The (New York) Jewish Week . . . Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions – Thursday, 2 January 2014

The (New York) Jewish Week . . . Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions – Thursday, 2 January 2014

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With talk heating up over whether Jonathan Pollard may be freed as part of an Israel-Palestinian agreement, Jewish leaders agree that he should be let out of prison but disagree on tactics. Staff Writer Stewart Ain reports, and media columnist Ari Goldman writes on the role of the press in the case.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Split Over Tactics As Pollard Drive Heats Up

Link convicted spy to peace talks? Leaders divided on way forward after clemency fails.

Stewart Ain, Staff Writer

After President Barack Obama again refused to include imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard on his Christmas clemency list, supporters of Pollard’s release are conflicted on how best to proceed.

There are some who believe Pollard, who has already served 28 years of a life sentence, should be freed in light of recent revelations that the U.S. spied on the e-mails of senior Israeli leaders, including the prime minister and defense minister.

“Is this how friends treat each other?” asked Israeli Transportation and Road Safety Minister Israel Katz. “Pollard was arrested for much less.”

Others believe Israel should demand Pollard’s release in return for making concessions in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

“I do think that in the context of negotiations with the Palestinians something could be done that would provide the basis for his release,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “I have always said and I do believe that this is the option that would make a difference. …”

And still others believe Pollard’s release must not become entangled in politics.

“Pollard’s release should not be put on political terms but on humanitarian terms,” said Seymour Reich, a former chairman of the Presidents’ Conference and a longtime champion for Pollard’s release.

“It would be wrong to use Pollard as leverage in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations,” he continued. “It would be detrimental to Israel and would put Israel in a bad light. The negotiations have to stand on their own. It would be a bad mistake if the prime minister or any of his ministers would use this as a wedge in the talks. It would not be in Israel’s interests because it elevates Pollard to a political issue rather a humanitarian issue. He has served his time, he is not well, he pleaded guilty. ... That should be the basis for his release.”

Based on Israeli media reports, it appears that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shares Hoenlein’s view. Israel’s Channel 2 reported Monday that Netanyahu has told Secretary of State John Kerry that Israel would free from prison six Israeli Arabs who hold Israeli IDs only if Obama freed Pollard. Israel has been reluctant to free the men as part of the fourth round of prisoner releases agreed to as part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Kerry, according to Channel 2, is considering the offer. He is scheduled to arrive in Israel Thursday for another round of shuttle diplomacy between the Israelis and Palestinians.

In an earlier interview, Hoenlein told The Jewish Week he believes the White House should understand the “political risk” Netanyahu is taking in freeing a total of 104 Palestinian prisoners, all of whom have served at least 19 years; most were convicted of killing Israelis in terrorist attacks prior to the Oslo Accords in 1993.

In the third round of Palestinian prisoner releases that took place this week, 26 prisoners were freed.

This week’s report about Pollard followed other media reports that also linked Pollard’s release to the prisoner exchanges. But the White House has shot down the reports, citing a statement Obama made before his visit to Israel last March in which he said Pollard had “committed a grave crime.” The White House added that the president “has no intention of releasing him.”

And the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, told Israel Army Radio Sunday that the reports were fallacious.

“There’s no direct link between Pollard and the [peace] negotiations or the prisoner release; these are different issues,” he said flatly.

Obama’s continued hardnosed stand on Pollard puzzles and troubles Jewish leaders here and in Israel.

“At this point, it verges on vengeance,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “There is no rational reason for the president to continue to keep him.”

Foxman added, “The majority of American Jews believe the time has come [to release Pollard]. But the irony is that the more we talk about it, the more difficult it is for it to happen. I personally do not think it should be tied to the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. …This is something that should be quietly dealt with on a bilateral basis. There should not be threats and recriminations.”

But Rabbi Gerald Skolnik, president of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, said he “used to be very much against the Jewish community agitating vis-a-vis Pollard. … But I have changed my mind with the revelation that America was spying on everyone at every opportunity.”

American, German and British newspapers reported last month that a 2009 document provided by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that more than 1,000 organizations and individuals were monitored from a U.S. facility in southwest England. That included the e-mails of four senior Israeli officials, including the prime minister and defense minister.

That report, Rabbi Skolnik said, combined with “America’s holier than thou” approach when it came to Pollard, convinced him that Pollard should be freed — “especially since he has served so long and is in ill health.”

“It is the height of hypocrisy not to grant clemency at this point,” Rabbi Skolnik added.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, agreed that Pollard, 59, should be immediately released — but purely for humanitarian reasons.

“Jonathan Pollard’s release should stand on its own merits without regard to how the peace process is going or the relationship between the intelligence agencies,” he said.

Rabbi Saperstein pointed out that Pollard has “had to endure a disproportionately long sentence and has medical problems. In visiting with him again just a few months ago, the unfairness [of the prison term] was vividly reaffirmed.”

He said he has personally raised the issue of Pollard’s release with both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden “whenever we have had the opportunity — and we will continue to do so.” But he said each time he raised it, Obama simply replied that he “understood the importance to us of this issue — but he has not given a substantive response.”

At the time of his arrest in 1985, Pollard was a civilian intelligence analyst for the Navy. He pleaded guilty in 1987 to passing classified information to Israel and was sentenced to life in prison.

But Rabbi Saperstein and others pointed out that Pollard has been made to serve a “disproportionately long sentence compared to those who committed comparable crimes, based on what the public knows. If there is an explanation [for such a long incarceration], [Obama should] give it to the public in broad terms and explain the damage that was done. But not having done so, the claims for commutation remain distinctly strong and we urge the president to reconsider.”

Netanyahu met last week with Pollard’s wife, Esther, to update her  “on the non-stop efforts to release Jonathan,” according to the prime minister’s office. Esther Pollard said after the 45-minute meeting that it was “positive and constructive.” She declined a request for an interview.

Netanyahu applauded a Knesset petition prepared last week calling for Obama to free Pollard, but he stressed that he does not believe the U.S. spying report should be the basis for such action.

The Knesset petition was signed by every faction in the Knesset last Wednesday following a lengthy discussion of the issue that was prompted by the spying revelation.

Arab Knesset members signed their own petition calling for Pollard’s release, but it included a demand that Israel free Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

And Gilat Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and held prisoner in Gaza for five years, wrote his own letter calling for Pollard’s release.

“After Israel has released terrorists with blood on their hands as a gesture to the Palestinians, a return gesture is all that is being requested,” Shalit wrote to Obama. “I believe, and I think that like myself all of the people of Israel believe that the prime minister’s request for such a simple gesture, the release of Jonathan Pollard, is owed to us by right and is not a favor.”

stewart@jewishweek.org

Middle East Peace talks, Obama administration, Pollard

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NEW YORK NEWS

Does Flurry Of Pollard Stories Add Up To Momentum?

The latest round of press reports about the convicted spy and a possible release.a

Ari L. Goldman, Special To The Jewish Week

There has been a flurry of press reports in Israel in recent days that a deal might be in the works to release the convicted spy Jonathan Pollard from an American prison. The reports have been fueled by several factors, including the imminent release of dozens of Palestinians prisoners from Israeli jails and by revelations that the U.S. conducted extensive spying on Israel.

Despite the reports of a Pollard deal, however, 2013 drew to a close with Pollard still in jail and prospects for his immediate release dim. Pollard is entering his 29th year in prison despite a growing consensus that he should be released on both humanitarian and legal grounds.

Israel’s Channel 10 reported over the weekend that Secretary of State John Kerry offered to free Pollard if Israel goes ahead with the fourth and final phase of the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel jails scheduled for March. The TV report said that Kerry was speaking without the backing of President Barak Obama, but that he hoped to secure Obama’s approval for the plan.

Israel Radio had a variation on this report, saying that all Kerry agreed to do was “look into” the possibility of freeing Pollard but made no commitment to do so.

Even Pollard’s most ardent supporters were disbelieving. A spokesman for the Committee for the Release of Jonathan Pollard told the Jerusalem Post: “We are deeply concerned that this is yet another one of many attempts of this kind to cynically exploit his plight as a sweetener to encourage the Israeli public to swallow a bitter political pill without protest. Past experience has proven that once the bitter pill is swallowed, Pollard’s situation remains unchanged.”

It would seem that skepticism is warranted. There were reports of a deal on a Pollard release going back to 1998 when President Bill Clinton agreed in principle to release Pollard but was then overruled by the intelligence community. The CIA director at the time, George Tenet, was said to have threatened to quit if Pollard was let go.

There was another burst of reports about a release when President Barak Obama visited Israel in March 2013. Personal appeals were by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and by Gilad Shalit, the Israeli solider who himself had been released from Hamas custody in 2011 in a prisoner exchange.

Israel, which distanced itself from Pollard after his arrest in 1986, came to embrace him and make his release a priority. Israel granted Pollard Israeli citizenship in 1995.

Appeals for clemency from both Republican and Democratic presidents, from Reagan to Obama, have been rejected.

Another recent impetus for a Pollard release came after the National Security Agency revelations reported in December in The New York Times and based on secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden. The documents revealed that the U.S. spied on former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in 2008 and 2009. The reports brought charges of “hypocrisy” from Yuli Edelstein, the speaker of the Knesset. Edelstein drew a direct line to Pollard.

“For 28 years, the U.S. administration has been preaching to Israel about the danger and the lack of trust that results from spying on allies and today it turns out the shoe is on the other foot,” Edelstein said. “There is no other way to characterize it other than hypocrisy.”

In the wake of the NSA revelations, 106 members of the Knesset signed an official request to Obama to free Pollard, the Times of Israel reported. “The Israeli Knesset is turning to the U.S. President Barack Obama to request, on humanitarian and humanistic grounds, in light of his grave medical condition, to limit the sentence of Jonathan Pollard and order his immediate release,” the Knesset letter said. “This humanitarian gesture is essential, and even necessary for Israel-U.S. relations at this time.”

Peres said that he would relay the letter from the Knesset to President Obama. Ynet news reported on Monday that Peres has committed to using the remainder of his time as president to work toward a Pollard release. Peres is expected to step down as president in July 2014.

If another year passes and Pollard is not pardoned by Obama in 2014, he will become eligible for parole in 2015 when he will be 61 years old. He will have spent more than half of his life in prison.

editor@jewishweek.org

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One year after Lincoln Square Synagogue moved down the block on the Upper West Side to its $50 million new digs, there are signs that its expensive gamble to breathe new life into the congregation may be paying off. Staff Writer Steve Lipman has the story.

NEW YORK NEWS

Lincoln Square’s $50 Million Gamble May Be Paying Off

A year after moving into its pricey new space, a push for young members seen garnering results.

Steve Lipman, Staff Writer

Michaela and Jonathan Lehr, a newly married couple who moved to the Upper West Side in May, figured they would attend worship services at one of the neighborhood’s many Modern Orthodox synagogues but didn’t plan to join one. “Our lives are so busy,” said Michaela, 25, who works on the finance team of a startup.

Then friends invited her and her husband, who is 28, to Lincoln Square Synagogue one Shabbat morning.

The Lehrs felt at home; they decided to join the congregation.

“I really enjoyed the community,” Michaela said. “I really liked the extreme open-mindedness. I wanted a shul where my parents,” natives of the former Soviet Union, “who are not religious, would feel comfortable.”

“People know your name, they recognize you,” she said. “It’s a pretty universal feeling among young couples we’ve spoken with.”

In bid to regain some of its luster — an effort seen as strategic or financially misguided, depending on whom you talk to — the synagogue moved last January into a new, architecturally striking building. The three-story site, with an undulating façade and a horseshoe-shaped sanctuary with 613 ceiling lights, is just 100 yards south of its 40-year-old site at Amsterdam Avenue and West 69th Street, which the congregation had outgrown.

When construction costs of the new building — the first major synagogue built in Manhattan in a half-century — escalated from an estimated $20-$25 million to about $50 million, Lincoln Square became subject to extensive curiosity, and criticism both inside and outside the congregation. Construction dragged on for seven years, and was temporarily halted when funds ran out.

An anonymous donation of $20 million three years ago saved the project. Today, a year after the building’s completion, a number of young couples like the Lehrs are joining and becoming active in the congregation.

The remaining debt on the construction project, which is virtually complete, is in “the low seven figures,” and Lincoln Square has begun to hold “more fundraising events,” in addition to a new membership campaign, said Lloyd Epstein, president of the congregation. “The viability of the shul is not in jeopardy,” he added. “There’s nothing in jeopardy.”

Rabbi Shaul Robinson, the congregation’s spiritual leader, said membership has increased by 70 family units, to about 550, in the last year. “On the average, a family a week is joining,” he said. At the congregation’s high point, in the 1980s, membership was about 1,200.

Color posters with pictures and small profiles of some new members are on display in the lobby. And there is an aggressive effort to turn curious visitors from the neighborhood into dues-paying members.

The rabbi noted that attendance at worship services, learning programs and other synagogue programs have similarly increased.

Elana Stein Hain, the congregation’s community scholar, said she senses “a renewed sense of investment and engagement … increased volunteerism for our causes. These people … run our welcoming committee, they chair our young professionals lunches, they get involved in our film club and our youth department.”

The shul’s dues structure has not changed in the last year, according to executive director Ben Keil. It is $900 for singles, $1,900 for families.

By attracting new members, “we’ve spread out the cost,” he said.

One sign of growth — old-time members report seeing more strollers in the lobby on Shabbat. Keil says the synagogue’s Shabbat morning youth program has jumped from about 30 students last fall to about 100 this fall.

“There are definitely [more] young singles who come, but they’re targeting” young couples as well, said Judith Sabba, 29, who joined Lincoln Square a year ago with her husband, Daniel, 30. Residents of the Upper West Side for four years, they had worshipped at other Modern Orthodox synagogues in the neighborhood, but were invited by friends to try LSS one Shabbat and never left.

Strangers talked to her that first day, introduced themselves, and invited the young couple to their homes for a Shabbat meal, said Judith, who works in finance. “That is a very unusual experience” in shul in Manhattan, she said. “That’s representative of what ‘community’ is. It’s not just a place you go to on Shabbos.”

The Sabbas have become active members of the congregation’s young leadership educational activities.

Part of the increase in the number of people attending Lincoln Square activities is because of the new building. And part of it is demographics. More young families and empty nesters have moved into the Lincoln Square area over the last few years as the economy has improved. The overall neighborhood’s Jewish population grew by about 10,000, to 70,000, according to UJA-Federation’s 2011 Jewish Community Study.

“Every shul on the Upper West Side is growing,” Rabbi Robinson said.

The congregation will mark the first anniversary of the new building in January as members and leaders ponder the price of success.

Income generated from outside organizations that hold events in the 50,000-square-foot building will pay much of the synagogue’s expenses, its leaders say. They declined to give specific financial figures but noted that a special needs school will begin leasing the third floor next year, and that the basement ballroom is leased to the upscale Prime Grill caterers.

Some members of the congregation who are critical of the multi-million-dollar expenditure concede that Lincoln Square, which had suffered a decline in morale and membership over the years as the old building deteriorated, is experiencing a revival.

“There was a lot of derision” a few years ago, said Gloria Kestenbaum, a longtime member and spokeswoman for the congregation. People would tell her, “No shul is worth that.”

“I don’t hear that anymore,” she said, though there are still rumblings from those upset by the high cost.

Some complain that events held in the ballroom must use Prime Grill’s catering, which is pricey.

The new building, designed by CetraRuddy, is some 30 percent bigger than the space at the old site. It is safer, environmentally friendly, handicapped-accessible and architecturally innovative, featuring seats made from cedar from Lebanon, a 5,000-square-foot glass façade, along with the symbolic 613 lights in the sanctuary ceiling. Besides the sanctuary, every space in the building is “multi-functional,” Rabbi Robinson said.

Is it worth $50 million?

“It’s hard to answer that question,” replied the well-liked rabbi, who has served there eight years. “We’re determined to make it worth every penny.”

That means the addition and expansion of activities for the various age and interest groups the congregation is seeking to attract.

Lincoln Square has added a new director of teen activities and hired a new cantor as founding Cantor Sherwood Goffin reduces his schedule. Additional activities include a course for attorneys on Jewish law and one for people who have converted to Judaism, and a learning program for young professionals.

The new building was conceived in part to put Lincoln Square, at one time the neighborhood’s “hot” Orthodox congregation for young singles, back on the map.

“We’re in a nice sense a victim of our own success,” said Glenn Richter, veteran Lincoln Square member and community activist. “The programs and attitudes pioneered under Rabbi [Shlomo] Riskin have been duplicated at many other Orthodox synagogues in Manhattan.”

Steven Bayme, national director of the American Jewish Committee’s Contemporary Jewish Life Department, noted that as Orthodoxy experienced “a resurgence on the West Side, there naturally developed several competitors.

“There is no reason why a rebuilt and reinvigorated Lincoln Square cannot serve as an attractive hub and center for Modern Orthodoxy at its finest.”

The current in-vogue shuls on the Upper West Side, residents of the area say, include Young Israel, The Jewish Center, West Side Institutional Synagogue and Ohab Zedek.

Gloria Kestenbaum offers one reason why she believes Lincoln Square is back. For many years she was always able to find a seat where she wanted in the sanctuary’s women’s section — near her friends — even if she came late to services.

Since the move, she says, seats on both sides of the mechitza are at a premium.

“Now, I have to look for a seat.”

She’ll keeping coming after services have started, though, adding: “I’ll sit in the back.”

steve@jewishweek.org

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From Israel, our correspondent Joshua Mitnick writes of how African migrants are being sent to an "open detention center," which they describe as prison.

ISRAEL NEWS

African Migrants Caught In New Bind

In wake of Israeli Supreme Court victory comes tougher legislation.

Joshua Mitnick, Israel Correspondent

Tel Aviv — Solomon Gorgo, an Eritrean army deserter who came to Israel illegally five years ago, speaks fluent Hebrew and is the manager of the wait staff at a five-star hotel in Eilat.

So when he showed up last week at the local Interior Ministry office to renew his visa he was taken by surprise when he was instead served with an “invitation” — an order, actually, to report for an undetermined stay at a new Israeli “open detention” complex for African migrants. As he prepares to move to the Holot facility, he must leave his job at the hotel.

“I live without problems. Suddenly I got this letter, I’m in shock. I don’t know what to do,” said Gorgo. “I didn’t come here to look for work. I am a genuine refugee. They said, ‘Just show up on the 26th of January.’”

Just a few months ago, the prospects for African migrants, many of them asylum seekers from the civil strife taking place in Eritrea and Sudan, seemed to be looking up. A Supreme Court decision in September struck down Israel’s “anti-infiltration” legislation and called mandatory three-year jail terms for the African illegals unconstitutional and a violation of human rights. The ruling mandated freedom for some 1,811 migrants at the Saharonim jail near the border with Egypt.

However, the decision is a challenge to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy of discouraging African migrants from coming and staying in Israel; African immigration is seen by the government as a “strategic” threat to Israel, both to its Jewish character and to its economy. There are about 60,000 Africans in Israel say they are fleeing political strife and persecution in either Eritrea or Sudan. But in the last two years, Israel, which considers the overwhelming majority of the Africans to be migrant laborers, has sealed its border to stop a flow that peaked in the hundreds per week.

Last November, in response to the September court decision, the Israeli parliament passed a revised version of the anti-infiltration law in November, reducing detention to one year and opening the facility in Holot, located in the desert near the border with Egypt.

African immigrants along with many others see the “open detention” facility as a de facto prison — even worse than the nearby Saharonim jail because there is no limit on how long then can be kept there. The residents must stay overnight at the complex, and be present for three roll calls during the day. Given that the nearest city of Beersheva is an hour away, that doesn’t leave much opportunity for contact with the outside world.

“The way [the legislation] is drafted today, it isn’t in the spirit of the 1951 convention” on refugees, said Sharon Harel, a protection officer from the Israel office of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. She said that of the 1,400 requests for asylum submitted by detainees, only 200 have been finalized and no one has been recognized as a refugee.

As for the Holot complex, Harel said, “The facility looks more like another detention facility rather than an open center.”

Many believe the purpose of the Holot facility is to pressure Africans to consider a “voluntary return” to their home countries, to which they are provided with a plane ticket and a stipend to live on after returning. More than 1,000 South Sudanese have already opted to take the stipend and return.

The choice of remaining in detention or making a “voluntary return” is an “impossible” one, said Harel, because neither is particularly attractive. “We have doubts about how voluntary it is.”

In a Facebook exchange, a spokesman for Interior Minister Gideon Saar rejected the notion that the Holot facility operates as a prison. The facility enables Israel to enforce laws banning the employment of illegal African migrants (whose employment was tolerated by authorities even though they were never given official permission to work). Saar wrote, “This is a battle for the country and its future. We won’t give up.”

Meanwhile, residents of south Tel Aviv routinely complain that the Africans living in their neighborhoods are a source of crime and violence. 

Israel began transferring Africans into the Holot complex about two weeks ago, but many of them have left. Dozens of Africans staged a 60-mile protest march two weeks ago along southern Israeli highways, and in Jerusalem across from the parliament, but they were eventually arrested by police and taken to jail.

A demonstration in Tel Aviv against the new regulations drew thousands of asylum seekers — the biggest turnout of migrants in recent memory. They chanted “Freedom!” and “No more jail” and held up signs invoking the passage from the Book of Exodus about respecting foreign populations, because “you were once strangers in a strange land.”

“The high court made a decision to release all us refugees,” said Abdel Munim Ahmed, a demonstrator who crossed illegally into Israel in June 2012 after fleeing Darfur. “But instead [the government] has transported us to anther prison,” he said.

According to the “invitation” to the Holot center that is served to migrants, “in the center you will be provided with suitable living conditions, including health and welfare benefits,” but on the other hand, “you will not be permitted to work.” Aid workers and migrants also complain that the Holot facility is guarded by personnel from the prison services.

The migrants say they are asylum seekers who have fled genocide or repressive governments, and cannot return, but very few have been recognized as such. Israeli government official say the vast majority simply seek jobs and plan to stay in Israel permanently.

“Just as we are determined to defend our borders, we are determined to uphold the law,” said Netanyahu. “The law is the law, especially when it applies to illegal labor infiltrators. The infiltrators that were transferred to the special facility can live there or return to their countries.”

Netanyahu touts his government’s construction of a border fence that has shut down the flow of thousands of illegals a month from Egypt, and says that encouraging the Africans to leave should now be a top priority.

However, the government’s handling of the Africans’ situation has raised concerns about human rights from U.S. officials and become a public relations problem abroad as well. A Western diplomat based in Tel Aviv said that Israel needs to work on its policy of handling the asylum seekers, and noted the wide gap between the 3 percent rate of Eritreans who get asylum status in Israel compared with the more than an 80 percent rate that exists worldwide.

Back in Eilat, Solomon Gorgo might have a chance to get asylum status. He said that as a teen in Eritrea he was kidnapped into army service, and after he fled for Israel his parents were arrested by authorities.

But he knows that he also faces some sort of detention in a month;  he says that he plans to report to Holot as per the “invitation” on Jan. 26.

“I go according to the law, and then afterward, I ask for my rights,” he said. “I thought this was an OK country. That it was an advanced country,” Gorgo said. “I didn’t think these things would happen in Israel.”

editor@jewishweek.org

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Also this week, David Broza makes music with Palestinians in East Jerusalem; TV star Mayim Bialik gets advice on how to assure that her young sons will enjoy their first trip to Israel; Jewrotica lists the 10 Sexiest Rabbis; film critic George Robinson on this year's New York Jewish Film Festival; and Heather Robinson wonders if online dating is "killing our chemistry."

SHORT TAKES

Broza Crosses Over, Into East Jerusalem

George Robinson, Special To The Jewish Week

David Broza is one of those fortunate artists who are never at a loss for a new project. When he was interviewed in this newspaper a year ago, he was talking about an album of musical settings of poetry by Pablo Neruda. That project, he said a few weeks ago, is still going on, but it got shoved to the back of the queue by another long-time dream turned into reality: a record and documentary film that put him in the studio with Israeli and Palestinian musicians for a program of songs about peace; the CD was recorded in east Jerusalem.

“This was something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and when it suddenly came together, I had to put the Neruda project aside,” he told The Jewish Week at a press event launching the new CD “East Jerusalem/West Jerusalem,” which is due out on Jan. 14. “I’ve got several tracks completed and I want to finish it, but it will have to wait until we’re done with this one.”

“This one” is a disarmingly low-key set filled with songs about “peace, love and understanding,” to quote the Nick Lowe lyrics of the first cut released from the album, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?” That song is probably best known in Elvis Costello’s version. Costello is also represented on the set by his song “Everyday I Write the Book.”

Costello, of course, is one of the more prominent pop stars to join the boycott of Israel. Another is Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, whose song “Mother” Broza recorded for the new album.

Unsurprisingly, one of the first questions Broza was asked at the event was about his choice of material by such vocal and visible detractors of Israel. He noted that both songs are about the need for breaching barriers and communicating with others.

“I think the music goes beyond [the boycott],” he said. “Look, boycotts are much better than having people in the streets fighting, with blood and death the result. But the intellect suffers [in a cultural boycott].  ... I worry that we’re losing the chance of ever getting better.”

Perhaps that is what Broza was thinking when, in one of the excerpts from the documentary that were screened that evening, he said, “I had to make this album in east Jerusalem. It’s about the collaboration. My work [for peace] can be through music. It’s all I know how to do.”

To that end, the CD represents a rare meeting of Jerusalem-based Palestinian musicians and technicians with their Israeli counterparts. The east Jerusalem studio in which they recorded has been in use in the Palestinian music community for 14 years, and it has an appealingly homemade look and sound.

“It’s like playing inside a guitar,” Broza said enthusiastically.

“An oud,” replied Steve Earle, who produced the album.

Earle is no stranger to political music or controversy. An outstanding singer-songwriter and one of the best of the many alt-country musicians to emerge from Texas at the end of the 20th century, he is a vocal opponent of the death penalty, and a spirited advocate for gun control who has made numerous appearances on behalf of Amnesty International and other human rights groups.

More important, he is seriously rock-and-roll.

Although he seems like an unlikely collaborator for Broza at first glance, the pair seems to have a healthy and playful chemistry. When Earle was asked to describe their interaction, he could have been speaking for either one of them.

“I’ve probably written more songs about girls than anything else,” he joked. “I’m just a political person. Music seeps into your consciousness like nothing else does.”

The project represented Earle’s first trip to the Middle East, but he has first-hand experience of playing in a zone of conflict. He recalled touring Ireland and Northern Ireland in the 1980s. At the time, he said, he thought, “It’s the people who are kids now who are going to change the situation.”

That same thought came back to him when he and Broza met and recorded with the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, a unique musical group consisting of Israeli and Palestinian teens who meet regularly to sing together at the Jerusalem YMCA. It is the only such group in Israel.

“The kids you see [in the documentary] are the ones who will change it,” Earle said.

David Broza will appear at a Jewish Week Forum at Temple Emanu-El on Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 7:30 pm. For reservations to hear him in conversation and performance, and to see a screening of his new documentary: www.jewishweek.com/broza-event.

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SHORT TAKES

Bialik Gets Earful (Of Advice) On Israel Trip

Actress gets 'Jewish mothered' after revealing anxieties about journey with her two small sons.

Michele Chabin, Special To The Jewish Week

Just minutes after “Big Bang Theory” actress Mayim Bialik announced Monday that she is bringing her two sons, ages 5 and 8, for a visit to Israel this week, dozens of Jewish mothers in Israel began to offer her advice.

On her Kveller blog Bialik, who was recently divorced, wrote, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about traveling alone with my sons, even if I did have full use of my right hand. (She sustained serious injuries to her hand in a 2013 car accident. “I’m scared about handling jet lag alone and shlepping luggage alone and being alone; but my [Israel-based] family is wonderful.”

Bialik, who is proudly Jewish, expressed the hope that her older son will be content playing with his cousins, but expressed concern that her “sensitive high-needs sweet 5-year-old” will have a harder time adjusting. “It’s anyone’s guess how this will play out. What I do know is that I believe in traveling to Israel. I believe in taking children to Israel. And I believe that I can handle whatever this trip looks like.”

The actress noted that she is considering bringing an iPad to entertain the kids, and that she plans to rent a car (and borrow car seats from her cousin), visit the Kotel, search for amazing humus and keep her itinerary kid-friendly.

Those who responded to the blog post, the vast majority of whom are American expats living in Israel, discouraged her from bringing the iPad but did suggest packing a lot of healthy snacks — Bialik is vegetarian — and toys from the $1 store.

They recommended trips to the Tisch Biblical Zoo, the Bloomfield Science Museum and the children’s wing of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. They suggested visiting the Kotel when it’s less crowded, such as between prayer times. And making time for a giant slide called the “Meefletzet” — the Monster.

Regarding humus, one respondent recommended dining in the Israeli Arab village of Abu Gosh, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Another suggested Bialik assign her boys a task, such as praying for someone at the Kotel, or putting a note in the Western Wall “that they work on on the plane.” Such a task “will have focus for them and will help them not be bored.”

Many readers invited Bialik and her kids for a meal, even an overnight stay.

“This Shabbat my husband and I happen to be having two awesome single-mom friends with their kids and are cooking vegan (and wheat-free),” Lorien Tova Balofsky, who lives in Beit Shemesh, wrote in the comments. “We have tons of space and would love to extend an invitation to you and your kids also for Shabbat if you don’t have any plans. There will be lots of wine, chocolate and good conversation.”

Another reader tried to reassure the actress:

“Don’t be worried about traveling alone. We are all family here and you’ll be offered more help than you know what to do with.”

editor@jewishweek.org

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NATIONAL NEWS

Jewrotica Names 'Sexiest Rabbis Of 2013'

Adam Dickter, Assistant Managing Editor

A Women of The Wall activist, the founder of a queer yeshiva and the Orthodox leader of New York's Stanton Street Shul are among the 10 "Sexiest Rabbis of 2013" named by the website Jewrotica.

The site picked six men and four women, all but three U.S.-based, for the inaugural honor out of more than 150 nominees sent by  "students, congregants, community members and families all over the world," Jewrotica said.

Jewrotica founder Ayo Oppenheimer in October said she would change the title of the list to Hottest Rabbis in response to criticism about judging people by their appearance. She told the Times of Israel "We’re not at all looking at physical looks. It has nothing to do with measurements or six-packs. There is so much more than that that makes someone attractive.”

But David Abitbol, one of the judges and an Israel-based contributor and webmaster for Jewrotica, said a name change was never seriously considered. “We were just taking the piss out of people who complained,” he said.

Abitbol, who is also a founder of the website Jewlicious, said in an phone interview Tuesday the list was “Unequivocally not about sexy as people conventionally understand the term. For us, it’s a euphemism for attractive, compelling and inspiring.”

RELATED STORY: JEWROTICA AND SEXUAL AWAKENINGS

The cross-denomonational list is not ranked, meaning that each person is considered equally sexy. The rabbis selected are:

Josh Yuter, spiritual leader of the Stanton Street Synagogue in Manhattan;

David Dunn Bauer, director of social action programs, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in Manhattan;

Susan Silverman, Women of the Wall activist and Jerusalem-based author;

Jill Hammer, PhD, founder of Kohenet, the Jewish Priestess Institute in Connecticut;

Benay Lappe, founder of Svara, a Chicago yeshiva "committed to the Queer experience;"

Yonah Bookstein, co-founder of the Jewlicious Festival and Pico Shul in Los Angeles;

Dan Shevitz of Congregation Mishkon Tephilo in Venice, Calif.;

Aviad Bodner of Moishe House in Tel Aviv;

Lizzie Heydmann, founder of Mishkon in Chicago;

Yonatan Gordis, a founder and strategist at ChangeCraft who lives in Canada.

Jewrotica also included 19 other rabbis for "People's Choice" voting online. Oppenheimer said in her introduction that the nominations "spanned age, gender, country, ethnicity, relationship status and denomination, with a roughly even number of rabbis nominated from each ‘stream of Judaism’ and an approximately 60-40 divide between male and female rabbis."

Rabbi Hammer, who is 44, married to musician Shoshana Jedwab, and the mother of a five-year-old daughter said she appreciated the "playful intent" of the list.

She told The Jewish Week she became aware that she had been nominated only the day before the winners were announced via a post on Facebook. Her nomination came from a student at Kohenet.

"I am surprised and of course flattered, but as a shy person I'm also embarassed," Rabbi Hammer said.

She added that while she was uncomfortable with ranking people, "I appreciate the intent to start a conversation about what is erotic and spiritual, and the wide definition [of sexy] used by the [selection] committee."

Abitbol said the site would likely make the list an annual year-end feature. While he said it was “hard work” sorting through the nominations, the site’s staff “had fun doing it. We all learned something new from going through the research.”

adam@jewishweek.org

Aviad Bodner, Ayo Oppenheimer, Benay Lappe, Dan Shevitz, David Abitbol, David Dunn Bauer, Jewlicious, Jewrotica, Jill Hammer, Josh Yuter, Lizzie Heydmann, Sexiest Rabbis, Susan Silverman, Women of the Wall, Yonah Bookstein, Yonatan Gordis

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FILM

Marcel Ophuls’ Life In Cinema

‘Sorrow and the Pity’ director’s new film memoir is a highlight of first week of this year’s New York Jewish Film Festival; event taking some fresh new directions.

George Robinson, Special To The Jewish Week

Note: This is the first of three articles on this year’s N.Y. Jewish Film Festival.

Now in its 23rd year, the New York Jewish Film Festival, which opens on Jan. 8, is not only one of the oldest such events in the world, it is also becoming one of the biggest. With this year’s festival, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Jewish Museum are adding several sidebar events that will take them in some interesting new directions. Ultimately, what really matters is less the ambition of the programmers than the quality of the films they select.

Friedrich Durrenmatt, the Swiss playwright and novelist, has said, “Each art exploits the chances offered by its time, and it is hard to imagine a time without chances.” The same could be said of people who present the arts. Of course, film festivals can buttress themselves by drawing on known quantities. The N.Y. Jewish Film Festival has always been an excellent showcase for the restoration work of film archivists, most notably the National Center for Jewish Film; this year’s program is no exception, with NCJF’s latest Yiddish film revival, “Mamele,” a vehicle for the multitudinous talents of Molly Picon. Two other all-but-lost efforts from other archives are also scheduled: “Oded the Wanderer,” the first feature film made in the Yishuv, and “Professor Mamlock,” a 1938 Soviet film that was among the first to directly address Nazi anti-Semitism.

There will also be sidebar tributes to Otto Preminger, the brilliant graphic designer-filmmaker Saul Bass and Israeli-Dutch video artist Yael Bartana, plus a master class with Amos Gitai and a miniseries programmed by guest programmer Wim Wenders. This last event begins what is planned to be an ongoing addition to the festival with a world-class filmmaker showing one of his or her own works (this year a 30th anniversary screening of Wenders’ “Paris, Texas”) and two films that “relate to Jewish culture.”

All of these events are exciting. The archival programs are always among the festival’s highlights for this critic, and the new programs are very promising. But in the end, how you evaluate a film festival usually pivots on the new films it showcases. Inevitably, the quality of these films will vary, as will opinions about any one of them. But based on the strength of one film that will be screened next week, the 2014 festival will be well remembered.

Simply put, “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” the new feature by Marcel Ophuls, is a joyous return to the cinema for one of the greatest living documentary filmmakers in the world; it’s a memoir in movies that traces Ophuls’ life and career, along with a generous (in every sense) recounting of his fabled father’s life in film and some sideward glances at some of his own friends, most prominently Francois Truffaut, Jeanne Moreau, Frederick Wiseman and the photographer Elliott Erwitt.

In this, his first film in 18 years, Ophuls is almost never off-camera, delivering a witty, engaging monologue that moves through his life as “un voyageur” (the French title of the film). Although he has lived in France for much of his life, Ophuls has been buffeted by the winds of history that have swept Europe’s Jews across the globe. Of course, in his case, those winds were amplified and complicated by the workings of multiple film industries, as his father Max was shuffled from Germany to the Netherlands, Italy, France, the United States and back to France again, an odyssey that the son traces with copious well-chosen film clips.

Given the prominence of the workings of history in Ophuls’ films — both as influence and as subject matter — it seems ironic that “Ain’t Misbehavin’” is a personal memoir that really is firmly rooted in cinema, and that avoids dwelling in historical events. In addition to clips from his father’s magnificent oeuvre, he includes snippets from Capra, Truffaut, Preston Sturges, Wiseman, Antonioni, the Marx Brothers and his own work. There is a strong sense that, although Ophuls has frequently implied that he has always been a stateless person, his real home is Movieland.

What is most impressive — and admirable — about “Ain’t Misbehavin’” is its tone. Over the years, Ophuls has frequently been caustic and corrosively sarcastic, usually with considerable provocation. But this film (which feels too celebratory and downright funny to be valedictory) has a graceful equanimity that belies the powerful and often dark visions of such earlier works as “The Sorrow and the Pity,” “Hotel Terminus” and “The Memory of Justice.” Ophuls’ desperate battle to save that last film from its producers, so intense and fraught when it happened nearly 40 years ago, gets a surprisingly light-hearted backward glance today, typical of the rueful but contemplative and often humorous tone of much of the new film.

On the other hand, there are intimations of more ominous shadows in the filmmaker-journalist’s life. There are intimations in the film’s opening scenes of a severe marital rift that his neighbors seem to think included a physical altercation, but we have only Ophuls’ word for this. Marcel refers almost offhandedly to a series of suicide attempts in the wake of previous departures by Regine, his wife of over 50 years.

Yet the most obvious source of darkness, the Shoah, is seldom mentioned. In truth, as Ophuls himself says early in the film, for all the tragedies and setbacks his family endured in the 1930s and ’40s, he “had a privileged childhood — I was a privileged kid.” Is there a lingering air of self-doubt bred of survivor’s guilt? I don’t think so, and, on the evidence of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” I’m fairly certain that Ophuls would say no, emphatically. Regardless of whatever sins Marcel Ophuls has committed in his personal life, as a witness to history and one of its most trenchant chroniclers, he has nothing to apologize for.

♦The same could be justly said of the Jewish activists who fought for the freedom of their co-religionists in the former Soviet Union. The movement in support of Soviet Jews is one of the most admirable chapters in the long history of Jewish activism, and it has received suitably intelligent treatment in several documentaries. However, it has seldom been the subject of fiction films, so one approaches the festival’s opening night offering, “Friends from France,” with high hopes.

Regrettably, those hopes are quickly dashed. Directed and written by Anne Weil and Philippe Koltarski, “Friends from France” takes a couple of 20-year-old Jewish cousins from 1979 Paris to Moscow, where they engage in a series of maladroit covert attempts to aid their Russian counterparts. The parlous state of Russian Jewry takes a backseat to the soapy interactions between the French duo, and an epilogue set 20 years later feels even more like daytime TV drama. The film is a lost opportunity, slightly redeemed by Vladimir Fridman’s performance as an irascible victim of the Soviet state and Robert Marcel Lepage’s sinuous, intelligent music.

♦Alan Zweig’s “When Jews Were Funny” puts us on more familiar ground, Jews and their (now ebbing) dominance of stand-up comedy Zweig has interviewed a fascinating collection of Jewish comics past and present, including Shelly Berman, Jack Carter, Shecky Greene, Howie Mandel, Judy Gold and Gilbert Gottfried trying to elicit their thoughts on the intersection of humor and suffering that is the Jewish experience. The film is a bit shapeless, and, if you are looking for laughs, you may be disappointed, but the discussion is surprisingly thoughtful and provocative. It’s worth watching just for Stewie Stone’s explanation of how you measured failure at the Concord.

The 23rd annual New York Jewish Film Festival opens on Jan. 8 and runs through Jan. 23. Most of the films will be screened at the Walter Reade Theater (165 W. 65th St.), with other events taking place at the Eleanor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 W. 65th St.). For complete information, go to www.NYJFF.org.

-------

FILM

Marcel Ophuls’ Life In Cinema

‘Sorrow and the Pity’ director’s new film memoir is a highlight of first week of this year’s New York Jewish Film Festival; event taking some fresh new directions.

George Robinson, Special To The Jewish Week

Note: This is the first of three articles on this year’s N.Y. Jewish Film Festival.

Now in its 23rd year, the New York Jewish Film Festival, which opens on Jan. 8, is not only one of the oldest such events in the world, it is also becoming one of the biggest. With this year’s festival, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Jewish Museum are adding several sidebar events that will take them in some interesting new directions. Ultimately, what really matters is less the ambition of the programmers than the quality of the films they select.

Friedrich Durrenmatt, the Swiss playwright and novelist, has said, “Each art exploits the chances offered by its time, and it is hard to imagine a time without chances.” The same could be said of people who present the arts. Of course, film festivals can buttress themselves by drawing on known quantities. The N.Y. Jewish Film Festival has always been an excellent showcase for the restoration work of film archivists, most notably the National Center for Jewish Film; this year’s program is no exception, with NCJF’s latest Yiddish film revival, “Mamele,” a vehicle for the multitudinous talents of Molly Picon. Two other all-but-lost efforts from other archives are also scheduled: “Oded the Wanderer,” the first feature film made in the Yishuv, and “Professor Mamlock,” a 1938 Soviet film that was among the first to directly address Nazi anti-Semitism.

There will also be sidebar tributes to Otto Preminger, the brilliant graphic designer-filmmaker Saul Bass and Israeli-Dutch video artist Yael Bartana, plus a master class with Amos Gitai and a miniseries programmed by guest programmer Wim Wenders. This last event begins what is planned to be an ongoing addition to the festival with a world-class filmmaker showing one of his or her own works (this year a 30th anniversary screening of Wenders’ “Paris, Texas”) and two films that “relate to Jewish culture.”

All of these events are exciting. The archival programs are always among the festival’s highlights for this critic, and the new programs are very promising. But in the end, how you evaluate a film festival usually pivots on the new films it showcases. Inevitably, the quality of these films will vary, as will opinions about any one of them. But based on the strength of one film that will be screened next week, the 2014 festival will be well remembered.

Simply put, “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” the new feature by Marcel Ophuls, is a joyous return to the cinema for one of the greatest living documentary filmmakers in the world; it’s a memoir in movies that traces Ophuls’ life and career, along with a generous (in every sense) recounting of his fabled father’s life in film and some sideward glances at some of his own friends, most prominently Francois Truffaut, Jeanne Moreau, Frederick Wiseman and the photographer Elliott Erwitt.

In this, his first film in 18 years, Ophuls is almost never off-camera, delivering a witty, engaging monologue that moves through his life as “un voyageur” (the French title of the film). Although he has lived in France for much of his life, Ophuls has been buffeted by the winds of history that have swept Europe’s Jews across the globe. Of course, in his case, those winds were amplified and complicated by the workings of multiple film industries, as his father Max was shuffled from Germany to the Netherlands, Italy, France, the United States and back to France again, an odyssey that the son traces with copious well-chosen film clips.

Given the prominence of the workings of history in Ophuls’ films — both as influence and as subject matter — it seems ironic that “Ain’t Misbehavin’” is a personal memoir that really is firmly rooted in cinema, and that avoids dwelling in historical events. In addition to clips from his father’s magnificent oeuvre, he includes snippets from Capra, Truffaut, Preston Sturges, Wiseman, Antonioni, the Marx Brothers and his own work. There is a strong sense that, although Ophuls has frequently implied that he has always been a stateless person, his real home is Movieland.

What is most impressive — and admirable — about “Ain’t Misbehavin’” is its tone. Over the years, Ophuls has frequently been caustic and corrosively sarcastic, usually with considerable provocation. But this film (which feels too celebratory and downright funny to be valedictory) has a graceful equanimity that belies the powerful and often dark visions of such earlier works as “The Sorrow and the Pity,” “Hotel Terminus” and “The Memory of Justice.” Ophuls’ desperate battle to save that last film from its producers, so intense and fraught when it happened nearly 40 years ago, gets a surprisingly light-hearted backward glance today, typical of the rueful but contemplative and often humorous tone of much of the new film.

On the other hand, there are intimations of more ominous shadows in the filmmaker-journalist’s life. There are intimations in the film’s opening scenes of a severe marital rift that his neighbors seem to think included a physical altercation, but we have only Ophuls’ word for this. Marcel refers almost offhandedly to a series of suicide attempts in the wake of previous departures by Regine, his wife of over 50 years.

Yet the most obvious source of darkness, the Shoah, is seldom mentioned. In truth, as Ophuls himself says early in the film, for all the tragedies and setbacks his family endured in the 1930s and ’40s, he “had a privileged childhood — I was a privileged kid.” Is there a lingering air of self-doubt bred of survivor’s guilt? I don’t think so, and, on the evidence of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” I’m fairly certain that Ophuls would say no, emphatically. Regardless of whatever sins Marcel Ophuls has committed in his personal life, as a witness to history and one of its most trenchant chroniclers, he has nothing to apologize for.

♦The same could be justly said of the Jewish activists who fought for the freedom of their co-religionists in the former Soviet Union. The movement in support of Soviet Jews is one of the most admirable chapters in the long history of Jewish activism, and it has received suitably intelligent treatment in several documentaries. However, it has seldom been the subject of fiction films, so one approaches the festival’s opening night offering, “Friends from France,” with high hopes.

Regrettably, those hopes are quickly dashed. Directed and written by Anne Weil and Philippe Koltarski, “Friends from France” takes a couple of 20-year-old Jewish cousins from 1979 Paris to Moscow, where they engage in a series of maladroit covert attempts to aid their Russian counterparts. The parlous state of Russian Jewry takes a backseat to the soapy interactions between the French duo, and an epilogue set 20 years later feels even more like daytime TV drama. The film is a lost opportunity, slightly redeemed by Vladimir Fridman’s performance as an irascible victim of the Soviet state and Robert Marcel Lepage’s sinuous, intelligent music.

♦Alan Zweig’s “When Jews Were Funny” puts us on more familiar ground, Jews and their (now ebbing) dominance of stand-up comedy Zweig has interviewed a fascinating collection of Jewish comics past and present, including Shelly Berman, Jack Carter, Shecky Greene, Howie Mandel, Judy Gold and Gilbert Gottfried trying to elicit their thoughts on the intersection of humor and suffering that is the Jewish experience. The film is a bit shapeless, and, if you are looking for laughs, you may be disappointed, but the discussion is surprisingly thoughtful and provocative. It’s worth watching just for Stewie Stone’s explanation of how you measured failure at the Concord.

The 23rd annual New York Jewish Film Festival opens on Jan. 8 and runs through Jan. 23. Most of the films will be screened at the Walter Reade Theater (165 W. 65th St.), with other events taking place at the Eleanor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 W. 65th St.). For complete information, go to www.NYJFF.org.

Enjoy the read, stay warm and Shabbat shalom,

-------

Gary Rosenblatt

P.S. For breaking news and exclusive videos, blogs, opinion pieces and advice columns, check out our website anytime of the day or night.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/

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Between the Lines - Gary Rosenblatt

And Now, The Year Of Mideast Showdowns

At the outset of this new year, I’m reminded of the line from “All About Eve,” the classic 1950 film about ambition and betrayal on Broadway: “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

This year portends to be a momentous one for Israel, hinging on its all-important relationship with the U.S. It could bring real progress on the road to peace or lead to at least one and possibly more dangerous military confrontations between Israel and its adversaries.

By April, the deadline will be approaching for two major diplomatic initiatives driven by the White House. They are the Israel-Palestinian peace talks and the nuclear agreement being negotiated between Iran and the six major Western countries. And talks are scheduled to begin later this month on resolving Syria’s civil war, almost in its third year of unspeakable tragedy.

Technically, these three key efforts are separate, but in fact they are interrelated, and the stakes could not be higher for Jerusalem.

I’m all for diplomatic efforts to end ongoing or potential military conflicts. But if the time and circumstances are not right, the results can be disastrous. And when it comes to Syria, where the death toll continues to rise well over the 100,000 mark, if talks are held without a prior agreement between Washington and Moscow that Syrian President Bashir Assad must go, they will not only fail, but strengthen Iran and its surrogate terror group, Hezbollah, next door in Lebanon.

Wisely, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to avoid exacerbating the volatile situation with Syria, to the north. But his seeming passivity on the talks with the Palestinian Authority gives the impression that his goal is to have them fail, with the PA to blame. Is that what he wants?

There’s no question about the Israeli leader’s goal on the Iran talks. He has been vocal and aggressive in calling them bad for the West and bad for Israel and the region because they would ease the crippling economic sanctions while allowing Tehran to pause, rather than begin to dismantle, its nuclear program.

Whether or not one agrees with Netanyahu, his approach on the Palestinians and Iran does not bode well for the upcoming crunch time, as he faces a determined John Kerry. The U.S. secretary of state, whether driven at this point by ego or a firm belief that his diplomatic initiatives can bring peace to the Mideast, or both, sees Netanyahu as an obstacle rather than a helpful ally. Kerry has expressed exasperation with Israel’s positions on both the Palestinian and Iran fronts.

That’s deeply unfair of him, given that Netanyahu calls for a two-state solution with the Palestinians and a peaceful resolution to the Iran crisis. All while the PA refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and Tehran continues to demonize Jerusalem and proclaim its right to continue its nuclear program, clearly bent on achieving weapon capability (though it won’t admit it), with Israel in its sights.

Still, Netanyahu would do well to shift his approach from appearing stubbornly opposed to change. Instead, he needs to articulate a positive position on both fronts, not just for diplomatic purposes but also for Israeli security.

When it comes to dealing with the Palestinians, the on-again, off-again, you-go-first dance that began with Oslo is more than 20 years old and isn’t working. Israel releases terrorist prisoners to show its willingness to advance peace talks, and at the same time announces settlement growth to stave off criticism from its political and religious right. That may work in keeping a coalition together, but Israelis have a right to know what the ultimate plan is for the future.

Even thought leaders on the right are calling for a coherent plan on the settlements. In his Jerusalem Post column last week, Isi Leibler noted that “the prime minister’s inconsistencies [on settlements] have been a major contributing factor toward alienating our allies” in addition to heightening internal divisiveness and allowing “our adversaries to depict us as duplicitous.”

Leibler sensibly calls for Netanyahu to hammer out a plan with his coalition to allow for growth in areas of the West Bank that clearly will be part of Israel in a future deal and cease construction elsewhere. Then the prime minister should let Kerry, and the world, know about it up front.

Every move is a gamble in this game, but having a clear policy on settlements would be a boost for Israelis, who deserve to know what they’re fighting for, and no doubt would win greater support for the government.

In truth, though, the Israel-Palestinian dilemma pales in comparison to dealing with Iran and the U.S. over the nuclear issue. The gap between Israel and America on this is real. While each insists its goal is the same, the U.S. is determined to prevent Iran from having a nuclear bomb; Israel insists that Iran not have the capability of producing one. Big difference. And the present deal appears to permit the world’s leader in terror to create a nuclear warhead on short notice.

Does Israel remain silent in the face of an existential threat so as to avoid alienating its most precious ally? It’s an impossible situation. For now Netanyahu and the organized Jewish community have gambled on an end-around the White House, supporting congressional legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran if six months pass without a final-status agreement. The administration has put strong pressure on the Jewish groups to back off, insisting that the bill would kill the talks. The implicit but strong suggestion is that Jewish opposition would be blamed for the failure, which could lead to a military confrontation with Iran. (A headline on the Huffington Post website Dec. 19 deeply upset Jewish leaders, with good reason. It read: “Saboteur Sen. Launching War Push,” and referred to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is a sponsor of the controversial resolution.)

The Jewish groups assert that the Senate action is bipartisan, reflecting a widely held belief that the legislation would enhance the possibility of a peaceful resolution by putting additional pressure on Iran.

The White House says it would veto the Senate bill, if passed. What then? In the meantime Netanyahu should focus less on calling attention to Israel’s fears about a nuclear Iran and more on making clear that the proposed legislation in Washington is motivated by U.S. political leaders from both parties committed to protecting and strengthening America and the West, not just Jerusalem. But tensions in both capitals are high, along with the risks, and there are too many indications that 2014 indeed will be a bumpy year. So hold on.

Gary@jewishweek.org

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OPINION

It's Time For Us To Say 'Thank You'

Jeffrey K. Salkin - Special To The Jewish Week

We are a community that seems to go from crisis to crisis, and a part of our communal psyche seems to almost relish it. Whether it’s the Pew Research Center report, or our fears about Iran, or an anti-Semitic attack, it gets our Jewish juices flowing. Last month, it was the appalling news that the American Studies Association had voted to boycott Israeli universities. We screamed. We wrote impassioned op-ed pieces. Like leftover latkes, we sizzled in the oil of our collective disappointment at the brazen cooperation of a piece of America’s intellectual elite in the willful academic ghettoization of the Jewish state.

And we were right to have done so.

However, something was happening behind our backs — something by no means insidious, but, rather, redemptive.

The academic world did not stay silent. Quite the contrary. To date, at least 55 American universities have refused to join the ASA boycott. In many cases, they have also issued strongly worded protests against the association’s actions.

Here are the names of the presidents or chancellors of each university, along with their contact information. Because it is not enough to scream gevalt when we have been wounded. We also have to call out “thank you” to those who are our friends, to those who stood up for truth, to those who have refused to have their educational institutions seduced by the all too common siren song of anti-Israeli behavior. We need to thank those institutions, especially if we are alumni of them, and/or our children or grandchildren attend them. Because the best way to induce people to continue doing good is to thank them for what they have already done.

Take a look at the list below, which includes the first 27 universities to counter the ASA vote. Yes — some, even many, of those institutions of higher learning have significant Jewish populations. Some of the officials are Jewish. But that cannot begin to tell the whole story.

A larger story exists in the geographic diversity of the universities’ locations. Moreover, we don’t know how many Jewish students are enrolled at Willamette University in Salem, Ore. Perhaps more than we think  think. But Willamette is not exactly located in one of the queen cities of the American diaspora.

And that is, precisely, the point. There’s an old Jewish joke. A pair of Jews is walking in a dangerous neighborhood late at night. Suddenly, they hear footsteps behind them. One says to the other: “We had better be careful. There are two of them, and we’re alone.”

As it turns out, we are not alone. Not even close.

This is the mitzvah of hakarat ha-tov — recognizing the good. Thank these university officials for their universities’ courage in standing up to the American Studies Association. Thank them for their commitment to truth and to intellectual honesty. Thank them for the generosity of spirit that they demonstrated towards the State of Israel. Get your children and grandchildren to write as well — especially if they are students at those universities.

Now that the winter solstice has passed, the days are getting longer again.

There is more light than we could have imagined.

Boston University. Dr. Robert A. Brown, president. John and Kathryn Silber Administrative Center, 1 Silber Way (8th Floor), Boston, MA. 02215. president@bu.edu

Brandeis University. Fred Laurence, president. Office of the President, Irving Enclave 113, MS 100, 415 South St., Waltham, MA 02453 of the President  | Irving Enclave 113, MS 100  | 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453

Brown University. Christina Paxson, president. Office of the President, Box 1860, 1 Prospect St., Providence, RI 02912

Cornell University. David J. Skorton, president. Office of the President, 300 Day Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853. president@cornell.edu

Dickinson College. Nancy A. Roseman, president.
P.O. Box 1773, Carlisle, PA 17013. presofc@dickinson.edu

Duke University. Richard A. Brodhead, president. Office of the President, 207 Allen Building, Box 90001, Durham, NC 27708-0001. president@duke.edu

George Washington University. Steven Knapp, president. Rice Hall, 2121 I St., NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20052

Harvard University. Dr. Drew Faust, president. Office of the President, Massachusetts Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138. president@harvard.edu

Indiana University. Michael A. McRobbie, president. Office of the President, Bryan Hall 200, 107 S. Indiana Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405

Kenyon College. Sean M. Decatur, president. Office of the President,
Ransom Hall, Gambier, OH 43022-962.
president@kenyon.edu

Michigan State University. Lou Anna K. Simon, president. Office of the President, 426 Auditorium Road, Hannah Administration Building, Room 450, East Lansing, MI 48824-1046. presmail@msu.edu

New York University. John Sexton, president. Office of the President, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012 john.sexton@nyu.edu

Northwestern University. Morton Shapiro, president. 2-130 Rebecca Crown Center, 633 Clark St., Evanston, Ill. 60208. nu-president@northwestern.edu

Princeton University. Christopher L. Eisgruber, president. Office of the President, 1 Nassau Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544

Tufts University. Anthony P. Monaco, president. Office of the President,
Ballou Hall (2nd Floor),
Medford, MA 02155. amonaco@tufts.edu

Tulane University. Scott S. Cowen, president. 218 Gibson Hall, 6823 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70118-5684

University of California-Irvine. Dr. Michael V. Drake, chancellor. Irvine, CA 92697. chancellor@uci.edu

University of California-San Diego. Praddep K. Khosia, chancellor-elect. Office of the Chancellor, 9500 Gilman Drive No. 0005, La Jolla, CA 92093-0005. chancellor@ucsd.edu

University of Kansas. Bernadette Gray-Little, chancellor. Chancellor’s Office, 230 Strong Hall, Lawrence, KS 66045-7518. chancellor@ku.edu

University of Maryland. Wallace D. Loh, president. 1101 Main Administration Building, College Park, MD 20742-6105. president@umd.edu

University of Pennsylvania. Amy Gutmann, president. Office of the President, 1 College Hall, Room 100
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6380. presweb@pobox.upenn.edu

University of Pittsburgh. Mark Nordenberg, chancellor. 107 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

University of Texas-Austin. William Powers, Jr., president. Office of the President, 110 Inner Campus Drive, Stop G3400, Austin, TX 78712-3400

Washington University in St. Louis. Mark Stephen Wrighton, chancellor. Campus Box 1192, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130.
wrighton@wustl.edu

Wesleyan University. Michael S. Roth, president. 229 High Street, Middletown, CT 06459. presoffice@wesleyan.edu

Willamette University. Stephen E. Thorsett, president. 900 State St., Salem, OR 97301. president@willamette.edu

Yale University. Peter Salovey, president. President’s Office, P.O. Box 208229, 
New Haven, CT 06520-8229
 presidents.office@yale.edu

Jeffrey K. Salkin is the rabbi of Temple Beth Am in Bayonne, NJ. He is the author of numerous books on religion and Jewish identity, including “Righteous Gentiles In The Hebrew Bible: Models For Sacred Relationships” (Jewish Lights).

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Food and Wine

Celebrating Citrus, Winter's Seasonal Fruit

Dip lime and coconut cookies in white chocolate and find bright flavor in a dark season.

Amy Spiro - Jewish Week Online Columnist

In these cold winter months, its still possible to get bright pops of flavor in your food in the form of citrus! Oranges, grapefruits, lemons and limes all have sharp, delicious flavors that are perfect in a variety of baked goods (see lemon curd linzer torte, orange chocolate tart or coconut grapefruit cupcakes).

In this chewy, tasty little cookie, the flavors of lime (you could use lemon, but I like lime; it's more exotic), coconut and white chocolate all balance together perfectly. If you want a slightly easier version, you could simply mix the chocolate chips in to the cookie dough, but I prefer the prettiness of the half-dipped cookie.

Amy Spiro is a journalist and writer based in Jerusalem. She is a graduate of the Jerusalem Culinary Institute's baking and pastry track, a regular writer for The Jerusalem Post and blogs at bakingandmistaking.com. She also holds a BA in Journalism and Politics from NYU.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1 1/2 cups sugar

zest of one large lime

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

3 tablespoons lime juice

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup white chocolate chips

Recipe Steps:

Spread the coconut flakes out on a rimmed baking sheet. Toast in a 325 F oven for 5 to 10 minutes, checking regularly since it can go from golden brown to burned fast. Remove and set aside.

Meanwhile, stir together the sugar and lime zest and let sit for 5 minutes. Beat the sugar mixture together with the butter until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add in the egg, vanilla and lime juice beat until combined.

Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and mix until just combined. Roll tablespoons of the dough into a ball and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, about an inch and a half apart.

Bake at 350 F for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the edges are just starting to brown. Don't overbake or they'll lose their chewy texture. Remove to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Melt the chocolate chip in a double boiler or on low power in the microwave. Carefully dip each cookie in the melted chocolate until half covered, let any excess drip off and set aside until set. Store in an airtight container.

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Travel

Modern travel - often thrilling, not always pretty. Wikimedia Commons

The Best And Worst Of 2013

Hilary Larson - Travel Writer

It’s Christmas Day as I write this column from a hotel room in Los Angeles. Outside, the weather outside is 85 degrees, and crowds are mobbing every public space that is open on the holiday: Rollerbladers whiz down the beach boardwalk, the Persian cafés are full of Muslim and Jewish families enjoying a free afternoon for tea and pastry, and nearly a month after Thanksgivukah, little blue-and-white Stars of David still dangle in the neighborhood fro-yo store. Just the right atmosphere to contemplate the best and worst travel experiences of 2013 (stay tuned next week for suggestions about the hottest Jewish destinations of 2014.)

1. Wi-Fi that is neither wi(reless) nor fi(delity). As I write this, the year is still 2013, which makes it an even 20 years since I opened my first e-mail account. So why, roughly 15 accounts later, is it still so difficult to check e-mail in a hotel?

I’ve had to crouch in a corner to get a signal, re-enter a passcode every 20 seconds, or hole up in the lobby — not to mention signals so weak you can brush and floss while a single page loads.

Then there was the arty boutique hotel in Milan where the clerk responded to my request for Internet by handing me a pile of cables to plug in for what he called “wee-fee.” Um, hello? What part of “wireless” involves wires?

2. Unfairly sneaky discount-airline fees. For some (mostly) European carriers, online check-in is less about streamlining the process — and more about squeezing extra cash from travelers with little recourse.

Most savvy flyers know you’re supposed to check somewhere in the 24 hours before your flight. But some discounters impose illogical timeframes that would catch any traveler off-guard, like a Ryanair policy last year that required me to check in during the week before the flight, up to the 24 hours beforehand, when online check-in was no longer available. By the time it occurs to you to log on, you’re slapped with an unavoidable fee. (That’s why Ryanair consistently ranks at the bottom of customer-satisfaction surveys, a richly deserved honor in my book.)

Or how about a Wizzair trip between Barcelona and Sofia last year? According to the website, online check-in was not available for that flight, so I checked in at Barcelona free of charge. But in Sofia for the return trip, my fellow travelers and I were all slapped with a 20-euro fee for checking in at the airport (which, incidentally, nearly doubled the cost of the ticket). The airline’s explanation: online check-in at that moment varied by airport, not by flight or route; it might be unavailable in one direction and mandatory in the other. This fact probably wouldn’t occur to most people — as was obvious from the general level of rage.

The most offensive aspect of these policies is that they are constantly changing. I fly most of the major European discounters with some degree of frequency, and just when I think I’m onto their tricks, the routine shifts and I end up shelling out what essentially amounts to a stupidity fee (since I’m not getting anything in exchange).

3. Motels that aren’t up to the prevailing amenity standards. At low-budget, no-frills European pensions and B&Bs, I expect to bring my own shampoo, hairdryer, tissues and so forth. But not in the U.S., where even the lowest-budget chains generally offer the basic amenities. Our prices — and standards — are higher.

So I was shocked to check into a Motel 6 recently for the same $80 or so that I’d spend at a Super 8 or Travelodge, and then find that the room came with no shampoo, no hairdryer, nothing. When the local standard includes these basics, you come to expect them, and it’s irritating to have to improvise basic hygiene at 11 p.m.

4. The U.S. Airways-American Airlines merger. As anyone who lives in a market served by a single airline knows, less competition means higher — often much higher — prices, and generally less choice about when and how to fly. In my lifetime, we’ve already lost Pan Am, TWA, Continental and Northwest — and transatlantic fares have gotten correspondingly outrageous.

More people fly more places today than ever before; we need more airlines, not fewer.

5. Let’s finish on a high note. I hadn’t flown JetBlue, our hometown New York airline, in a couple of years — and a recent flight made me understand why my parents refuse to fly any other carrier.

We pulled up to the curb at Boston’s’ Logan Airport and checked two bags in about two seconds, paying only $40 for the second bag. A wheelchair for an injured family member appeared without us even asking; we had reserved it online, but I’ve never seen one appear without a wait. The seats were roomy, the soft drinks flowed without my ever pulling out my wallet, and everyone was in a friendly mood when we arrived on time in L.A.

It was like flying in 1993. All travel should be as pleasant as it was back then — but please, with faster Wi-Fi!

editor@jewishweek.org

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