This morning, I went to the Dallas Holocaust Museum with my parents.  It is currently housed in temporary quarters a block behind the old Book Depository which houses the Sixth Floor (JFK) Museum.  Due to the temporary nature of the exhibits, the space is relatively small.  Nevertheless it is extremely well done, catering mostly to high school classes who come there for field trips.  I was personally familiar with most of what was on display, but there was one part of the exhibit relating to a "The Bermuda Conference" with which I wasn't familiar.  The  conference was a futile effort by the Allies to come up with a plan for rescuing Jews from Europe during the war (held at a luxury resort of course).

We were lucky enough to be present for a lecture and slide show presentation given by the museum's founder, holocaust survivor Mike Jacobs. At first, I was interested in going more to see the reaction of the hundred or so mostly gentile high school students than to hear Mr. Jacobs' personal history.  I had recently read several fiction and non-fiction books relating to the Holocaust, aside from learning extensively about the subject since I was little, and didn't really feel the need to hear more right then and there. I am now incredibly embarrassed that I even entertained those feelings.

It's one thing to read an account of Nazi torture and barbarism in a book.  It's quite another to listen to a man as he tells the story of German soldiers throwing babies out of top-floor windows and shooting at them on the way down as he was forced to watch, helpless to do anything.  You could see Mr. Jacob's eyes move up towards the ceiling as he began the story, obviously reliving the scene in his mind at that very moment.

The students were extremely well-behaved (aside from the one girl who couldn't figure out how to put here phone on "vibrate"). Of the few questions offered up at the end, two students just commented on how much respect they had for Mr. Jacobs while thanking him for sharing his story with them.  I'll never know what the majority of the kids were thinking, but I left feeling good about the future after leaving the lecture.  As a Jew, it is sometimes hard to imagine that anyone could grow up in this country not knowing much about the Holocaust given the significant media attention given to the subject.  And yet.....

Below is a rendering of the new building that the museum is hoping to erect, with the large yahrzeit-candle style detail on one corner.



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I meant to post this awhile ago, but never got around to it.

Hate crime charges have been dropped against the five Jewish teens arrested for attacking a Pakistani man outside a Midwood Dunkin’ Donuts late last year.  Several of the teens are still up on assault charges though that can bring a sentence of up to 15 years in jail.

Sportswriter's son and Messianic (not a real) Jew David Newhan tries for a roster spot with the Mets.

Newhan bounced around the A's organization and was traded to the Padres in 1997. He made his major league debut with San Diego in 1999.

Then, Newhan said, it all started going wrong. He batted .140 in 32 games. The next year he hit .150. He was traded to Philadelphia and made the team out of spring training in 2001, but he injured his shoulder crashing into a left-field wall and missed most of that season and all of 2002 after having his second shoulder operation.

It was about this time that Newhan started reading scripture and the Old Testament for guidance, and soon, he said, “a different train pulled into the station.” He still held fast to his Jewish beliefs — he had his Bar Mitzvah at a conservative synagogue — but he said that accepting Jesus Christ helped guide him through this rocky period. He observes Passover and Hanukkah and considers himself a Messianic Jew.

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A Cailfornia camera store owner says "some of my best customers are Jews" after refusing a man service because photos of his turn-of-the-century relatives were considered to be  "Jewish terrorists"

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Did supporters of a Scottish soccer club give their Israeli hosts the "Red Hand of Ulster" or "Heil Hitler" salutes?  It appears to have been the first, although their is quite a bit of on-the-field acrimony nevertheless.

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Better late than never, I guess, but this smacks of political pandering and is somewhat offensive.

Islip leader urges U.S. citizenship for Anne Frank

Anne's cousin Edith Gordon, 78, who recently moved from Setauket to San Diego, questioned whether the U.S. should try to claim Anne for its own.

"It doesn't seem right to me somehow, when we didn't let her into the country," she said.

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Too many of these stories wind up in tiny local papers instead of on page A1 of the national papers (you know who you are).  And I know this story is not unique at all.  Thanks for your service and your honesty, sir.

It is one medal no soldier wants to earn.

U.S. Army Cpl. Matt Murray is one of the lucky ones. In person, he accepted his Purple Heart medal for being wounded in combat, the result of an improvised explosive device that detonated under the vehicle in which he was riding. He found out later his neck was broken.

The 2002 Plano Senior High graduate joined the Army Feb. 24, 2004. He arrived in Iraq in August 2006 and his stay was shortened by the attack......

Now, he’s at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C. in recovery. He only stayed in Texas for about two weeks in mid-January. He said his recovery and therapy should be complete by the end of March, at which time he will return to his unit in Iraq.

“I have good friends in Plano, but not in the same way as the brotherhood built in the Army. I wouldn’t have wanted to fight next to my friends in Plano,” Murray said. “It’ll be nice to be with my brothers again. They’re still over there and I’m laying in a hospital bed watching this …. on T.V. I need to be over there with my brothers. Nothing is under my control. I think we need to get out of there, personally. I think we are getting caught in the cross fire of a civil war.”

But Murray said he is proud of his service to his country and “if we don’t fight the fight, then who will?”

Is There a Historical Right to the Land of Israel? A serious, scholarly look at the issue.

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Fox News is coming out with it's own version of The Daily Show called The 1/2 Hour Newshour. First airing Sunday night at 10PM ET.

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LA's mayor wants the whole city Wi-Fi'd by 2009. Houston and other cities also have plans underway.

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Howard Stern has gotten engaged to long-time girlfriend Beth Ostrosky. All the x-rated details here.

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Is "Studio 60" on it's last legs? I've enjoyed it, but maybe because I didn't overdose on the West Wing, so it's style is relatively fresh to me. I do have to say that I was not happy about giving one of the major characters a drug problem.

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Yes, it's real.

From President Bush's press conference today:

Q As you know, a growing number of troops are on their second, third or fourth tour in Iraq. There have been a growing number of reports about declining morale among fighting men. I spoke personally to an infantry commander -- tough guy, patriot -- who says more and more of the troops are asking, questioning what they're doing here. Does this come as a surprise to you? Are you aware of this? Is it a minority opinion, is it a growing opinion, and does it concern you?
THE PRESIDENT: I am -- what I hear from commanders is that the place where there is concern is with the family members; that our troops, who have volunteered to serve the country, are willing to go into combat multiple times, but that the concern is with the people on the home front.

Now, obviously one can find voices from the military that express discontent at the current state of things in Iraq and think that the planned surge will be useless. I also imagine that I'd be pretty upset if I had to spend so much time away from my family on life threatening missions. Then again, I'm not in the military.

In this news report, ABC News was able to find troops who wanted to be clear about their feelings regarding the anti-surge resolutions being pushed by the Democrats.

If a deficit falls in a budget report, does anyone hear it?  From BizzyBlog.

The federal budget deficit, already down almost 50% from a few years ago, is down another 50% through the first four months of this year compared to 2006.

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Jennifer Rubin, a freelance writer for ABCNews uses the Mitt Romney flap I posted about earlier to pontificate about Why So Few Jews Vote  for Republicans.  I do give her credit for writing that, " It is doubtful either of these groups (the NJDC or RJC) believe Romney is really an anti-Semite."   However, she does write that Romney's probable excuse is that he is oblivious to Jewish concerns. She then goes on to assume that Romney just must not have Jewish advisors, which is easily debunked based on my last post regarding Romney's recent trip to Israel with Jewish supporters and campaign staff. 

She then writes that if they were better informed, they would have said to themselves, "You know, a lot of Jews really hate Ford, and it might mess up your message. Let's try Edison's lab to make a point about American innovation."

Miss Rubin might be interested to know that Neil Baldwin, author of Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate writes that Edison was at best, "a passive anti-Semite".  Maybe if she would have googled "Edison" and "anti-semitic", she could have found this out pretty easily, as well as a number of other sources that raise concerns about Edison's attitude towards Jews.  Then again, Ms. Rubin, like the Democrats, must know all there is to know about Jewish issues.

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More Global....Cooling?  Just got my electric bill from January.  I live in north Texas.  The average temperature in January 2007 was 19 degrees colder than in January 2006.  Tomorrow's high is 36.  Thursday it will be 38.  I wonder how it's going in NYC?  If you look at these pictures, you'd think the melting polar ice caps have just relocated.

Earlier today, Mitt Romney announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States.  The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) has made a big deal of the fact that Romney chose the Henry Ford Museum as the site for his announcement claiming it as an "embrace of Henry Ford".  It should be mentioned that the Museum is really a tribute to Americana more than to Ford himself, and there are several prominent Jewish members of the museum's board of trustees. I'm having trouble even finding a biography of Henry Ford of any kind on their website.  The NJDC says that the museum is "a testament to the life of Henry Ford".  I've never been, but it sure doesn't seem that way from where I'm sitting.

Part of the reason for the NJDC's anger might be that they got cut out of a Romney trip to Israel a few weeks ago.

The former Republican governor of Massachusetts returned last week from a five-day trip to Israel, accompanied by Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), and Mel Sembler, a member of its board of directors.

In this and other links, the NJDC makes a point about Romney's veto of a bill that would have provided reimbursement to some Medicaid patients for the extra costs of kosher meals back in 2003.  I don't know enough about the specifics to comment (was that part of a larger spending bill without a line item veto?), but in any case, I hardly find the granting of additional moneys to a particular interest group to be anti-Semitic.

Personally, I do contribute the annual membership fee to the RJC, although I think the professionalism of that organization's campaigns leave a lot to be desired as well.

I'm sorry I can't find the blog where I read this particular thought last night, but until the NJDC can convince me that no Democratic Jews drive Fords or work for Ford, use IBM equipment, etc. I'm not buying their case that Romney is fanning the flame of anti-Semitism. 

I recently finished reading "The Lost: A Search for Six of the Six Million" by Daniel Mendolsohn.  It's a fascinating story about finding one's lost roots, even if it means traveling the globe - several times, hiring interpreters and tour guides, and reconciling with ones most immediate family members.

I mentioned to my rabbi that I was reading the book and he said he heard an interview with the author on NPR, something which I actually waited to hear until after I finished the book.  We wondered whether Mendelsohn does any public speaking on the subject and I suggested that the "voice" of the author in the book seemed to be one of a relatively shy, sensitive man, who might not be comfortable doing a lot of public speaking.

Oddly enough, when I started listening to the interview, I couldn't help but think to myself - "he does sound, well, not just soft-spoken, but gay" (not that there's anything wrong with that).  I did a little more online research, and he seems to have received much critical acclaim for writing about his experiences coming out, and living openly as, a gay man in New York, so no secret there.  It was only then that I realized that he didn't mention any romantic interests although the book is extremely personal and takes place over a period of several years.

It also made me wonder - considering the strict German upbringing of much of his family - wouldn't his open homosexuality have had some bearing on the feelings towards his family, or theirs to him?  When he talks about strains between he and his brothers, does his sexual orientation have anything to do with it at all?  If so, he doesn't say.  Was he perhaps even looking for some sign of homosexuality in his search for his great-uncle?  The one who looked so similar to him that survivors would cry just because of his resemblance?  I think I would have wanted to know, assuming I had written a book openly describing my sexual history as a sort of biography.  But I digress - I'm just curious, really.

This book is a must read for anyone, like myself, who has family that perished in the Holocaust - many of whom we know nothing about.  Mendelsohn frequently brings up a salient point - shouldn't we be just as interested in how these people lived as how they died?

It took me awhile to find the time to get through the first half of this 500-page book.  However, as you get closer and closer  to finding the truth of his family's history, there's no putting the book down.  I read the second half in one long sitting that ended at 12:30AM.

More on the author's work can be found here.

It all started this weekend when the AP reported that, "U.S. military commanders in Iraq have shown members of Congress explosive devices that bear Iranian markings as evidence Tehran is supplying Iraqi militants with bombs".

The article clearly mentioned that members of Congress were being allowed to see the evidence and that the administration is being cautious in making the direct accusation that the Iranian government is behind attacks on coalition forces, so there shouldn't be a problem.  After all, someone is sending arms to the militants - I imagine they don't have RPG factories in Fallujah.

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A short while ago, MSNBC's lead article was "U.S. general: No evidence Iran is arming Iraqis".  Apparently, this is meant to prove that the Bush administration is already cooking the intelligence books so that it can invade Iran to make more blood/oil money for their friends or Israel, or whatever it is that people think.

Part of the problem is that MSNBC confuses the words "evidence" and "proof".   According to the news report, the General in question, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said:

 - Iranians had been arrested as part of militant networks that produced roadside bombs
 - Some of the material used in the devices were made in Iran.

And more specifically:

“What it does say is that things made in Iran are being used in Iraq to kill coalition soldiers.”

This is all evidence of Iranian government involvement.  Of course there's circumstantial evidence such as Iran's providing weapons and money to other groups fighting against the West such as Hamas and Hizbollah, but that is besides the point.  What all this is not, is proof, which is the accumulation of evidence which allows one to assert something is true.

Now, getting back to the main topic.  Did the administration earlier claim as truth that Iran was supplying our enemies, or only that we have some evidence that suggests that the Iranian government might be involved?

Tony Snow did seem to definitively accuse the Iranian government in the following exchange in yesterday's press briefing:

Q Tony, when Diane Sawyer interviewed Iranian President Ahmadinejad earlier today, he said that this presentation was based on fabrication. Is the U.S. administration confident that there is conclusive evidence that Iran is providing these weapons to Iraq?

MR. SNOW: Yes.

I'm willing to give Snow the benefit of the doubt here, and perhaps more than I should, in that he may have misspoke and the question is taken somewhat out of context when looking at the entire press briefing.  Obviously he doesn't mean "the Iraqi government" when he said that "Iran" is giving weapons to "Iraq", so maybe he meant to say Iranians in general as opposed to the Iranian government.  (Going to my earlier point, the proper phrase would have been "conclusive proof", not "conclusive evidence".  They obviously have evidence, both physical and circumstantial).  A few minutes earlier, the following was asked:

Q Tony, the senior military officials made this presentation in Baghdad on background about the evidence against Iran active inside Iraq. Can you talk about the significance of that presentation, about its timing, and what it really means in context of the war right now?

MR. SNOW: What it means is that there is evidence that there's been some weaponry coming across the border into Iraq and it's being used to kill Americans.

Snow did not mention or accuse Iranian personnel of being involved - I imagine on purpose.
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My favorite part of the article comes at the end, when an Iranian government official is reported to have said, “Such accusations cannot be relied upon or be presented as evidence. The United States has a long history in fabricating evidence."

This from the folks who can't find enough evidence that the Holocaust occurred.

Iranians live in some kind of bizarro world.  In my opinion:

The Iranians say the Holocaust never happened - it did
The Iranians say they are not supplying the insurgency in Iraq - they are
The Iranians say that any day now they will have a nuclear weapon - they won't.

In some ways, it's easier to read the Iranian government than our own - at least we know when they are lying, which is always.