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Did Labor cave on major issues? Justice Minister Friedman's initiative could allow a Fascist-style "enabling act" - he is still in the government, it seems. Labor signs draft guaranteeing primary spot in coalition, greater authority for Labor chairman; Livni commits to tuition freeze Attila Somfalvi
Latest Update: 10.13.08, 20:38 / Israel News Representatives from the Kadima and Labor parties finished drafting a coalition agreement between the two parties, Monday afternoon, based on which Labor will be Kadima's primary partner in a government headed by chairman Tzipi Livni.
The representatives - MK Tzachi Hanegbi of Kadima and Efi Oshaya of Labor - began signing off on the agreement after a 17-hour marathon of negotiations. Labor representatives consulted with the party chairman, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, as well as with Histadrut Labor Federation chairman Ofer Eini.
Livni and Barak are expected to sign a formal version of the agreement at the end of the holiday season. According to the draft agreement, Barak will have greater influence to issues regarding the cabinet and contact with Syria and the Palestinian Authority. "The summary draft, according to which cabinet decisions will not be made without the support and ratification of Barak, is dramatic," said one of the Labor chairman's associates. The final hurdle, which led to the extended negotiations, involved a debate about government funding of higher education. Labor demanded a commitment not to increase university tuition, while the Finance Ministry requested alternate sources of funding. Livni committed to finding alternate funds and, as such, tuition will not increase. Additionally, Kadima promised to increase the pension payments by 950 million NIS (approximately $260 million) over the next three years. Additionally, it was decided that a committee would be formed to examine the management of pension funds. Barak also pushed for a commitment to push for changing legislation such that the leader of the opposition would not necessarily need to be a member of Knesset. The agreement does not meet Labor's demands for another ministerial post in the government or Kadima's demand that the post of chairman of the Knesset's financial committee would be saved for a member of United Torah Judaism.
Sunday, Barak announced that Labor's agreement to join the coalition would be conditional upon restraining the Justice Minister, who currently supports an agenda of limiting judicial review, and demanded "an agreement that would put an end to the irresponsible attacks on the rule of law in Israel.
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Female soldier prevents attack; 3 Palestinians nabbed
Three Palestinians carrying nine pipe bombs apprehended at roadblock near
Nablus
YNET Published: 10.12.08, 22:59 / Israel News
Female soldier prevents attack: The IDF nabbed three Palestinians carrying nine pipe bombs at a roadblock west of Nablus Sunday evening, apparently averting a planned terror attack in Israel.
The attack was foiled as a result of the alertness and insistence of a female soldier at the checkpoint. No injuries were reported in the incident.
The three Palestinians arrived at the roadblock from the direction of Nablus. The female soldier asked one of them for an identification card, but remained suspicious even after he showed her his ID.
At that point, the soldier asked the suspect to open his bag, yet he refused. The soldier insisted, prompting the Palestinian to remove a shirt and pants from the bag before closing it again. However, the soldier was not satisfied, opened the bag herself, and found three pipe bombs inside it.
At that point, troops at the checkpoint activated a special emergency procedure. The Palestinians suspect's two friends were also searched and were found to carry three pipe bombs in each of their bags.
Sappers dispatched to the scene blew up the explosive devices in a controlled detonation. Meanwhile, the three detainees were taken in for interrogation.
A similar attack was thwarted at a different roadblock near Nablus last week. A Palestinian who arrived at the checkpoint with a plastic bag aroused the suspicions of Golani troops and members of the IDF's crossings' unit. The soldiers dispatched a sapper, who discovered two small pipe bombs in the bag and blew them up.
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It is not clear from the below if: - Jewish women can't find Jewish men to marry because Jewish men don't want to be Jewish. - Jewish women can't find Jewish men to marry because Jewish men don't like Jewish women. - Jewish women can't find Jewish men to marry because they don't like Jewish men. You can actually support each of those contentions from what people say. And yet, it seems that many of the "undesirable" and "uncommitted" and d"neurotic" Jewish men and many of the "overbearing" and "chunky" Jewish women get married. Someone finds them desirable - only that someone is not a Jew. Meet Daniel: he's 31 years old, grew up in a Conservative home and now considers himself "Reconstructionist, if I have to affiliate myself at all." Living in a small college town, highly educated and extremely social, Daniel (who declined to provide his last name) dates almost constantly, but says that only about 15 to 20 percent of the women he dates are Jewish. A woman's Jewishness "is not that important," he says. "For my parents, it's important that I marry someone Jewish. But for me, being Jewish is a plus, but I'd be happy to marry someone not Jewish if we have other things in common," he explains. "I feel there is a much bigger division between those who are observant of any religion [and] those who are non-observant than there is between religions." He would therefore rather that his children be "unobservant Christians" than very religious Jews. Now meet "Jacqueline" (who wished to remain anonymous): she is 32, also grew up in a Conservative home, lives in New York City and works in the non-profit sector. She is funny and smart and wants to get married - specifically to a Jewish man. "I want my children to grow up with Jewish values and be part of the Jewish community," she says. "It's important for a married couple to have those common values and a similar heritage." Yet Jacqueline has had a hard time finding a suitable Jewish mate. "My friends and I talk about it all the time," she says. "It's a major problem. You have fantastic women who are beautiful, intelligent, warm, great to be around, who have senses of humor and want to be wives and mothers, to be part of a couple - and we are not able to do that because the men are not in the same place." Jacqueline and Daniel are both indicative of a phenomenon well-known among Jewish communal leaders and dating experts. What is commonly referred to as the Jewish "singles crisis," and in Orthodox communities as the "shidduch crisis," appears to affect women more drastically than men, both practically and emotionally. Both statistical and anecdotal evidence provided by sociologists, matchmakers, lay leaders and singles themselves paints a picture of a dating scene in which many more women than men attend Jewish singles events; more women actively use Jewish dating sites; matchmakers are flooded with applications from women; and single Jewish women in their late 20's and 30's are panicking. As well they should be, sociologists say. As difficult as the "dating scene" can be for many men, it is often more challenging for the fairer sex, especially in the Jewish community. Jewish women, particularly Orthodox ones, are even more likely than non-Jewish women to be caught in the "age squeeze," the phenomenon of women in their 20's who think they have plenty of time to get married, only to discover in their 30's that men their age prefer to date younger women. What's more, highly educated and professionally accomplished Jewish women have a harder time finding mates because their achievements and success can be intimidating to potential partners. Perhaps most painful, especially for those in the Reform and Conservative movements, is that Jewish men are increasingly alienated from synagogue and communal life - and some hold active antipathy toward Jewish women. A monograph to be released this spring by Dr. Sylvia Barack Fishman, a professor of Contemporary Jewish Life at Brandeis University, and Daniel Parmer, a Brandeis University graduate student who works with her, shows for the first time that as women have become more active in Jewish ritual life and culture, men have increasingly disappeared, rejecting both the trappings of communal affiliation and Jewish women. Seen in this light, the "singles crisis" is not an isolated problem, but rather a symptom of a more radical one: a pervasive identity crisis that profoundly affects Jewish men.
The Numbers Ever since the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) stunned American Jewry with its high intermarriage rates, American Jews have become acutely aware of the number of Jews who choose either to in-marry or inter-marry. The most recent NJPS of 2001 reported an intermarriage rate of 47 percent. Among the denominations, of all Jewish marriages that occurred between 1991-2001, 3 percent of Orthodox intermarried, 20 percent of Conservative, 45 percent of Reform and 56 percent of those who identified themselves as "just Jewish." The NJPS also found that young Jews enter into marriage of any kind at rates significantly lower than that of the general U.S. population. Broken down by age, in the 35-54 year age range, 37 percent of Jewish men and women intermarried. Among those under age 34, intermarriages accounted for 47 percent of weddings among Jewish men and 37 percent of marriages among Jewish women. Significantly, the study also found that, among Jews over the age of 30, only 20 percent date "mostly or only" Jews, and 71 percent date both Jews and non-Jews. A key to understanding the dating tribulations of Reform and Conservative women (Orthodox singles behave somewhat differently) is in an often-overlooked statistic about intermarriage. According to Fishman's monograph, "Matrilineal Ascent/Patrilineal Descent," women who intermarry get married, on average, three years later than women who marry Jewish men. This three-year gap, which is much smaller for men, is statistically significant, she says, and reflects women's initial desire to marry a Jew. The intermarriage comes about, she and other sociologists explain, after a woman gives up on finding a Jewish husband and decides to marry a gentile rather than stay single.
Maintaining Ties
Fishman and Parmer found that, in interviews, "Jewish women who married non-Jewish men overwhelmingly say that their original preference was to marry a Jewish man, but that with the passage of time other factors gained consideration. "I never got that narrative from a guy," Fishman says. "The guys are not thinking about children and the implications of being married to a non-Jew." In the 2000-2001 NJPS, both affiliated and unaffiliated Jewish men were less likely than their female counterparts to rate religion as "very important" to them. Says Dr. Steven Bayme, director of the Contemporary Jewish Life department at the American Jewish Committee, which monitors Jewish life in America, "if one doesn't care whether they marry a Jew or not, marriage to a Jew probably will not happen." Jewish women more actively seek husbands who share their backgrounds for several reasons, Fishman says. First, among Americans generally, women are more likely than men to describe themselves as "religious" and to believe that religion is important for raising ethical children; Jewish women are no exception. Similarly, American women, including Jewish women, are more likely than men to keep close family ties - and are therefore, Fishman says, more likely to want to marry someone who will please their parents. Jewish men, however, may not feel as strongly about maintaining family ties. According to Fishman and others, non- Orthodox men are increasingly feeling disenfranchised from communal Jewish life as women take on primary leadership roles. "Feminism has done lots of wonderful things to bring women to the center of Jewish life," Fishman says. "But we didn't notice that in the meantime, a lot of men were alienated from Jewish life." In her monograph, she writes: "Just as Jewish women were marginalized from the centers of Jewish life for much of Jewish history, for complicated social psychological reasons, American Jewish men now feel displaced from Judaism." According to studies cited in the monograph, American Jewish girls are more likely than boys to receive a Jewish education, especially after their bar or bat mitzvah. They are also more likely to join Jewish youth groups, participate in college Hillel activities, take Jewish studies classes, describe themselves as affiliated with a wing of Judaism, attend weekly worship services (except in Orthodox congregations), partake in adult Jewish education, visit Israel, attend secular Jewish events and engage in volunteer Jewish leadership. In liberal synagogues, women constitute many of the rabbis, cantors, presidents and the majority of participants. "The growing gender imbalance among American Jews is a critical, and painful, challenge in Jewish life today," Fishman and Parmer write. Due to efforts to eschew patriarchal norms, they say, "in the liberal Reform, Reconstructionist and Renewal Jewish worlds the balance has already tipped in the opposite direction...Liberal Jewish religious and communal leaders are increasingly women facing client groups composed primarily of women. Young Jewish males in the non-Orthodox world report they are alienated from the 'maternal vibes' - as one young man put it - of religious institutions."
Alienation and Antipathy But it's not simply a matter of many men disappearing from Jewish life or not caring whether their wives are Jewish or not. Disproportionately, compared to non-Jewish men, American Jewish males harbor active antipathy toward Jewish women. They complain, Fishman and Parmer write, that dating Jewish women is more work than fun and that Jewish women are "demanding, overbearing, and best escaped." Fishman conducted studies in the late 1990's in which groups of Jewish men, non-Jewish men, Jewish women and non- Jewish women in and around Los Angeles were asked to choose, from among many photos of anonymous females, a "typical Jewish woman" and to describe her. They were then asked to describe the "ideal Jewish woman." The last three groups - male and female gentiles, as well as Jewish women - overwhelmingly described Jewish women in neutral or positive terms such as "smart," "able to talk about anything," "beautiful," "voluptuous" and "well-read." In describing the ideal Jewish woman, they used the same terms. The responses of Jewish men were markedly different. They were likely to describe the typical Jewish woman as "talking too much," "having to have an opinion about everything," "obsessed with food," "overweight" and "materialistic." And when they described the "ideal" Jewish woman, they chose different photos - of supermodels - and described them in opposite terms, such as "quiet," "not saying much" and "likes to listen." So, at a singles mixer, if a Jewish woman asks a man what he does for a living, "a Jewish man will interpret that question as hostile," Fishman says. "They say 'all Jewish woman care about is how much money I make,' as if there is no other reason for a person to ask you what you do when they are getting to know you. If a non-Jewish woman asks the same question, it does not get interpreted that way." "These are self-image issues," Fishman continues. "Men are ambivalent about their Jewishness, and they project that onto the women. They feel that if they are attached to a non-Jewish woman, it will break the curse." Evan Marc Katz, a Jewish dating coach who calls himself "America's Leading Dating Expert," sympathizes with Jews who have difficulty connecting with other Jews. "If Jewish men find Jewish women to be difficult, then perhaps the answer for the women is to date men who are themselves easier," Katz says. "We're a bright people, a questioning people, but a neurotic, complaining and negative people. Would you want to be around that? We'd be wellserved to at least get aware of that [quality] and be responsible for it, and not be too surprised if others aren't responding well to it. We have a lot of mishegas. It's no wonder we don't want to marry each other. We're very lucky when we find someone who loves us."
Late Marriage, No Marriage Of course, the phenomenon of panicking single women is not unique to the Jewish community. Indeed, thanks to the hit HBO comedy series Sex and the City, the desperate 30-something female is now a cliché. A primary social force contributing to the increase in singles is delayed marriage, the trend in the last few decades to get married at more advanced ages. While in the 1950's and 60's men and women typically got married in their early or mid-20's, few singles become seriously interested in marriage today until their mid-to-late 20's. Especially Jewish ones. By the time they have reached the age of 34, only 48 percent of Jewish men and 64 percent of Jewish women have married, compared to 59 percent of the general American male population and 70 percent of the female. Delayed marriage decreases the chances for marriage, Bayme says, just as delayed pregnancy decreases the chances of childbearing. It also changes singles' expectations, both of themselves and of their dates. "Marriage has become something you do when you've done everything else," Jacqueline says. "When did it happen that you had to be complete before you got married, instead of planning to grow together?" But there is another implication of delayed marriage for the Jewish community: Jews who get married immediately after college are more likely to marry other Jews than those who marry later. So the fact that few students expect to marry when they graduate means that they are losing chances to in-marry. "There is a pool of Jewish women and men of the same age in college together," Fishman says. "That is the highest density of potential Jewish partners they will ever see again, since Jews go to college in proportions much higher than other ethnic or religious groups in the U.S." She adds that men who are most keen to commit to a long-term relationship are most likely to get married young. Thus, as women get older, the men they date are increasingly likely to be what Fishman calls "resistant to commitment." "In the Orthodox world, especially," she says, "when a guy who is not resistant to commitments meets a girl he likes, he marries her." Additionally, women's dating pools become quantitatively smaller as they get older, due to what several experts called the "age squeeze." In general, women prefer to marry men around their age, perhaps a few years older or a few years younger. Men, meanwhile, almost unilaterally prefer to date younger women - often, much younger women. "You have a Jewish man and a Jewish woman who are both 28," Fishman says. "They are both in graduate school or pursuing careers. The women see that not all the Jewish men are married yet. They are not panicking. What they don't realize is that in their mid-30's, when the men decide to settle down, the men will not be looking at Jewish women their own age. Instead, they will be looking at two different populations: Jewish women who are 10 years younger than they are or non- Jewish women." Sara Brownstein, a matchmaker who worked with hundreds of Los Angeles Jewish singles until she moved to Israel four years ago, puts the age squeeze slightly later, saying that "When a man in his 40's wants to get married, if he does not have children, he will look for a woman under 40 because he wants children. They do not understand that if a woman is 35, 36, she does not want to marry a man who is older than 41, maybe 42. If he is in his 50's, if he has children he does not want new babies. He could marry a woman in her 40's, but those women still want children. They feel the men are too old."
Graduate School Paradox To be sure, many Jewish women have their own negative, undeserved stereotypes about Jewish men. And it is possible that Jewish women are indeed more "demanding" than non-Jewish women, for documented reasons. Jews are among the most highly educated minorities in America. More than half of all Jewish adults (61 percent of men and 50 percent of women) have received a college degree, and a quarter (29 percent of men and 21 percent of women) have earned a graduate degree. Jews are almost twice as likely to hold a college degree than Americans generally and four times as likely to hold a graduate degree. Unfortunately, their academic and professional success decreases their dating pool since, as Cohen says, "men want to 'marry down' and women want to 'marry up.'" Although no one is advocating that women avoid graduate school, Dr. Michael J. Salamon, a psychologist and the author of The Shidduch Crisis: Causes and Cures, says "the problem [in the Jewish dating scene] is that women are overeducated and find the men boring. The men are intimidated. And the women are not getting what they want." He also notes that this phenomenon makes "in-marrying" a difficult proposition for Jewish men with low levels of education. Fishman goes a step further and says that many Jewish men are attracted to gentile women because non-Jewish women and their parents are perceived as easier to impress.
The Orthodox Community The problem is just as big, albeit different, in the Orthodox community. While intermarriage is extremely low and marriage is not delayed as much, community leaders note the seemingly disproportionate number of "fabulous girls" (including this reporter, I feel obligated to divulge) who would very much like to get married, yet reach their 30's or 40's with no luck. Sociologists and matchmakers have various explanations. First, they say, it is true that Orthodox Jews tend to marry young - in their early 20's, often, or even in their late teens if they are ultra-Orthodox - but this means that those men who are still unmarried in their 30's are even more likely to be "resistant to commitment," as Fishman calls it. Perhaps more important, the "age squeeze" is more pronounced among Orthodox Jews than in other groups. Danielle Jacobs, the chief operating officer of SawYouAtSinai.com (a dating Web site with over 25,000 Orthodox members) and the founder of JRetro- Match.com (a site with almost 10,000 non-Orthodox Jewish members) says "age is a sensitive issue in the Orthodox community, more so than in the secular world. Men are not as open to dating women their own age, never mind a woman who is older. A man is less inclined to date a 30 year old if he can date a 23 year old." Several of those interviewed spoke of the "very strict criteria" that singles set for their dates, across the American social scene but especially among Orthodox Jews, who may demand that their dates not only be educated, good-looking, within a certain age range and nice to be with but also adhere to a long and specific list of religious criteria. This hurts singles of both sexes when they insist on maintaining a long "list" and cannot find a partner who meets their standards, and when they themselves fail to meet the exacting criteria of others. "The community sets it up that way," says "Chaya," who has been searching for a husband since shortly after she became Orthodox more than 10 years ago. Now in her early 30's, Chaya (who requested anonymity) explains "the idea is to screen people before being set up on blind dates so you only date people who are appropriate [for you to marry]. But as time passes and things don't work, you set up more criteria because you don't want to keep being disappointed. You say 'I need X, and I'll only date X,' and that limits you. When you vary from it, and it's confirmed that [someone different from your criteria] doesn't work for you, it's even harder to be openminded." In his book, Salamon documents the high incidence of Orthodox singles - or, more typically, their parents - who inquire about qualities that are "completely irrelevant" to marriage, such as the age at which a boy was toilet trained and the dress size of the girl's grandmother. "I call this the commoditization of human relationships," Fishman says. "It becomes almost like you are purchasing a car and are looking in Consumer Reports to make sure you don't get ripped off. This is true in all Jewish communities, but in the Orthodox world the list is longer because you also have the religious qualifications."
The Good News
True, something like half of all Jewish people marry out of faith, but half do make the decision to in-marry, hurdling all the obstacles facing them. That's why, despite all the social forces contributing to the Jewish "singles crisis," experts emphasize that there is reason for optimism, both for individuals and for the community. In terms of Jewish communal policy, they offer several suggestions. First is the need to create experiences that will help more non-Orthodox Jews, particularly boys and men, feel good about being Jewish. "What is necessary," says Bayme, "is to build a value system in which people say 'I value Jewish life so much that I can envision sharing my life only with another Jew.'" This endeavor would require finding new ways to involve boys in ritual life: to provide, Fishman and Parmer write, strong Jewish male role models and - as much as it may pain feminists - programs exclusively for boys. The Jewish community should also invest in research on boys and men to better understand their needs and to identify activities that would attract them to Jewish communal life. Second, Bayme says, "adolescent Jewish education needs to become a universal norm in the Jewish community. If you agree that adolescence is the critical age when people form ideas about who they want to marry, then the idea that Jewish education stops at bar mitzvah is really hurting us. It's almost criminal that just when young people are ready to discuss dating, that's when we lose them from the educational system." He also suggested that Jewish communities more actively encourage young people to choose colleges and graduate schools not only on the basis of academic strength, location and size but also density of Jewish life. "If you are living in an environment surrounded by other Jews, the chances are that much greater that you will date a Jew," he says. Salamon suggested that Orthodox communities dispense with highly orchestrated shidduch dates and the pressure to make quick decisions about marriage, and instead "go back to the old technique of allowing boys and girls to interact in a social way, so they can understand what it means to have a relationship, to get along with each other and what to look for in a committed relationship." For individuals, especially women, who seek to get married, Fishman says that the single most effective way to increase one's chances is to become willing to marry outside of one's preconceived age criteria; that is, for a woman to open herself to the possibility of marrying a man 10 years older than she is. Singles who have found love offered similar advice: to be flexible, but not just about age. Chaya is dating someone seriously and says, "He's not a liberal arts type of guy and doesn't have as much yeshiva education as I would have preferred, but we have a lot of the same values, and he is fun to be around." His sense of humor wasn't on her "list," but now she realizes it's a characteristic she admires. "Rebecca" (who also wished to remain anonymous), 31, has carefully cultivated her image as a "high-powered career woman" and recently got married after actively seeking a husband for 10 years. Her new partner "is not someone I would have given a chance to 10 years ago," she says. "In terms of academics and career, I'm more accomplished. But he's a good person who treats me well. And he's very cute. This is a guy who wants nothing more than to make me happy. I'm not settling; I'm happy. I love him. What makes a person a good person isn't necessarily the same qualities that make them super-accomplished in their career. But it's a lot harder to teach someone to be a good person than it is to help them be a little more accomplished." Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Congregation Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel in Chicago says that his Orthodox congregation of 400 members celebrates approximately 15 weddings per year. "Half of them meet at the Shabbat tables of other members," the rabbi says, "and the other half met online. "We have women who get married in their late 30's and 40's and are having kids," he continues. "It's really nice to see." And finally, Brownstein says, keep the faith. By the age of 44, an American Jewish woman is more likely to be married to a Jewish man than to still be single. And despite all the complaints that singles expressed about online introductions, Jewish dating Web sites, including JDate, Frumster and SawYouAtSinai, have helped thousands of couples get engaged. Moreover, in the time it took to research and write this article, this reporter attended two weddings of friends in their 30's and learned of the engagement of a third. "We see people getting married all the time," Brownstein says. "You never know what awaits. Statistics are not as important as faith." Sarah Bronson is a contributing writer to World Jewish Digest. She can be reached through her blog at chayyeisarah.blogspot.com. © 2008 World Jewish Digest
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Neither the UN nor American presence in Iraq can save the Christians! Attacks in the Iraqi city of Mosul have forced nearly 1,000 Christians, including 500 families, from their homes in just the past week, the governor of the northern Ninawa province says. Duraid Mohammed Kashmoula on Saturday said most have taken shelter over the past 24 hours in schools, churches, monasteries and the homes of relatives in the northern and eastern fringes of Ninawa. [That's Nineveh, isn't it?] The flight came as Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako said Iraq's Christians were facing a campaign of "liquidation" and called on the US military to do more to protect them. A wave of attacks religiously targeted killings have left at least 11 Christians dead since September 28. Major displacement In a telephone interview with The Associated Press news agency, Kashmoula described the last seven days as a period of "major displacement". He said provincial security officials were meeting with Christian leaders to protect the community "from the terrorists, the killers". The violence in Mosul is occurring despite US-Iraqi operations launched over the summer aimed at routing al-Qaeda in Iraq and other fighters from remaining strongholds north of the capital. A convoy carrying an official from Iraq's largest Sunni political party was targeted on Saturday while travelling through Mosul, but no one was hurt, police said. Mosul killings A civilian and an armed man were killed in random gunfire in a Mosul market, a policeman said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to media. Iraqi police in the city located 360km northwest of Baghdad have reported finding the bullet-riddled bodies of seven Christians in separate attacks so far this month, the latest a day labourer found on Wednesday. The Christian community has been estimated at three per cent of Iraq's 26 million people, or about 800,000 Christians, and has a significant presence in the northern Ninawa.
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Someone should be paying more attention to human rights in the Middle East - not just Israel. Alexandra Sandels (Apn) Two years ago, Mohammad Al-Abdallah's brother Omar was sentenced to five years in prison by the Syrian authorities for criticizing the policies of his national government on an Internet forumblog. In December last year, Mohammad's father Ali Abdallah was arrested when he called for political reform in Syria as a member of the 'Damascus Declaration', a Syrian activist group urging 'democratic and radical change'. He is still in detainment in Syria's Adra prison and suffers from poor health. Now Mohammad speaks out about human rights abuses, censorship, and political corruption in his home country on his newly started blog "I'm leaving and I'm not coming back". APN met with Mohammed in Beirut.
APN: Why do you blog?
Mohammad: The idea of starting a blog came when I was asked to give a talk on Internet practices in Syria at a conference in Beirut organized by the Samir Kassir Foundation earlier this year. I've had my blog for approximately four months now. I first set up a blog on blogspot but I recently changed it to wordpress since blogspot is blocked in Syria. It's very important for me to reach out to readers inside Syria. I see it as a continuation of what my brother did before he was arrested and imprisoned. Just like him, I mainly write about political and human rights issues in Syria. Also, sometimes you receive important information that you want to share with the world, but you don't have anywhere to publish it. Perhaps you are the first to find out that an activist or a writer has been arrested in Syria, for example. Writing about it on your blog is an excellent way of sharing it with the world.
APN: Do you think blogging can change the world and the situation in your country?
Mohammad: No one can say with certainty that blogging can or cannot change the situation in a country. I don't know if what we bloggers are doing is "big" or "small" so to say. But I do think that we are having an affect considering the fact that the authorities are doing their best to their keep Internet activists at bay. When a Syrian activist recently was arrested no was talking about his ordeal except the bloggers. They were the ones who first noticed it and the story rose from the blogs.
APN: What do you see as the difference between a blogger and a journalist in your country?
Mohammad: For me, the biggest difference between bloggers and journalists is that there are no rules or censorship in blogging. You don't have to worry about the word count of your article and editors hanging over your shoulder telling you what's good and bad. Most importantly, you publish exactly what you want. No one picks your words except yourself. Your writings are not subject to censorship before publication which is the case with newspapers. In Syria, journalists are subject to extensive censorship. There are no independent newspapers in Syria. They are all governmental in one way or another.
APN: Do you practice self-censorship?
Mohammad: I don't practice self-censorship because I don't blog from within Syria. But if I were there, I wouldn't be able to write the way I do. I remember when I was still living in Syria how I used to rewrite some of my pieces, making sure I use the correct titles for high-level politicians when mentioning them in my writings. If you are unlucky, you can actually get persecuted for not doing so. So yes, self-censorship, even among bloggers, is widespread in Syria. At times, I notice how people who are blogging from inside Syria remove comments I've left on their blogs out of fear.
APN: What topics are considered taboo to write about in Syria then?
Mohammad: The biggest taboo-labeled subjects are, of course, the President and his family, the Syrian security services, the political opposition, and anything that concerns Syria's relations with Hezbollah.
APN: That's a whole lot. How do the Syrian people find out what is ACTUALLY happening in their country?
Mohammad: The whole concept of 'right to information' does simply not exist in Syria. You will never find out the truth about what is really happening on a governmental level. Blogs are helpful sources of information though.
APN: What topics inspire you?
Mohammad: My background as a human rights activist inspire me to write about human rights and politics in Syria. I also write extensively on the situation of bloggers in the Arab world.
APN: Have you ever been subject to harassment or intimidation for your activism?
Mohammad: Not personally since I'm not blogging from inside Syria. My brother, however, is currently serving a five-year prison sentence along with six other Syrian students for criticizing the Syrian authorities on their blog. He has been held in a military prison for two and a half years now. I haven't been able to talk to him since March 2006. Am I scared of being persecuted for my work? That's something you should ask the bloggers in Syria, not me. I'm sure they are scared.
APN: Is there a difference between blogging in English and Arabic in Syria?
Mohammad: If you're a blogger in Syria and write in English, no one from the authorities will give you a problem. What they don't want is the Syrians reading your criticism of the government, they don't care that much about the outside world. So writing in Arabic, which most of Syrian bloggers do, is what gets you into trouble.
APN: What are your future plans? Do you see yourself continue to blog?
Mohammad: I will definitely continue blogging. I have no plans to stop. In terms of future plans, I hope to improve my writing skills in English and actually start blogging more in English so that I can reach out to people in Europe and the US. My goal is to continue blogging in both Arabic and English.
Alexandra Sandels is a Beirut-based Swedish journalist
This article comes from the Arab Press Network: www.arabpressnetwork.org
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While conditions worsen, the "conventional wisdom" insists on sending in more troops. We can bet however, that more troops won't help. If 30,000 soldiers are not enough, by the time another 5,000 or 10,000 are sent, the enemy will be that much stronger. The real challenge is to get the Afghani people fighting on the side of their government, get the government to be worthy of support by the Afghan people, and to change tactics and improve intelligence. Ami Isseroff WASHINGTON: US intelligence agencies believe the war in Afghanistan is in "a downward spiral" and cast serious doubts on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taleban's influence there, sparking an urgent strategy rethink by the Bush administration as it enters its last three months in office. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan, a joint report by America's 16 spy agencies, is not due to be published until after next month's presidential election, but appears destined to become an election issue in the final weeks of the contest between presidential contenders Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain. The solutions offered by the presidential nominees have largely called for sending more US troops to Afghanistan. Obama has said he would send at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan. McCain has called for sending at least three more brigades to the country. An army brigade ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers. There are currently about 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Gen. David McKiernan, the top US commander in Afghanistan, has asked for four more combat brigades and support forces. But so far, the Bush administration, citing constraints imposed by the Iraq conflict, has promised only one combat brigade by February. The White House has ordered a review of its policy and sent a team to Kabul led by Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the president's military adviser on Afghanistan, to assess the situation. A draft version leaked to a few US newspapers this week called into question the coherence of US and NATO policy. The Washington Post said the NIE describes a Pakistan-based extremist network with three elements Pakistani extremists allied with Kashmiri fighters, Afghan Taleban, and traditional tribal groups in western Pakistan that assist the other groups. "Al-Qaeda, composed largely of Arabs, and increasingly, Uzbeks, Chechens and other Central Asians, is described as sitting atop the structure, providing money and training to the others in exchange for sanctuary," it reported. The document places considerable blame on Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, for failing to control corruption in his government. It also points to the destabilizing impact of the booming opium trade, which now accounts for at least half the national economy and cites an increase in violence by militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan. The Afghan government has been reported to be holding talks with the Taleban, but it is unclear whether those contacts would lead to comprehensive peace talks. The report concluded that reconstituted elements of Al-Qaeda and the resurgent Taleban are collaborating with an expanding network of terrorist groups, making the counterinsurgency war infinitely more complicated. NATO defense ministers agreed to allow alliance troops in Afghanistan to combat narcotics traffickers funding an increasingly deadly Taleban insurgency. Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, argued that NATO troops must confront Afghanistan's drug traffickers directly. The job has been left to Afghanistan's poorly trained and under-equipped police force. "Part of the problem that we face is that the Taleban make somewhere between $60 million and $80 million or more a year from drug trafficking," Gates said at a NATO meeting in Budapest on Thursday. The draft NIE on Afghanistan illustrates a darkening mood in Western capitals. It follows a leaked French diplomatic dispatch quoting the British ambassador to Kabul, Sherard Cowper-Coles, as saying US strategy there had failed. The foreign secretary, David Miliband, said the report had "garbled" the British position. "There has been very, very tough fighting this year, and it will be tougher next year unless we adjust," Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday.
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A rare and very welcome confession on the part of a political commentator: ... I discovered that the views I hold so dearly, both as an academic and political analyst, do not always match what I say or write. The gap between the two is disconcerting for someone who values integrity as much as I do, and it may lead to dire conclusions. Perhaps I am not the only one among Arab scholars who has experienced this dilemma. We all aspire to offer the best analysis we can, but it is hard sometimes to challenge the basic premises of an entire people. ... I also noticed that I tend all too often to play to the audience, rather than say the right -- and perhaps offensive -- things. You go on television or sit down to write an article with the best of intentions. Then, somewhere along the line, you tone your words down, and thus dilute your own argument. How many commentators will admit that they aren't writing and saying what they think? The issues he examines are very important and the approach is a breath of fresh air. Hamzawi has taken a bold step away from the America bashing and mindless recitation of slogans that often characterize Middle East commentary and give it that "authentic Middle Eastern aroma" (or stench). Ami Isseroff Mea culpa
It is too easy to demonise the West, writes Amr Hamzawi*
Al-Ahram 9 - 15 October 2008 In the course of a personal crisis I grappled with over the past few weeks, I found myself re-examining my career as a public commentator and researcher. The soul-searching brought some pertinent results which, unpleasant as they are, I deem worthy of public discussion. For starters, I discovered that the views I hold so dearly, both as an academic and political analyst, do not always match what I say or write. The gap between the two is disconcerting for someone who values integrity as much as I do, and it may lead to dire conclusions. Perhaps I am not the only one among Arab scholars who has experienced this dilemma. We all aspire to offer the best analysis we can, but it is hard sometimes to challenge the basic premises of an entire people. Although the questions of democracy, pluralism, political freedom, and human rights in Arab societies have taken the best part of my intellectual and academic effort, I found my analysis was too focussed on a single question; namely, how non-violent opposition movements can generate enough pressure on governing elites to bring about democracy, the rotation of power, competitive elections, citizen participation, and all the rest. One thing I failed to examine adequately was the nature of the opposition. Be they Islamic, liberal or leftist, our opposition groups have a disturbing block when it comes to introducing democracy in their own organisations. However loud they may denounce the repression of the ruling elites in public, they have little or no respect for democracy in their own backyard. I had assumed, perhaps mistakenly, that the mere existence of non-violent opposition movements is a plus. I had assumed that having an opposition that is willing to speak out is a step towards democracy. I am starting to have second thoughts about that now. Something tells me that undemocratic opposition movements may not be exactly the best vessel for democratisation. Something tells me that opposition movements who pursue policies of exclusion can be a hindrance, however loudly they may speak for pluralism and the freedom of speech. While focussing on opposition movements and their activism, I neglected other factors, especially the prevalence of tribal and clan affiliations in our part of the world. We have countries where national identity pales against ethnic, clan or sectarian loyalties. We have legislative and judiciary institutions that have a poor record of protecting citizen rights. With all these institutional shortcomings, perhaps my optimism about democratisation was unwarranted. I also noticed that I tend all too often to play to the audience, rather than say the right -- and perhaps offensive -- things. You go on television or sit down to write an article with the best of intentions. Then, somewhere along the line, you tone your words down, and thus dilute your own argument. I could never get myself to stress the importance of secularism as much as I wished to. I couldn't get myself to state flatly that it is a necessary condition for democratisation, pluralism and citizen equality. Instead, I used euphemisms, talked instead about the separation of state and church, and elaborated on civic responsibility, etc. A commentator worth his salt would have spoken out for prisoners of conscience in our midst; I didn't. I had ample opportunity to speak of the many innocent people languishing to this day in Arab prisons, but I passed. Nor did I speak forcefully enough for the disempowered in our midst -- the women, the religious and ethnic minorities, or those whose personal life conflicts with tradition. I am pained by my silence on imprisoned Syrian intellectuals and activists and on the case of my friend Saadeddin Ibrahim, a man who has suffered much and unjustly. My commitment to democratisation, however unshakable, didn't stop me from playing to the audience. It takes some courage to speak out against the powers that be. It takes even more courage to speak out against the commonly held views of the public. This is why I straddled the fence on secularism. In the process, my analysis became muddled. I often said things on television that I knew played to the demagogic views of the Arab public. Even when I had my doubts, I found it comforting -- or safer -- to go with the flow. It was easy to denounce the West, malign US and European involvement, even to the point of reducing their entire policy to being one narrow-minded ambition. I did so even when I knew better. I have talked extensively with decision-makers in Western capitals. And I have seen certain willingness for fair debate on Arab matters and democracy, and yet it is easier to speak in terms of black and white. I also discounted the willingness of some Arab elites to improve economic, social and political conditions in their countries. Even when some elites were sincere in their gradual quest to modernise Arab institutions, I failed to give them credit. It is prudent to question the sincerity of democratisation in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Yemen. But Morocco, Iraq and Kuwait may be on to something, and one should keep an open mind about them for now. I am not offering this as an exercise in professional self-flagellation. I simply believe that certain errors that come with the job of being a commentator or researchers are only too easy to make. So I only hope that an admission of guilt would bring a breath of fresh air into what could otherwise be a vacuum of ill- advised commentary. * The writer is senior associate at the Carnegie Endownment for International Peace
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The body is still warm (relatively, that is), and some people already know the truth! Amazing.
I wouldn't link to the sources, but here are some exceptionally penetrating quotes:
The bottom line is he was a thorn in the side to the Neocons, to Israel, to the EU, to the WTO, and to the drive for one world government. So now he sleeps with Yitshak Rabin, Robert Maxwell, Olaf Palme, DC Madam, Danny Colasaro, Gary Webb, David Kelly, JFK, RFK, MLK. I suspect the guy forgot to add GPS, IBM and KGB to that list. -
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A Hamas spokesperson was more more explicit earlier, blaming the problem on the Jews. It must've been the Jews who jacked up the price of oil to $145 a barrel, right? We are witnessing the collapse of the American Empire," Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister in the Gaza Strip, told worshippers during Friday prayers. "What's going on in America is a result of the violation of the rights of people in Palestine, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Muslims around the world." Haniyeh's comments followed those made by other regional leaders who have long had an antagonistic relationship with the U.S. and appear to be enjoying the country's troubles. However, the financial meltdown has not left the region unscathed, with stock markets across the Middle East dropping more than 10 percent in the past week. In an interview on Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described America's problems as a matter of chickens coming home to roost after years of exporting inflation and deficits to the rest of the world. "Now the world capacity is full and these problems have returned to the U.S.," he said, adding "and finally they are oppressors, and systems based on oppression and unrighteous positions will not endure." Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a high level Iranian cleric, was blunter when he addressed worshippers on Oct. 3, describing the situation as God's punishment. "We are happy that the U.S. economy is in anarchy and the anarchy is reaching Europe," said Jannati. "They are seeing the result of their own ugly doings and God is punishing them." The Iranian government has said the financial crisis is not hurting Iran's economy. But the turmoil has helped drive the price of oil down more than 40 percent since record highs in July. The Iranian government relies on oil revenue for 80 percent of its budget. Al-Qaida, America's arch-nemesis in the region, was one of the first to express satisfaction over the financial crisis in a half hour video message earlier in the month.
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As police maintained a tense calm in the northern town of Acre, which has seen some of the worst clashes in years between Arab and Jewish residents over recent days, the city's Arab leaders met with senior police officials Saturday in efforts to resolve the escalating tensions. Northern District Police Chief Shimon Koren met with Arab leaders after the violence raged for a fourth consecutive day, and the two sides decided to renounce all acts of violence and intimidation. The police plan to convene representatives of the Jewish sector as well in order to convey the condemnation of violence. The riots erupted around midnight on Wednesday on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, when an Arab resident drove his car through a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, allegedly playing loud music in what Jewish residents called a deliberate provocation.
Much of Israel routinely shuts down for the Yom Kippur holiday, considered the holiest religious holiday in the Jewish faith. Most streets are empty, save for emergency vehicles. The driver denied entering the neighborhood as a provocation, telling reporters he drove "slowly and carefully" to pick up his daughter from her fiance's home. A group of Jewish residents then proceeded to assault the driver, sparking large-scale riots that lasted well into Saturday. Israeli Arab MK and Acre resident Abbas Zakour said Saturday that representatives of the Arab public were set to publicly renounce the acts of the man who drove into a Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur, "even if he didn't intend to disrespect the Jews," in efforts to end the clashes. Zakour added that the man should have thought of other ways to get home other than driving through a Jewish neighborhood. Public figures from both the Arab and Jewish sectors were planning to meet in Acre's old city Saturday evening in efforts to reach an agreement, and consequently issue a joint request to the city's mayor to reverse his decision to cancel the upcoming theater festival, held annually in the city over the Sukkot holiday. Earlier Saturday, police forces securing the area arrested four rioters after two Arab-owned apartments were torched in the city. Two of those arrested were subsequently released due to their young age. Meanwhile, Jewish hackers broke into a Hebrew-language Web site, smearing incitement calls against Arabs and urging Jews to boycott Arab-owned businesses. So far in the rioting, some 40 shops and 100 cars have been damaged. Around 30 people have been arrested, 20 of whom are still in custody. On Friday, dozens of Jewish rioters gathered in front of an Israeli Arab family's home on the city's Ahad Ha'am street, upon which a number of masked figures - apparently Arabs - were standing. Large police forces succeeded in separating the sides, and later managed to enforce calm in the city, according to Israel Radio. Earlier Friday, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter vowed that police would deal firmly with those responsible for inciting Wednesday night's riots. "The inciters and perpetrators will be located and brought to justice," Dichter pledged. He also blasted both Jews and Muslims for the incitement that led to the escalation of the riots. "We will check the calls in Mosques for the Arab public to go out onto the streets," Dichter said. The minister stressed that comparing the riots to Kristallnacht - the 1938 "Night of Broken Glass" Nazi pogrom - displayed in the best case ignorance and in the worst, incitement. He said: "Calls [by Jews] for residents to carry arms is in effect incitement for its own sake." An Israel Police source said on Thursday that the police had no prior intelligence about the possibility of clashes between Jewish and Arab residents. On Thursday evening, police faced off against hundreds of Jewish rioters chanting "death to Arabs" and trying to block the city's main thoroughfare. Border Police and officers on horse-back meanwhile tried to prevent the rioters from reaching the city center, where hundreds of Arab rioters had gathered. Arabs and Jews hurled rocks at each other at the Acre train station and police used water hoses and tear gas to disperse them. In the Old City, Arabs threw stones and burned tires. Two people were reported injured, one by a police horse and the other by a stone to the head. Police summoned reinforcements from other districts earlier Thursday in anticipation of a renewal of the violent clashes. Hundreds of police are now stationed in the city.
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The obnoxious Israeli tradition of stoning vehicles on Yom Kippur degenerated into a "race" riot in Acco. It has nothing to do with Zionism and nothing to do with religion or the Arab-Jewish conflict. It is just a custom of young hoodlums that evolved over the years. Anyone may be a victim. Victims of stonings are often pregnant women on the way to the hospital After hours of relative calm, Jewish youths begin to crowd in eastern neighborhood of city, prompting stone-throwing from many Arab residents; police detain nine residents, raid home from which stones were flung Ahiya Raved
Latest Update: 10.10.08, 23:32 / Israel News On a third successive night of rioting in Akko, Arabs threw stones at dozens of Jewish youths who formed a crowd in one of the city's eastern neighborhoods. Three people were injured, including a man who was walking his dog, who sustained a mild head injury from a stone that was flung at him. Police detained five Jewish protestors and four Arabs, and began to disperse the remaining crowd with the help of stun grenades, tear gas, and water hoses. Officers also raided a home from which stones had been flung, detaining three family members found within. Northern District Police stated that altogether 30 people have been arrested in relation to the riots since they first began on Yom Kippur Eve. Meanwhile Akko firefighters attempted to extinguish a large number of fires that were ignited in trash cans and wood piles throughout the city. In one instance the fire was reportedly near a gas leak, and vehicle arson was suspected. At around 10 pm police reported the incident under control. However at around 11 pm further conflict developed near the Western Galilee College located in the northern part of the city, as well as near the bus terminal. Police reported that Jews and Arabs were throwing stones at each other in the area.
The incident commenced at around 9 pm, when dozens of Jewish youths began to crowd two of the neighborhood's main streets. Police barricaded the eastern entrance to the city, and deployed large SWAT and Border Guard forces armed with anti-protest equipment to the area.
Wednesday's violence erupted after an Arab motorist entered a predominantly Jewish neighborhood on the holiest of Jewish days. The incident quickly developed into a mass riot involving hundreds of people, during which dozens of cars and some 30 shops were vandalized. Three people, including the Arab motorist and a police officer, sustained light injuries. The clashes between Arabs and Jews resumed Thursday evening, after Yom Kippur ended, as hundreds of Jews and Arabs demonstrated and confronted police near the train station in eastern Akko and near the city's northern housing projects. Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni censured the Yom Kippur riots in Akko asserting, during a meeting with city mayor Shimon Lankry, that citizens cannot be allowed to take the law into their own hands. "All Israeli citizens should respect the holy day of Yom Kippur when they are outside their home," she said Friday. First Published: 10.10.08, 22:01
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Here is something for the folks who write about the evils of Zionism all the time. A 12-year-old cancer-stricken Iranian boy arrived at an Israeli hospital on Friday for emergency treatment on his brain tumor. The boy - who was identified only as Roy, to protect his privacy - was wheeled on a stretcher into the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, after treatments in Iran and Turkey failed. His face was puffy, apparently due to the drugs administered to ease his pain. Israel granted the child a special permit to enter the country and he arrived at Ben Gurion Airport on Friday. The rare arrangement was mediated by an Israeli businessman of Iranian origin. The boy was accompanied to the hospital by his father and veiled mother, who were also granted special entry permits into Israel.
Iran and Israel are bitter enemies and have no formal relations. Iran's president has denied the Holocaust and repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map. Sheba CEO Zeev Rotstein said it wasn't the first time Israeli doctors have treated children from adversarial states. "We hope that with the love and affection we give these kids we are paving the way for at least some understanding between people," he said. "We can't change the politics. We are not politicians. We do this because we feel it is our job." Israel is home to world-class hospitals and state-of-the-art medical technology. Dr. Amos Toren, head of Sheba's Pediatric Hemato-Oncology Department, said his initial diagnosis was that the boy's year- old growth was the most aggressive tumor that exists among brain tumors. "He is conscious and he can smile but it is hard," he said. "We will give him the most modern treatment possible and maybe we will be able to help him." Rotstein said the child had been operated on before and may need another procedure in Israel. "There are very limited things you can do," he said. "But if this kid has any chance, it is here." He said the hospital kept the identities of patients from countries hostile to Israel secret, so that they would not face danger upon their return home. Iran and several other Middle East countries oppose any type of normalization with Israel. Rotstein said he hoped treatments, like those of Roy, would help break down some of those barriers. "As far as we are concerned, we are not involved in politics," he said. "He is from a country that doesn't really like our existence here, but I think part of our job is to prove to countries like Iran that we are here to help the regular people."
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Jewish women are blaming the intermarriage problem on Jewish men, and Jewish men are blaming it on what? Is there really something wrong with Jewish men? Or with Jewish women? Is it true just in the Gola or is it a characteristic of Israelis too? Ami Isseroff While the rest of the country wonders if a (decidedly not Jewish) Republican hockey mom could become our first female vice president, I'm obsessing about gender in the Jewish community. Last month I noted in this space that Jewish women and men who intermarry often do so for different reasons the women because their efforts to find a Jewish husband are unsuccessful, the men because they are either avoiding Jewish women or simply don't see any value in marrying within the Tribe. I cited Brandeis professor Sylvia Barack Fishman's recent study, "Matrilineal Ascent/Patrilineal Descent," which revealed many of these gender disparities. I also pointed out that some prominent thinkers in the Jewish world are actually encouraging Jewish women driven by the biological clock
to intermarry rather than remain single. After the column appeared, several intermarried Jewish women contacted me to say that they, like me, had initially wanted to marry a Jewish man, but didn't have much luck dating them. "When I turned 30 I realized that I couldn't limit myself anymore," wrote one Manhattan woman. "My (non-practicing Methodist) husband of 2 years is the most compassionate, charitable, intellectually curious person I know and those are the Jewish values I admire most." Just as I was feeling pleased with myself for penning such an astute column, I began to wonder if I'd given Jewish men a fair shake. After all, they're hardly the only ones guilty of gender stereotyping. The New York woman who praised my column noted that "the handful of Jewish men I dated seriously were commitment-phobes who are now (many years later) still unmarried or with non-Jewish women." And a friend married to a former Unitarian echoed this attitude, writing that the few Jewish men who were interested in her "were often so neurotic it was clear it wouldn't go past a few dates." Mentioning that one's Jewish suitors tend toward the neurotic hardly makes one a bigot, yet it is interesting that comments like these frequently surface in conversations with intermarried and single Jewish women and I must confess I've had similar thoughts at times myself. But short of public service messages to convince Jewish men that Jewesses are really not too overbearing alongside parallel ones extolling the brute strength and psychological resilience of Jewish men can stereotypical attitudes be changed?
And did I, in last month's column, inadvertently overstate their whole influence on intermarriage trends? When Rabbi Abraham Unger, a professor at Wagner College in Staten Island, wrote an op-ed in response to my piece in which he said my contention is "that Jewish male attitudes toward Jewish women are largely to blame for intermarriage" I wondered if I had accidentally "contended" something I don't actually believe. I would never say Jewish male attitudes toward Jewish women are "largely to blame" for intermarriage, both because I think gender stereotypes represent only one of many factors influencing American Jews' marriage choices, and also because using the word "blame" implies that I think intermarriage is an inherently bad thing, something that can and should be prevented. Yes, intermarriage is at times a symptom of and can also be a factor in an individual's disengagement from Jewish life, but the issue is in many ways a distraction from the main challenge the Jewish community faces (outside of the Orthodox world, at least): widespread lack of interest in or knowledge about Judaism.
And that's where, if Sylvia Fishman's study and my own anecdotal observations are to be believed, men and women really are different. The problem, I've decided, isn't that Jewish men don't want to marry Jewish women. It's that, for whatever reason, they don't want to join synagogues, learn about Judaism or celebrate Jewish holidays, and they're apathetic about passing the traditions on to their children. I'm generalizing here; of course there are numerous Jewish men out there who are passionate about Judaism. But as Fishman's study notes, "nationally, girls and women outnumber men in weekly non-Orthodox worship services, in adult education classes, in volunteer leadership positions, and in Jewish cultural events." It's not only intermarried Jewish men who tend to be disengaged from Jewish life. Large numbers of in-married ones are as well. The difference, however, is that a Jewish wife is more likely than a non-Jewish one to insist that the family participate in Jewish life and the children be given a Jewish education. Amazingly, tens of thousands of gentile wives actually do insist that their families participate in Jewish life often because they want their children exposed to religion and their Jewish husbands have vetoed Christianity. The Jewish Outreach Institute's rapidly expanding network of Mothers Circle programs is doing an amazing job of giving such women the knowledge, confidence and resources to raise Jewish children but it's an uphill battle when the non-Jewish parent is more enthusiastic about Judaism than the Jewish parent is. In one family I know, the wife is constantly nudging her Jewish husband to bring her to a seder; her husband told me she'll probably come check out Shabbat services on her own, but he's a little squeamish about them himself. Another friend, who took a Judaism course last year and who is contemplating conversion, told me a few months ago that the more "Jewish" she becomes, the more nervous her Jewish husband gets.
How to account for all these gentile women who are more enthused about Judaism than their Jewish husbands? My friend has a theory. While Jewish men are often attracted to gentile women in part because these women represent to them a refreshing change from the Jewish community, the opposite holds true for their wives. "We were attracted to them, in part, because we were attracted to Judaism," she explains.
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When I published Governor Palin's speech about Iran that was not delivered, I did promise that if Hillary Clinton had prepared a statement for the September 22 anti-Ahmadinejad rally, I would circulate it. This statement was publicized on September 22, but I missed it, and then it got lost in the "shuffle" until someone reminded me. Here is Senator Clinton's non-speech. It is good speech. Better late than never. Ami Isseroff
Clinton: We cannot permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons As thousands gather in New York today to stand united against the threat posed by Iran, I add my voice to all those speaking out to oppose the Iranian regime's support for global terror, pursuit of nuclear weapons, and abuse |
