JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Sarah Netanyahu, get thee to Scheinkin

By Ron Kampeas · July 2, 2009

Asma al-Assad, Syria's first lady, on Sky TV, not saying a whole lot, but nonetheless scoring major hasbara points.

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Assalamu Alaikum

By Ben Harris · July 2, 2009

Newsweek reports on the efforts of Turkish Jews to combat a rising tide of prejudice and reach out to their Muslim neighbors.

Turkish Jews are a tiny minority in their Muslim country and prejudice against them is rising. A 2008 Pew survey on European attitudes toward Jews and Muslims found that 76 percent of Turks surveyed had a negative view of Jews—an increase from 49 percent in 2004. In addition, a recently published study on radicalism by Yilmaz Esmer, a professor at Bahçesehir University, found that 64 percent of Turks in 34 different cities say they do not want Jewish neighbors. And then there's the tension between Israel and Ankara over the celebrated Davos stage-storming incident by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan after an argument with Israeli President Shimon Peres in January. But instead of hunkering down in a hostile environment, Turkey's Jews are reaching out.

Led by Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva, the 23,000-strong community is preparing to say shalom—and salaam (the Hebrew and Arabic words of greeting)—to its Muslim neighbors. In March they launched a project to introduce the community and its culture to non-Jewish neighbors. Using funds allocated by the European Union for human-rights projects, Jewish leaders are working to curb spreading anti-Jewish prejudice and to underscore that they're Turks as well as Jews. As one of their first steps, they've commissioned a company to conduct a public-opinion survey to get an accurate picture of what their fellow citizens really think of them. (Right now, they believe, study results are skewed because researchers tend to lump queries about religious discrimination in umbrella questions on views about homosexuality and drug addiction.) When that's completed in July, they will use it to draw a "road map" on how to proceed, says project coordinator Lina Filiba. "In the eyes of [our] society, Turkish Jews are the others of the other," she says. "We are crying out loud that we're Turks, but people keep seeing us as Israelis."

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Israeli hotels sign modesty code

By Ben Harris · July 2, 2009

You have to wonder what they'll come up with next. YNet is reporting that some 20 hotels catering to fervently Orthodox vacationers have signed a "modesty code" commiting them to unplug TVs and bloc views of the pool from rooms.

YNet reports:

The television will be closed in the closet, internet connections will be offered only to married couples, and there will be an option to separate the beds. These are some of the services some 20 hotels in Israel have taken upon themselves in order to accommodate ultra-Orthodox guests.

A little more than a month after senior haredi rabbis ordained the "Committee for the Character of the Jewish People" to establish a list of vacation spots appropriate for the haredi public, it seems as if their efforts are bearing fruit.

Five of the hotels that have taken upon themselves to uphold the stringent modesty standards of the haredi public are under religious ownership. These hotels have agreed to impose the standards all days of the year. The other 15 hotels have committed to institute the set modesty code during certain short time periods during which ultra-Orthodox guests increase.

The code operates such that even if a haredi guests wishes to act against the modesty code – and watch television, for instance – the guest will not be able to do so.

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Unhip Commentary

By Ben Harris · July 2, 2009

I grew up in a home of Commentary Magazine readers. Every month the magazine found its way to the ottoman where it would wait for my dad to finish his Friday night dinner and stumble the four steps to his easy chair, where he would pass out within minutes, the magazine laid spreadeagle over his chest. When I got old enough to care, I'd sometimes slip it from his grasp and have a look myself (he'd usually startle for a second and go right back to snoring). Its pages were sparse and uncolored, and the lack of illustrations and awful typography made it a laborious read. But also a refreshing one, if only for its unrelenting assault on virtually everything I thought I believed and its consistency in upholding positions I thought most civilized sophisticates had long since abandoned. When the world hated George Bush, Commentary reliably came to his defense. When the Iraq war looked beyond unwinnable, Commentary offered rosy predictions. When peace in the Middle East seemed all the rage, Commentary remained a sourpuss. But the arguments were normally cogent and well reasoned, and I ultimately came to enjoy its company.

Not so with D.G. Myers article in the current issue (“The Judaism Rebooters”), which assaults the notion of “Jewish hipsterism,” the “specter” of which is “haunting American Jewry.” For the unfamiliar, Myers offers a quick primer. Hipsterdom is about seeing Judaism as “cool.” It's about being at the leading edge of the cultural category known as “indie” and contemptuous of all things mainstream. It's about all-night parties -- “known as raves,” Myers helpfully informs us -- and the recreational use of prescription meds. It's about the pretense of revolution, but ultimately about conformity.

It's not a pretty picture and, “Reefer Madness”-style, it's coming soon to a community near you. It's not hard to conjure up pictures of older Jewish adults much like my father unsettled by the indigestion of their Shabbos meals brought on by Myers' vision of what the future of American Judaism portends.

More caricature than fact, Myers' depiction of the state of Jewish hipsterdom bears little resemblance to anyone or anything with which I'm familiar, both as a reporter on trends related to American Jewish life and as a participant in many of the cultural activities Myers loathes. No one I know thinks Arab Americans are cool because they are a persecuted minority. No one I know has ever used the term “reboot Judaism” -- “an expression that is popular with them,” Myers writes, sounding much like the field guide to a cultural Galapagos. Eco-consciousness isn't cool -- it's a moral necessity, and if it's presented as cool it's only as a marketing gimmick. Most folks I know get the difference.

Michael Jackson’s Jewish, Saudi Arabian “widow”

By Ron Kampeas · July 1, 2009

Our new intern, Rachel Tepper, is tracking news items about and blog postings by Nona Paris Lola Ankhesenamun Jackson, who claims to be a) Michael Jackson's widow and the real mother to his children, b) the daughter of a Saudi prince, and c) Jewish.

None of the claims seem to be based on anything but her imaginings -- past marital claims against Jackson have been thrown out of court multiple times.

Here's a sample:

• Her latest lawsuit, filed today, post-mortem;
• Filing for "separation," last December;
• Claiming that she is the mother of his children in 2006;
• Her blog, with her claims of Saudi parentage (I guess the mom's the Jewish one).

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Where they love Israel in Europe

By Uriel Heilman · July 1, 2009

Jerusalem Post columnist Michael Freund writes about one country in Europe where the love for Israel runs freely: Finland.

From the capital of Helsinki to Tampere, Finland's third largest city, to the small town of Ikaalinen in the western part of the country, hundreds of non-Jews in each locale came out to demonstrate their solidarity.

There are churches where the Israeli flag is proudly displayed side-by-side with the Finnish national colors, and where entire Christian congregations recite "Hatikva" first in Hebrew and then in Finnish.

Literally dozens of Finns approached me to recount how proud they were to have spent periods of time volunteering in Israel at schools and in hospitals or on kibbutzim. They voiced great concern over Iran and its nuclear ambitions, and many pray for Israel and its welfare daily...

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that Finnish Christian support for the Jewish state is not the province of any one particular denomination, but rather it includes such diverse groups as Baptists, Pentecostals and Lutherans. However much they might disagree over theological or doctrinal issues, when it comes to Israel they stand united.

Full column here.

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Is Facebook a Zionist plot?

By Ami Eden · July 1, 2009

Ray Hanania, a Palestinian American comedian, explores the question in a column in The Jerusalem Post:

Why would the Israelis want to control the world when they are having a hard enough time trying to control themselves? Still, it's a question worth pondering especially in the age of the Internet and the rise of the Zionist conspiracy called "Facebook." Let's "faceit," Facebook has a very strong Israeli face. Well, that's if you assume all Jews are Israelis and all Israelis are Jews. The evidence suggests a link.

The founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was born on May 14, 1984. Coincidence? (Hint, Israel's birthday!) And 1984 - the subject of George Orwell's book about the battle to control the world! Zuckerberg is from New York, or, little Israel as Osama bin Laden refers to it. He launched Facebook from his dorm room at Harvard, a scholarly institution controlled by, you know who. No! Not Jews. Presbyterians. (Jews think they control the media, the Arabs believe the Jews control the media and the Presbyterians do control the media. And Presbyterians are not sure who they dislike more, Jews or Arabs.)

Palestinians complain they have an extremely difficult time on Facebook. Do they join the Zionist entity and engage in "normalization" or do they go to the Arab alternative, Berqabook?

I HAVE my own tribulations with Facebook. I have been booted from the worldwide entity twice! Coincidence? The first time, I was writing criticism of the Israeli government. The second time, just this past week, I was writing criticism of the Israeli government. (Actually, I always write criticism of the Israeli government, but so what?)...

Read the full story.

And in case that wasn't enough for you...

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Jo Amar, acclaimed Sephardic singer, dies

By Ben Harris · June 30, 2009

Moroccan singer Jo Amar passed away last week in New York at 79. Amar was an Israeli icon who emigrated to the Jewish state in the 1950s and is credited with being a pioneer of the style of music known today as mizrahi.

My friend Sam Thomas, an expert on Sephardic music, sent along an appraisal of Amar's contributions. Here's a sample:

It is in this last arena where Amar's greatest passion would reside. He was a lover of hazzanut and felt a special honor in performing Jewish liturgy. One of his most important recordings was a multi-record anthology of Moroccan liturgical music. Remarking on Israeli television in 1980, "All of me lives these pieces…I love hazzanut. It’s the singing of the heart…of the neshama. Its not like a song – a popular song or a love song. You have to live it." As Nancy Amar, his daughter-in-law confided, "His prayers were very inspiring…meaningful praying." His kavannah on any given Shabbat, in the Young Israel of Five Towns or at a synagogue in Brooklyn, was truly remarkable. He kept embellishments simple, infusing his hazzanut with Moroccan traditions but making sure that anybody participating would find his role as shliah tzibur fulfilling. According to Rabbi Dahan, he felt it was his halakhic duty to do so. Further evidence of his passion for hazzanut was the many students he had and countless workshops on Jewish liturgy in which he participated in around the world.

In the mid-1990s Amar returned to his home to live full-time in Israel. His connection with Israel was always strong and he never shied away from his obligations as an Israeli citizen. He sang songs honoring soldiers, including Eli Cohen and Natan. He composed and recorded Lishkat Avodah, a song exposing inequalities in Israeli society that he felt needed addressing. He inspired bands like Lehakat Tziley Ha'ud, who in the early 1970s rerecorded his now ubiquitous version of the Sephardi piyyut Shalom L'ven Dodi. He used his voice to make traditions of his Moroccan brethren known by recording important piyyutim, the vernacular Arabic qasida Yosef ha'tzadik, and even 'Ala Andalusit classical north African music.

Here's a video of Amar from a wedding in 1990. The guy playing saxophone a few minutes in is the popular wedding performer Arkady Kofman, who once gave me a memorable saxophone lesson at his apartment in Queens.

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Designing the Bible

By Ben Harris · June 30, 2009

In April, I wrote about two emerging challenges to the dominance of the ArtScroll siddur among the American Orthodox public. One of those challenges, the first English translation of the popular Israeli siddur pubilshed by Koren, boasts a fresh translation from the English chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, and Koren's legendary artistic sensibility.

In Tablet magazine, Joshua Friedman delves further into the matter with a fascinating piece about what makes Koren's publications so beloved and provides some insight into the man behind the book, company founder Eliyahu Koren. Born in Germany, Koren was responsible for the first new Jewish Bible in centuries, a volume that quickly became the Jewish state's default version of the Scriptures. With that project complete, Koren turned his attention to the prayer book, with similarly stellar artistic results.

Of the siddur, Friedman writes:

[Koren's] central task was the same: to create beautiful, legible letters and pages to accentuate a sacred text. But unlike the Bible, the siddur is an anthology, pieced together from Torah verses and rabbinic writings. Koren therefore set out to design a new page layout that would differentiate the text, highlighting its source material and keeping the reader alert. Koren also developed a distinct but related siddur typeface, since he felt that the one he had developed for the Bible was too sacred to reuse, except for biblical quotations. This typeface was even more legible than the first, with similar letter pairs distinguished by their shape: dalet, for instance, extends its arm horizontally, while resh angles its arm upward.

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Israeli and son die in Queens

By Ben Harris · June 30, 2009

Here's a story that's not only tragic, but also kind of gross. The New York Post reports:

Three workers -- including a father and son -- were killed yesterday in a horrific accident at a Queens recycling plant when they fell into a sludge vat filled with toxic fumes, officials said.

The victims' bodies were pulled from the rank container at Regal Recycling in Jamaica -- a privately owned solid and putrescible (as in putrid) waste plant -- at around 2:30 p.m.

"I was in my office when I heard cries of 'Help! Help! Clear the road!' " said Alan Persaud, 33, the owner of a steel company across the street.

The father, Shlomo Dahan, 53, and his son, Harel, 23, who owned a sewer-cleaning company in South Ozone Park, were scouring the filthy pit loaded with noxious gases when the son was overcome by hydrogen sulfide fumes, sources said.

There was about four feet of detritus, including garbage, oil and runoff, in the hole -- which measures 3 feet in diameter by 18 feet deep -- at the time of the accident.

The father desperately tried to rescue his son by dropping a ladder into the hole at the facility on Douglas Avenue, near 170th Street, but he, too, was overcome.

When Rene Francisco Rivas, 52, a worker for Regal, noticed the men were missing, he tried to help them, but in doing so, also fell victim to the toxic gas, which was four times the lethal limit of 50 parts per million over a 10-minute period.

"They were in a sewer but they were sinking," Persaud said. "It's like quicksand. When the debris mixes with water, it's like mud."

Firefighters who arrived at 2:30 p.m. donned scuba gear to reach the men, but it was too late.

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