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By Ami Eden · March 21, 2008

Jewschool's Ben Dreyfus posits that Haftarat Zachor + Megillat Esther = The Lord of the Rings (and wonders which is totally plagiarized).

What, if anything, does it mean that the comic book industry was so heavily populated by Jews (and, while the Forward is on the topic, Mister E lights the menorah).

With the NCAA tournament underway, ESPN takes a look at Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl. Jewish federation leaders know him as Mordechai Shmuel.

Help wanted: Cute kid to be Jewish secret agent and a Jewish family willing to swap its mother.

Natalie Portman loses her Hasidic co-star.

With help from JTA digital master Daniel Sieradski and a big hat tip to Daniel Treiman.

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Debating campus strategy

By Ami Eden · March 21, 2008

Ben Harris reported earlier this week on Hillel's upcoming conference and the related debate over how to deal with anti-Israel activities on campus. In a related exchange...

The ZOA's president, Morton Klein, has posted an opinion piece criticizing the Harvard Hillel for hosting an exhibition of photographs and testimony by Israeli soldiers who served in the Palestinian territories:

If an exhibit about Babe Ruth's baseball career showed only his 100 worst games, one would be led to believe – erroneously – that Ruth was an awful player. The same is true with Harvard Hillel's exhibit, showcasing a fraction of Israelis' conduct not remotely reflecting their typical behavior.

Indeed, the exhibit promotes an anti-Israel lie. Human rights activist Natan Sharansky praised "Israel's willingness to endanger the lives of its own soldiers in order to save the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinian civilians." Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz proclaimed, "No country in history ever complied with a higher standard of human rights."

There is nothing about the Harvard Hillel exhibit that would bring Jewish students closer to their heritage or cultivate their love and advocacy for Israel – goals that Hillel says it is dedicated to achieving. The exhibit could cause students to disassociate from their heritage, and feel shame or disgust about Israel, which is unwarranted and disastrous for our Jewish future.

The president of Harvard Hillel issued an open letter in response:

I write to clarify our situation because your press release and letters of condemnation do not in any way reflect the reality of Harvard Hillel or the Harvard campus. In fact, what you have said and not said is confusing and damaging. For instance, much of your condemnation confuses International Hillel and Harvard Hillel. International Hillel is not responsible for programming at Harvard Hillel. Why do you attack them page after page? And why do your attributions of blame to them apply to us in this situation?

Truth from a skyscraper in New York City looks different than on the ground of a campus in Cambridge. Every campus and every Hillel has its own unique culture. ...

Harvard Hillel neither sponsors nor supports "Breaking the Silence". We have indeed provided a venue for the exhibit. We have provided space in response to the request of two important student groups. Both groups are explicitly Zionist, although each group has a different function and self-understanding. The Harvard Students for Israel, our Israel advocacy group, one of the largest in the country, requested after consulting with the Progressive Jewish Alliance, a sponsor of the exhibit, to move "Breaking the Silence" from a prominent location on campus into the Hillel building. Their concerns were serious. First, they felt that the exhibit needed to be housed where it could be thoroughly and responsibly contextualized – not open to an ongoing heavy flow of traffic with little written or oral explanation. Second, they wanted to ensure that the exhibit not function as a discrete free-standing program but be a component of a larger educational program that could provide alternative perspectives, including a critique of the exhibit. Third, they wanted to avoid ugly, divisive, public displays that, while a delight to the media and outsiders, would be destructive to the Harvard Jewish community and to the reputation of Israel.

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O.U. explains why its failure to vote against two-state resolution was kosher

By Ami Eden · March 21, 2008

The Orthodox Union's man in Washington, Nathan Diament, explains in the Jewish Press why the organization decided not to oppose a resolution at the JCPA Plenum backing a two-state solution, even though the O.U. has been raising serious concerns regarding negotiations with the Palestinians:

The OU delegation succeeded in having this resolution call on American Jewry to "support the Government of Israel's insistence that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a Jewish State." We also succeeded in defeating an amendment by the Reform movement's delegation to call on American Jewry to view Israeli settlements as "impediments to peace" with the Palestinians.

The OU delegation failed to block the resolution's call for American Jewry to support an Israeli government's willingness to make concessions on Jerusalem and, as has been widely reported, we failed to remove the resolution's call for American Jewry to support the "two state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The OU delegation was able to insert into this latter portion of the resolution a statement that recognizes that Israel's offers to engage in peaceful negotiations with the Palestinians has "been met, time after time, by violence, incitement and terror." In a nightmarish turn of events, this statement would be fulfilled once again in Jerusalem ten days later in the murderous attack at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav.

(Deeply disturbing as well is that even had this tragic event occurred prior to the debate at JCPA over this resolution, it is likely that the call for support of the "two state solution" would have still been adopted. The majority of American Jewish organizations and their representatives automatically support the policies of the Israeli government – which remains, at least theoretically, committed to the "two state solution," even in the face of such heinous attacks.)

When the resolution came to a final vote containing the mixed set of results listed above, the OU delegation abstained from voting yea or nay, but announced that, in keeping with JCPA procedure, the OU would file a dissent from the portions of the resolution with which we disagree.

The rationale for this action is that it does not put the OU in the position of voting against the provisions of the resolution we support, yet permits the OU to explicitly differ with those we object to, such as the call for American support for the "two state solution."

It's perhaps obvious but worth noting that if the O.U. was willing to risk drawing more attention to it's handling of the resolution, than it must have already been feeling some heat from its constituents. Here is the O.U.'s dissenting statement.