Here is the film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders in which he argues that Islam is a threat to the Western world (Muslims in Holland are suing him on the grounds that it falsely charges Islam with promoting violence)…

Wilders gave a lengthy interview to Fox News…

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Jewish Labor Committee and of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, argues in the Forward that the American labor movement must take its pro-Israel fight overseas: (more…)

The New Jersey Jewish News reports on a new musical comedy that looks at life in the annex from the perspective of Anne Frank’s little sister. (What’s next — “Long Night,” a comic romp on Auschwitz from the perspective of an inmate having to listen to Elie Wiesel moralize all the time?):

What if Margot, Anne Frank’s big sister, also kept a diary? What if hers offered a different perspective on life in the annex?

What if her diary revealed different truths — that it was she and Peter who were in love, not Anne and Peter, or that Albert Dussel, really Dr. Fritz Pfeffer, was actually a lovely fellow and not the fat, bald, selfish man as portrayed in Anne’s diary?

And what if Anne were actually, in Margot’s words, “a conniving little [rhymes with witch]”?

Most of all, what if someone wrote a play based on the premise and turned it into a musical comedy?

Ha’aretz reports that the Prime Minister’s Office in Israel recently posted three videos to YouTube showing images from the terror attack earlier this month at Jerusalem’s Mercaz HaRav yeshiva:

The three videos were posted under the titles “Stop the Terror, Stop the Bloodshed,” “Act NOW: Stop The Bloodshed - Stop the Terror,” and “Emergency call, March 7, Jerusalem.”

While the person named as poster, AtiyaRachel, was not identified as having any connection to the government, TheMarker has learned that the Prime Minister’s Office was actually behind the uploads to the popular video site.

This is the first time that a government body has used the site in response to a terror attack.

Here are the videos (warning: graphic images)…

James Besser reports in the New York Jewish Week about the launch of a new political action committee aimed at supporting dovish congressional candidates — and, in Britain’s Prospect magazine, Gershom Gorenberg says that’s a good thing. (more…)

The Forward reports that a new group calling itself “The Elders” is dispatching Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan and Mary Robinson to Israel to help make peace. Go figure, but officials in Jerusalem aren’t exactly jumping for joy.

A little-known group of rather well-known former world leaders is trying its hand at Middle East peacemaking, with a contingent scheduled to visit the region next month on a self-proclaimed mission to “help people understand the urgency of peace.” But as they attempt to help resolve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, The Elders, as the group is known, find themselves facing what is perhaps an equally difficult task: overcoming the deep-rooted suspicion on the part of Israel and its supporters toward several of its members.

The Elders are a group of 12 senior statesmen formed last summer by Nelson Mandela, and most of its members are household names in the international arena. What has raised eyebrows in Jerusalem are the individuals the group is dispatching to the Middle East. In addition to former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, the contingent includes Jimmy Carter, former president and author of “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” and Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland who was outspokenly critical of Israel when she served as the U.N.’s high commissioner on human rights.

Israeli officials were reluctant to discuss the upcoming visit on the record, arguing that they had yet to be formally approached by The Elders. But an indication of Jerusalem’s concern about the group’s effort could be gleaned from the response of one official when asked for Israel’s views on the contingent’s individual members.

“We have no problem with Kofi Annan,” the official told the Forward.

The student papers at the University of Kansas and the University of Arizona both have articles about the Jewish fraternity ZBT making a comeback. Who’s their publicist?!

The University Daily Kansan:

A Jewish fraternity is going to join the 40 greek houses already at the University in the next few years.

Zeta Beta Tau, a fraternity based in Indianapolis, Indiana, is coming back to the University after being absent for around ten years. It closed its first house in the late 1990s because of a lack of general leadership in the chapter.

ZBT was invited to start a new chapter by the Interfraternity Council and the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life in September 2007.

Associate executive director Laurence Bolotin said the fraternity had begun to receive requests to start a new ZBT chapter on campus, so it has begun to reconnect with campus and alumni.

The Arizona Daily Wildcat:

After numerous bouts of failed leadership that led to Zeta Beta Tau’s removal from the Interfraternity Council and the arrest of the president and vice president in 2005, the fraternity’s future looked grim.

Now they’re getting a fresh start in 2008.

“We were there for many years and we’ve come in and out but now we’re starting again with a completely new group of guys and none of the old guys will have anything to do with it,” said Matthew Tobe, national director of Zeta Beta Tau. “There was poor leadership at the time and now we have a group of freshmen and sophomore men who want to start fresh.”

Tobe and his colleagues have spent time on campus recruiting students to become founding fathers of the new fraternity. They already have twelve and are hoping for about seven more, Tobe said.

The much anticipated showdown with the University of California, Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake went down Monday afternoon at the Hillel summit in Washington. Hillel was criticized for inviting Drake, who presides over a campus with a history of inviting inflammatory, anti-Israel speakers, with some criticizing the chancellor for not denouncing specific acts of anti-Semitic and/or anti-Israel activity. Hillel defended the invitation as a chance to engage the chancellor and allow him to hear the concerns of the Jewish community.

Well, here’s how it played out, in three acts:

Act I, Drake responds to a question put to him by ZOA President Mort Klein.

Act II, Klein confronts Drake after the forum directly (cutting me off in the process).

Act III, JTA tries again to get Drake to say how he feels about comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany. Drake’s response: the university must remain “content neutral.”

[Update] Leaders of four UCI Jewish organizations issued a release praising Drake and telling “off campus organizations” (read: ZOA) they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Download (Word Document)

See also: Hillel invite to Irvine chancellor spurs debate over campus issues

The Wisconsin State Journal says that the recent wedding of a local Chabad rabbi’s daughter is the closest most residents of Madison to experiencing “Fiddler on the Roof” (don’t worry, she didn’t marry a Cossack):

The marriage of Chanie Matusof, of Madison, and Nissi Gansbourg, of Montreal, was a deeply traditional Chasidic Jewish wedding.

It may have been the first of its kind here — the closest most Madisonians have come to experiencing anything similar may be watching “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“It is rare, ” said Rabbi Matusof of the Chabad House on Regent Street, the father of the bride, who officiated. “Just ask the staff here and they ‘ll tell you they ‘ve never seen anything like it before.”

“My parents have been here in Wisconsin for 40 years,” added Rabbi Mendel Shmotkin, of the Milwaukee-based group Lubavitch of Wisconsin. “This is definitely the first Chasidic wedding that Madison has ever seen. This is historic.”

The Jerusalem Post features two opinion pieces calling for greater displays of Jewish unity — Gil Troy asserts that Israel’s secular leaders need to take a greater part in the public mourning of the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva and a Baltimore-based Orthodox rabbi says denominational leaders need to find a way to pray together in one sanctuary.

Troy:

The mass funeral on Friday March 7, outside the stricken yeshiva, was broadcast live on Israeli television, uniting the entire house of Israel in mourning. As the cameras showed one sobbing mourner after another, many viewers sitting comfortably in their own homes cried too. Alas, through the tears, one noticed something missing. In the clump of eulogizers at the front, not one leading secular politician stood, and not one secular leader spoke. That even Jerusalem’s mayor, Uri Lupolianski, is Orthodox, added to the one-sided impression. The mourning for this national tragedy appeared on television as a funeral limited to the religious community.

President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and the cabinet ministers represent the entire country. All Israelis pay their salaries, whatever ideology the citizens may embrace. As part of the national mourning process, secular representatives of the government should have attended. Even if their security details advised against appearing, true leaders need to show leadership sometimes. Democratic leaders who fear their constituents are failing at an essential part of the job description and should consider early retirement.

The rabbi (Murray Singerman):

There is another path, one which could shore up the breach, slacken the flow of Jews deciding to opt out, and attract back those who have already left. Rabbis of different denominations should reach across the divide and find theological solutions to not only work together for the social betterment of the community, but most importantly for Jewish unity, worship together.

For the sake of the future of the Jewish people, it is time for our rabbinic leadership to reach out to other denominations and find the will to pray together in one sanctuary. This would create a new paradigm of worship, in which rabbis, standing before the Almighty, will show their congregants that a Jewish world can stand together, not just apart.

Students of history will scoff at such an effort. The pessimistic historian will cite millennia of Jewish theological rifts. The optimist, however, will ignore these precedents, if only because a Jewish optimist is committed to ahavat hinam, boundless love for other Jews.