In My Name

Last night I watched the play "In My Name" at the Trafalgar Studios theatre in London. I didn't know what to expect as I bought a last-minute ticket in Leicester Square. I came out after one and a half hours with mixed feelings.

The play is set in a dirty and untidy flat (appropriately referred to as "shit hole" throughout the play), shared by two young and unmarried youngsters in London, on the day of the terrorist attacks on the London Underground and bus - July 7, 2005. Outside, the city is in turmoil, but inside the flat Grim is more concerned with his personal life: his girlfriend left him, he slept with a colleague from work the night before and she also disappeared, his phone doesn't work, there is no hot water, etc. His new flatmate, Egg, only adds to his troubles as he is mostly silent and keeps hearing these voices speaking in Arabic. He condemns Grim from his lifestyle and self-centred approach to life. Then an acquaintance from Grim's workplace, Royal, pops in for an announced visit. The tension between Egg and Royal only add to the general tension in the room. Grim and Royal order an Indian takeaway and the man who delivers the food completes the cast.

The play starts off with a comic note (and tons of foul language) but very quickly this things turn into a nightmare. Egg is actually an ex-soldier who was involved in the rape of an 11-year-old girl when on duty. Images from this event haunt him. He takes the Indian food delivery man as hostage because he suspects he is a terrorist, and forces Grim and Royal to tie him up. He preaches to them about duty to the country and Britishness and constantly points to the Union Jack flag hanging on the wall. He demands them to set a clear line between "us" and "them", especially in light of what is happening outside. He produces a gun and leaves the flat to take care of the landlord, Mohamed, who lives upstairs. Upon his return, he finds out that the prisoner was let free and breaks down. Grim calms him down and Egg's past comes flooding out. The play ends in a tragedy which I won't disclose here.

The acting was superb. The four young actors did an excellent job in a very small theatre (less than 100 seats, arranged in a semi-circle around the "stage"), and I found myself gripped by their emotions throughout the second half of the play. So why mixed feelings? Because of the obvious message of self-blame conveyed by the story. The focus is not on the terrorists, and that's understandable. But the play conveys that general "European attitude", if I may it call it so, of "we are to blame for everything". It is not the terrorists who blew up innocent people on the streets of London who are to blame, but the right-wing fanatic ex-soldier who sees everything in black and white and raped a muslim girl. Perhaps I'm reading too much into the message of this play, but I did come out of the theatre with an uneasy feeling.

No Time

Someone needs to find a way to add hours to the day. Let's start modestly, by making it a 25-hour day instead of 24. I feel like I have time for nothing.

I wanted to write about a long weekend I spent in Prague. And about my first visit to India, a whirlwind tour of Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai. And about my impressions of Beijing on the eve of the Olympics. And also about a couple of good books I read recently. I keep running these posts through my mind, but I simply cannot find the time to sit down and write them.

I'm going to Rome on holiday for a few days. Hopefully, I'll have time there to do some catching up. Maybe.

Atonement, by Ian McEwan

Let's not beat around the bush. If I were ever asked to make a list of the ten worst books I've ever read, Atonement would be on that list. And pretty high up.

I read Saturday by Ian McEwan a few months ago; picked it up at an airport. I liked it. So when I saw the movie Atonement was playing on several of the flights I was recently on, I decided to get the book first, before watching the movie. What a mistake.

The plot of this book is superficial, not to say cheesy (a girl falsely accuses her sister's boyfriend for raping her cousin, and a long journey of "atonement" begins). McEwan's talent for descriptive writing is lost in tediously long passages that made me flip back a few pages just to remember where the story was left off. I found myself not caring what would happen next, but calculating how many pages I have left. The book took me ages to read; time and again I found myself yawning after a few pages, then dozing off into blissful sleep.

Why waste words on such a terrible book. I have no idea why it became a bestseller and what all the hype is about. On a recent trip to London I bought On Chesil Beach, so I'm going to give McEwan another chance. Hopefully Atonement is nothing but an aberration.

I should have known though... Through the book cover (I got the mass paperback version, depicted above) I learnt that the main character in the book - that annoying, whining, wish-I-could-smack-her, spoilt brat - Briony, is played by Keira Knightley, one of the worst actresses recently seen on the big screen. On second thoughts, what a fitting choice...

22,000 - Here and There

A few minutes ago, a one-minute siren marked the beginning of Rememberance Day in Israel, the day on which the country remembers and honours the soldiers and civilians that died in the wars and terror attacks.

After the siren, I sat down and checked the front page of Haaretz's website, to catch up with today's news. The headline was obviously about Rememberance Day. The official death toll is now at 22,437. The next item was about the cyclone that hit Myanmar (Burma), where the current death toll from this natural disaster is estimated at 22,500.

This uncanny coincidence sent a shiver down my back, as it brought into painful proportion the extent of the tragedy in Myanmar. How many of us spared a thought today about the hundreds of thousands poor souls on the other side of our planet?

There's a saying in Hebrew: "far from the eye, far from the heart" (I guess the English equivalent is "out of sight, out of mind"). How true.

Tearing Israeli Society Apart

The prophet Yishayahu (Isaiah) famously prophesised that the destroyers and ruiners of Israel will come from within it. The decision of the Beth Din HaGadol (the high rabbinical court in Jerusalem) to annul the conversion to Judaism (giyur) of thousands of people seems to be an example of this prophecy coming true in our times.

A short background. In the early 1990s, more than one million Jews from ex-USSR immigrated to Israel. By many measures, this aliyah was one of the greatest things that happend to this country. The absorption of most of these olim into Israeli society is one of the underrated successes of Israel's young history as a nation-state. However, not all is positive. For reasons I will not go into here, many of of these immigrants (some say a third, perhaps even more) are not Jews according to Jewish law (halachah). A commendable initiative by the government set up tackle this issue by founding a special conversion administration to convert those who wished to integrate fully into Jewish society. This special beth din, headed by rabbi Haim Drukman, has converted thousands of people to date, many of them young men and women during their military service.

Israel has enough social problems and it cannot afford to keep a sizable part of its population in limbo, as "quasi-Jews". As has happened several times in Jewish history, Israel embraced a lenient approach to conversion in order to accept these Israelis as full Jews, while at the same time keeping the requirements of halachah in the process. This was the right solution at the right time.

Now comes the high rabbinical court and, while ratifying a decree by a district rabbinical court in Ashdod last year, concludes that ALL conversions done by rabbi Drukman's beth din since 1999 are void. No less. Tousands of families in Israel who underwent the arduous process of giyur willingly, are suddenly "not Jewish" according to these rabbinical judges.

As was correctly pointed out by other rabbis (example) the halachah explicitly states that, regardless of what a person does after he has completed his conversion, "once a Jew always a Jew". A conversion cannot be reversed, even if the person suddenly starts worshipping Buddha, let alone if he merely does not follow mitzvot as stringently as the rabbis would like him to. The Jerusalem rabbis may dislike the government's initiative and rabbi Drukman's work (for reasons we shall conveniently ignore for now), but they cannot nullify a giyur once it has been completed by an authorised orthodox beth din.

Even if we ignore the direct halachic ramifications of their act, these rabbis are committing what is in my view a terrible mistake. They take people who have joined our country (never mind for what reason) and then chose to remain here as law-abiding citizens, integrating into Israeli-Jewish society and accepting full responsibilities - including serving in the military, which these very same rabbis refuse to do! - and purport to tear them apart from the "real Jews". This is unforgivable and I can only attribute it to the short-sighted, cowardly approach of ultra-orthodox Judaism in recent decades.

I hope that the religious and non-religious outcry against this decree will reverse the situation quickly, or else the words of the prophet will come true.

Avi Ravitzky Released from Hospital

Happy news for Purim. Prof. Avi Ravitzky was released from hospital today, a year and a half after being hit by a bus in Jerusalem. His recovery is said to be somewhat of a miracle, given the extent of the injury to his head. I wish him a speedy recovery and a return to as normal a life as possible.

Zachor - Remembering Amalek

זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק, בדרך בצאתכם ממצרים. אשר קרך בדרך, ויזנב בך כל הנחשלים אחריך, ואתה עיף ויגע; ולא ירא אלהים. והיה בהניח יהוה אלהיך לך מכל איביך מסביב, בארץ אשר יהוה אלהיך נתן לך נחלה לרשתה, תמחה את זכר עמלק מתחת השמים; לא תשכח.

(דברים כ"ה, י"ז-י"ט)

This is shabbat Zachor, the shabbat before Purim, when we read the portion of the Torah reminding us of Amalek:

Remember what Amalek did to you by the way as you came out of Egypt. How he met you by the way, and smote the hindmost of you, all that were enfeebled in your rear, when you were faint and weary; and he feared not God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land which the Lord your God gave you for an inheritance to possess it, that you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.

(Devarim 25, 17-19)

Like the proverbial elephant, the Jews are a people who do a lot of remembering, and forget (almost) nothing. Every shabbat meal we remember the Creation and the deliverance from Egypt; our holidays are there to remember events from the past; every day we remember our destroyed Temple and pray for it to be rebuilt; our garments act as reminders: the tzitzit reminds us of the 613 commandments; and nature itself performs the same function, as by witnessing a rainbow we remember the divine promise of never again flooding the earth. And yet the commandment to remember Amalek is puzzling. Why Amalek out of all the wars and people that tried to destroy us? Why this particular event?

Rashi's commentary on the story of Amalek in Shemot quotes a parable. A king took his young son upon his shoulders and embarked on a journey. Several times along the way, the son would see an object he fancied and ask his father to pick it up for him, and the father did. After a while, they came upon a stranger and the son asked him: have you seen my father? The father, angry at the son for forgetting who was carrying him and doing all the picking-up for him, let the son off his shoulders. A dog that came along bit the son.

The moral is obvious: Israel forgot God despite all the great things that He did for them and as a result God withdrew His protection for a while and Amalek came along and "bit" Israel. Remembering God when everything is fine is not difficult. Miracles in Egypt, parting of the Dead Sea, food falling from the sky every day; who can forget God when His good acts are so obvious? Yet at the first sign of difficulties in the desert, Israel starts to forget. It's harder to believe in God when things go wrong. Many of us have this notion of a benevolent God sitting in the sky and watching over us, a grandfatherly figure with a long, white beard that protects us from evil. So when evil strikes, we are surprised. We rebel against God and our belief is shaken. We cannot bridge the gap between our expectations of Him and the bad things that happen to us.

The remembering of Amalek is there to teach us that this is a mistaken view of the belief in God. We cannot begin to understand His ways in the world and why bad things happen to good people. We refuse to accept that God does evil (or, more accurately, what we perceive as evil) depite the fact that the prophets told us explicitly this is what He does: "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil; I am the Lord that does all these things" (Yishayahu 45, 7). So when evil happens, we "forget" about God and ask: have you seen my Father? Sometimes, as happened with Amalek, God teaches us a lesson, a hard lesson. It is not the lesson that we are remembering with Zachor; it is the belief in God that we remember. Amalek's "bite" was a wake-up call to remind us that we should not waver in our belief in God, even in the face of harsh realities.

The commandment to remember Amalek can teach us also to beware of absolute truths when coming from the mouths of those that purport to know the link between God's ways and His reasons. All too easily, these people proclaim that "this was the will of God because...". A train hits a bus and children are killed? It was God's will because we don't check our mezuzot. An earthquake strikes? It's because there are homosexuals among us. The government declares its intention to evacuate the Gaza strip from Jews? This will not happen (hayo lo tihyeh, remember?), as it is not the will of God.

The story of Amalek teaches us that we cannot base our belief in God by imposing conditions: if we do X, then God will do Y, and vice versa. Israel made the mistake of asking "have you seen my Father" at the first sign of hardship. We should learn from that and instead of trying God, we should remember and pray for our belief in God to be absolute, regardless of His deeds in the world.

Why the Wife?

I watched a few seconds of the press conference at which Eliot Spitzer resigned. There's something I don't understand: why was his wife there, besides him? Given the circumstances, wouldn't she have preferred to stay home? What is it with politicians insisting that their wives be there in this moment of public humiliation? After all, it's not like there are any doubts and she's standing there to show support for some baseless accusations, right? I can't figure it out.

German at the Knesset

German chancellor Angela Merkel is going to address the Knesset tomorrow, during her visit to Israel. After a loud and public debate, the Knesset House Committee approved today that she can give her speech in German.

More than sixty years after the end of the Second World War, this is still a very touchy subject in Israel. Many people still shun anything that has to do with Germany: they don't buy German products, they don't travel to Germany and they look with disfavour at any rapprochement between Israel and Germany. I have a lot of sympathy and understanding for this position. However, I believe that if the Israeli parliament invited Ms. Merkel to speak, she should be allowed to speak in her own language (arguing that she is technically not a "head of state" and therefore the Knesset by-laws do not apply to her is a disingenuous argument, to say the least).

Modern-day Germany in general, and Ms. Merkel in particular, are supporters of Israel. As Israel's former ambassador to Germany recently pointed out, no other country in the world has gone to such lengths to erect museums and monuments to commemorate atrocious deeds from its history. Germans of my generation are not only ashamed about what their grandparents' generation did, but more importantly, they are educated and knowledgeable about it. Not forgetting the past is the best mechanism we have (although not a guarantee) that similar horrors will not be repeated in the future. Israel should be careful about stepping over that fine and ambiguous line separating rememberance and alienation.

This is not an easy path. I can speak about my own experience. Although my family was not harmed directly by the Holocaust, I still have mixed feelings when I'm in Germany (I used to manag an office in Munich with German employees and I still visit customers there). These feelings often lead to emotional rather than rational thoughts: the announcements in the train stations will suddenly bring up images of other commands being shouted out at rail stations; when speaking with a German I might wonder what his granfather did during the war; and the sight of a motorcycle-riding policeman in uniform, leather boots and all, sometimes sends a shiver down my back.

And yet, when all is said and done, Germany today is a beautiful country with beautiful people. The German they speak was the language spoken by the Nazis but also the language spoken by the Jews. As difficult as it is, one needs to realise this is a complex issue that should be handled with care, and not painted in bold black-and-white strokes.

How (Not) to Become a Cambridge PhD

Yonathan Mendel wrote an article for the latest issue of The London Review of Books on "How to Become an Israeli Journalist". Mendel used to be the Middle East correspondent for Walla (a news website in Israel), but is now pursuing studies at Cambridge (he received a scholarship, along with several other Israeli journalists). By the way, when writing for Walla, Mendel went by the popular shortened version of his name: Yoni; I guess that when you write for the LRB, and definitely when you're a student at Cambridge, using your full name is more appropriately decorous.

Anyway, let's have a look at some of the pearls of wisdom (presented as "truths") offered by Mendel to budding journalists in Israel:

Why is it that a serious article is reporting a claim made by the Palestinians? Why is there so rarely a name, a desk, an organisation or a source of this information? Could it be because that would make it seem more reliable?

I listen regularly to the news on the BBC World Service (1323AM in Israel). When the BBC reports about something happening in my neck of the woods, the report usually ends with: "Israel claims it was only responding to missiles fired from Gaza" or "Israel refuses to disclose details of its military operation". Does that make the BBC unreliable too? What does Mendel expect the article to say: "Ahmed the Dead Terrorist confirmed that it was he that blew himself up in the latest suicide attack?". Would that make the journalist more reliable?

Israel never kidnaps: it arrests.

(This was made in reference to Israel arresting senior Hamas members in response to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit). Well, guess what: there is a difference. A huge one. When Israel arrests/kidnaps people, it is people who have done something to deserve being kidnapped in the first place. Israel also tells the world who sits in its jails, allows the Red Cross to visit and explains why the arrest took place. Those nice people from Hamas and Hezbollah kidnap at random and then torture the family and the Israeli public by withholding the most basic information about the victim (for example, whehter he's still alive).

The Israeli army never intentionally kills anyone, let alone murders them – a state of affairs any other armed organisation would be envious of.

Indeed, many armed forces around the world can be envious of the painstaking process which the IDF (and the Israeli government) go through before ordering targeted assassinations. The difference is so obvious it embarrasses me to repeat it here (but I do it for those budding journalists): the IDF targets terrorists and occasionally hits innocent bystanders; the Palestinian terrorists intentionally target innocent bystanders.

Another useful word is crowning (keter), a euphemism for a siege in which anyone who leaves his house risks being shot at.

Hmmm... A scholarship to study at Cambridge? The word keter in Hebrew has more than one meaning, Mr. Mendel. One is, indeed, a crown. But another is "to surround" or "to enclose". I wonder how this one slipped past the LRB's editor.

It was curious to watch the newspapers’ responses to the assassination of Imad Moughniyeh in Syria two weeks ago. Everyone tried to outdo everyone else over what to call him: arch-terrorist, master terrorist or the greatest terrorist on earth. It took the Israeli press a few days to stop celebrating Moughniyeh’s assassins and start doing what it should have done in the first place: ask questions about the consequences of the killing.

First, Moughniyeh was an arch-terrorist. As arch as they come. But are Mendi and I following the same Israeli media? The very first news report I heard about the welcome death of Hezbollah's operations chief was immediately followed by a long analysis by a panel of experts about "what next?" and what price Israel will pay for this assassination. Perhaps Mendel suffers from "selective reading" disease? It would not surprise me, as this is a malady many editorialising Israeli journalists suffer from.

And then there are the Occupied Territories themselves. Remarkably, there are no Occupied Territories in Israel... in Israel’s mass media today they’re called the Territories (Ha-Shtachim).

Well, duh! After all, the entire State of Israel sits on "occupied territories" taken from Palestinians (or Syrians) in 1948 and 1967. To be precise, the West Bank and Gaza are not part of the State of Israel and are therefore hardly "occupied". Gaza certainly isn't, not for more than two years now. If anything, Israel proper and the Golan are the classic "occupied territories". Yet somehow I don't see Mendel calling Tel Aviv "occupied territory"; we wouldn't want to let go of all those wonderful coffee places and bars, would we? By the way, I wonder how the Palestinian and Syrian media refer to to Israel.

I could go on, but the point is clear. Mendel's area of study at Cambridge is apparently about the connection between Arabic language and security in Israel. That certainly explains his interest in the subject and his bias towards finding faults everywhere. Fair enough. He would not be the first pseudo-academic to become so obsessed with his field of study as to come up with the silliest ideas (this week's undisputed winner of the title "academic gone silly" is Prof. Shanon from the Hebrew University, but I digress). But what on earth does all this have to do with "how to become an Israeli journalist"?

Clear Air and Plagiarism

I heard on the news this morning that the family of Naomi Shemer, perhaps Israel's most famous song writer, is threatening to sue the city of Tel Aviv for using four words from the song "Jerusalem of Gold" in an ad campaign.

Tel Aviv, among other cities, signed an ecological treaty, and street ads all over the city carry the words avir arim tsalul ka-yayin - "city air as clear as wine". One changed letter in Hebrew paraphrases the opening line from Shemer's song: "mountain air as clear as wine". The family claims this play on words violates copyrights. (For those who don't know, "Jerusalem of Gold" is practically Israel's non-official national anthem; almost every Jewish child around the world will recognize this song instantly.)

I had to smile. A couple of years ago it became known that Shemer confessed, in a letter, that the melody to "Jerusalem of Gold" is based on an old Basque folk song called "Pello Joxepe" that she heard a friend sing. Shemer says this was done inadvertently and the Basque song must have "subconciously" influenced her. Perhaps. But if you listen to the original song, as performed by Paco Ibanez, the similarity is glaringly obvious.

If I were the family of Naomi Shemer I would have been a little more humble and cautious before crying out plagiarism over this particular song...

Built to Sell

I don't usually write about business on my blog. I spend way too much time working, so blogging about work seems a foolish thing to do. But I felt like the following picture, appearing in The Marker this week, deserved a comment:

The background: an young Israeli start-up company, YaData, was acquired by Microsoft. Although the exact amount was not disclosed, it was quoted as being a "very nice rate of return on the investment", which probably means tens of millions of dollars. This is yet another Israeli high-tech success story, a good example of the engine driving Israeli economy and helping it attain a GDP per capita that surpasses that of most European countries. Kudos to the entrepreneurs and the investors behind the company.

But the "SOLD" message (with those big grins) in the picture above is annoying. There are far too many "entrepreneurs" that set up new companies with an explicit, typically lightning-speed, exit strategy. There are not enough entrepreneurs that have a vision to build a company over a long period of time, going through the hard work of creating an Israeli "Nokia". The challenges are huge, given the particular circumstances of Israel, but it can be done, as Teva, Amdocs and others have shown. The "SOLD" mentality is definitely great for the bank accounts of those smiling entrepreneurs, but I'm not sure it is good for Israeli economy as a whole.

Equality Before the Law

Haaretz today tells the story of Natasha Erdman.

Briefly, this 32-year-old scientist postponed her military service when she was 18 to acquire a BSc (in the IDF's "atuda" programme). Upon graduation from the Technion, she applied and received a scholarship from Northwestern University in the US. The army refused to postpone her service further, so she made a false request to visit a relative in the US, and never came back. She is now, according to the article, a successful and "desirable" PhD in her field. Now she wants to come back to Israel, to be near her parents, and is asking the army to promise she won't be sent to jail (she's still considered a deserter).

Erdman decided to pursue her personal professional goals and abuse the agreement she had with the army. She did so knowingly - after all, she had to apply to Northwestern - and as an adult (she was about 22 years old at the time). Fair enough, that was her choice. But now that it's no longer convenient for her elderly parents to come visit her in the US, she's asking the army to forgive her and not pay the price for her decision.

Erdman has some chutzpah but that is not surprising. This is not the first case of somebody spitting into the well that one day he or she might need to drink from. What really annoys me is the tone of Haaretz. Not a newspaper to miss a chance to laud the principle of equality before the law, this article smacks of sympathy towards Erdman and contempt towards the IDF's position. Why should Erdman be above the law? Shame on Haaretz for so easily shedding its highbrowed principles to support a pseudo-liberal and annoyingly self-serving cause.

The Dumbing of America

American author Susan Jacoby wrote an excellent article that appeared in yesterday's issue of The Washington Post. Bottom line: "Americans are in serious intellectual trouble". She quotes three main reasons for this trouble: the decline in reading (taken over by the "video culture"); the erosion of general knowledge; and the fact that many Americans are actually proud of their ignorance (a form of "anti-rationalism").

Not that we needed Ms. Jacoby to know this about America, but she did a good job summarising the pain points. Perhaps Obama, Clinton and McCain will start their promised era of "change" by devoting some attention to the dumbing of their constituents?

Which reminds me. My wife is worried about Obama's lead in the Democratic primaries. I told her I'm not so worried, as I believe that in a McCain-Obama face-off, the difference between the candidates will be so blatantly obvious that Americans will surely be smart enough to make the right choice. Now, after having read Jacoby, perhaps I should be more worried...

Barack "Small Shore" Obama

We've all heard about Barack Obama. But did you hear about Obama, Japan?

One line in the article caught my eye:

"At first we were more low-key as Hillary Clinton looked to be ahead, but now we see he is getting more popular," Obama Mayor Toshio Murakami said.

In this short sentence lies evidence of a typical Japanese trait: going with the winner. The Japanese respect power (as the events of August 6, 1945 have shown) and will in most cases partner with the winner. Moral and ethical considerations, let alone political ones, take second place to making sure the strong guy in the neighbourhood is on "our side". I believe this is the main reason behind Japan's gradual rapprochement with China: to make sure the Land of the Rising Sun stays close to the emerging regional (and potentially global) superpower.

Extreme Ironing

Confession: I like to iron. I don't do it very often, but when I do engage in it, I find it exercises a kind of calm on me that comes, I guess, from going through the same dull motions over and over again.

So I was glad to come across an article in Reshimot about an activity unbeknown to me, called Extreme Ironing. Apparently, this "sport" is quite popular in some circles. Not surprisingly, the Japanese are avid practitioners and have achieved some rather spectacular feats - see here.

I will never see ironing the same way. And I will certainly never again refer to it as a dull activity.

Constantine's Sword, by James Carroll

Contantine the Great was the Roman emperor that embraced Christianity in the 4th century and gave this religion the necessary means to propagate itself throughout the Roman Empire and become, over time, the world's largest religion. The story goes, that on the eve of the crucial Milvian Bridge battle of Rome in 312, Constantine saw a vision of a cross in the night sky with the words In Hoc Signo Vinces ("with this sign you shall win") across it. He pledged that if he would be victorious, he would embrace Christianity. Thus, "Constantine's Sword" became a symbol of the power of the cross combined with the sword, the power of the Christian Church.

James Carroll used to be a Catholic priest, and nowadays he's a writer-historian with a mission in life: to reform the Catholic Church. For Carroll, the fundamental flaw and central issue in the church's thinking since its inception, the "defining sin" if you like, is the church's attitude towards Jews. In this book, Carroll describes almost 2,000 years of how the church thought, preached and acted towards Jews. It is an extended version of J'accuse, an indicting statement against the Catholic chruch through the ages. What Carroll tries to show is that an alternative path could have been chosen by the church's leaders at various points in this bloody and murderous journey, a path that would have defined the Christian-Jewish debate in completely different terms.

Carroll strips traditional Christian beliefs apart, showing how they were formed and why they are flawed. He does so by starting the obvious: Jesus lived and died as Jew, wanting to renew and reform his fellow Jews. It was only much later, within the context of the debate between his followers and the Jewish majority and in response to the persecution by the Roman emperors, that the concept of the "other" was formed and a line separating the two religions began to form. He does so also by unravelling the political and economic factors hiding behind the church's leaders' so-called theological decisions through the ages: from Constantine's "conversion of convenience", through the murder and explusion of Jews for "religious reasons", culminating the in unholy pact between Pope Pius XII and Hitler shortly after the latter came to power.

This book is, strictly speaking, not a history book. Many would undoubtedly argue, and with justice, that Carroll is not an historian and his use of secondary (and selective) sources to prove his point of view is not rigorously academic. But I don't think that was his intent. This is very much a personal story, of how Carroll fell in love with the Catholic Church, how he became a priest, why he decided to remove his habit, his journeys through Europe and his ideas about chruch reform. This combination of historical facts with a personal story is very powerful. Although it does become a little too personal for my likeing when he tells us about his erotic attraction to his pious mother, who took him to see the seamless robe of Jesus in Trier.

I read this book during and after a course I took about Jews and Christians in medieval times. It was a good companion to the course and helped me frame many historical events in their proper context. It is not an easy book to read (not least because of its length) but it's a must read for anyone wanting to understand the core values that drove, and to a certain extent are still driving, the attitude of the Catholic church towards Jews.

Is Google a Deity?

Religion is a serious thing. And so seem to be the people behind the newest of religions: The Church of Google. They composed nine "proofs" that Google is god (a "she" god, no less). I liked the following one:

Google answers prayers. One can pray to Google by doing a search for whatever question or problem is plaguing them. As an example, you can quickly find information on alternative cancer treatments, ways to improve your health, new and innovative medical discoveries and generally anything that resembles a typical prayer. Ask Google and She will show you the way, but showing you is all She can do, for you must help yourself from that point on.

I guess having Google as a religion is less harmful than many other kinds of religions floating around...

Save Israel, Drink Pepsi

I always knew that Jews control the world. But I never imagined the extent of our control. Now, thanks to Iranian TV, the truth is out there.

Think about it, next time you buy a Pepsi.

Mishpatim - Helping the Donkey

כי תראה חמור שנאך רבץ תחת משאו, וחדלת מעזב לו, עזב תעזב עמו

(שמות כ"ג, ה')

Mishpatim is a parasha fraught with commandments that encompass all walks of life and deal with some of the most complicated issues concerning commercial and fiduciary laws. But the parasha also deals with simple and seemingly mundane issues, such as helping someone's donkey:

"If you see the donkey of someone who hates you lying under its burden, and you refrain from assisting him, you shall repeatedly help with him"

What does the Torah mean by "and you refrain from assisting him"? If you must "repeatedly help him", then why would you refrain from doing so? Rashi says this is actually a rhetorical question: "would you refrain from assisting him? Of course not! You shall repeatedly help with him". (Although, halachically speaking, there are situations where one is indeed exempt from helping, and Rashi brings such an example).

The 16th century commentator Kli Yakar (R. Shlomo Efraim of Luntchitz) offers a different explanation. The first part says "and you refrain from assisting HIM", using the word lo (him) in Hebrew. But the concluding statement says "and you shall repeatedly help WITH HIM", using the word imo (with him) in Hebrew. The Torah changes pronoun from lo to imo to teach us that the owner of the donkey is not allowed to sit there waiting for another Jew to come along, and say: "unload my donkey, as this is your mitzvah!". In such circumstances, one is not obligated to help HIM. But if the donkey owner is willing to roll up his sleeves as well, only then is one obligated to help WITH HIM.

The Kli Yakar makes a profound sociological statement. If a person is able-bodied and capable but does nothing to help himself, then he cannot come to the community and ask for charity and help. All of us are familiar with people who expect the community to help them even if they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to help themselves first.

This is a shrewd interpretation by the Kli Yakar, but the fact remains that the context of this mitzvah is to help even if the donkey belongs to someone who hates us. To understand the full meaning of this help, here is a short story told about R. Israel Salanter, head of the mussar movement.

R. Israel was travelling on a train to Vilna. He was seated in a smoking compartment, enjoying a cigar, when a young passenger approached him and started yelling about the smoke. Although it was his right to smoke, R. Israel immediately put out the cigar and opened the window to let the smoke out. The same fellow shouted again at the rabbi, telling him to shut the window as it was now getting too cold.

Upon arriving in Vilna, the young man noticed the hundreds of people waiting to greet R. Israel and realised who the elderly passenger was. He started crying, begging R. Israel for forgiveness. R. Israel forgave him and asked him what he was looking for in Vilna. The youngster replied that he was looking for a job as a shochet (ritual slaughterer) but needed first a recommendation from a local rabbi. R. Israel referred him to his son-in-law for a letter of recommendation, but the man's knowledge was so poor he failed the test. So R. Israel found tutors to teach the man and prepare him for the test. Several weeks later, the man passed the test and R. Israel helped in again to find a job in Vilna.

The man came to R. Israel and asked him: I understand that you forgave me for my rudeness on the train, but why did you help me out so much, sending me to your son-in-law, finding tutors and helping me get a job? R. Israel reponsded: anyone can say "I forgive you", but I felt that the only way to really forgive you was to get to like you. And to get to like you, I had to help you, as the key to becoming someone's friend is to give from yourself. I wanted my forgiveness to be sincere, not merely lip service, so I had to go out of my way to help you.

And this is what the Torah commands us. We naturally feel like refraining from assisting our enemy with his donkey. But we need to overcome our natural inclincation, help him, and thus turn an enemy into a friend.

Apathy

The past couple of weeks have seen some of the coldest weather in Israel in recent years. In these two weeks, seven (7) people have died as a result of hypothermia. Five (5) were homeless.

When I was a child, there were no homeless people in Israel. Did people die of hypothermia? Probably yes, old people alone at home. But each death was something the entire country heard about. It made the news. People talked about it the next morning.

Israel, January 2008. The country's 60th year. The deaths of homeless people are lumped together in a passing news flash, hastily reported to make way for more blah-blah about the Winograd report (as if the gist of this long overdue report is a mystery that requires endless speculation). I'm willing to bet that if you ask around tomorrow morning about the dead homeless, most people will not know what you're talking about.

Apathy. It's every man for himself in the Promised Land.

"Screw It, I'm Running For President"

From today's The Onion. If only it were true...

CHARLESTON, SC—After spending two months accompanying his wife, Hillary, on the campaign trail, former president Bill Clinton announced Monday that he is joining the 2008 presidential race, saying he "could no longer resist the urge."

"My fellow Americans, I am sick and tired of not being president," said Clinton, introducing his wife at a "Hillary '08" rally. "For seven agonizing years, I have sat idly by as others experienced the joys of campaigning, debating, and interacting with the people of this great nation, and I simply cannot take it anymore. I have to be president again. I have to."

"Damn, this feels good," Clinton told supporters as he shook hands in Charleston Monday.

He continued, "It is with a great sense of relief that I say to all of you today, 'Screw it. I'm in.'"

In a show of respect, Clinton then completed his introduction of Hillary Clinton, calling her a "wonderful wife and worthy political adversary," and warmly shook her hand as she approached the podium. A clearly shocked Mrs. Clinton got halfway through her speech about the nation's obligation to its children before walking briskly offstage.

A spokesman for Sen. Clinton's campaign had no comment.

"No longer will I have to endure watching candidates like Hillary Clinton engaging in single-pump handshakes with voters, as I use every last ounce of restraint not to shout out, 'No! Warm double-clasp! Warm double-clasp!'" Clinton said. "America deserves someone who can do it right."

While the announcement has come as a surprise to many, Beltway observers said it was not completely unexpected, citing footage from a recent Democratic debate that showed Clinton fidgeting in his seat, gripping the arms of his chair, and repeatedly glancing at all the television cameras while rapidly tapping his right foot. Analysts also noted one debate in which Clinton mouthed responses to all the moderator's questions while making hand gestures to himself.

Clinton told reporters Tuesday that seeing so many "Clinton '08" posters "really got [him] thinking," and said that the fact that he was already wearing a suit, and smiling and waving on the campaign trail was an added motivator.

"From signing healthcare reform legislation, to working with politicians from across the aisle, to brokering international peace treaties with foreign dignitaries, I goddamn love being president," Clinton said. "For too long has this nation been deprived of a Bill Clinton presidency, and for too long have I been deprived of being president. Now I get to experience all these wonderful things again myself."

"And the applause," Clinton added. "I look forward to the endless roar of applause perhaps most of all."

Since his announcement two days ago, Clinton has raised a staggering $550 million. He has also surged in national polls, rising from a mere 2 percent prior to his candidacy to a commanding 94 percent, ahead of former front-runners Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who are now tied with 3 percent each. John Edwards withdrew from the race Tuesday, saying only, "I am not worthy."

Although some have pointed out that it is unconstitutional for Clinton to run for a third term in office, he has silenced most critics by urging voters "not to worry about the Constitution for now" and assuring them he will address those legal issues immediately after regaining control of the White House.

"All I am asking of the American people is four more years," Clinton said at a fundraiser Tuesday where tens of thousands of South Carolinians gathered to stare in gape-jawed wonderment at the former president. "Well, maybe eight. Actually, you know what, definitely eight. Eight more years."

Thus far, the response among voters has been positive. "I love Bill Clinton," said Orangeburg, SC resident Marsha Demarais. "God, he was just so great as president. Can we just make him president again right now?"

Clinton also noted that, if elected, the timing would be perfect for his family, as his wife has recently expressed a desire to move back to the D.C. area.

Crash Landing

Stuck at Heathrow airport last Thursday for long hours, as a result of the crash landing of the British Airways B-777 aircraft (most flights were cancelled or delayed as a result), I had plenty of time to think again about London and its third-world-like infrastructure and services. The daily delays and closures on the London Underground, the percentage of lugguage lost at Heathrow airport, the outrageous prices one has to pay for almost everything and get mediocre service in return. And the list goes on. So it didn't come as a surprise to me that it took the authorities more than a day to get the runway cleared and operational again.

But instead of ranting again about London, I will say a few words about that landing. It was a very close call, a chilly reminder of how binary air accidents are. The plane lost power on both engines at an altitude of 600 feet. After the on-board computer failed to boost power to the engines, the co-pilot, who was in command of the aircraft, took control and managed to glide it safely past a highway and bring it down on the grass. If the power loss would have happened a minute earlier, or if the co-pilot wouldn't have reacted so quickly to take control of the aircraft, then most probably everyone on board would have died. As is usually the case, it was either zero or one. Why bother with those safety demonstrations? Either you get out alive or you don't. There's almost no in-between.

I did smile, though, when I heard today the name of the hero co-pilot: John Coward. Only in Britain.

The Last Fanatic

Here is a new trailer for a movie that does not exist:

"The Last Fanatic" is the latest promotional stunt by The Israeli Initiative, a political solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict promoted by Benny Elon, a right-wing member of the Knesset. They obviously managed to raise considerable amounts of money, by Israeli standards, for this campaign. Most of it, I'm guessing, came from the US, not only from Jews but also from evangelical Christians, who support right-wing movements in Israel in the hope that a Jewish redemption will lead to the Second Coming. An unholy alliance of sorts, but as they say: money has no smell.

Disclosure: Rabbi Elon conducted our wedding ceremony (chuppah). My wife and I used to go to a weekly shi'ur he gave at the university dorms and when we decided to tie the knot, we asked him to do it and he agreed (even though he is not officially registered at the Chief Rabbinate). Four years later, when he was elected to the knesset in 1996 through the Moledet party, we wrote him a letter expressing our disappointment for joining a party that advocated transfer of Arabs. He wrote back to us, very politely. We did not remain closely in touch, but I did visit him at the Knesset last year and was very happy to see him after all these years. Despite disagreeing with his political views, I think very highly of him as a human being and a teacher.

Behaviour in Schools

I have some criticism about the national-religious education system in Israel, the so-called mamad ("mamlachti-dati") and the follow-up framework of high-school yeshivot. However, when I hear about and see incidents like the clip below, filmed at a secular high-school, I am thankful my children go to religious schools. I cannot imagine such behaviour coming even from the worst-behaving kids in my son's class.

Values of Days Gone By - Epilogue

Last week I drove past the old Zinkal building, a.k.a "the building with the values-of-days-gone-by inscription", and this is what I saw:

For years I drive by this building. I finally decide to write a few words about it, and a month later it's gone. As the saying goes: sic transit gloria mundi.

The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, by Donald Harington

It was Friday night, a week ago. I was in Seoul, alone in my hotel room, facing a long shabbat with nothing to do but read. I started reading this book at 10pm. By the time I went to sleep, at 5am, I was half-way through it. The only reason I stopped was that I wanted to give myself a few more days of pleasure, instead of finishing it all in one go.

This is an epic novel that traces several generations of the Ingledews, the first settlers of the town of Stay More in Arkansas. The town was named so by the Indian the brothers met upon arriving in Arkansas (or rather, John met, as Noah was scared shitless of the native and ran to the woods). This Indian, Fanshaw, who spoke English with a British accent, referred to the Ingledew dwelling by this name because John kept telling him politely to "stay more" every time he came to visit. So it is only natural that the town dwellers became knows as the Stay Morons.

This wonderful book has twenty chapters. Each chapter opens with an illustration of a building, and through the story of that building and its distinctive architecture, Harington weaves the tale of Stay More and the Stay Morons. The tale makes its way through the Civil War, the Great Depression and two World Wars, gradually building a world which entrances the reader and makes him fall in love with its inhabitants. These hillibillys, with their simple ways and their reluctance to adapt to PROG RESS, go through good and bad but stay fiercely proud of their home town. The men work hard, which makes them come down with bad cases of the Frakes, a mysterious incapacitating disease that makes life seem utterly pointless, but they also enjoy the simple pleasures in life: hunting, fornicating, or simply sitting around on the porch of the town's general store or mill. The wives are busy producing children and taking care of their homes, although most of them turn out to be much smarter than the men.

The best way I can find to describe this novel is to call it the "American 100 years of Solitude". It will make you laugh aloud, it will make you smile, it will make you ponder life and it will definitely change the way you think about early American settlers and their modern-day offspring. I don't recall how I came by this book and why I bought it, but I'm so thankful I did.

Seven Medical Myths

The British Medical Journal just published a list of seven medical myths, common medical beliefs that turn out to be wrong.

Here they are:

1. People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day

I always knew there something wrong with this one. Even during my military training days I had difficulty drinking 8 glasses of water a day.

2. We use only 10% of our brains

Actually, I didn't know this one. However, had I heard about it I would have taken it to be true, simply based on watching most people around me. So I believe further research is warranted before dismissing this. I'll grant them 20%, but no more.

3. Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death

I have nothing to say about this one. I'm surprised it's a myth.

4. Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser

I used to believe this one, until I starting losing my hair.

5. Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight

Yes, I believed this one. I actually berate my children for reading after lights out. Although, come to think of it, I should have known better. I behaved exactly like them when I was a child, and my eyesight is still perfect.

6. Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy

I don't eat much turkey, so I wouldn't know. Didn't know this one.

7. Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals

This I knew not to be true, as mobile phones operate on different frequencies. Another myth (not medical) is that mobile phones interfere with the aircraft navigation systems. Yeah, right.

Sitting or Standing?

Some of the statistics coming out of Japan are simply too fascinating to ignore.

DMZ, Korea

I took a peek into North Korea today. It was a short peek, it was foggy so I couldn't see much, but it was a peek nonetheless.

With the end of the Korean War in 1953 and the signing of the armistice agreement between South and North Korea, the DMZ (de-militarised zone) was set up. Where the front line stood at the end of the hostilities, a military demarcation line was drawn, from one end of the Korean peninsula to the other. The area 2km north and south of this line became the DMZ. Today I took the half-day "DMZ Tour" from Seoul to try and catch a glimpse of The Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The drive from Seoul to the border is astonishingly short. On a traffic-free Sunday morning it took us well under an hour, driving north on the "Freedom Highway". After some formalities like having our passports checked (officially the DMZ belongs to neither country) and switching to a tightly-controlled official tour bus, we arrived to the southern border of the DMZ. There, the South Koreans constructed a small museum that describes the history of the place and everyone is made to watch a 7-minute movie that shows how the DMZ today, despite the de-facto state of war between the two parts of the divided country, is nothing more than a big nature reserve (with about 1 million soldiers around it, mind you).

By far the most fascinating part of this generally drab tour is the visit to one of the tunnels dug by the North, with the purpose to invade the South one day. The South Koreans, initially by accident and later with the aid of the Americans, began unearthing these tunnels in the 1970s. Four have been found so far, but the general belief is there are many more. The one open to the public is the 3rd tunnel, discovered in 1978. It is located 73m below ground level and runs through the entire DMZ. A tourist train goes down the interception tunnel dug by the South Koreans, and then one can walk about 200m north into the DMZ, below ground. It's a back-breaking experience, as the height of the tunnel is just short of a normal (Western) person's height. No picture-taking is allowed.

This 3rd tunnel was discovered after a defector from North Korea tipped off the authorities. The South Korean military engineers bore holes into the ground in several places and filled them with water in PVC pipes. Eventually, they hit the tunnel. Notwithstanding the evidence - the direction of the dynamite drill marks, the slope of the tunnel - the North Koreans vehemently denied they were responsible for digging it. In fact, they tried to hide the fact this was an incursion tunnel and claimed it was a mine; they proceeded, in their retreat, to paint parts of the tunnel black using charcoal in order to "prove" this was true. Silly buggers.

Another part of the tour is Dorasan train station, the northermost railroad station in South Korea. It was reconstructed after the rapprochement of 2000, and stands there today, brand-new, state-of-the-art, shiny... but totally empty, except for a souvenir shop and a couple of fancy-looking soldiers. The signs say Seoul-Pyongyang, waiting for the day this train route will become a reality. A nifty gimmick: you can stamp your passport with an immigration stamp to show you've "taken" this ride between the two capital cities. President Bush visited here a few years ago, and left a hand-written message:

Aside from the fact it was foggy and a freezing cold day, this man-made piece of history was a welcome distraction in an otherwise boring weekend in Seoul.

"I Have a Bad Case of Diarrhea"

The Japanese go to great lengths to study English. Walk into any bookstore in Japan and witness an impressive number of English textbooks. Within a rock's throw of any train or subway station you'll see signs for quite a few English schools. Many commuters on the long ride to and from work will be listening to English lessons on their iPods.

But by far the most entertaining method for learning English is watching the Zuiikin Girls show on TV. These girls will teach you an English phrase by repeating it several times while doing aerobic exercises. Useful phrases, ones that would come in handy in daily conversations. For example, this one:

Want to see more? Thankfully, someone put together a page with all available Zuiikin Girls videos on YouTube. Enjoy.

Botched Strike

Today is the last day of Hanukkah, so it's back to school tomorrow. After almost 2 months, the high-school teachers' strike in Israel is drawing to an end, so hopefully tens of thousands of teenagers will finally start their school year in the coming days.The teachers' union and the government are about to sign a deal, giving the teachers a small raise (a few percent). This is basically same deal the general labour union (Histradrut) got from the government after striking for half a day a few months ago.

So all the talk about raising teachers' pay by 50% and agreeing on sweeping reforms in education has fizzled to a few percentage points. Nothing to write home about. Certainly not worth keeping kids away from school for weeks. The union's failure in this case is yet another example of the "value for money" organised labour get you.

The education system in Israel has many faults. Slowly but surely those who value better education, and are willing to pay for it, are moving to semi-private schools. The ultra-religious have had their private system for decades. The national-religious have in effect privatised their igh-schools through the system of "high-schoool yeshivah". There are almost no religious public high schools left in Israel, and those that are still around are typically in poorer cities and neighbourhoods. "Free education" is fast becoming an empty slogan. Parents are required to pay extra for books, extra-curricular activities (many of which are nothing but an extended timetable after "regular" school hours), school trips and much more. Despite this, over-crowded classrooms and short school hours are still the norm.

If the government does not make education a national priority (my guess: it won't), then the education system will go down the same path as the health system. Private healthcare in Israel is no longer for the rich only. Many families pay for private health insurance and many more for "enhanced" insurance through the existing national plans. Those who have, or those who are willing to pay extra, will get to the same place with education; those who don't, will be left behind.

Education and Israel's Future

Two interesting items in the news in Israel this week:

1. Deloitte announced the results of its annual survey of fastest growing technology firms in EMEA. The first three spots were taken by Israeli firms: Voltaire, Celltick and Runcom.

2. The Ministry of Education published the results of the 2006 PIRLS tests. These tests measure and compare the proficiency of school students across 45 countries. Russia, Hong Kong and Singapore took the first three places; Israel got in at the 31st place.

These two seemingly unrelated stories tell a very strong story.

Israel has no natural resources. It is a country burdened by high military expenditures. Its traditional industries, such as agriculture and diamond-cutting, are disappearing. The growth engine of Israel's economy in the past couple of decades has been the high-tech sector. In other words: Israel's future depends on "knowledge workers", people who can use their brains to create value.

The achievements of Israeli school children compared to those of their peers in Asia does not bode well for this country's future. Throw in the ongoing strike by high-school teachers and university professors (both get ridiculously low salaries), and the outlook is even gloomier.

Israel today is a leader the high-tech industry, worldwide. But this remarkable accomplishment is in grave danger. Continuing to ignore the fundamental problems in the Israeli education system - from kindergarten to PhDs - puts the future of this country at risk. The real threat to Israells' future does not come from Ahmadinejad and his likes. It comes from Israeli governments continuing to neglect the most important asset this country has: its people's education.

Annapolis: A Pointless Diversion

One day after the well-orchestrated show in Annapolis, Maryland, and the zillion words of commentary in the media about the "brave" or "expected" or "empty" speeches of the leaders (depending on who is doing commenting), it all boils down to three very simple facts:

1. Everybody knows what the deal will look like. Nothing in the main elements of a future agreement has changed (or can change) since Camp David 2000. So no speech can be "dramatic" or "brave" at this point in time. The problem is not the end result, it's the following two points.

2. Neither of the two leaders - Olmert and Abbas - have enough political power in their respective constituencies to strike a deal, certainly not the kind of deal they alluded to (i.e. partition of Jerusalem and the renunciation of the Palestinian "right of return"). Olmert is busy keeping his fragile coalition together; Abbas is busy trying to prevent the Hamas from taking away any remaining vestiges of power he still clings to.

3. Nobody in the US administration (or the international community) has the will nor the power to do what is necessary: dive into the mud to extricate the feuding parties, bang their heads together and force them to get the deal signed. Certainly not in the timeframe Bush and Olmert spoke about ("within 2008").

So, bottom line, I don't expect much to come out of Annapolis. In fact, I didn't even bother to watch or listen to the speeches; reading the headlines on the Web this morning was more than enough to figure out that plus ça change, etc. I obviously hope I'll be proven wrong, but I doubt it very much.

Values of Days Gone By

If you drive north on route 5 in Israel and look right (eastwards) after passing the Geha intersection (for Petah Tikva and Bnei Brak), you will see a decrepit industrial building with an interesting inscription on its roof:

I took this picture with my mobile phone, so apologies for the quality. Three letters are missing, but the inscription says: "We took a vow to partake in the building of the people and the Land of Israel".

I've been driving past this building for many years and I often look at these words. They strike an emotional chord within me every time. Yesterday, I googled these words and found out that the building belonged to an aluminium manufacturing company by the name of Zinkal, that apparently went under in 2002. Most of the entries about Zinkal on the Web are court proceedings of creditors against the company. The company's website returns an empty page.

I find this very symbolic. On one hand, the inscription shows the owners of Zinkal believed in values which most Israelis today view as passé and defunct. And yet they were proud enough of these values to inscribe them prominently on the copmany's building, in full public view on a main highway. On the other hand, the state of the building (and the inscription) are proof that the cynical view prevailed. Those who place the value of caring for the country and its people before the value of self-enrichment end up broke. I know I'm generalising, but it's a potent symbol nonetheless.

Update - 3 December:

Driving past the building again today, I noticed the sign posted on the top-left corner (you can just see it in the photo) is an ad for a lucky charm, an amulet, of R. Nachman of Breslov. This building' symbolism is stronger than I originally thought. Business gone bust, good old values failed, so let's turn to voodo Judaism to save us.

A Talmudic Negotiation

A couple of months ago I was in the final stages of negotiating a deal with a large company in South Korea. This company is notorious for its tough negotiating tactics. I was invited to a meeting with the VP in charge of purchasing to discuss pricing. The session was scheduled for 1pm, but he showed up at 4pm; we went on for 5 hours, during which I was not offered any food or drinks; no breaks were taken. This was all standard procedure, part of the "atmosphere" created by these companies to put pressure on the vendors. Not pleasant, but part of the game.

But every such negotiation has its funny moments. At one point, about 3 hours into the session, I was standing next to the whiteboard trying to reconcile our differences in pricing. I was moving numbers around, doing quick calculations and generally playing around with the figures to find a way to make it work. In the heat of the moment I must have been doing things a little too quickly for them to follow properly. One of the guys in the room suddently shouted: "stop!". I turned around and saw him holding his head between his hands. He gave me a desperate look, and said: "I can't take it any more with you and your Talmud!".

For a moment I was speechless. Then I just burst out laughing. They obviously knew I was Jewish and from Israel, but the last thing I expected to hear in that context was a reference to the Talmud. We all had a good laugh and after we calmed down I asked for an explanation.

It turns out that the Talmud is held in very high regard by Koreans. There are bestselling books in Korea, so I was told, that teach people how to think and negotiate better by using "Talmudic methods". The back-and-forth of Talmudic debate is considered a sophisticated way to reach the right conclusion, so this has been translated to advice heeded to by many Koreans. It's really all rather fascinating and it fits well within the widely-held myth (not particular to Koreans, by the way) that Jews are "intelligent" and "smart".

After a short discussion about the Talmud - they were impressed by the fact I study it every day - we continued the negotiation and eventually reached an agreement. I guess studying Daf Yomi has helped me in more ways than one.

Chuck for Huck

Mike Huckabee is a Republican presidential candidate in the US. Last month, Chuck Norris announced he is endorsing Huckabee's bid for the highest office in the country.

And here below is the first campaign commercial Huckabee is running. My jaw dropped when I watched this the first time. I had to watch it again to make sure my eyes and ears were not playing tricks on me. Only in America.

Beware of Blondes

Jokes about blondes are a dime a dozen. Blondes resent being stereotyped as dumb, but a recent study (from France, mind you) shows that men's mental performance declines when they are around blondes. In the words of the professor, "blondes have the potential to make people act in a dumber way".

Thankfully, I prefer brunettes.

140 Million Jews

One of the questions that comes up every now and then in the Israeli-Japanese discourse is whether the Japanese are descendents of the Israelite Lost Tribes.

Brief history: After the Israelite kingdom was run over by the Assyrians in the 8th century B.C.E, ten of the Israelite tribes were exiled and never heard of again. Today's Jews are descendents of the kingdom of Yehudah, specifically three tribes: Yehudah, Binyamin and Levi. Over the centuries, many theories have been put forward as to the whereabouts of the Ten Lost Tribes. In recent years, a group of Indians came forward and claimed they are descendents of the tribe of Menasheh; several of them made aliyah to Israel.

One of the theories is that the Ten Tribes (or some of them) ended up in Japan. Proponents of this theory point to Shinto, the native religion of Japan, purportedly showing that several traditions in Shinto can be traced back to biblical Jewish practices. The movie below summarises some of these finding, while this website is more comprehensive.

Personally, this all sounds a bit far-fetched, but who knows? After all, it has been almost 3,000 years so anything is possible. To me, the most frightening thought in this whole discussion is: imagine a world with 140 million Jews! The mere thought has me covered in cold sweat.

Sub-Prime Crisis: Explained

You've all heard about the sub-prime financial crisis, causing all that trouble to the mightiest institutions on Wall Street. Let's admit it: most of us don't really understand what it's all about.

Well, no worries. It is all explained here:

The Vanishing American Jew

Last Friday night I attended "services" at a Reconstructionist "synagogue" in Irvine, California. No, I did not lose my mind (yet).

The group of Israelis I was with for the 2-week educational course were invited to participate in a panel about higher education in Israel, and this took place at this "synagogue". As it was our last evening together, I wanted to come and say goodbye to everyone, so after going to a real synagogue for services, I walked over to this place. As it happens, I arrived there just as the "services" were starting, so I was lucky enough to witness the whole charade.

This was no regular Friday. On this particular Friday evening, the event was called "Shabbat Alive", an especially lively show. There was a male "rabbi" and a female "cantor", who coincidentally also happen to be happily married. Both wore a tallit and a kippah. The "rabbi" had a wireless microphone attached to his jacket lapel; the "cantor" used a regular microphone. The "cantor" played a guitar, in addition to being accompanied by two sidekick singers and a band consisting of three musicians, no less.

The "services" were a mishmash of songs, some completely secular (such as Halleluyah, an Israeli song that won the Eurovision song contest back in the 1980s), combined with bits and pieces from the siddur (prayer book). In the spirit of egalitarianism, some of the passages were recited in both male and female format. This was carried to absurdity: when the blessing over the bread - which, for some odd reason, took place during the "service" even though dinner had already been eaten by the congregation - was recited twice, once as "ha-motsi" (male) and once as "ha-motsi'a" (female). The congregation itself, an assortment of Jews and Gentiles, 200+ strong, were sat in a movie-like theater, facing the stage. I thought this was appropriate, as this was indeed more a spectacle than a prayer.

But the most suprising part for me was not the actual event. Rather, it was the reaction of my fellow Israeli friends, all of them secular. Some of them were more shocked than I was. To them, Judaism was purely Orthodox; in the spirit of Isaiah Berlin's famous words: the synagogue they do not frequent is an Orthodox one. So what transpired on the stage was nothing short of an abomination to them. One of my friends, a proclaimed atheist, refused to put a kippah on his head, saying he was so angry at the fact that the Jewish religion was being put to such mockery that he would not play along.

Even though halachically-speaking I shouldn't have attended this "service" (the hillul ha-Shem there was blatantly obvious), in a way glad I'm glad I did. Seeing with my own eyes what Judaism was reduced to in America was in many respects an eye-opening experience. Although from a historical perspective such aberrations were proven to be short-lived, it was still important to me to witness first-hand a symptom of "the vanishing American Jew" (the title of an excellent book by Alan Dershowitz).

If I were to look for a bright point in this story, I guess it is the following. There is some value to be found in these "religious" movements, as some Jews in America would have no connection whatsoever to Judaism were it not for the existence of the Reform or Reconstructionist movements. I heard from various people in the Jewish community in Irvine that there are many cases of the second generation (the children of the parent that married out) veering back towards Judaism, some even becoming practicing Orthodox Jews. So perhaps there is some sense and purpose in this madness.

Quality of Life in the US

Quality of life is a hard thing to measure. Economists argue about the parameters that make up this elusive measurement of how satisfied people are with their lives. There are several QoF indices being published by different bodies; The Economist's is one. Things like wealth, health, political stability, political freedom, climate and job security are taken into account. The weighting of each of these parameters is crucial in determining which country's QoF is better.

Because of its composition, the QoF index does not produce the same country rankings as the GDP per capita index. For example, in the The Economist's index, the US comes 13th in the QoF ranking, despite it being the country with the highest GDP per capita in the world (if you ignore tiny Luxembourg).

I thought about this during my recent stay in the US. I spent two weeks in Irvine, California, a southern suburb of Los Angeles (the locals will resent this definition; for them, Orange County is distinct and separate from L.A.). Irvine is one of the country's most peaceful and wealthy cities. And yet many of the city's residents work in L.A., which means they spend hours each day sitting in traffic on dreadfully congested San Diego freeway (route 405). Ensconced in their air-conditioned SUVs and Priuses, they spend their mornings and their evenings in a bumper-to-bumper river of cars. How do you factor this nightmare into the QoF index? People in Irvine may be sleeping in 3-million dollar homes and driving in 100,000-dollar cars, but can you really put a price on the agony of spending hours each day staring at other cars' backsides?

Or take dometic air travel in the US. I flew from L.A. to Boston yesterday. Economy class on United Airlines. It's been a while since I was on a long domestic flight in the US, and it wasn't pleasant. The security lines were long. The TSA personnel grumpy. The United employee at the gate kept barking at passengers. The flight attendants adopted another strategy: they simply ignored the passengers. No food was served, only drinks and a biscuit (this was a 5-hour flight). The only positive element of it all was that the flight was on time. Compared to domestic flights in Europe (and certainly in Asia) the Americans have it really bad. The treatment they receive at the airport and in the air is atrociously discourteous. And they seem to take it willingly. So either they've given up on being treated nicely or they've been bullied into stunned obedience by the post-9/11 American way of life.

Quality of life? I think not.

Breathing Again

The fires in southern California are finally under control, after a week of firefighting, mass evacuations and many destryoed homes. I'm currently on a 2-week educational programme just south of Los Angeles. I arrived here with the fires, about 10 days ago, and although there were no fires in the immediate vicinity of my location, until a couple of days ago the air smelt heavily of smoke. In the first few days, there was a cloud of black smoke in the sky.

Orange County is a beautiful place. So serene, so green and so obviously wealthy. And yet when natural disasters like these wildfires strike, suddenly everything seems so fragile. Some of the local people I'm with were on stand-by to evacuate. Suddenly, one has to decide what to salvage from home that can fit in the car: photographs, valuables, documents. I thought what I would have done in such a situation and there are no easy answers.

Now that the sun is finally shining again and the air is (relatively) fresh, I look forward to the few more days I have here.

Reshimot is in Danger

Reshimot (Notes) is one of the leading premium content sites in Israel. It is a platform for many gifted bloggers, a breath of fresh air in the mostly stale blogosphere.

The founders of Reshimot, all working voluntarily on this project since 2003, have published a call for help. Citing technical and financial problems they are seeking a strategic partner that will ensure the continuation of Reshimot. So far, they failed in locating such a partner.

If Reshimot fails it will be a sad day.