, New Deal politics, Borsht Belt jokes — became a virtual religion.
Which meant that nobody from outside could ever get completely inside.
Entering the new century, however, the demographers Gary and Diane Tobin
conducted a survey that estimated that 10 percent of America’s six million Jews
were nonwhite. Their route into the community had been through conversion,
adoption and interracial parentage, rather than Ellis Island. (Other scholars place the
number slightly lower, at roughly 450,000.)
So, we’re changing! Good! Every religion, culture and people need an infusion of
“new blood” every once in a while. It keeps groups from becoming stale in their
thinking and in the way they live their lives. Interestingly, in the American Jewish
community, the opposite is happening as well. Some of the ultra Orthodox groups
remain very much to themselves with little chance of an “in-mixing”. Hopefully, these
cross currents will not do harm to the unity that Jews need so badly.
I hope that one of these days we will not need special camps of kids of color.
You can read the entire NYT story by clicking here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/us/13religion.html?src=recg
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11. THE ISRAELI WALL: OR IS IT A FENCE?
The building of the Berlin Wall 50 years ago gave a bad reputation to all walls. Der
Spiegel recently ran a series on the various walls around the world with an article
about the one that separates Israel from the Palestinian West Bank area.
The separation barrier is about 760 kilometers (472 miles long) -- roughly twice the
length of the 1949 cease-fire line which separates Israel from the West Bank in the
Palestinian territories. Most of its length consists of an electric fence, but about 30
kilometers worth is comprised of a concrete wall measuring up to eight meters (26
feet) in height. The wall-vs.-fence issue is more apparent in the densely populated
areas in and around Jerusalem: For the Palestinians, the barrier is an obstacle that
makes daily life more difficult, but for the Israelis, it's a defense against terrorism.
Plans to seal Israel off from the land it had occupied were gaining ground as far
back as the 1990s. After a number of bloody attacks by Palestinians on Israelis,
Nobel Prize-winning President Yitzhak Rabin, who was later murdered, declared
that he wanted "... to take Gaza out of Tel Aviv." In 2000, the outbreak of the second
Intifada -- the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation -- increased
pressure on Israel's government to curb attacks by suicide-bombers from the West
Bank. To start, a couple of fences were put up along the border here and there.
Then, with military-like precision, the construction of today's barrier began in 2002.
n Israel, the separation barrier is seen as a success, in spite of the enormous costs.
The military and political classes are happy to remind the public that since the
barrier was erected, infiltration into Israel by suicide bombers has fallen to almost
zero.
Needless to say, the Palestinians are very unhappy with the barrier. Some of it is
built on what they consider “their land”. Court cases in Israeli courts have rules
against the government and adjustments have been made. The international
community is very opposed to the barrier and it is another one of things that Israeli is
denounced about.
I don’t think anyone likes walls, fences or barriers. However, there is no dispute over
the fact that Palestinian terror has almost totally stopped since it was constructed.
The Israelis had to do something to combat the bombers and the killing. Maybe the
barrier was not the best choice but it certainly has proven itself to be the most
effective. The Palestinians themselves could not (or would not) stop the killing so the
Government did what governments’ do – take steps to safeguard their citizens. And,
for that, they are criticized.
My bottom line? Anything that stops killing is worthwhile. Period!
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12. DuBow Digest is written and published by Eugene DuBow who can be contacted by
clicking here
Both the American and Germany editions are posted at
www.dubowdigest.typepad.com
Click here to connect
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