It seems Israel’s patron the United states isn’t the only country that is less than enthusiastic about Israel and Syria’s decision to restart peace talks. So is Syria’s patron, Iran.

Unnamed sources told the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparently is furious with Syrian President Bashar Assad for engaging the Zionist entity in peace talks, according to this Ha’aretz report.

President Bush doesn’t seem too enthusiastic either, as JTA’s Ron Kampeas reports. As the New York Times points out in its lead editorial Friday, it seems Bush was taking a swipe not only at Barack Obama in his remarks last week in Israel’s Knesset about appeasing terrorists, but also at his Israeli hosts:

Everybody knew President Bush was aiming at Senator Barack Obama last week when he likened those who endorse talks with “terrorists and radicals” to appeasers of the Nazis. But now we know what Mr. Bush knew then — that Israel is in indirect peace talks with Syria, a prominent member of Mr. Bush’s list of shunned nations — and it seems as if the president was going for a two-for-one in his crack about appeasement.

For his part, Obama told the Jerusalem Post he backs the Israeli-Syrian peace talks.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Egyptian-mediated indirect talks between Hamas and Israel on a ceasefire collapsed Thursday. And the war in the Gaza area goes on.

[OOOPS: If you're looking for 'Obama Goes to Shul' click here.]

The L.A. Jewish Journal’s VideoJew takes advantage of Lag B’Omer:

With all those Jews in Hollywood — and with Adam “The Hanukkah Song” Sandler — couldn’t somebody have figured out that today would have been the perfect day for the premier of “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan”?

We’re told that a few Conservative rabbis wanted their movement to declare a boycott of Agriprocessors. Instead, the Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism issued a “request”: “that consumers of kosher meat evaluate whether it is appropriate to buy and eat meat products produced by the Rubashkin’s label.”

Here’s the full statement:

“YOU SHALL NOT ABUSE A NEEDYAND DESTITUTE LABORER”
Deuteronomy 24:14

A Statement by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
And the Rabbinical Assembly Regarding Rubashkin’s Meat Products

New York, NY (May 22, 2008) - In response to the continuing disturbing
allegations of unacceptable worker conditions at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the
Rabbinical Assembly are united in their request that consumers of kosher
meat evaluate whether it is appropriate to buy and eat meat products produced by the Rubashkin’s label.

Rubashkin’s produces kosher meat primarily under the Rubashkin’s, Aaron and David label at the Agriprocessors facility. It is a major producer of kosher meat and poultry in the United States. The allegations about the terrible treatment of workers employed by Rubashkin’s have shocked and appalled members of the Conservative Movement as well as all people of conscience. As Kashrut seeks to diminish animal suffering and offer a humane method of slaughter, it is bitterly ironic that a plant producing kosher meat be guilty of inflicting any kind of human suffering.

The Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism will immediately release an advisory to its members and constituents asking them to evaluate whether it is appropriate to consume Rubashkin products until this situation is addressed. This advisory extends not only to products bought on the retail level but to meat and poultry bought at restaurants and for such private functions as weddings and bar mitzvahs.

As the month of Sivan approaches, Jews throughout the world are mindful of the Torah’s message of the power of kedushah, holiness as it applies to all aspects of our lives including the ethics of worker treatment and food production. It is hoped that Conservative synagogues, schools and summer camps engage in a study of this important topic in honor of the festival of Shavuot — beginning this year on June 8th — which commemorates the giving of the Torah.

A valuable source for such study is Hekshsher Tzedek Al Pi Din, a paper
written by Rabbi Avraham Reisner. It is a companion to the Hekhsher Tzedek Policy Statement and Working Guidelines. The paper is available on the websites of the Rabbinical Assembly (www.rabbinicalassembly.org) and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (www.uscj.org).

By releasing this advisory, the Conservative movement endorses the vision and guidance of the Hekhsher Tzedek commission. Hekhsher Tzedek is an initiative of the Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue that seeks to create an ethical certification process for kosher food. Through its work, Hekhsher Tzedek seeks to strengthen the bond between halakha and social justice.

The reports of unacceptable worker conditions at the Agriprocessors plant demonstrate the pressing need for the sort of ethical oversight which might be provided by Hekhsher Tzedek.

NGO Monitor is calling Human Rights Watch to the mat for HRW’s latest report focusing on Israeli sins — this time, against its Bedouin population. In its analysis, NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based watchdog group run by Prof. Gerald Steinberg of Bar-Ilan University, says HRW’s report, “Off the Map: Land and Housing Rights Violations in Israel’s Unrecognized Bedouin Villages” offers a “one-sided view of Israeli property and planning law and of the highly complex Bedouin situation.”

Mazal Tov to JTA’s director of digital media, Daniel Sieradski, for being picked as one of the Jewish Week’s 36 Jewish innovators under the age of 36. (Who says the competition is always wrong?)

Daniel Sieradski, 29
Founder of Jewschool and Jew It Yourself;
Director of Digital Media for JTA

When Dan Sieradski founded Jewschool.com in 2002, he didn’t quite realize what he was getting himself into.

“We were the accidental roots for progressive Jewish communities,” he says. “We didn’t mean to start a movement. We were creating something that was obviously needed.”
The Web site, a blog with a variety of contributors covering Jewish topics from politics to tradition and culture, had 50,000 monthly readers at its peak and 80 international contributors. As with all variations from the norm, there was opposition, and in the age of the Internet, opposition is ceaseless.

“I’d get phone calls from ardent Zionists at four in the morning,” Sieradski said, recalling those upset by the blog’s critique of Israel policy. He’s had to abandon multiple email addresses due to pointed spam attacks by unappreciative readers. For now, he remains on the board of Jewschool, but has curtailed his blogging.

His new project, Jew It Yourself, an online network providing tools and resources to Jewish individuals and communities to help them engage in Jewish learning on their own, is on hold until it gets a visit from the funding fairy. Among the innovative ideas set for the site is Shul Shopper, a “Zagat meets Wikipedia” for Jews looking for a prayer community to fit their needs. Users would be able to input their criteria and Shul Shopper would match them to a searchable list of possibilities, where they could peruse reviews and ratings as well as a connection to Facebook, which would find other locals with the same preferences. The site would also include an open-source beit midrash, tools for learning how to read Hebrew, and voiceover IP chevruta for the entire spectrum of Jewish communities.

Inspiration: His mom, Jeanette Friedman-Sieradski, a journalist. “Her commitment to pursue justice and fighting for a Judaism that’s inviting, welcoming and authentic has given me a sense of obligation to pursue the same mission.” Strangest job: Working at a golf course as a “garage guy,” loading clubs from car to cart, washing both clubs and cart for the argyle-and-spiked-shoe crowd.
— Randi Sherman

See the full list.

The Tallahassee Democrat ran an article about the legislative push being launched by Irv Hoffman, whose 23-year-old daughter, Rachel, was killed earlier this month while taking part in a drug sting. She reportedly agreed to be an informant after being arrested on drug charges.

“I don’t think kids should be doing police work,” Irv Hoffman said Monday from his Palm Harbor home. “I am going to try to get a Rachel Law going so kids aren’t used in this way.”

The newspaper ran an earlier story on her funeral, during which her rabbi read from her Bat Mitzvah speech.

Click here to watch a local television segment headlined “Who was Rachel Hoffman.”

Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a campus group with which Hoffman was involved, have setup a page on their website encouraging people to donate to a fund to help get the law passed.

After Israel and Syria announced this week they were renewing peace talks, the question on the minds of many was: Why now? Iran and Hezbollah’s rising power, new Israeli willingness to cede the Golan, the fading influence of the Bush White House and Ehud Olmert’s domestic troubles all are being cited as possible factors. JTA managing editor Uriel Heilman talks with diplomatic correspondent Leslie Susser in Jerusalem about the prospects of and motivations behind Israeli-Syrian peace talks.

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To subscribe to JTA’s Behind the News podcast, click here.

In the current issue of New Voices, the magazine written by and for Jewish college students …

A report on assertions by some students that the threat of anti-Semitism is being exaggerated by outside Jewish groups.

A look at how other ethnic groups are looking to replicate Birthright – and what the implications are for the melting pot.

An interview with Newark Mayor Cory Booker in which he talks about the future of the American city, a politics of hope and Shmuley Boteach.

The publication is also sponsoring a May 28 panel discussion titled “Jews, Blacks, and the Post-Racial Candidate.” Speakers include: Ari Berman (The Nation), Ta-Nehisi Coates (Village Voice and The Atlantic Monthly) and Sam Freedman (Professor of Journalism, Columbia University and New York Times columnist).

I have an article up about the National Jewish Democratic Council event Sunday night, during which several speakers and attendees expressed concerns about Barack Obama’s ability to hold on to Jewish voters. Even NJDC’s executive director, Iran Forman, who generally can be counted on to dismiss GOP predictions of a Jewish shift, was voicing concern about the presidential race.

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Kind of weird last Tuesday night listening to Adam Mansbach, a nice Jewish boy from Newton, MA, tell a bunch of white Jews at the San Francisco JCC he was a dope emcee who grew up listening to hip hop.

Sure, Jewish kids are fascinated by black culture, said the 32-year-old Berkeley author of “The End of the Jews,” his third novel about race, hip-hop, and alienated young Jews trying to find their place in the world. His second book, “Angry Black White Boy,” is taught in more than three dozen universities, and is in development as a feature film.

Mansbach talks fast, in a rhythmic, jazzy kind of patter that prompted one audience member to ask why he “talked black,” a suggestion Mansbach dismissed. “What does that even mean?” he asked.

“This book is about margins,” he told the crowd. “If we look at the Jewish community of the past, those artists we value most highly occupied those margins. That’s where creativity happens.”

Mansbach spoke about his own early attraction to black culture, when he’d ride the bus that brought black kids to his heavily Jewish suburban school back to their African American neighborhoods to hang out and listen to the music that meant more to him than the Hebrew school he was thrown out of. In a world where chain stores use hip-hop to sell everything from computers to running shoes, he wondered, where does one draw the line between cultural appreciation and appropriation?

Oh yeah, that scary title. Once he was at a bar mitzvah with his grandfather, a retired law professor and judge from the Bronx whom Mansbach calls “brilliant, a heavy dude.” The gentleman surveyed the scene, with the Mexican hats and the over-sized sunglasses and the cheesy games and the extravagant buffet, turned to his grandson and muttered, “it’s the end of the Jews.”

It’s not, of course. But it makes good cover copy.

An audio segment of the author in conversation with Dan Schifrin, writer-in-residence at the soon-to-open Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco, follows:

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