Another big story on the war from the NY Times, but still a little confusing in it's details.

U.S. Said to Overstate Value of Guantánamo Detainees

In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful — some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen — were sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings.

While some Guantánamo intelligence has aided terrorism investigations, none of it has enabled intelligence or law-enforcement services to foil imminent attacks, the officials said. Compared with the higher-profile Qaeda operatives held elsewhere by the C.I.A., the Guantánamo detainees have provided only a trickle of intelligence with current value, the officials said. Because nearly all of that intelligence is classified, most of the officials would discuss it only on the condition of anonymity.

Here, as in many places, I think the Times is raising the bar for holding people from "people who would kill Americans" (not sufficient) to "people with information on an imminent 9/11 size attack" (in which case they still probably wouldn't agree with holding prisoners in this manner).

The article itself mentions that "officials...have been unable to get any information from at least 60 detainees". In my opinion, people held in this manner with nothing to hide would at least proclaim their innocence.

Also, when prisoners were released, "at least 5 of the 57 Afghan detainees released have returned to the battlefield as Taliban commanders or fighters. Some of the five have been involved in new attacks on Americans, officials in southern Afghanistan said, including a notorious Taliban commander, Mullah Shahzada, who was reportedly killed in a recent accident." If these people are Taliban commanders, past and present and are willing to kill Americans, how is this not "the worst of a bad lot" as the Times mockingly quotes Dick Cheney.

Finally, the report mentions a "26-year-old Saudi man who apparently tried unsuccessfully to enter the United States as the 20th hijacker in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001".

Personally, I'm pretty happy he showed up in Guantanamo.

I guess part of the question is how many innocent people could you morally round up and throw into prison if you thought that one would be as evil as to have taken part in September 11? The Times does not answer this question.

I can't call this a Jewish related blog without at least one Rebbe link today.

Lubavitchers Mark 10 Years Since Death of Revered Rabbi

If you don't believe me (given the right-wing leanings of this blog) that I've supported Bill Clinton in the past, feel free to look through my archives. In part, it's because he was a little bit more of a realist than the Bush-hating left wing of his party.

Clinton defends successor's push for war

Noting that Bush had to be "reeling" in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Clinton said Bush's first priority was to keep al Qaeda and other terrorist networks from obtaining "chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material."

"That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for," Clinton said in reference to Iraq and the fact that U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998.

"So I thought the president had an absolute responsibility to go to the U.N. and say, 'Look, guys, after 9/11, you have got to demand that Saddam Hussein lets us finish the inspection process.' You couldn't responsibly ignore [the possibility that] a tyrant had these stocks," Clinton said.

If the Democrats couldn't win the 2000 election with a centrist Gore, ain't no way they are going to win with a leftist, flip-flopping Kerry.

Just wanted to show a little bit of confused/negative reporting on the large Iraqi oil pipeline that was blown up last Tuesday.

In the NY Times' initial reporting, it was said that shutdown was "expected to (last) about 10 days, costing the country up to $1 billion in revenue." The estimate came from a fellow journalist, "an authority on the Iraqi oil industry."

However, the same expert said that "production could be increased later to compensate for the shutdown once repairs are made."

In other words, there would be zero economic impact. But you'd have to read all the way to the bottom to see that.

Luckily, it only took 5 days to repair at least one of them, as reported in today's paper via the Associated Press - Repairs Completed On Iraq Oil Pipeline What's confusing is this information:

"Exports of up to 900,000 barrels a day were expected to resume later Sunday"

"Sabotage attacks damaged two pipelines that can carry over 1.5 million barrels a day"

"Only the smaller of the two southern lines has been repaired"

Simple math tells me that 1.5 million less 900 thousand is 600 thousand. How is it that the larger, unrepaired pipeline pumps less oil?

Also reported in the last 24 hours were these pieces:

Iraq Oil Pipeline Still Under Repair

Repairs to Sabotaged Pipeline Are Delayed

I'm soooooooooo confused my brain's exploding!

Apparently a small group of orthodox rabbis in the U.K. believe that popular orthodox singer Mordechai Ben David is not frum enough. They have sent out appeals to the Jewish community not to see hos concert because the music is "immoral" and "a negative influence on young people".

I'm not sure how this came to be a story importnat enough for a major newspaper, but as one of the concerts' organizers put it, "there's always going to be extremists in every community but 99.99 per cent find this type of thing enjoyable, entertaining and uplifting".

"These trouble-makers really believe they are doing God's will, as do suicide-bombers, to be quite frank."

Ouch.

Maureen O'Dowd, whose writing style I find difficult to read and whose opinions I always disagree with has a particularly Bush-hating entry in the Sunday Times.

Bill Clinton comes out and admits that he had his fling with Monica Lewinsky "because he could", the ultimate abuse of power. Then O'Dowd compares that to the War in Iraq. Actually, she determines that Bush's abuse of power is worse because of the Body Count.

Pardon me Ms. O'Dowd, but the Clinton body count is 3,000+ Americans who died while Clinton failed to respond with force after the first WTC bombing, the African embassies, the USS Cole attack, etc. I guess he thought his time was better spent chasing after interns.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but did Clinton get up in front of the United Nations and lay out his case for why Lewinsky should give him oral sex in the Oval Office and then have the Security Council pass resolutions in his favor? Did Clinton go before Congress to have them vote on his affair, or vote on an appropriations bill for books of poems and cigars? Nothing Bush did on Iraq was the least bit hidden from public view.

You can't even compare the two President's lies. Clinton lied about something he thought, and hoped, no one would ever find out about. President Bush "lied" while at the same time sending in inspection teams and liberating Iraqi voices who could speak against him if he were to be wrong. Nobody lies on purpose and then gives support to the people who can prove them wrong.

Thanks to Ariel Sharon and no thanks to just about every other politician and strategist in the rest of the world, the intifada is over. Or at least any possibility of success for the Palestinian side is over.

Calmer times in Israel? by Charles Krauthammer.

While no one was looking, something historic has happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost.

For Israel, the victory is bitter. The last four years of terrorism have killed almost 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands of others. But Israel has won strategically. The intent of the intifada was to demoralize Israel, destroy its economy, bring it to its knees and thus force it to withdraw and surrender to Palestinian demands, just as Israel withdrew in defeat from southern Lebanon in May 2000.

That did not happen. Israel's economy was certainly wounded, but it is growing again. Tourism had dwindled to almost nothing at the height of the intifada, but tourists are returning. And the Israelis were never demoralized. They kept living their lives, the young people in particular returning to cafes and discos and buses just hours after a horrific bombing. Israelis turned out to be a lot tougher and braver than the Palestinians had imagined.

The end of the intifada does not mean the end of terrorism. There was terrorism before the intifada and there will be terrorism to come. What has happened, however, is an end to systematic, regular, debilitating, unstoppable terror -- terror as a reliable weapon. At the height of the intifada, there were 9 suicide attacks in Israel killing 85 Israelis in just one month (March 2002). In the last three months, there have been none.

Matt Lauer, of all people, takes it to Michael Moore without flinching.

Moore defends incendiary film

Lauer: "You accepted the Palm D'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a huge honor, especially for a film like this. And you said, I think the quote was, ‘I did not set out to make a political film. The art of this, the cinema, comes before the politics.’"

Moore: "That's right. That's absolutely right."

Lauer: "I'm amazed you said it with a straight face."

By the way is "slime ball" two words as reported at the beginning of this story, or one word as in the original.

Among all the criticism of the White House regarding 9/11, I have yet to see the editorial or Op/Ed piece claiming that if Al Gore were President, all this never would have happened.

I wish the critics would get over themselves. We're all human beings, we can't plan for every event and sh*t happens. Even if someone had planned perfectly for the use of one hijacked plane as a missle, there could have been as many as ten. Then what? What if the planes' targets were closer to their take-off points and there couldn't be enough time to scramble F-16s regardless? Even the best laid plans can be circumvented depending on wholly unpredictable events.

There's a reason why no one can promise there won't be another terrorist attack no matter how we re-organize our defenses. It's because it's impossible as long as there are people willing to commit an attack. All we can do to try to dissuade the terrorists by killing as many of them as we can. The second someone picks up a rifle and swears their allegiance to Allah and shouts "death to the infidels", they are fair game. That certainly wasn't our policy before 9/11.

My mini-rant is over.

Just wanted to link to a couple of articles in today's local paper about Kosher stuff. One of the articles has to do with an Orthodox Rabbi who is trying to bring kosher meat processing to the Dallas area. I've actually met him and had lunch with him - he's a really nice guy and I wish him the best.

Making his mark
Rabbi Yaakov Rosenblatt is working to beef up kosher options for Jewish Texans

Degrees of keeping kosher

I still find it amazing that this is actually going forward. Sharon has gotten virtually zero credit outside of Israel for the disengagement plan and the sharp drop in suicide bombings and deaths on both sides.

Disengagement slated to begin in August

An updated schedule for the disengagement plan: settlers can begin to file for compensation in 10 days time. Voluntary evacuation to start in August; evacuation by force—in December.

Just more proof that the John Kerry (or Anybody But Bush) camp's largest supporters are not afraid of flat out lying to gain popular support. This time the non-partison Annenberg School of Communications takes on the latest commercial from Moveon.org

Anti-Bush Ad Overstates Case Against Halliburton

An ad that began airing June 15 portrays a white-coated White House waiter serving contracts and wads of cash, while an announcer says the Bush administration gave Halliburton no-bid contracts "on a silver platter" and that the company was "caught" overcharging by tens of millions of dollars.

But in fact, investigators from the General Accounting Office (GAO) found Halliburton's no-bid contracts to be legal and probably justified by the Pentagon's wartime needs. Furthermore, Pentagon auditors have yet to make any final determination of whether payment should be denied to Halliburton for gasoline or meals for troops. Those billing disputes are still being negotiated.

I'm assuming this guy worked in the same building that I was in at 388 Greenwich. He didn't even see the first plane go in like I did and he wanted compensation. What a wuss. I went back to work with the same 36th floor view of Ground Zero and had to listen to these huge BOOOOOOOMS every five minutes when the trucks full of scrap metal were dumped into the barges along the river. That and the frickin' helicopters full of VIPs that kept buzzing my building.

NO WORKER'S COMP FOR 9/11 GAWKER

A financial analyst who worked blocks away from Ground Zero on 9/11 and claimed he could not return to his job because of post-traumatic-stress disorder cannot collect workers' compensation, a state appeals court ruled yesterday.
The state Supreme Court Appellate Division unanimously ruled that Joseph Betro's problems did not arise from his job, noting that he voluntarily hung around to watch the tragedy unfolding.

Betro was working for Salomon Smith Barney, four blocks from the World Trade Center, when his building was evacuated after the terrorist attacks.

Anyone making the argument that Ahmed Chalabi single-handedly let the Bush administration by the nose into war apparently didn't know about his comrade-in-info, the President of Russia.

Putin: Russia Gave Bush Iraq Intelligence

Russia gave the Bush administration intelligence after the September 11 attacks that suggested Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was preparing attacks in the United States, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

"After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services, the intelligence service, received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests," Putin said.

Of course that wouldn't make him want to take pre-emptive action to stop the potential attacks.

Putin said the intelligence didn't cause Russia to waver from its firm opposition to the war.

"Despite that information about terrorist attacks being prepared by Saddam's regime, Russia's position on Iraq remains unchanged," Putin said.

I guess that's why I didn't hear a big thank you from Putin to Ronald Reagan last week for helping bring about the situation that led him to power.

Although it's not a common occurence, I can pretty much expect to be "witnessed to" every once in a while here in the heart of Southern Baptism. But shouldn't there be a zone of exclusion somewhere in the world where Jews have a right to leave in peace?

Not for these excited Dallasites who "witnessed to" an Orthodox minyan near the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

On this amazing Gospel outreach to the Jewish people of Israel, the Lord indeed “did awesome things we did not expect” (Is. 64:3). One powerful example of this happened in Jerusalem while we were witnessing for the Messiah to the Jewish people there. After morning prayer, we felt led by the Spirit to pray at the Western Wall and then walk through the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.

Our stop at the Western Wall was a distinct display of the providence of God; while we were praying, an Orthodox Jew approached us to ask us if we were Jewish. He asked because he wanted us to help him make a minyan in the synagogue adjacent to the Western Wall so that he could say formal prayers from the Kiddush (the official prayer book of Judaism).

A minyan in Jewish law is required to have a prayer service and is a group composed of ten men above Bar Mitzvah age (13 years old) who must be present before a prayer or synagogue service can occur. We jumped at this opportunity because we knew this was a golden opportunity from God to witness to these Orthodox Jews. So, through an interpreter, I told this gentleman that we were Jewish in our heart by virtue of the fact that we have Jesus, the risen Messiah, living in us.

Dan Rather states the obvious:

Rather described Clinton as "remarkably candid," both in the book and in several hours of interviews in Arkansas and Chappaqua, N.Y. "For someone to publicly be this introspective, reflective and critical of himself is pretty remarkable and rare," he said. "I don't think I could do it."

But more importantly speaking about Rather's interview with Clinton:

The interview also covered the war in Iraq, which was not mentioned in yesterday's excerpts. Rather said Clinton was "supportive" of President Bush on Iraq and that "it will surprise some people."

The NY Times publishes it's expected opinion about the lack of a connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda - The Plain Truth.

It's hard to imagine how the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks could have put it more clearly yesterday: there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11.

Now President Bush should apologize to the American people, who were led to believe something different.

Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide. While it's possible that Mr. Bush and his top advisers really believed that there were chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq, they should have known all along that there was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. No serious intelligence analyst believed the connection existed; Richard Clarke, the former antiterrorism chief, wrote in his book that Mr. Bush had been told just that.

Nevertheless, the Bush administration convinced a substantial majority of Americans before the war that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to 9/11.

First of all, the Times is confusing three separate issues here. Was Iraq tied to 9/11 specifically? Was Iraq ties in any other way to Al-Qaeda? Was Iraq tied to terrorism at all?

I especially like the comment about President Bush convincing the people about Saddam being tied to 9/11. As if everyone doesn't get the administration's views filtered through the media first! If the people are too stupid to separate links to Al-Qaeda in general from the specific 9/11 attack, that's not Bush's fault.

At least the Times finally admits that it's conceivable for someone to have thought that Iraq had WMDs. That's very big of them.

As for Richard Clarke, who I thought would have been fully discredited by now, he claimed that Iraqis were helping Bin-Laden at the chemical factory Clinton bombed in 1988. From the Washington Post of January 23, 1999:

Clarke did provide new information in defense of Clinton's decision to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, in retaliation for bin Laden's role in the Aug. 7 embassy bombings. While U.S. intelligence officials disclosed shortly after the missile attack that they had obtained a soil sample from the El Shifa site that contained a precursor of VX nerve gas, Clarke said that the U.S. government is "sure" that Iraqi nerve gas experts actually produced a powdered VX-like substance at the plant that, when mixed with bleach and water, would have become fully active VX nerve gas.

Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at El Shifa or what happened to it. But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan.

Is there really no way for the U.S. forces in Iraq to stop these car bombs? Hasn't someone figured out that it's a bad idea to have people stand in line virtually unprotected outside a military compound? These are our most vital assets we're losing here!

I don't blame the U.S. for the actions of the killers here, but there must be more we can do to protect these people.

Car Bomb Kills at Least 31 Outside Iraqi Army Base

There are however some interesting unanswered questions given that this is far from the first time something like this has happened.

- Why do these Iraqis keep showing up? Is it for the job, or for their country?
- What do the families think? Are they blaming the U.S, or do they consider their now dead relatives martyrs or Iraqi patriots?
- Why isn't someone keeping a running count of Iraqis killed by these "insurgents"?

Are the Hasidim being priced out of Williamsburg? Is everyone being priced out of Williamsburg? Not certain celebrities, that's for sure.

HEATED HASIDS (How could you not love that headline?)

A sea of black was seeing red in Williamsburg yesterday as local Hasidim protested the skyrocketing prices of housing in Brooklyn's hippest neighborhood.

"We've been living here for 40 or 50 years, we've invested tens of millions of dollars for institutions, schools, synagogues," said protester and real-estate broker David Heimlich, 38.

"We used to pay a maximum of $250 per square foot, now they are selling apartments for $500 and up per square foot. They're starting to build for the luxury types."

"I've been a little bit annoyed with the reaction to the yuppies and artists coming in here," said Charles Thomas, 40, a painter who says he was kicked out of the Gretsch to make way for the likes of rapper Busta Rhymes and actress Annabella Sciorra.

Is the Sharon government really going to perform major evacuations from Gaza on Tisha B'Av? I doubt it.

Gaza Evacuation Set For 9 Av 2005 As Settlers Prepare For Showdown

How did this Israeli Jew get so screwed up by 30 years old that he decides to support Hizbollah?

Israeli charged in scheme to send Hezbollah high-tech goods

The head of a Canadian shipping company and an Israeli citizen were indicted Wednesday for a scheme to ship the highest level of night-vision equipment to Hezbollah.

Naji Antoine Abi Khalil, 39, chairman and general manager of New Line Services, a shipping company based in Montreal, and Tomer Grinberg, 30, an Israeli citizen living in New York, were named in the indictment filed in Manhattan federal court.

Khalil, who holds dual citizenship in Canada and Lebanon, is charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a terrorist organization and attempting to contribute goods to a specially designated terrorist.

He and Grinberg are both charged with conspiring to export sensitive military night-vision equipment out of the country without first obtaining licenses from the U.S. government.

Do these two count in the list of Paul Krugman's list of John Ashcroft's non-existent terrorism convictions?

I love Roger Ebert. He is the only movie critic that I agree with almost 100% of the time.

I went to his page at the Chicago Sun-Times website to see what review, if any, he had posted for Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11". It turns out that he did write a review last month after seeing it in Cannes.

The review itself seems reasonable (if I can comment as someone who has only heard about it). However, it is obvious from the review the even Roger Ebert allowed Michael Moore to lead him down the garden path of Bush hatred.

Ebert writes, "The official story is that Bush was meeting with a group of pre-schoolers when he was informed of the attack on the World Trade Center and quickly left the room. Not quite right, says Moore. Bush learned of the first attack before entering the school, "decided to go ahead with his photo op," and began to read My Pet Goat to the students."

However, President Bush's leaving right away was never the official story. Here is how the President's morning was described in the NY Times on the day of the attacks - 9/11/01.

"Mr. Bush was informed that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in a telephone conversation with Ms. Rice shortly before walking into a second-grade classroom at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla. White House officials said he knew only that it was a single aircraft and not necessarily a terrorist attack."

As Ebert's words about the "official story" are his own, I am of the belief that this is what Michael Moore said was the official story and Ebert bought it hook, line and sinker.

Furthermore, Ebert suggests that the Bin Laden family was flown out of the country while U.S. airspace was still closed. (This is also a "liberal legend" as they left the country no earlier than 9/14 when airports were re-opened.) However as the NY Times reported on April 14 of this year:

"Independent commission investigating Sept 11 attacks finds that six chartered flights that rushed scores of Saudi citizens out of United States after Sept 11 attacks were handled properly by Bush administration; flight on Sept 20, 2001, carried 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Osama bin Laden; but all 142 passengers on flights, mostly Saudi citizens, were screened by law enforcement officials."

When I was a little boy growing up in New York in the early 70's, there was nothing more exciting than a trip to the United Nations building. It was like being able to see the entire world all at once without having to leave my hometown. And what child of that place and time did not consider UNICEF to be one of the best charities in the world? I would get such a thrill from being able to buy stamps or collect money on their behalf.

Things at the U.N. have changed. And not for the better.

U.N. PROBER IN GRAFT SCANDAL

WASHINGTON - The United Nations was rocked by a new scandal yesterday when reports surfaced that the diplomat in charge of rooting out corruption in the world body is himself facing allegiations about unethical conduct.

Fox News reported yesterday that Dileep Nair, the undersecretary general in charge of the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight, has been accused of demanding kickbacks and sexual favors in return for promotions inside his office. Nair, a native of Singapore, also has been accused of attempting to thwart the probe into the Iraq oil-for-food scandal, although his role in that probe remains unclear.

For better or for worse, I believe this to be true. From the WSJ, 'Under God'

Statistics say America is not only a religious nation but also a Christian one. Up to 85% of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Brian Cronin, who litigated against a cross on public land in Boise, Idaho, complained, "For Buddhists, Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians in Boise, the cross only drives home the point that they are strangers in a strange land." Like Mr. Newdow and the Ninth Circuit judges, Mr. Cronin was on target. America is a predominantly Christian nation with a secular government. Non-Christians may legitimately see themselves as strangers because they or their ancestors moved to this "strange land" founded and peopled by Christians -- even as Christians become strangers by moving to Israel, India, Thailand or Morocco.

As much as some would like to believe that the United States was created under the guise of moral relativism and multiculturalism, the fact remains that it was not. Even if you believe that everyone from the Pilgrims to the founding fathers were extremely welcoming of all religions, it would be hard to make the case that they considered those religions (or atheism) equal to their own. They didn't even hold black people to be truly equal and in many cases they were treated as potential co-religionists.

I do also think that Christian people have the same right to have countries of their own, where their own cultural mores dominate, as do Jews, Hindus, Muslims, etc. This can be done without the establishment of a national religion which is all the constitution prohibits. Believing in God is not a religion, it's a principle.

This just turns my stomach on so many levels, but mostly for what it says about the people that would do this to children.

2 Palestinian girls nabbed on way to suicide attack

Two 15-year-old girls were arrested overnight Wednesday in the West Bank city of Nablus for allegedly planning to carry out a suicide attack together with their fathers, Army Radio reported.

According to the report, the four were recruited by an Al-Aksa activist. IDF sources told the radio that the same activist recruited Husam Abdu, 16, of Nablus to carry out a suicide bombing at the Huwara checkpoint south of the West Bank city.

This is scary.

Iran massing troops on Iraq border

But I doubt it's true.

And even if it is true, the Iranians can't be so stupid as to think we wouldn't fly in there and devastate their troops in the open desert if they were ever to invade Iraq.

It WAS the economy, stupid.

National - U.S. hiring plans near boom levels

New York - New York Outpaces U.S. Economic Growth

Paul Krugman concerns himself today with John Ashcroft who has never put a criminal in jail and only lives to punish the innocent outside the bounds of our constitution. At least that's the feeling you get in Travesty of Justice.

One of the arguments he uses is that there has been an "absence of any major successful prosecutions" in the War on Terror. Blogger Michelle Malkin was able to come up with more than 20 names just based on news reports.

I also like the way Krugman uses the word "major". What is a "major prosecution"? Maybe he means exciting prosecution. Somehow I didn't think the Justice Department is going to make many arrests of terrorists while they have their fingers on a bomb trigger, or already sitting at the controls of a 737. Nor do I want them to wait until then.

Since I don't believe in jinxes, I will mention that it has been exactly 1,008 days since the last "major successful" terror attack on United States soil.

I'm too tired to read all of this now - but it looks absolutely fascinating.

Off the Face of the Earth

IT WAS THE ONLY REFUGE THEY HAD LEFT. In 1942, as the Nazis intensified their hold on Eastern Europe, several Jewish families disappeared into the vast underground labyrinths of western Ukraine. The group ranged from grandmothers to toddlers, and for the next year and a half they lived, worked, ate, and slept in caves directly under the feet of those who would send them to their deaths. Their story is one of history's most remarkable epics of survival. And yet it was almost forgotten until an American caver came across the remnants of their underground asylum and set out to find the survivors of PRIEST'S GROTTO.

Link courtesy of Nextbook.

I didn't see this news - IDF axes 40 roadblocks to ease Palestinians' lot - as a subheader to the NY Times story of the day on Israel - Israelis to Extend Barrier Deeper Into West Bank.

The funnier thing is that the removal of roadblocks has already begun while the extension of the barrier is still under discussion.

What do Mel Gibson and Kevin Spacey have in common?

a) They are both among the most accomplished actors of their generation
b) They have both nominated for, or won, Academy Awards
c) They both have fathers that were anti-Semitic, holocaust denying Nazis
d) All of the above

If you chose "d" you guessed right.

Kevin Spacey's Family Secrets Are Out

Years ago I was told by a confidant of two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey that his father, Thomas Geoffrey Fowler, had been a member of the American Nazi party.

"He had Nazi memorabilia everywhere, and was completely devoted to the party," said the source.

Now my old friend, journalist Sharon Churcher, has published an interview with Spacey's older brother Randy Fowler about their father in the British newspaper the Mail on Sunday.

Thanks to Yada Blog for the link.

I hear that in Israel you can get the freshest pork in the world. Since we Jews try to be the best at everything, I don't see why this is such a stretch given today's Supreme Court Ruling.

Religious groups denounce pork ruling as not kosher

The Supreme Court's ruling that cities may allow the sale of pork in neighborhoods where there is no significant opposition has raised the ire of religious groups.

My belief is that it should be OK to sell pork and just as OK to denounce people who do (if you're religious). If religious Jews can't denounce pork eating in Israel, where can they?

I congratulate the NY Times on calling the "wall" that Israel is building what it actually is, a "barrier". This is the best descriptive noun, because as the last paragraph of the article states:

In most areas, the barrier consists of an electronic fence accompanied by razor wire, trenches and guard towers. Some sections include concrete walls more than 20 feet high.

That is probably the most fair description I've read in the press in a long time.

It's still interesting though how the words "wall" and "fence" are used throughout the article by various people. Agree or not if you will, but understand what it is you're arguing about.

Read it all here: Israel to Begin Controversial Phase of Barrier Construction

In part, this controversy reminds me of a visit to the NY City area made by a friend from Minnesota (this was about 20 years ago). After driving just a few minutes north of the city, she commented on how she had no idea there were mountains and so much green in New York. You could write it off to ignorance, but the fact is that much of what you get in the media regarding New York is concrete jungle. The vast majority of photos that you see of the Israeli "barrier" are the wall parts and not the fence parts because it doesn't "tell the story" as well. My personal understanding is that 90% of the barrier is made up of fence and not concrete.

I do believe this to be true. From Victor Davis Hanson in the National Review.

If after four years of careful planning, al Qaedists hit the Olympics in August, the terrorists know better than we do that most Europeans will do nothing — but quickly point to the U.S. and scream “Iraq!” And they know that the upscale crowds in Athens are far more likely to boo a democratic America than they are a fascist Syria or theocratic Iran. Just watch.

For those of my readers who disapprove of the angry tone of Little Green Footballs, I hope that my pointing this out does not offend.

In an article about what it is like to "live" in JFK airport for a day, there is this comment:

The place labeled "multifaith chapel" looked like a mosque, with signs in Arabic and a poster of Mecca facing east....

At the end of the hall I met Rabbi Bennett M. Rackman. A tall, good-looking man in his 50's, he touted the diversity of the terminal's religious district. "Out here is a sacred space, a safe space," he said, "where people have to respect each other." Lately, however, there has been controversy over the multifaith chapel. "The Muslims took it over," he said. "They put in the carpet. They put up signs."

Is this the sign of aggressive Muslims, a racist rabbi, a mixture of both or none of the above? Perhaps it's just a poor choice of words or misreporting. Hmmmm. And if the Muslims did "take it over" is it a fear of terrorism at the airport that prevents someone from forcing the chapel back to it's original use as a multifatih room?

I'm also curious as to which of the three chapels (Christian, Jewish, now Muslim) would someone who practices Hinduism or Buddhism feel more comfortable in? The Muslim one because it's more "Eastern". The Christian one because it's more accepting? The Jewish one because they don't proselytize?

P.S. I am of course all for Muslims having their own chapel. Perhaps there's another story behind all this where someone asked to have one built and permission was denied.

I'll bet there's a whole bunch of people in Ohio who are happy with the racial (or religious?) profiling policy of the Justice Department.

Somali Is Indicted for Plan to Bomb Ohio Shopping Mall

WASHINGTON -- A Somali native living in Ohio has been charged with plotting with other al-Qaida operatives to blow up a Columbus-area shopping mall, according to an indictment unsealed Monday.

The four-count indictment, returned by a grand jury in Columbus, Ohio, charges that Nuradin Abdi, 32, conspired with admitted al-Qaida member Iyman Faris and others to detonate a bomb at the unidentified shopping mall after he obtained military-style training in Ethiopia.

Apparently he's been in custody since last November on immigration charges dating back to 1999.

A World Net Daily column brings up a good point. Since the county of Los Angeles has decided to remove the Christian cross from it's logo due to separation of church and state, will we have to go through a wide-ranging review of place names throughout the U.S.?

How many places are named after Christian religious figures or themes. Every place from San Francsico to Saint Paul to Las Cruces, New Mexico would have to rename themselves.

When I lived in El Paso, I always did feel a little unwelcome in Las Cruces....

If you ask me, the Supreme Court wussed out on the Pledge decision, even if they are tehcnically correct.

Supreme Court Preserves 'God' in Pledge

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court preserved the phrase "one nation, under God," in the Pledge of Allegiance, ruling Monday that a California atheist could not challenge the patriotic oath but sidestepping the broader question of separation of church and state.

The court said atheist Michael Newdow could not sue to ban the pledge from his daughter's school and others because he did not have legal authority to speak for her.

Newdow is in a protracted custody fight with the girl's mother. He does not have sufficient custody of the child to qualify as her legal representative, the court said. Eight justices voted to reverse a lower court ruling in Newdow's favor.

OK, let me see if I can understand Michael Moore's twisted personal ethics.

Let's assume for argument's sake that Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush and all the others knew of the prisoner abuse in Iraq and never did anything about it. I guess the main reason for their inaction would be that they were "covering their ass" so that they could continue in power. Now that they have been "found out", people such as Michael Moore have called for their resignation, impeachment etc. The cover up of what some have called "war crimes" is a crime in and of itself.

Now let's say a civilian somehow got a hold of videotape prisoner abuse in Iraq months before it became publicly known and held onto it without showing anyone. What would be their motives? Fear of reprisal, perhaps. If they backed the war, maybe shame or embarrassment might be the reason. Regardless of the reason, wouldn't this be some sort of ethical violation not to make the video known to the public?

Apparently not if you're Michael Moore, who had video footage of prisoner abuse by American soldiers months before it was known to the general public. In fact he's "still not sure" if he did the right thing by withholding the video. Even though according to him, "the stuff with the detainees in my movie is even more shocking than what we saw in that prison".

His reason? "I thought I'd be accused of just putting this out for publicity for my movie." A man who was willing to produce an anti-war tirade in front of millions at last year's Oscar ceremony was afraid of a little negative publicity?

Since his movie is being distributed several months after the first 60 Minutes reports, and he couldn't have known about that report in advance, we have to assume that he decided that it was OK for people to be abused for three or four months (at least)in order to save him from feeling bad about what others thought about him.

I guess now that the stories of abuse were made public before the release of his movie, he'll feel more comfortable now that 60 minutes, those that followed them, and the media attending the Cannes Film Festival relieved him of the moral dilemma of having to publicize his movie personally.

"It's the largest opening I've had, four times the number of screens that 'Columbine,' was on."

As you can tell, I'm making a few changes to the blog. If I can figure out how to get my links of to the top and add aprofile, I'll be all set.

I remember marching as a teenager in NY every year with hundreds of thousands of other Jews down to Dag Hammerskjold Plaza across from the U.N. to protest on behalf of Soviet Jewry. I was never completely satisfied until I saw Mayor Ed Koch give the crowd a big "thumbs up".

The Jerusalem Post has a very interesting article about how this movement which helped set free so many people was started by one young man with a vision 40 years ago. Just the mention of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) brought back memories.

Essay: Lessons from a movement

During the last few weeks, the Jewish world has begun to take notice of the 40th anniversary of the founding of an American Soviet Jewry movement. That movement, the most successful protest campaign in Jewish history, was initiated by Yaakov Birnbaum on April 29, 1964, with a meeting at Columbia University that launched the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ). In the early years of the movement, it was SSSJ that ran the only full-time Soviet Jewry office and generated a level of activity that surpassed that of the entire Jewish establishment.

One last Reagan related link now that the man is finally buried. This is for those people who seem to have forgotten just how much Ronald Reagan was despised by some of his political opponents. By Jimmy Breslin, one of the most prolific newspapermen in New York.

Reagan should be on a $3 bill

I won't soil my page by directly quoting his insults.

His diatribe remind me of the people who criticize Howard Stern because they don't like his show, but can't bring themselves to turn it off because deep down inside they are titillated by it.

I'm not going to comment, because I'll just say something stupid that will come out wrong.

Gay Shabbat planned

Temple Beth Torah, a Jewish Reform congregation, will be hosting a Gay Pride Shabbat this evening in correspondence with the weeklong celebration of Rockland's gay community.

"The Reform movement has seen itself to be welcoming to the gay and lesbian community," said Rabbi Brian Beale, who will be officiating the service.

The county's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities are encouraged to attend this and every week's Shabbat, which is "a liturgy and celebration of God," said Beale.

Today's shabbat will be like any other, said Beale. However, the rabbi's usual 20-minute sermon will be replaced by a featured speaker addressing gay concerns in Judaism.

OK, I'll comment. I personally would be interested in hearing the speaker, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how I'd explain the issues coherently to my (almost) 4 year-old daughter. The rabbi in my Conservative shul usually asks the congregation some questions on Friday nights as part of his sermon, most of which an educated child can answer. Can issues of concern to the gay community be addressed to an audience made in large part of young children? I guess the Orthodox deal with this both by not welcoming gays (at least openly) and not having children go to shul.

Sometimes I'm really glad that I was born into the first adult generation that only has to deal with the remnants of discrimination based on sex, race and religion. I wish I could have avoided the sexual preference debates as well. My apathetic butt was born a generation or two too early.

There isn't any other general group lacking rights out there...is there? Maybe if we can be done with this, we can move on as a society?

I kept hearing about a huge front page hatchet job on Ronald Reagan by R.W. Apple Jr. of the NY Times today, so I finally got around to reading it. Although it may be a bit of political grandstanding to call it a disrepectful thing to publish on a National Day of Mourning and his church funeral, it is certainly not neutral.

Legacy of Reagan's Presidency Now Begins the Test of Time

Lets look at the positive (?) things Mr. Apple has to say about the 8 years of the Reagan Presidency:

- He was respected and beloved (only perhaps, and only by some)
- He was popular (although not as popular as he could have been and having been popular wouldn't have meant he was a good President anyway)
- He was a great communicator
- He had an intuitive understanding of the average American
- He built and sustained friendships across partisan lines
- He was a good leader in times of national mourning
(The last four points are negated by the only quote in the article with an independent opinion of the Reagan presidency saying that "...he was not a great president. He was master at projecting a mood; he could certainly rally the country. He would have made a great king, a great constitutional monarch, but we do not have that form of government."

- He brought the long struggle with the Soviet Union to a conclusion in part by beefing up the military (while joining with Gorbachev)

- He was trustworthy and had immense charisma

- He was pragmatic (i.e. he admitted his own mistakes)

- He lifted the Carter era malaise (with a veil that kept our problems hidden)

In summary, he did have many positive personal traits, but not everyone thought so and they weren't what is needed to be a great president anyway. The only good that is mentioned about his policies (sort of) is that he assisted Mr. Gorbachev in destroying the Soviet Union, which would have happened anyway.

Now the negative:

- Iran-Contra affair is mentioned
- He was often ignorant of or impatient with policy minutiae (unlike most)
- Iran-Contra mentioned again
- believed words counted for far more in politics than mere deeds (I'll take that as negative)
- Spent WWII making training films (clearly a negative here re: his status among Presidents)
- Received undeserved credit for bringing about the end of communism
- His tax cuts failed to produce as much revenue as he expected
- He had a vision, but fell well short of producing consensus behind it
- Much of the country deeply resented and still resent his insistence that government is the problem, not the solution.
- The physically challenged resented him
- The economically challenged resented him
- The "otherwise" challenged resented him
- His celebrated optimism obscured major problems
- African-Americans were particularly aggrieved (for lack of commitment to civil rights and human rights)
- Trade unionists were also particularly aggrieved
- "Many" Jews were also particularly aggrieved and resentful (for Bitburg as well)
- He has no status overseas
- His brand of radical conservatism has achieved little success elsewhere.

And this they saved for the day he was buried - they couldn't even wait for the "Week in Review" section on Sunday.

I just got back from seeing Alan Dershowitz speak at Congregation Shearith Israel in Dallas on behalf of the American Jewish Congress. There were 1400 people there and I think it is fair to say that Professor Dershowitz had a captive audience.

I didn't take notes and I can't relay everything he said in this space, but I will try to remember some of the points he made that I may not have heard before. I suggest you read his book The Case For Israel to get the basic gist about what he spoke about.

There are few university professors in the entire country who are willing to speak out on behalf of Israel and against divestment and other anti-Israel movements.

If anti-Israel sentiment wasn't fueled by anti-Semitism, why aren't they killing Israelis in France and Morocco and Turkey? They're killing local Jews.

You can be a strong supporter of Israel even if you only agree with 90 percent of what they do and not 100 percent.

You can disagree with the specific methods of fighting terrorism, but there can be no argument that the combination of walls/fences, security checkpoints and targeted killings seems to be working.

I'm not sure if this is the case, but he said that the parts of the security fence that are actually walls are built in areas where Palestinians were shooting at homes or is on land that is within Israel proper.

Jews have a right to live anywhere, including Hebron and other areas of the West Bank. That does not mean that for the sake of peace and saving lives that some of them, including Hebron, should be given up.

Israel is a vital ally to the U.S. today because of shared military knowledge and intelligence. The argument that we must support the Arab countries is bound to come to a close by the middle of the century as oil is either depleted or replaced by alternative fuels.

The question is not why the U.S. is an ally of Israel but why Norway, France, etc. are not.

On a lighter note he mentioned that he grew up as a Brooklyn Dodger fan in the same neighborhood as Sandy Koufax, Jackie Mason, and others. Since moving to Boston he has become a Red Sox fan and loves to wear a t-shirt that says "I love NY but I hate the Yankees". He also told the story of how he got an orthodox rabbi to do a "mi shebarach" for Jackie Robinson by giving him a fake name like Yaakov ben Robin (I actually didn't catch the last name).

Rabbi Bloch of Chabad then closed the event with a little d'var torah about the story of the spies who were sent by Moses into the land of Israel. When they came back, ten of them were afraid because there were giants in the land and "just as we appeared as grasshoppers in our own eyes, so did we appear to them". As a result G-d punished the entire generation for their lack of faith in his promise to them and they were destined to wander for 40 years and die in the desert without seeing the Holy Land. The message for today is that if we keep thinking of ourselves as second class citizens and not worthy of living in the Land of Israel, others will see us this way and it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy that we don't live there anymore.

Now that President Bush has confounded his critics and made nice with Chirac of France, another world leader that we supposedly pushed away forever is calling the entire Democrat party a bunch of hypocrites.

Putin Takes Bush's Side Against Democrats on Iraq

Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) stepped into the U.S. political campaign on Thursday, saying the Democrats had "no moral right" to criticize President Bush (news - web sites) over Iraq (news - web sites).

The Kremlin leader, answering a reporter's question in Sea Island, Georgia, suggested that the Democrats were two-faced in criticizing Bush on Iraq since it had been the Clinton administration that authorized the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia by U.S. and NATO (news - web sites) forces.

The reporter had asked Putin to respond to U.S. press articles questioning Russia's place at the G8 feast of leading industrial countries.

Putin brushed these off, saying such articles were part of an internal U.S. political debate.

He went on: "I am deeply convinced that President Bush's political adversaries have no moral right to attack him over Iraq because they did exactly the same.

"It suffices to recall Yugoslavia. Now look at them. They don't like what President Bush is doing in Iraq."

Another American hero passed today. RAY CHARLES 1930-2004.



Go here or here for a link to hear his classic rendering of "America the Beautiful".

I had the privilege of seeing him perform once at Lincoln Center and I'll never forget it.

He was truly on a Misson from God.

Thank you, Ray.

Some Detroiters are upset with comic Jimmy Kimmell for suggesting during a recent NBA Finals broadcast that, "They're going to burn the city of Detroit down if the Pistons win."

Kimmel's show was pulled from the air Wednesday night in the Detroit market.

"We think that there is a lot of discussion about how Jimmy Kimmel has jeopardized his right to have clearance in this community." said Channel 7's news director.

WDFN 1130 mid-morning host Sean Baligian fielded an hour of calls Wednesday, fueled by people outraged at Kimmel.

“It was unreal. Man, did that statement ever touch a nerve,” Baligian said. “People are mad. They're offended. I have never received such a quick reaction.”

Now it may have been a bad joke, but it's not like it couldn't happen. I'm having a hard time finding articles on past NBA chamopionships in Detroit since the last two were in 1989 and 1990 and there was no internet back then. I did however, find a study on the impact of sports on cities from Williams University which says:

"...violent celebrations first received widespread publicity following the NBA title won by the Detroit Pistons in the late 1980s..."

Seems to me that Detroit is the birthplace of violent celebrations.

This has to be some of the worst reporting I've seen in a long time. I'm not even sure if "reporting" is the right word.

From the Financial Times: Settlers vow to defy calls to leave Gaza

The article begins - "Jewish settlers reacted angrily to reports on Thursday that Israel will encourage them to leave the Gaza Strip in return for compensation, with many vowing they would not leave."

There is no attempt to quantify "many". Neither is the attempt made to quote even one angry settler. You would think that a quote would have been pretty easy to get. If someone, somewhere didn't verbally state their opposition to the compensation plan, there would have been no impulse to create this story in the first place, right? I guess since it's "common sense" that the settlers would be angry no research was necessary for this piece.

I'm not saying this couldn't be true, or isn't true. But I'm not going the take the word of this reporter that it is.

In addition, the final paragraph reflects the type of bias in the media that was written about by Bernard Goldberg. It's not that what is said is wrong, it's that what is chosen to be said creates an inacuurate impression.

"The plan represents the first time Israel has decided in principle to remove the settlements, which were built in the West Bank and Gaza Strip following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and have been deemed illegal under international law."

I'm not sure which formal international body "deemed" the settlements illegal. But even accepting that they are, perhaps some mention could have been made regarding the past removal of settlements in the Sinai. This would have shown that it is not unprecedented for Israel to destroy settlements in an effort to make peace with its neighbors.

I wouldn't say that one Muslim assistant professor's thoughts posted on a right-wing/libertatrian website is going to change the world, but one can dream....

Scholar: Quran says Israel belongs to Jews

The professor quotes from Chapter 5: 20-21, which says Moses declared, "O my people! Remember the bounty of God upon you when He bestowed prophets upon you, and made you kings and gave you that which had not been given to anyone before you amongst the nations. O my people! Enter the Holy Land which God has written for you, and do not turn tail, otherwise you will be losers."

Mohammed points specifically to the reference to the Holy Land as a place God has "written" for the Israelites, a term that conveys, in Jewish and Islamic understandings, a "meaning of finality, decisiveness and immutability..."

He says medieval scholars, "without any exception known to me," interpreted the Quran to recognize Israel as belonging to the Jews.

According to Mohammed, the idea that Israel does not belong to the Jews is a modern one, "probably based on the Mideast rejection of European colonialism, etc., but certainly not having anything to do with the Quran."

Even if this were the case, someone would still have to define "Israel".

The NY Times lead editorial today (The U.N. Go-Ahead on Iraq) deserves an uber-fisking today. It begins:

At a time when not much has been going right in Iraq...

For who? The insurgents/rebels/militants?

*In the last month hundreds of them have been killed and the al-Sadr insurgency has been defeated.

*With UN assistance, a new Iraqi government was appointed and plans for a June 30 handover have not been postponed

*U.S. military casualties have dropped significantly from 150 in April to 88 in May to only 15 in the first ten days of June.

Then there's the everyday stuff that has improved as a direct result of U.S. involvement in Iraq (via FrontPage):

*Hundreds of thousands of children who had not received proper medical care now have up-to-date immunizations and other medical care.

*School attendance, by some estimates, is up 80% from levels before the war. Among those being educated are young girls who previously may not have received proper education.

*Despite much publicity early in the war that power plants had been bombed or sabotaged, what hasn't received wide publicity is that today Iraq now has more electrical power than it did before the war.

*Hundreds of thousands of people have telephones for the first time ever.

------------------
"While the outcome was inevitable..." and "There was never any chance that the Security Council would not support a motion..."

That's very interesting considering the Times own reporting on June 6:

"American and French officials said the understanding reached between the United States and Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, could remove a big hurdle to approval" and

"Mr. Chirac suggested that France still had concerns about the resolution that must be addressed before it could be completed"

------------------
"Nor, unfortunately, will it substantially broaden the international oversight of Iraq's passage to elected government in the ways that Senator John Kerry and others have recently proposed."

As if Senator Kerry would be able to dictate international action as President! Maybe it's possible that they don't want to get more involved at this stage and the wording of the resolution was an effective balance of American, Iraqi and International interests. Does the Times think a Kerry administration could have done better than a 15-0 vote?

------------------
"Unfortunately, this progress cannot undo everything that went before: President Bush's disastrous decision to rush into the invasion without Security Council endorsement, the ineptly planned occupation and all the damage those policies have done to Iraq and the Middle East, and to American relationships around the world."

Let's ignore that fact that Bush did not invade Iraq until more than 2 years into his presidency and 1 1/2 years after 9/11. (He was supposedly planning this invasion from day one, right?) And let's ignore the fact the "damage" of a Taliban-free Afghanistan, Saddam-free Iraq, fewer people being killed on both sides in Israel and a return of Libya to the international community. Let's also ignore that this resolution itself proves that American relationships with it's allies are not permanently damaged and we are creating new ones.

Even ignoring all that, what is the purpose of dwelling on the past if things are headed in the right direction (if not to Bush-bash before the reader leaves the page)? The fact of the matter is that worse decisions that these can indeed be undone. Should we not have tried to become allies with Germany and Japan after WWII because we could not undo the damage we caused by fire-bombing cities and dropping atomic bombs? Should Israel not try to build it's relationship with Germany which cannot undo the horrors of the Holocaust? Can we in this country live life with an attitude that we shouldn't push for racial equality because we can't undo the damage done by slavery?

What a depressing world the Times editors must live in!

UPDATE: NY Times website reports in a new article "Bush and Chirac Break Any Tension With a Joke About Food"

The two world leaders looked like and proclaimed themselves friends today, with hardly a hint of the deep differences that divided them over the invasion of Iraq last year.

And by the way, what makes Chirac a "world leader"? His country is no longer powerful either militarily or economically and has just a fraction of the territory and population of the world's largest nations. If Chriac is a "world leader" based on France's position on the Security Council, then that makes Sudan a "world leader" in Human Rights.

If it's wrong for a non-Jewish person to tell jokes about Jews, but OK for a Jewish person to do the same, what are the rules for a convert?

Anyway, here is an audio link from National Public Radio with a brief commentary by black Jew (that's how he refers to himself) Aaron Freeman. It's called "Conspiracy Theory". The tag line is "commentator Aaron Freeman has a proposal for his fellow Jews".

Eevn though the commentary is meant to me comic and facetious, I don't find it funny to suggest that religious jews get drunk every Sabbath and that it's a good idea to invite non-Jews over to get them so drunk that they forget to criticize Jews about topics like Ariel Sharon and The Passion when they go to their country clubs and klan meetings.



I feel like making the same comment as I did about the anti-Israel protests below. What do I tell my children?

Continuing yesterday's diversion into the world of Jewish religious history, I thought I needed to know what "Tz'enah Ur'ena" referred to. Now I know.

According to Artscroll:

From 1610 until the Holocaust, an Eastern European Jewish home had a Tz'enah Ur'enah on its Shabbos table. At least 210 editions of Rabbi Yaakov Ashkenazi's classic combining Torah commentary, Midrashic insights, and ethical teachings on the weekly sidrah have appeared.

And this from an Orthodox site:

(lit., "go out and see [O daughters of Jerusalem]"): a text featuring passages from the Chumash and related excerpts from the Midrash, translated into Yiddish and arranged according to the weekly *Parshah and the festivals; originally compiled and translated by R. Yaakov ben Yitzchak Ashkenazy (c. 1540-c. 1626), though the printed edition now used was extensively edited by a later (unknown) author; it has been studied for centuries by generations of pious Jewish women, both uneducated and highly erudite

Usually if I'm reading commentary by someone on the Far Left, I just sort of shake my head and laugh at the poor writing and conspiracy theories on full display. I do have to give style points however, to the person who wrote this regarding President Reagan's death:

Perhaps, the custodians of Bitburg should erect a cenotaph for Reagan on those chilly grounds, if the Earth in Simi Valley refuses to receive his corpse.

That's incredibly strong imagery. Nice writing. Commie bast*rd.

On Ice Cream Trucks and Heroes:

Mayor Bloomberg of NY apparently has proposed a new noise code that would make it illegal for Mister Softee ice cream trucks to play their music. (Listen to what the jingle sounds like here.)

I was in NY recently where I grew up and the one thing that I saw and heard that reminded me of my childhood was the Mister Softee song. Please mister mayor, don't take that away from us.

Perhaps I don't have a right to complain since I don't live there anymore, but surely there must be some kind of compromise.



UPDATE: The NY Times comes out against Mister Softee.

Meanwhile, the NY Post gives voice to pro-Softee Councilmen.

And the mayor's new plan would limit ice cream trucks to welcoming bells, not the looney Mister Softee tune that so jangles the city's nerves — particularly when the offending truck keeps cruising around the same neighborhood for hours on end.

Speaking of an ex-New Yorker, generally held to be a hero to all footbal fanatics, Bill Parcells really said something incredibly stupid yesterday:

Mr. Parcells was asked during a news conference about the approach his assistants, including quarterbacks coach Sean Payton and defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, use in calling plays.

"Sean's going to have a few ... no disrespect to the Orientals, but what we call 'Jap plays.' OK? Surprise things," Mr. Parcells said.

As Howard Stern said this morning, that's like a double slur. He might as well have said no disrespect to the kikes, but I think we can "Jew down" the opposition.

Of course he apologized, but I can't imagine how drunk or high I would have to be to say something like that at a press conference.

Just in case you're reading this and happen to be in Copenhagen - the Danish Jewish Museum opened today.

The Danish Jewish Museum is housed on Slotsholmen, which has been the seat of Danish government for some 800 years. The Museum is in Christian IV's Royal Boat House in the old part of the Royal Library and has its entrance in the Library gardens. It is situated close to the many other cultural institutions and tourist sight on Slotsholmen: the Royal Library, the National Archives, the Danish Defence Museum, Christiansborg Palace, the Theatre Museum and the State Apartments.



The museum was designed by Daniel Liebskind, architect of the new World Trade Center site in NY. This page will show you models of what the museum is supposed to look like.

This is a brilliant plan! Sharon wants the Egyptians to take over the occupation of Gaza. Let's see of they take the bait and insert themselves into the "cycle of violence".

Israel and Egypt Conferring on the Gaza Pullout Plan

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt met with the Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, on Monday, their third meeting in the past six months. Both men expressed support for a plan to increase Egypt's security presence along its border with Gaza, and to send the Egyptian police into Gaza itself to help train their Palestinian counterparts, according to Israeli officials.

There's an article on the NY Times website about the recent announcement that the U.S. will be pulling troops out of South Korea. The teaser sentence reads as follows:

The proposed cutback is sparking debate about whether Washington is turning its back on an important Asian ally.

So, if we stay we are imperialists and if we leave we destroy a friendship (boy do the Bush-haters have the President in a corner!). Are these really the only options 50 years after the war ended?

Besides, not everybody is happy that we're still hanging around (although this was a year and a half ago).

North Korea has 1.1 million soldiers which I doubt are anything but ill-equipped and poorly clothed and fed. I doubt that taking out one percent of that amount on "our" side will have much effect. Besides, as the article also mentions, the modernization of our armed forces means that we don't need as many bodies on the ground to have the same impact in battle.

Just for fun (seriously) I decided to "google" the Vilna Gaon (1720-1797). I was reading an article about something Jewish related and decided to check out the biography behind this man whose name I have heard a million times but know nothing about. For those who don't know:

Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, also known as Ha-Gra, was the foremost scholar-sage of Lithuanian Jewry in the eighteenth-century, and has become the spiritual forefather for much of the non-Chassidic yeshiva world. Known for his greatness in Talmudic and Kabbalistic study, he likewise mastered astronomy, mathematics and music. His system of Talmudic study focused on trying to find the true meaning intended by the sages in the text.

Known for fierce opposition to Chassidut, which was initiated in 1736 by the Baal Shem Tov, he and his followers in this anti-Chassidic Movement were known as "Mitnagdim," or opponents. Their opposition was based on the beliefs, vigorously denied by Chassidic leaders, that Chassidut took liberties with the Oral Law, that it substituted emotion for intellect in the Study of Torah, that its form of prayer departed too far from the traditional form of prayer, etc.

I guess this does go to show that you don't have to be a Chabadnik to be considered a Torah scholar.

His disciples created one of the first yeshivot in Volozhin, Lithuania which I believe may still be standing today, even if in a state of disrepair.



As a post-Holocaust Jew, I've always imagined that any trace of Jewish existence in Eastern Europe was wiped out during WWII. How amazing it must be to be able to reach out and touch even a little bit of that centuries-old history and tradition!

What I found most interesting of all is that you can buy a biography of the Vilna Gaon online from Wal-Mart!

Is Arab culture really so different from European culture that this story does not apply to today's Middle East?

The prisoners' conscience by Natan Sharansky

In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan's "provocation" quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth – a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.

...I understood that there had been much criticism of Reagan's decision to cast the struggle between the superpowers as a battle between good and evil.
Well, Reagan was right and his critics were wrong.

Those same critics used to love calling Reagan a simpleton who saw the world through a primitive ideological prism...

The NY Times has a story about one woman's return to her Jewish roots. After reading stories like this, I can't help but wonder what created such strong feelings of feminism/liberalism that no branch of traditional Judaism was able to satisfy her needs. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Coming of Age, and Back to Her Faith

Dr. Kessler had been searching for a way back to her faith for some time, visiting various synagogues. But she and her husband, who have been married almost five years, couldn't agree on the proper setting. "I wanted the female energy to be respected," she said. Yet they didn't want a place that seemed wacky.

With nine other people - friends and fellow members of the congregation - they sat in a semicircle facing the rabbi, Burt Aaron Siegel, who, in his billowy white trousers, two votive candles flickering on a table behind him, looked more like an Indian mystic than a rabbi. The impression was not altogether wrong. Rabbi Burt, as he is called, was the senior rabbi of the Riverdale Temple 25 years ago, before turning psychotherapist, explorer of the spiritual universe and Kundalini yoga teacher.

Rabbi Burt mentioned that Dr. Kessler was among nine women (none of the others were present that night) studying for a group bat mitzvah. After a homily about unconditional love, the rabbi ended the session by chanting the word "Shalom" again and again, stretching out the last syllable so it sounded like the Ommm at the end of a yoga session.

Note: Paragraph 1 posted above was reported after Paragraphs 2 and 3 in the story which I think was the wrong placement given the "wacky" quote.

My sister, who is only a few years older than Dr. Kessler, spent her high school years in El Paso. I have to ask her if they knew each other.

But wait, there's more...

"Miriam was one of the few women who really played a role in the Torah," Dr. Kessler said, explaining why she chose this subject. "She was Moses' sister. I'm going to talk about how most Western religion is a patriarchal system, and it's not healthy, it's not balanced, especially not for women, who suffer from autoimmune disorders way more than men.

??????

I'll be waiting for the "we were wrong" opinion pieces now that the al-Sadr uprising is over in Iraq. I'll be waiting a long time, I imagine. Maybe longer if I also wait for some praise for Donald Rumsfeld for directing this particular military operation. Wasn't Iraq supposed to be in flames by now? The Sunnis joining with the Shiites and the Kurds to drive out the Americans? Luckily our president knows how to differentiate the good guys from the bad guys and doesn't lump all Iraqis together as the press seems to do.

Shiite leaders and American officials said the armed followers of Mr. Sadr, known as the Mahdi Army, had cleared out of many parts of Najaf, and seemed to be getting ready to leave altogether. The Shiite leaders said American forces, who encircled the city in recent weeks, had also cleared out of the city center and areas near the Imam Ali Shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.

The withdrawal, coupled with the reported meeting of the rival clerics, gave rise to hopes that Mr. Sadr's two-month-long rebellion may be ending.

A moment of silence for the one man who affected my politics and patriotism more than anyone else I can think of.

In closing, let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that day may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead. -- Ronald Reagan

God Bless Ronald Reagan.

I can't claim that this is the most inspired letter I've ever written to the NY Times, but at least if it doesn't get published there, it will get published here.

----------------------------------------------------------

To the Editor:

In "Jobs and the Recovery" (Op-Ed, June 5) you claim that President Bush relabeled his tax cut package from a refund of recent surpluses to a stimulus measure when the economy began to falter. In fact, both of these "selling points" were an inherent part of the plan. According to the 2000 Republican Party Platform, "It’s time for an economics of inclusion that will let people keep more of what they earn and accelerate movement up the opportunity ladder."

In addition, one or two years of "booming deficits" are no more of a threat to our long-term economic health than were the Reagan-era deficits which preceded 20 years of almost constant growth.

Unfortunately, I was sitting shiva last week with my family as one of my aunts passed away. We spent most of the time having semi-Talmudic discussions about various Jewish laws and the topic of the wigs came up. You know, the ones they are burning in Brooklyn because they're not kosher.

Someone did bring up a good point. Would it have been so wrong for one of the rabbis involved to ask that the wigs be donated to non-Jews who could use them? Think of all the female cancer patients that would love to have an expensive wig that was otherwise destroyed. We all agreed that it was disgusting that they were burned instead.

Since we are mostly Conservative, perhaps we were missing some point of halacha here. If we were, I'd love to know.

And a little child shall lead them...

Elementary School Yearbook Contains Anti-Semitic Message

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. -- Students at Key Biscayne Elementary will have to hand over their yearbooks today to have a message of hate removed.

An eighth-grader wrote an anti-Semitic remark in German in the comments section. Though misspelled, translated, it means, "Death to the Jews." About 450 copies of the yearbook had already been distributed by the time a parent noticed the phrase and contacted the school.

This has to be one of the silliest letters I've ever seen written to the NY Times.

To the Editor:

Re "Addressing Cadets, Bush Sees Parallel to World War II" (news article, June 3):

I would be fine with the president's citing parallels between World War II and the war on terrorism except that in the case of this war, Iraq did not attack us, and in World War II, Japan did!

BRANT THOMAS
Brooklyn, June 3, 2004

Um, I seem to remember part of WWII having to do with some European countries that didn't attack us, but were allies of our enemy, the Japanese. All of them together were called the Axis Powers. Sort of like "Axis of Evil". In this current war we go after terrorists and the countries that harbor them - their allies.

Heh.

Job growth still strong at 248,000

Payroll growth in April and March was revised higher by a total of 74,000 jobs. In the past three months, the economy has created 947,00 jobs, the best three-month gain since the summer of 2000.

So far in 2004, the U.S. economy has created 1.2 million jobs, an average of 238,000 jobs a month, after shedding 2.7 million between March 2001 and August 2003.

According to a survey of 400,000 business establishments, job growth was widespread across industries. Over the past three months, 75.4 percent of 278 industries have added workers.

I'm not sure why a random month like March 2001 was used for the jobs analysis above, but perhaps including February when Bush was already in office would have made the numbers slightly better.

If you've been following the Kerry campaign you know that since the economy is on the uptick he is searching for ways to differentiate himself from Bush in the War on Terror.

His latest scam is to convince Americans that Bush does not have us prepared for WMD attacks here in the U.S. becuase he's concentrating too hard overseas. Well that would be true, except....that it's not.

Kerry was the ONLY senator - that's right - 99 for and 1 MIA, that did not vote for a Bush initiated BioWeapons defense bill.

Check it out at California Yankee. Link via Instapundit via VodkaPundit.

You just had to wonder if Ray Bradbury was OK with Michael Moore using the title of the classic novel "Fahrenheit 451" for the title of his anti-Bush movie. It turns out he wasn't happy - simply because Moore is an "a**hole", not because of the politics involved.

Ray Bradbury rips Michael Moore

"Michael Moore is a screwed a--hole, that is what I think about that case," Bradbury said according to an English translation of the story. "He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission."

Continued the author: "[Moore] is a horrible human being – horrible human!"

When asked if he agrees with Moore's political positions, Bradbury replied, "That has nothing to do with it. He copied my title; that is what happened. That has nothing to do with my political opinions."

According to the Swedish daily, Bradbury said he had tried to discuss the issue with Moore several months ago, but that the director avoided him.

Now I'm not sure that there's a real issue here regarding the title of the movie. If the reporting is accurate though, it does show that Michael Moore is perhaps not a courteous man.

This is slightly off topic for my blog, but only partially so. As you maybe aware the Multiwife hails from Argentina. The Economist has published a spot-on country survey. If you want to know what Argentina's all about, read it all. I wish more people would go there so that I could share with them what a wonderful country it is. Adios y suerte!

The Bush campaign has an excellent graphic on John Kerry's flip flop from "Get Saddam" to "Get Bush". You have to see it and read all Kerry's statements, but here's a clue of what you'll get.

November 1998 - Kerry Backs Regime Change in Iraq
April 2003 - Kerry Says US Needs Its Own Regime Change

I can't verify this, but someone told me this is John Kerry on the campaign trail, flipping and flopping - Ouch!

Exactly.

Rules of war enable terror by Alan Dershowitz.

The Geneva Conventions are so outdated and are written so broadly that they have become a sword used by terrorists to kill civilians, rather than a shield to protect civilians from terrorists. These international laws have become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.

Lies from the Associated Press:

In an article entitled Australia Leader Says U.S. Misled Him the Associated Press "reports" the following:

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Tuesday blamed Washington for misinforming him about the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal and denied lying to the public or misleading Parliament.

Speaking to reporters before leaving on a trip to the United States, where he will discuss Iraq with President Bush, Howard said U.S. Defense Department bureaucrats had failed to brief him on the abuse.

``I am very unhappy that I've been misinformed,'' Howard said. ``We're dealing here with what was clearly an inadequate briefing.''

This is quite simply, a lie. This is what Howard actually said according to the press conference transcript:

PRIME MINISTER:

Let me say this – I am very unhappy that I was misinformed by the Defence Department, so is the Defence Minister. I have, as you know, an extremely high regard for the men and women in the Australian Defence Force.

If somehow you think this isn't clear enough that he wasn't referring to the U.S. Defense Department at all, go and read the rest of the transcript prior to those remarks.

Sometimes it helps to hear the truth spoken from experience. Via Normblog, here's a translated interview with the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The following is an excerpt relating to the war in Iraq.

Interviewer: So this war is one over some silly beliefs?

Edelman: Now, now. Who started killing people? Americans didn't invade a wonderful democratic Iraq. There was a dictatorship there, torture, terror.

Interviewer: But there are people who say it's not our business.

Edelman: And whose business is it? Every war with fascism is our business. In 1939 there were also many people who said that the war in Poland was not their war, and what happened? Great nations fell because politicians listened to those who were saying that it's not worth dying for Gdansk [Danzig]. If only we'd intervened militarily after Hitler re-entered Rhineland we probably would not have had the war and the Holocaust.

Interviewer: Many people do understand that, but they don't understand why the Americans have to go to the other side of the world and fight over Iraq now.

Edelman: And why did they go to Europe then? Who defeated Hitler and saved Europe from fascism? The French? No, the Americans did. We thanked them then because they saved us. Today we criticise them because they're saving somebody else.

Kosher or Not Kosher is beside the point - this is just yucky.

There's Something in the Water, and It May Not Be Strictly Kosher

These rabbis have recently discovered that there are tiny creatures, called copepods, in the unfiltered water that streams into the city from upstate. These tiny organisms are harmless. But they are crustaceans. And crustaceans are not considered kosher.

So, the Orthodox are starting to buy water filters en masse. Except those that have lights.

"Some of the filters have a light indicator; the light goes on, it's no good for Shabbos," Mr. Tuht said. "I work here, I sell stuff. You learn."

To be honest, if a dozen or so ultra-nationalist Jews decided to perpetrate a 9/11 type attack in a foreign country that I was visiting, I'd want to get the hell out as fast as I could just in case people wanted to go on a Jew hunt. I imagine that the bin-Laden family and other Saudis that were allowed to leave the U.S. after 9/11 felt the same way. I am of course assuming that they were innocent of any ties to Osama - and no one has claimed anything other than that.

Nevertheless, conspiracy theorists and Bush haters still believe there's some kind of cover up going on as evidenced by this Op-Ed piece in the NY Times today.

The Great Escape

We knew that 15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudis. We knew that Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, was behind 9/11. Yet we did not conduct a police-style investigation of the departing Saudis, of whom two dozen were members of the bin Laden family. That is not to say that they were complicit in the attacks.

So we should have interrogated innocent people because they were related to a criminal? Can you imagine if that were standard police procedure?

Is it possible that Ariel Sharon's unilateral plans are forcing the Palestinians to negotiate? I wouldn't hold my breath, but here's the latest from the JPost:

Qurei: PA ready to hold final-status talks immediately

Perhaps I need to put "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here" at the top of all my articles about the peace process.

My apologies for the dearth of bloggage over the weekend - we had a death in the family and so I spent the Memorial Day holiday memorializing and being with my family. Back to work.....