JustASC

Jeff Yoskowitz is a former NJJN intern who has written for us about the “new Jewish food” movement. Now he’s involved in an enterprise called Negev Nectars, which is connecting small-scale Israeli farmers with American consumers. We exchanged e-mails earlier this week:

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I wrote earlier about the search for useful distinctions between someone “acting alone” and a terrorist. The Christian Science Monitor helps out:

In determining the true nature of the crime, the US must consider Al Qaeda’s “organized endeavor to radicalize individuals” and the extent to which Hasan had a political motive, says Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University and author of “Inside Terrorism.” (Hasan, wounded during the rampage and recuperating in the hospital, has not yet been charged.)

Terrorism is “violence designed to register some protest and/or to change the outcome of some political issue,” says Professor Hoffman. “Certainly this type of leaderless terrorism is not an organic phenomenon. Terrorist organizations are actively encouraging people – through the Internet and other means – to engage in violence of their own.”

Senator Lieberman’s Homeland Security committee has “looked closely at the role of the Internet in radicalization,” Hoffman adds.

Hoffman introduces an interesting concept: “leaderless terrorism.” That allows the terrorist label to be applied to someone who isn’t being necessarily directed, financed, or trained by a terror organization, but inspired by their “cause.”

But what if the shooter is nuts — how do we tell the difference between a pure act of political or religous murder and a crazed attack?

Hoffman, however, notes that a person’s psychological state does not necessarily dismiss terrorism as a motive in the attack.

“There is very much this gray area, but at the same time, the decision will be determined with psychological evaluations and then with how Major Hasan is charged,” he says. “I don’t see a nervous breakdown as being mutually exclusive of terrorism.

“It becomes a medical and legal issue,” he says, “not one that you can neatly demarcate in a definitional sense.”

 

Predictably enough, a certain kind of Jewish activist is eager to have the Fort Hood shootings labeled “terrorism.”

The soft, and sensible version of this impulse was expressed by Joe Lieberman:

LIEBERMAN: It’s — first, this was a terrible tragedy. Second, it’s too early — it’s premature to reach conclusions about what motivated Hasan. But it’s clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we’re receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism.

And therefore, if that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11.

But I want to say very quickly we don’t know enough to say now, but there are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act.

It’s not premature for Daniel Pipes, who identifies himself as a charter member of the “jihadi school,” who, “still in the minority, perceives Hasan’s attack as one of many Muslim efforts to vanquish infidels and impose Islamic law.” Any attempt to identify Hasan’s motives — or those of the Brooklyn Bridge shooter, or Meir Kahane’s killer, or the Beltway snipers (!) — as anything less than “Muslim-on-unbeliever violence,” Pipes rejects as ”weak, obfuscatory, and apologetic.

But we need more useful distinctions than the binary choice between “lone wolf” and “terrorist.” The label “terrorist” is only useful if it helps law enforcement identify, investigate, or prevent the clear path from an individual to a cell, network, or distinct movement of planners and funders. 

So let’s agree for argument’s sake that Hasan was on a mission to kill infidels. That’s a hate crime. But if he wasn’t directed or trained or being “run” by a larger operation (and let’s not rule out the possibility that he was), how is the terrorist tag useful? 

I’d like to hear Pipes explain why the distinction is important — it would help deflect the frequent criticism of him and his fans that they are just looking to demonize Islam.  Pipes gives a hint in his last sentence: “And thus will the army blind itself and not prepare for its next jihadi attack.” Just remind me how declaring the Ft. Hood attacks “the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11″ might prevent the next one, and the next one.

This story has got to give pause to advocates, like Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, of government funding for private, religious school education. In a nutshell, the British courts are debating whether the entrance criteria of one its publicly funded Jewish day schools are discriminatory. 

In an explosive decision, the court concluded that basing school admissions on a classic test of Judaism — whether one’s mother is Jewish — was by definition discriminatory. Whether the rationale was “benign or malignant, theological or supremacist,” the court wrote, “makes it no less and no more unlawful.”

The case rested on whether the school’s test of Jewishness was based on religion, which would be legal, or on race or ethnicity, which would not.

Fascinating sub-plots. Is matrilineal descent — the rule that says you’re Jewish by birth only if your mother is — racist? And do we want a secular court deciding either way?

The case also pits Britain’s non-Orthodox streams against the Orthodox.

The Orthodox Union blog notes how Orthodox voters went Republican around the state — calling them the “long suffering swing voters of the Jewish world, preferring to vote on issues rather than parties”:

In New Jersey, challenger, and now Governor-elect, Chris Christie won every district in Lakewood save one (h/t Lakewood Scoop). As well, while hometown pride may have given the Democratic ticket the edge in Teaneck (8,784 for Corzine-Weinberg; 3,197 to Christie-Guadagno), as it is from where the Lt. Governor nominee, Senator Loretta Weinberg hails, the heavily Orthodox areas of town gave Christie most of his votes there — some 2/3 of his township tally – totaling 2,210 votes for the winner.

From JTA:

RJC touts gubernatorial wins

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jewish Republicans are hailing Tuesday’s results in the New Jersey and Virginia governors’ elections.

“This off-year election was an indication of the ‘buyers’ remorse’ felt by independent voters who have found the ‘Hope and Change’ mantra of 2008 to be lacking,” said the Republican Jewish Coalition in a statement Wednesday after Republican Bob McDonnell defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds in Virginia and Republican Chris Christie knocked off incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine in New Jersey.

Read the RJC statement here.

UPDATE: The National Jewish Democratic Council comments on the election, focusing on the bright side:

In both Virginia and New Jersey, the selection of strong Jewish women running for statewide office was historic. Jody Wagner – a former Vice President of United Jewish Federation and President of Jewish Family Services of Tidewater who became the Commonwealth’s Treasurer and Secretary of Finance – ran a strong and inspirational campaign for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. And State Senator Loretta Weinberg was so much more than a “feisty grandmother” as she became a voice for Jewish values and economic development in her race for Lieutenant Governor in New Jersey. The Jewish community could not have asked for a stronger friend and supporter in New Jersey than Governor Jon Corzine. In Virginia, Creigh Deeds was eloquent in recognizing the importance of broadening the Commonwealth’s connection with Israel.

For NJDC, this was an election that truly energized our membership and activists around the country, but particularly in Virginia and New Jersey. NJDC launched critical new pilot programs, including the training of Jewish community campaign liaisons. Our field organizers did a remarkable job organizing community events, phone banking and canvassing of Jewish homes – which will pay key dividends as we look to the future. We look forward to continuing and building these programs in 2010.

Agudath Israel’s Josh Prusansky has an oped in the Asbury Park Press and Bergen Record today pushing state funding for private school education:

Private education in New Jersey is a more complex issue than simply favoring or opposing school vouchers. It is about the right of parents to choose where they send their children to school, and the state’s responsibility to ensure that they have equal access to education funding. Apart from school voucher programs, there are a variety of simple ways New Jersey could improve private education for more of our children.

He mentions two ways: extending federal funds allocated to state education to private schools, and a scholarship program for low-income children (corporations would get tax relief for donations they make to the scholarship funds).

In the comments section, someone using the moniker “TryAgainBubba99″ has a surprisingly articulate response:

Parents absolutely have the right to choose how their children will be educated. What they do not have is a right to taxpayer dollars to subsidize their private school choices. Nor is there an individual entitlement to the services funded via equitable participation. (Note – that’s services provided by public employees, for secular, neutral and nonreligious activities – not cash. See 1st Amendment for why.)

We (taxpayers) fund a system of public schools because we have determined that there is a common social benefit in providing this service. If you choose not to avail yourself of that service, that’s on you. Don’t reach into my pocket to fund your choice.

Tablet canvasses voters in Deal’s Syrian Jewish community, and finds voters who were willing to forgive (or ignore) Chris Christie for his role, as U.S. Attorney, in the corruption sting that bagged a number of local rabbis as well as politicians across the state:

[V]oters emerging from Deal’s public elementary school—its sole polling place, only a short drive from the synagogues whose rabbis are currently facing criminal charges—didn’t make the link at all between Christie and the arrests, and few were willing to answer any questions about ongoing repercussions of the arrests. Instead, they offered a litany of explanations for supporting Christie: healthcare reform, the economy, the Obama administration’s apparent willingness to put pressure on Israel. Some said they considered themselves open-minded when it came to partisan issues—several recalled voting for John Kennedy—but tended to side with the Republicans when it came to state and national politics. Deal’s Syrian Jewish mayor, Harry Franco, who stopped by midmorning with his wife, offered a more straightforward explanation for Christie’s popularity in Deal. “Right now I think the main issue is property taxes,” Franco explained. 

A number of local community leaders have written a dissent from my column last week on J Street.

In his Oct. 29 column (“J Street: It’s a generational thing”), Andrew Silow-Carroll posits that J Street has widespread appeal to the young generation. He says that “the debate over J Street is not just over Israel but over how to be Jewish.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The debate over J Street is entirely over Israel and over who the group purports to represent.

J Street is not representative of mainstream Jewish opinion, either in the U.S. or in Israel. In key areas it is not even in line with the administration that it so admires.

As I wrote to one of the authors, whether or not one accepts their critique, I think it is still possible to note a generational dynamic in the appeal of, and opposition to, J Street. My analysis doesn’t necessarily contradict theirs.

I attended opening night of the Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival last night. The film was “The Secret,” a 2008 film by French director Claude Miller about an assimilated French Jewish family before, during, and after the Holocaust era, and the secrets they don’t share with their haunted son. Based on a fictionalized memoir by psychiatrist Philippe Grimbert, it’s an adult, unsentimental family drama with wider meanings about memory, self-denial, and even national shame. Columbia U. film prof Annette Insdorf did a nice job of putting the film in context in her talk-back after the screening.  

You have another chance to see it on Sunday, November 8 at 1:00 p.m., at the Regal Cinema in North Brunswick. An added treat: Leading the discussion will be Annette Aronowicz, Judaic studies professor at Franklin and Marshall College and an old friend. (I used to give Annette a ride to Hebrew-language lessons when we were both living in Jerusalem. Between my driving, my crappy Fiat, and the madness of the Israeli roads, Annette was a basket case by the time we arrived at class. I didn’t learn much Hebrew, but I did learn “ATTENTION!!” [ah-ten-see-own], French for “watch out!!”)