By Mara Gay

AOL News

Z STREET, a pro-Israel non-profit corporation, filed a lawsuit in federal court today charging that the IRS violated the organization’s First Amendment rights.  The suit was filed after Z STREET [...]]]>

TorahTutors.org Introduces One-on-one, Text-Based Torah Study Tutoring Web site

Jerusalem, Israel (Vocus) August 10, 2010

TorahTutors.org (http://www.torahtutors.org/) announced today the launch of a one-on-one, text-based Torah study (http://www.torahtutors.org/) tutoring Web site. TorahTutors.org utilizes state-of-the art videoconferencing to tutor students and professionals of all ages and backgrounds in the comfort of [...]]]>

We have grown accustomed to the ravings of the Jew haters of Zion – the loony left who identify with Hamas and Hizbullah rather than their own people, the post-Zionists who seek to undo the Jewish character of Israel and the bleeding heart liberals who make excuses [...]]]> Israel, Diaspora Jews not equal partners

An Unlikely Shidduch: Korach and Haman.

Question: Who made such a match?

Answer: None other than our sages, of Blessed Memory.  Reading between the lines,  Chazal find a lot in common between these two characters.

The Connections

Most of us, if asked what “www” stands for, would respond: [...]]]> An Unlikely Shidduch?

2010/06/13 — ravron

June 9th, 2010 by Sydney Levy

What is Israel’s reaction to the growing nonviolent movement of boycott, divestment, and sanctions? Well criminalize it, of course!

We just learned new bill has been introduced in the Israeli Knesset by 25 Knesset members, that would criminalize all BDS activities or even [...]]]> Israel about to criminalize BDS

June 9th, 2010
by Sydney Levy

What is Israel’s reaction to the growing nonviolent movement of boycott, divestment, and sanctions? Well criminalize it, of course!

We just learned new bill has been introduced in the Israeli Knesset by 25 Knesset members, that would criminalize all BDS activities or even BDS advocacy inside or outside Israel. You can find info about this in English here and with more detail in Hebrew here.

The proposed bill would target those that initiate, encourage, or provide assistance or information about boycotts against Israel.

Israeli citizens or residents of Israel could be sued by whoever was harmed by the boycott and would have to pay up to 30,000 shekels in restitution and an additional amount according to the harm established by the Israeli courts.
This provision would endanger the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace, New Profile, Boycott from Within, among others.

Those that are neither citizens nor residents of Israel would lose the ability of entering Israel for at least ten years and would be forbidden from economic activity in Israel (holding an account in an Israeli bank, owning Israeli stocks, land, or any other good that requires registration.)
It is not clear whether this provision would apply also to entry into the West Bank, although Prof. Noam Chomsky’s denial of entry may be a sign of things to come.

A group in a foreign country would also be forbidden from economic activism in Israel. This would apply to the Palestinian Authority as well.
In the case of the PA, Israel would freeze transfer of money it owes and would use it to pay restitution to those harmed in Israel.

SYDNEY LEVY (San Francisco) is Jewish Voice for Peace’s Campaign Director. Together with other JVPers, he has campaigned against the use of Caterpillar bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes and in solidarity with Christian churches deliberating whether and how to divest from companies that profit from the injustices of the Israeli occupation. Sydney is the son of Egyptian Jews who immigrated to Venezuela, where he was born. Sydney lived in Jerusalem for seven years, where he received his Masters degree in Jewish History from the Hebrew University. Read his posts here.

It is surely ironic that simultaneously with the emergence of a broad consensus endorsing a centrist position and the marginalization of extremist left- and right-wing factions, a number of Israeli intellectuals – mainly writers and academics – are intensifying their [...]]]> Why some Israeli liberals lose perspective
Posted by Isi Leibler on June 17th, 2010

It is surely ironic that simultaneously with the emergence of a broad consensus endorsing a centrist position and the marginalization of extremist left- and right-wing factions, a number of Israeli intellectuals – mainly writers and academics – are intensifying their public condemnation of their country at a global level.

I am not relating to post-Zionists or demented lunatics who hate their country, but to those with a track record of genuine Zionist endeavor, national icons like Amos Oz, one of our most gifted writers, who, one assumes, loves Israel.

There was a time when Oz would resolutely refuse to condemn Israel to the global media or when he was in a foreign country. I recollect while visiting Australia 20 years ago, his response to media questioning his attitude to the Shamir government was “I am a proud Labor Zionist and while in Israel I can passionately criticize my government. But when I travel abroad, I regard myself as an ambassador for my country and leave political differences behind me.”

This contrasts starkly to the approach Oz currently adopts. With the country isolated as never before and the entire world applying double standards and pouring venom upon us, Oz, who shares the frustration of most Israelis with the botched Gaza flotilla imbroglio, contributed an op-ed to the Guardian and The New York Times which extended far beyond the issue of the flotilla. He told Americans and British readers that “power has intoxicated us,” that we are “fixated by the concept of military force” and that we abuse this power not for reasons of self-defense but to “squash ideas and smash the problems” confronting us with brute force.

In a widely circulated US blog, his daughter, Fania Oz-Salzberger, a distinguished professor of political science at the University of Haifa and Australia’s Monash University, conveyed similar sentiments. She said, “Every true Israeli patriot ought… to apologize very humbly to the dead and injured of the ‘Free Gaza Movement’ flotilla, to the Turks, to the international community. And while we are at it, also to the innocent majority of Gazans.” Her message to the international community was “your almost unanimous condemnation is spot on. As a private citizen, I join it. As a habitual Israeli patriot, I am ashamed.”

A SIMILAR article appeared in The Guardian by David Grossman, another outstanding writer, who lost a son in the IDF during the Second Lebanon war. Last week, the German Book Trade honored him with the same “peace prize” it had awarded Amos Oz in 1992. In his column, Grossman stated, “No explanation can justify or whitewash the crime that was committed” and “there are those here who seek to spin the natural and justified sense of Israeli guilt into a strident assertion that the whole world is to blame. Our shame, however, will be harder to live with.”

What impels talented people of this caliber, who consider themselves devoted to the welfare of Israel, to contribute to such self-deprecating outbursts in the foreign media at a time when the nation is united in fending off the most vicious global defamation since its birth? Indeed, aside from Haaretz, even the habitually masochistic Israeli media have been echoing the bitterness of most who feel that notwithstanding errors or operational blunders that were committed, the country is being singled out, demonized and delegitimized in an unconscionable manner.

The call for “ending the blockade” implies that a government should sit with folded arms while the Iranians flood Hamas with missiles and other weapons. Even the principal opposition party, Kadima, is calling on the government to stand firm and maintain the blockade. Could one possibly visualize any country not blockading a neighbor which openly proclaims that its primary objective is to annihilate it, rains missiles on its civilian population and abducts a soldier, boasting that it intends to launch further kidnappings? As to “ending the occupation,” we are still reeling from the fallout from our unilateral Gaza disengagement.

In fact, despite frequently being accused of heading an extreme right-wing government, Binyamin Netanyahu has been remarkably successful in achieving a national consensus. There are no fundamental ideological differences between Likud and Kadima. The truncated Labor Party is in the government and the far-left Meretz party has been reduced to an all time low of three out of 120 elected Knesset members. The bitterly hostile remarks conveyed to the foreign media by these intellectuals thus find little resonance among the public and generate much anger.

Why then, do intellectuals and writers like Amos Oz, who love Israel and have no desire to be associated with the loony anti-Israeli extremists, express such rabid criticism against their country knowing that their words will be exploited by our fiercest enemies? THE TRUTH is that being educated or intellectually gifted does not necessarily bestow political wisdom.

For example, throughout history, in antiquity, the Middle Ages and especially in modern times, the genesis of anti-Semitic movements could usually be sourced to intellectual elites rather than originating from the grass roots.

However, the prime motivating factor encouraging liberal Israeli and Diaspora intellectuals to distance themselves from Israel is a desperate passion to be recognized as rising above the parochial interests of the tribe or the nation. Since emancipation, the constant struggle for Jews was to find a balance between particularism and nationalism. Until recently, despite considerable internal opposition, Zionism was accepted as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. As long as Jews suffered and were perceived as underdogs, liberals had few inhibitions in supporting the Jewish state.

However, with the dramatic growth of postmodernism after the Cold War and the emergence of the New Left (which also impacted on Labor Zionism), many liberals began adopting a negative attitude toward all forms of nationalism, including Zionism. The combination of the suffering of the Palestinians, even if self-inflicted, the military power of Israel and the romance of the left with Islam, led to the Jewish state being portrayed as the global epicenter of evil. That was massively reinforced by the explosion of Jew hatred, in which “Zionist colonialism” assumed the role of a surrogate for traditional anti-Semitism.

Today, this has culminated with condemnation of Israel becoming a major prerequisite for being considered a liberal. Thus, many Jewish intellectuals, for whom liberalism was akin to a secular religion and who were desperate to remain within the “progressive” fold, consciously or unconsciously felt impelled to dissociate themselves from the “negative image” of the Jewish state, especially one led by a “right”-wing government.

Needless to say, many Israeli liberals with legitimate criticisms of their government manage to express their opposition without defaming the country in the foreign media or providing ammunition to the global enemies of Zion.

One can only express profound regret that the hubristic inclinations of some talented Israelis have encouraged them to employ their gifts to damn their own without regard to the consequences of their actions.

Isi Leibler can be contacted at: ileibler@netvision.net.il

This article was published in Jerusalem Post

The overwhelming majority of American Jews are saddened at the [...]]]> It’s one thing that Michael Lerner has stolen the title of “Rabbi” (which he is not). Now the pseudo-leader of the “Jewish” far-left is “protesting” on behalf of the Flotilla terrorists who were beating Israeli soldiers! The Jerusalem Post quotes Lerner as having said:

The overwhelming majority of American Jews are saddened at the killings and wounding that took place on the high seas on May 31st, and want to make clear that this kind of behavior is not a morally acceptable or politically effective way for Israel to achieve security.

Is it morally acceptable for Arab terrorists to beat Israeli soldiers over the heads with metal rods? Is it morally acceptable for a man to pose as a rabbi and defend these animals? Furthermore, Lerner has for years been promoting himself at the expense of Israel, when those of us living here are forced to deal with the reality of Arab terrorism-while he sits back, sips lemonade and pretends to be a rabbi!