Perhaps the winter weather is making people a little crazy or perhaps liberals, fed up with current political narrative, are just itching to remove the gloves. Whatever the reason, a willingness to venture onto Republican turf has been on the rise these past few weeks. First, there was President Obama who, in a riveting piece of political theater, took on the House Republicans during their annual retreat in Baltimore. Then, just a few days ago, Jon Stewart appeared on Fox as a guest of Bill O’Reilly.
(Can someone explain to me why he is so popular? Political views aside, he comes across as so condescending and self-righteous—why do viewers find that appealing? Or is he just that way when non-Republicans are on his show? If someone could let me know without my having to watch more of him, that would be much appreciated). Keep reading →
In a bizarre twist that defies all sense, shiksa goddess Paris Hilton is mugging for an ad for the Israeli lottery. Not much news, though it’s rumored the commercial features a girl who wins the lottery and goes on a shopping spree with Hilton.
Hilton is the girl who’s famous for being famous. And though it seems an odd choice for the Israeli lottery to pick the Barbie wannabe as a spokesperson, perhaps her “talents” for shopping and attracting attention will garner some appreciated publicity. And, with rumors that Hilton’s “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF in Dubai” TV show is on rocky ground, it seems that she needs some positive publicity as well. If anything, we give her props for chutzpah.
I always thought that musicals could save the world if only given the chance. And thanks to Ari Sandel, I see I’m not alone. In only 22 minutes and a good dose of hummus, West Bank Story (2006 Oscar winner for best short film) manages to achieve what George Mitchell has not: peace in the Middle East. In an irreverent homage to West Side Story–with nods to Fiddler on the Roof and Queer Eye–Jewish employees at the Kosher King and the Palestinian employees at the Hummus Hut— sing, dance (and snap) as they lob insults and blow up each other’s restaurants in the West Bank. Meanwhile, star-crossed lovers pine for each other. Will the love between Fatima, the comely Hummus Hut counter girl, and David, the handsome Israeli soldier, conquer all? Will Jews and Muslims move to Beverly Hills to live in peace? Grab a falafel and find out for yourself.
The next showing will be on the Sundance Channel, February 9, 11:30pm
Symi Rom-Rymer writes and blogs about Jewish and Muslim communities in the US and Europe. She has been published in JTA, The Christian Science Monitor and Jewcy.
Bard Student Sarah Stern discusses her relationship to Israel, the American Jewish community and the ever vexing chickpea quandary in the final installment of this series.
By Sarah Stern
In context of the great macaroni debate, Atallah proposes the following query to Lame, who sought the Israeli answer, “So it came back down to if you kept pushing and asking why not macaroni, why is Hamas a problem? Why is Hamas not allowed in, et cetera?” To be honest, when I was taking notes, I heard him say, “Why is hummus a problem?” Which might make sense, given the macaroni theme, and would be more palatable, given that yes, Hamas is a bit of a problem, if you ask people other than Norman Finklestein. But it is vital that Jews and Israelis recognize where the support for Hamas derives – desperation for some sort of humanitarian aid, and some banner to hold for Palestinian nationality, when the Fateh-led Palestinian authority has often been seen as corrupt and has largely failed, with some notable recent West Bank exceptions, to gain on-the-ground improvements for the Palestinian people, during all of the history of the PA. It is a desire for some hummus, to properly balance that macaroni. Keep reading →
Bard Student Sarah Stern discusses her relationship to Israel, the American Jewish community and the ever vexing chickpea quandary in part two of this series.
By Sarah Stern
To me, the American Jewish community needs to be more dysfunctional in this sense (a sense that Moment magazine employs in publishing a number of different voices), and not in the sense that I have encountered in life; where one speaks, loudly, and everyone else listens. At a Shabbat lunch over Winter Break, when I was explaining the concept behind BPYI to a father of a friend, I was asked, “Why is there no Israel Youth Initiative on campus?” I was then told to go to the West Bank armed with a gun and a copy of Dershowitz’ “the Case for Israel.”
Don’t get me wrong. There are many American Jews who don’t agree with his stance. However, I think, as Conservatives liked to say in the 60s, this is the silent majority. His kids mumbled some dissent to his face, and when he had left the house other parents all wished me luck in “Palestine,” a term that made him palpably uncomfortable when I said it, even after I corrected myself by saying “Palestine-to-be,” to which he countered, “Judea and Samaria.” There are organizations that see the danger in these people being the loudest. There are those rearing their heads like J-Street, who also keep it real, and challenge the notion that there is only one Jewish view of Israeli reality – one that monolithically supports AIPAC’s view of the conflict and Israel’s needs. Keep reading →
Bard Student Sarah Stern discusses her relationship to Israel, the American Jewish community and the ever vexing chickpea quandary
By Sarah Stern
The first substantial conversation that I had with someone from my alma-mater, the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, about my participation in the Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative (BPYI), happened in Amsterdam Falafel, in Adams Morgan. It was Thanksgiving, and after heaping hummus on to our meals, and reminiscing about our Israel trip the past semester, I couldn’t help but tell him that I was going back to the region over the summer, but this time, I was going to the West Bank.
I explained the project; a delegation of Bard students travels to my friends’ village in Mas-ha, right over the green line, split by the security barrier, and we run an intellectual summer camp for Palestinian teenagers. We employ the same educational methods used in my three-week orientation to college, a Bard staple called “Language and Thinking.” We free-write (oh, do we free write…), and we talk. We talk a lot. We encourage creative expression, rather than destructive expression, and on the side, we do community service, and take them on excursions into Israel to places like Yad Vashem and the Dead Sea, that are normally very hard to arrange. Keep reading →
President Obama’s State of the Union Address last night was a look back to the past in order to save the future. Obama began with an economic trajectory, citing the rise and fall of the capitally flush American Empire:
At the beginning of the last decade, the year 2000, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. All this was before I walked in the door. Keep reading →
Michael Kimmelman’s recent article, “When Fear Turns Graphic,” offered a peek into the process behind making political art, with the recent Swiss pro-minaret ban ads as his focal point. Unfortunately, for me, whatever insights he hoped to share were overshadowed by a surprising naïveté when addressing anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe and his condescending tone towards Americans—his readers.
First of all, Kimmelman airily dismissed concerns over Switzerland’s latent racism: “Much predictable tut-tutting ensued about Swiss xenophobia, even though surveys showed similar plebiscites would get pretty much the same results elsewhere.”
Then, he insulted our intelligence by equating the German and Muslim immigrant experience in Switzerland. “A 46-year-old German (yes, an immigrant himself in Switzerland), he is the father of two adopted children from North Africa although he declined to talk about his personal life.”
Finally, he patronized us by asserting that “it may be hard for Americans to grasp the role [political ads] can play“ in Europe. “In the subways and streets in America, billboards and posters…are basically background noise. By contrast, they’re treated more seriously here, as news, at least.” Keep reading →
As Tu B’Shivat quickly approaches, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that some settlements will remain a part of Israel. Naturally, the New York Times is covering it here. Isabel Kerschner gives the often needed backstory of which regions Israel is continuing to settle, where they’ve put building freezes, and where they are willing to negotiate.
What struck me throughout this piece was the tree imagery. Netanyahu used the upcoming, tree-hugging holiday of Tu B’shvat to reiterate Israel’s claim on the Etzion bloc of settlements south of Jerusalem. He’s even quoted discussing this during a tree-planting ceremony.
From the article: “Our message is clear,” he said during a tree-planting ceremony there. “We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here. This place will be an inseparable part of the State of Israel for eternity.” Netanyahu will also plant saplings in Maale Adumim and Ariel, other settlements that Israel will keep.
The Palestinians refuse to negotiate until all building development is frozen. The juxtaposition of building settlements and planting trees is an interesting one, and I wonder it it’s made to win the hearts of environmentalists or to prove a point to the Palestinian leadership–you can stop inorganic building, but you can’t stop the organic growth of the state.
One last tree metaphor: Netanyahu said that Palestinian leaders had “climbed up a tree” and “they like it up there.”
Perhaps that’s taking things too far…
Caroline Kessler, hailing from the not-so-charmed city of Baltimore, is an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University.
In advertising the November debate between Alan Dershowitz and Jeremy Ben-Ami, the 92nd St. Y framed it as a discussion over Israeli policy, Iran, and military vs. diplomatic strategies in the Middle East. Yet it turned out to be a debate not so much about foreign policy, as a fight for the right to represent the Jewish community. A clash between the old and the new. Who has the right to speak for American Jews? Can that right extend to more than one group? And most importantly, (at least to Dershowitz) who has earned that right?
There was, of course, the requisite tussling over J Street’s branding and each of their positions on Iran but the real flashpoint erupted around J Street’s very existence. Despite its successes in its first 18months, including being named as “in” on the Washington Post’s “What’s In and What’s Out for 2010” list, Dershowitz dismissed it is a small and unimportant organization. Instead, he magnanimously offered to fold J Street into AIPAC, thus preserving its position within and without the Jewish community. Furthermore, he made it clear that AIPAC deserves this distinction because it “has been the standard, traditional organization”—in other words, it has been around longer. Keep reading →
Perhaps the winter weather is making people a little crazy or perhaps liberals, fed up with current political narrative, are just itching to remove the gloves. Whatever the reason, a willingness to venture onto Republican turf has been on the rise these past few weeks. First, there was President Obama who, in a riveting piece of political theater, took on the House Republicans during their annual retreat in Baltimore. Then, just a few days ago, Jon Stewart appeared on Fox as a guest of Bill O’Reilly.
