JustASC

Two synagogues in Bergen County, including the one a few doors up from my house, have had checks stolen, presumably from their mailboxes.

The crimes are similar to those we reported on back in November, although in that case Ramapo police made two arrests they said might lead to a “breakthrough” in a rash of such thefts that year. (The suspects were two Jewish guys from Brooklyn, sad to say.)

At various times I have written about the popularity of the term “tikkun olam” and how a totally obscure word in my youth was raised (as a synonym for “social justice”)  to a central Jewish value in the last 20 years. (See here, here and here.)

It turns out, my analysis has the added benefit of being true. Thanks to Google’s awesome “ngram” tool, which  charts the frequency of words as they have appeared in Google’s huge corpus of digitized books, you have graphic evidence of the rise and rise of tikkun olam:

The Y axis is the percentage of books the term appears in, the X axis is by year, 1800 – 2008. The term basically flatlines until the 1960s, but begins its steep climb in the 1980s, no doubt thanks to Michael Lerner having popularized the term as the name of his left-wing magazine. Not sure why its usage peaked in 2000.

By the way, the earliest usage in Google’s data base is in the 1842  ”Biographical Dictionary Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge” (Great Britain), where it appears in an entry on Rabbi Abraham Chai Orto’na, who “edited and wrote a preface to R. Solomon Ben Isaac’s commentary on Isaiah called ‘Tikkun Olam.’”

The earliest reference in which “tikkun olam” and “social justice” appear together is found in a 1970  issue of “Sh’ma,” the journal of Jewish ideas.

I know the following is part of a fund-raising appeal (by David Harris for the American Jewish Committee), which tend to be bombastic, but I still have to ask: Really?

If you’ve read my writings in the past, you know that I prefer understatement to hyperbole. That’s why this letter may alarm you: In my 20 years as AJC’s executive director, I have never seen a more dangerous time for the Jewish people. [Emphasis added.]

With a shift in global power, a rise in terrorism at our doorstep, and true existential threats to the Jewish people emerging, AJC is the one Jewish organization with the track record of impact, access and know-how to meet these most urgent challenges.

This might be true if you limit the scope to the last 20 years (although this Jew felt a lot more insecure during the First and Second Intifadas, the First Gulf War, and Saddam’s saber-rattling in the late 1990s). The case for asserting that there are “true existential threats to the Jewish people” is only as strong as the following arguments:

1/ Iran will get The Bomb, and will be happy to use it against Israel despite Israel’s own nuclear capability.

2/ Israel’s pariah status is growing, and it cannot survive without the world’s support and approval.

3/ Anti-Semitism is such a potent force that entire Jewish communities are in danger.

4/ Despite the undiscriminating global nature of jihad, Jews face a particular and more direct threat from Islamist terrorism.

There’s a grain of truth in each of these statements, but let’s consider the counter idea that the Jewish people have never been more secure. To wit:

1/ It is not clear at all how close Iran is to nuclear capability, and there is a  fairly broad coalition of countries, including Arab states, who are adamant that Iran not be allowed to go nuclear and are either overtly or quietly supportive of crippling sanctions and “all other options.”  

2/ Despite the popularity of the Boycott etc. movement on the Left, it remains a marginal movement, with little to show besides proclamations and  press clippings for its efforts. Meanwhile, Israel’s economy and international trade is robust, its aid package from its most important partner seems to be in no danger, and the American people, Israel’s most important allies, continue to show wide and deep sympathy for Israel’s cause.

Israel certainly faces harsh criticism for its occupation of the West Bank. If you are a Dove, you might be consoled by the fact that Israel has the ability, if not the political will, to change the status quo, and can choose to avoid the kinds of provocative measures sure to invite global criticism.  If you are a Hawk, you might be happily defiant that Israel refuses to cave to international pressure and continues to assert its right to defend itself from a Palestinian enemy committed to its destruction. Either way, the fate of Israelis, unlike that of so many Jews through the centuries, is in their own hands.

3/ For the first time in history, there is not a single sizable Jewish community facing repression or annihilation. Anti-Semitism is for the most part a rhetorical phenomenon, amplified by modern communications but barely registering on the lived experiences of the vast majority of the planet’s Jews.

4/ Jihadis hold a special animus for Jews, and in a number of attacks, including Mumbai, have been sure to add specific Jewish targets to their otherwise undiscriminating mayhem. And yet the world does not treat terrorism as a “Jewish problem,” but as a problem facing nearly everyone in the West, as well as non-jihadis in Muslim lands. Governments around the world are mobilized against this threat — something you couldn’t say when Jews were the special targets of, say, the Nazis or the Soviets.

Admittedly, the wild card in all this is Iran — can it make a bomb, will it use it?  I understand the impulse to imagine and expect the worst, and the need to mobilize people to action. But constant appeals to fear are easy to dismiss if they do not resonate with actual experience.

Jeffrey Goldberg isn’t the only good friend of Israel asking hard questions. Didi Remez translates a Yediot Achronot interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick, as good a friend on the Left as Israel is likely to get — and lose:

Do you see a certain change in the US Jewish community?

[Remnick:] “A new generation of Jews is growing up in the US. Their relationship with Israel is becoming less patient and more problematic. They see what has happened with the Rabbinical Letter [proscribing rental and sale of property to Arabs -- DR], for example. How long can you expect that they’ll love unconditionally the place called Israel [sic]? You’ve got a problem. You have the status of an occupier since 1967. It’s been happening for so long that even people like me, who understand  that not only one side is responsible for the conflict and that the Palestinians missed an historic opportunity for peace in 2000, can’t take it anymore.

“The US administration is trying out of good will to get a peace process moving and in return Israel lays out conditions like the release [of] Jonathan Pollard. Sorry, it can’t go on this way. The  Jewish community is not just a nice breakfast at the Regency. You think it’s bad that a US President is trying to make an effort to promote peace? That’s what’s hurting your feelings? Give me a break, you’ve got bigger problems. A shopping list in exchange for a two month moratorium on settlement construction? Jesus [sic].”

Jeffrey Goldberg’s nightmare scenario:

Let’s just say, as a hypothetical, that one day in the near future, Prime Minister Lieberman’s government (don’t laugh, it’s not funny) proposes a bill that echoes the recent call by some rabbis to discourage Jews from selling their homes to Arabs. Or let’s say that Lieberman’s government annexes swaths of the West Bank in order to take in Jewish settlements, but announces summarily that the Arabs in the annexed territory are in fact citizens of Jordan, and can vote there if they want to, but they won’t be voting in Israel. What happens then? Do the courts come to the rescue? I hope so. Do the Israeli people come to the rescue? I’m not entirely sure. There are many Israelis who value democracy, but they might not possess the strength to fight. Does American Jewry come to the rescue? Well, most of American Jewry would be so disgusted by Israel’s abandonment of democratic principles that I think the majority would simply write off Israel as a tragic, failed experiment. 

Two takes on the “it’s hard to be a Jew on Christmas” theme, from two New Jersey writers.

Deborah Goldstein of the South Orange Patch comes to terms with celebrating Christmas with her Catholic partner:

I know intellectually that adopting a few Christmas traditions does not make us any less Jewish. Clearly Santa Claus and Christmas trees didn’t make anyone else less Jewish, either. I’m feeling much more relaxed about letting Christmas into our lives. We all have such a wonderful time with Gabriella’s family, and you can’t beat a Sicilian Christmas feast. Maybe, we’ll even leave some jelly donuts out for Santa this year. But I’m keeping the cuccidati for myself!

At Tablet, poet Esther Schor of Princeton University explains how, dreading being alone on Christmas Day 2009, she instead volunteers at Elijah’s Promise, a soup kitchen in New Brunswick:

When I get home, I look up Elijah’s promise. It is not, as I’d assumed all day, a story about Jesus. It’s a promise to the starving Widow of Zarephath: “The jar of meal shall not be spent, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the land.” (I Kings 17:14) It’s a promise of bread for those with a handful of meal, and oil for those who bear an empty cruse—a promise that, when the heart is cracked and dry, the God of Israel will notice.

 

Which elicits this response from a Tablet reader, which displays the love of humanity and generosity of spirit that can only be inspired by living a religious life:

Chaim says: See במדבר כג:ט Numbers 23:9

ט) כִּי מֵרֹאשׁ צֻרִים אֶרְאֶנּוּ וּמִגְּבָעוֹת אֲשׁוּרֶנּוּ הֶן עָם לְבָדָד יִשְׁכֹּן וּבַגּוֹיִם לֹא יִתְחַשָּׁב

[For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, it is a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.]

I pity you. You do not have an existence on your own. I suppose you can get the translation in some library. I wish you many Dec/25, alone, in which you do not miss a soup-kitchen, but you miss your fellow brothers: us, Jews.

What say we all send a donation to Elijah’s Promise in Chaim’s honor? Here’s the info:

Make a contribution to Elijah’s Promise by mailing a check to 211 Livingston Ave. New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Forbes.com blogger Abigail Esman seizes on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s over-hyped list of 2010 anti-Semitic incidents to suggest that “anti-Jewish attitudes no longer represent a fringe mentality of extremists –  nor can they be simply brushed off as the ravings of little old ladies going batty.”

MJ Rosenberg does a nice job of deflating her fear-mongering:

How many Jews do any of us know who are afraid of being attacked because they are Jews here in the United States?

If Jews experienced the weeks of undiluted hate that Muslims experienced during the phony “Ground Zero mosque” controversy, we would be packing for Israel, or to whatever refuge would have us.

Back to Esman: She takes a sharp Islamophobic turn when she writes:

And the problem is also not limited to a couple of outspoken characters here and there: Anti-Semitism has been rising [f]or several years across all of Europe, mostly among the Muslim population… and a recent report from the UK shows that it’s destined to get worse. “Muslim religious schools operating in Britain are using poisonously anti-Semitic textbooks from Saudi Arabia…”

Funny thing: On the Wiesenthal Center’s list of “2010 Top Ten Anti-Semitic Slurs,” there’s not a single Islamist, and only one Arab (and he’s the deputy information minister for the Palestinian Authority, which doesn’t exactly make him a threat to the Jews of Great Neck or Squirrel Hill).

So follow her logic: Anti-Semitic attitudes cannot “simply be brushed off as the ravings of little old ladies going batty,” although “the problem is also not limited to a couple of outspoken characters here and there” (inadvertently acknowledging what she really thinks of the SWC list). No, the real problem is Muslim religious schools.

In other words, the Wiesenthal Center’s list is scary, but in focusing on “a couple of outspoken characters here and there” it misses the point, because what we should be worrying about is Muslims.

Did I mention Muslims?

Fox and Friends makes a boo-boo:

During the show’s interview with Elie Wiesel, who famously detailed his experiences at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in ‘Night,’ a caption appeared under the author’s name that seemingly conflated the details of his life.

For those who don’t know, Mr. Wiesel is both a Holocaust survivor and a Nobel Prize Winner, two descriptors that were combined into the unfortunate title of “Holocaust winner.”

Like me, sociologist Nathan Glazer is wondering if anti-Israel activity on campus is really as threatening as some Jews say it is, and just what colleges are supposed to do about it. This is from his review of a new book by Kenneth Marcus, who argues for civil rights protections for Jewish students:

If this [UC-Irvine] student’s feelings were common among Jewish students, the situation was certainly bad. But were such feelings common? Many Jewish students on campuses are not involved in the defense of Israel, and some support its critics, even its strident critics. Most students are not politically active on any campus, and the active ones have only limited effects on its atmosphere. And how hard is it to ignore whatever political activities exist, including anti-Israeli ones?

What the [Office of Civil Rights] might have recommended or required of the Irvine administration if it had agreed that such was the situation is also not clear. In some similar situations affecting black students—a denigrating picture on their door, or harassing e-mails in their computers—the heads of the affected institutions have issued strong denunciations of such actions, and held campus-wide meetings to condemn them. Should Irvine have been required to do something of the sort? [If] one finds such a situation, what is the institution to do? There is no question that Marcus has nailed the case, certainly to my satisfaction, that Jews are covered under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. What is more doubtful was whether what was happening at Irvine and at other campuses was discrimination against Jews, if simply and directly understood, and what should or could have been done about it.

Know your Jewish current events? Take our NJJN News Quiz for a chance to win absolutely nothing.

Sample question:

Q.1) Who is the president of Israel?

A. Benjamin Netanyahu

B. Ehud Barak

C. Shimon Peres

D. Barack Obama