JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

The mitzvah of redeeming Jewish captives

By Uriel Heilman · June 24, 2008

When it comes to making deals to return captive Israeli soldiers, dead or alive, successive Israeli prime ministers have ignored Israel's national interest and their own pronouncements to do all they could to bring Israel's missing boys home, writes Eitan Haber, a former aide to Yitzhak Rabin, in Ynet. This is not necessarily a bad thing, Haber says; it's a Jewish virtue.

1 Comment | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel |

The shark and the fish

By Uriel Heilman · June 24, 2008

When captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was 11, he wrote a story about two mortal enemies, a shark and a fish, making peace. This month, the Israeli Consulate in New York posted a video on You Tube with Bronx middle-school students reading the story. Watch the video here.

0 Comments | Share This | Israel |

BBYO to steer clear of Rubashkin’s

By Ben Harris · June 24, 2008

B'nai Brith Youth Organization will abstain from Agriprocessors meat this summer. Here's their statement:

Camp Food is No Joking Matter BBYO Teens Demand Agriprocessor-Free Camp Programs

As a result of the allegations of intolerable injustices at Agriprocessors, the largest producer of kosher meat and poultry in the U.S., BBYO takes major stand by asking its various camp partners to avoid serving Agriprocessor products, to which they comply.

Nine hundred teens participating in BBYO's summer leadership experiences at Perlman Camp, PA; Beber Camp, WI; and American Hebrew Academy, CA, over the course of this summer, will eat meals free of Agriprocessor products, showing a unified commitment to social justice and Jewish values.

Teens make concerted effort to expand summer program curricula to address the Agriprocessor issue from variety of angles, including the ritual and ethical implications of kashrut, worker's rights, immigration reform and Jewish values.

The first program will take place on Thursday, June 26, 11:45 am – 1:15 pm, when nearly 100 Jewish teens will gather at Beber Camp in Mukwonago, Wisconson (suburban Milwaukee) to make their voices heard against the intolerable injustices at Agriprocessors. Confirmed speakers include Rabbi Morris Allen, a Minneapolis-based leader of the Heksher Tzedek campaign for kosher foods to be produced ethically, who has been to Postville multiple times and will share first-hand accounts from factory workers. Lauren Shenfeld, BBYO's International Teen Co-President, will also address the group, to raise awareness among her peers and encourage action when teens return home to their local communities.

"If anyone is going to make their opinion on this problem matter to the Jewish community and communities at large, and ultimately stand up against an issue in which human rights and Jewish values are demeaned, it's BBYO teens." – Lauren Shenfeld, BBYO International Teen Co-President

"The reason this issue has struck such a deep chord with BBYO teens is because it's the story of their grandparents and great grandparents – the story of immigrating to find a better life, fighting oppression and standing up for social justice." – Marilyn Sneiderman, BBYO Deputy Director and former Director of Field Mobilization for the National AFL-CIO

94 Comments | Share This | Agriprocessors, Kashrut |

Cameras as weapons

By Uriel Heilman · June 24, 2008

After the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem handed out more than 100 cameras to Palestinians in the West Bank to document their harassment by Israelis, it didn't take long for the investment to pay off. This month, Muna Nawajaa of Khirbet Susiya recorded an attack by masked men, believed to be Israeli Jews, beating members of her family with clubs.

The video of the incident, which took place in the South Hebron hills, prompted Israeli police to take action. Three suspects from the nearby Jewish town of Susiya already have been arrested. Tuesday's New York Times carries a feature on the June 8 incident and its aftermath.

While the project, called "Shooting Back," is a good way to root out the thugs among Israeli Jews who live in the West Bank, it shouldn't be limited to the West Bank – or Israel, for that matter.

Imagine if this project were expanded throughout the Middle East. Just as Israel has taken action against this thuggish and criminal activity, authorities from Riyadh to Cairo would take action against thugs in their societies who target Arab innocents.

There's just one problem: Nobody's interested in how people in those places are beaten, murdered and maimed – and, in some cases, the persecution is carried out by their own governments. B'Tselem, or at least the United Nations, would do well to protect those innocents as well.

1 Comment | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Settlements |

Good news on coexistence

By Uriel Heilman · June 24, 2008

At a time of mostly bad news on the Arab-Jewish coexistence front, a recent Harvard University study on Arabs and Jews in Israel finds some good news to report. Among the key findings:

• 77% of Arab citizens would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world. • 68% of Jewish citizens support teaching conversational Arabic in Jewish schools to help bring Arab and Jewish citizens together. • A great majority of both Jewish citizens (73%) and Arab citizens (94%) want Israel to be a society in which Arab and Jewish citizens have mutual respect and equal opportunities. • More than two-thirds of Jewish citizens (69%) believe contributing to coexistence is a personal responsibility; a majority (58%) of Jewish citizens also support cabinet level action. • Arab citizens and Jewish citizens both underestimate their communities' liking of the "other." • Urgent action on coexistence in Israel is desired: 66% of Jewish citizens and 84% of Arab citizens believe the Israeli government investments should begin now, and not wait until the end of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

0 Comments | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel |

Imaginary independence: Spertus Museum shuts down exhibit in face of Jewish protests

By Ami Eden · June 24, 2008

Back in May, the Chicago Sun-Times had a short write-up hailing "Imaginary Coordinates," a multimedia exhibit at the Spertus Museum that "juxtaposes the [institution's] collection of antique maps of the Holy Land against contemporary artworks by Israeli- and Palestinian-born women artists riffing on what you might call cartographic themes: national identity, cultural boundaries, place and displacement."

According to the paper, the exhibit suggested a willingness by Spertus officials to "re-energize, if not radicalize, its programming in ways that may not be what many visitors expect from a Jewish institution." For example, several of the works "implicitly criticize" Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.

What some might view as artifacts of Israeli triumphalism – a 1970 Hanukkah lamp studded with bullet casings, a recent official publication extolling the security wall's effectiveness in reducing terrorist attacks – bounce off homey folk embroidery by Palestinian women.

Then there are several works by female Israeli artists that are no less politically fraught. The most harrowing of these is Sigalit Landau's "Barbed Hula" (2001), a video loop in which the artist, stark naked on a beach in Tel Aviv, shimmies inside a hula hoop made of barbed wire. The barbs on the hoop, like those on the razor wire atop a certain wall, point outward. But the growing welts on the artist's skin are dire enough to make her point about the collateral, self-inflicted wounds that can result from the pursuit of security.

To hammer home the point, the paper cited a catalog essay, by Rhoda Rosen, the director of the museum, in which she said that Spertus is moving "from the parochial toward the civic," adding that "while the new Spertus' starting point continues to be Jewish experience, the institution does not operate from a partisan point of view." There will be times, she added, that "broadly accepted Jewish assumptions will be examined and cherished, and at others they will be examined and questioned."

All this under the headline: "In 'Imaginary Coordinates,' Spertus maps its independence."

As it turns out, it wasn't the coordinates that were imaginary.

The Chicago Tribune published a front-page story on Saturday announcing that, in the face of anger from Jewish supporters, the museum had pulled the plug on the exhibit.

Under intense pressure from angry Jewish patrons, the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies on Friday abruptly closed the controversial "Imaginary Coordinates" exhibition, which explored Israeli and Palestinian concepts of homeland and how that is defined both historically and in the present day.

Critics charged that the combination of historical Holy Land maps and contemporary artwork cast Israel in a negative light.

"Aspects of it were clearly anti-Israel," said Steven Nasatir, president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. "I was very surprised that a Jewish institution would put forward this exhibition. I was surprised and saddened by it."

As for the museum's president:

Spertus President Howard Sulkin expressed regret that the exhibition caused pain for its core constituents. But he said the concept behind it fit with the evolving mission of the museum.

"A willingness to experiment is incorporated right into our core principles, and we see one of our roles as being a place that inspires dialogue on the critical issues of our time," Sulkin said Friday.

On Tuesday the Tribune published an opinion piece by Patty Gerstenblith, a professor at the DePaul University College of Law and director of the Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law, criticizing the museum's decision. She lamented that sometimes "donors wield more influence over museum exhibits than the museum's professional staff and that controversial topics cannot be raised because of objections from a local community."

Her conclusion:

The Chicago community and its Jewish community, in particular, have been denied an opportunity to explore the mental state that underlies the conflicts of the Middle East, while the vital role of museums as independent entities has been undermined.

P.S. The exhibit might be closed, but – as of Tuesday morning – the initial news item praising the exhibit and the museum's independent streak is still posted on the museum's Web site.

4 Comments | Share This | Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Museums |