Is ‘Hermione’ part of J.K. Rowling’s secret code in the Harry Potter series?

By Donald H. Harrison

Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO – For a moment, my daughter and grandson looked at me as if I were Dan Brown revealing not the secrets of the Da Vinci Code, but the hidden messages in the Harry Potter code.

I had told them that author J.K. Rowling had put herself into the Harry Potter novels, that Harry’s school friend Hermione clearly was Rowling’s alter-ego.

“What makes you say so?” asked Shor, 8, a dyed-in-the-wool Harry Potter fan.

“Sometimes authors like to send messages with the names that they give to their characters,” I suggested.  “Rowling picked simple names for her boy heroes—‘Harry’ and ‘Ron’—but a complex name for her girl heroine, ‘Hermione’” I said, adding for good measure: “look how similar the words ‘heroine’ and ‘Hermione’ are.”

“Yes, so?” asked my daughter, Sandi, suspiciously.

“Well look at how Hermione is spelled,” I said. ‘Her-mi-one.’  Pronounce ‘mi’ like the musical note and it is ‘me.’  Separate the name into its component parts and it means “Her” and “me” are “one.”

“Way cool!” Shor exclaimed.  You can’t help but love that boy!

“Not so fast,” demanded Sandi, who you’ve got to love despite her tendency to distrust some of her father’s stories.  “That sounds like the same kind of faulty reasoning that convinced Beatles fans that Paul was dead.   You know, he was wearing different clothes than the other Beatles on an album cover, so clearly he was no longer like them—he was dead—and all sorts of nonsense like that.”

I grinned shamefacedly.  When it comes to Harry Potter, I’ve decided that my daughter can do no wrong.  She turned Shor onto the series, transforming a boy who had to be coaxed into reading into one who now gobbles up books, even spurning programs on the Disney Channel and the Cartoon Network to read about Harry and the gang at the Hogwarts school.

Sandi is to Harry Potter books as I am to Star Trek movies and television episodes, I bragged to myself.  Some years ago, I got Shor interested in Star Trek, winning his attention with the original series, featuring Captain Kirk played by William Shatner.  Shor’s favorite character was Mr. Spock,the Vulcan portrayed by Leonard Nimoy.  Then it was onto Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which Patrick Stewart played Captain Jean Luc Picard.  Shor’s favorite character was Data, the android portrayed by Brent Spiner. 

Now we are almost finished watching all the episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine over which  Captain  Benjamin Sisko, played by Avery Brooks, reigns.  Shor’s favorite character is Odo, the shapeshifter played by Rene Auberjonois, although Quark, portrayed by Armin Shimerman, runs a close second because Shor met Shimerman in San Diego during the run of The Seafarer at the San Diego Rep. 

 My wife Nancy already has purchased for her “boys” Star Trek: Voyager, in which Voyager will be captained by Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew).  I can’t wait to learn who Shor’s favorite character will be in that one.

I had never read the Harry Potter novels until Shor asked me to follow him into them, even as he had followed me into the Star Trek world.  His reasoning was both endearing and compelling: “It will give us more to talk about, grandpa.”

Star Trek DVD’s have the advantage of ‘pausability’’ Shor and I can stop action anywhere we want in an episode to discuss the questions being raised.   One of my favorite episodes came during the ‘Next Generation’ series when the only Klingon in Star Fleet, Worf  (Michael Dorn), was asked by a man from his world to join the Klingon cause and to forsake the Federation.   Shor and I talked about concepts of loyalty.  Here, said I, was Worf being asked to change his loyalty –in essence to switch sides from the Federation to the Klingon Empire.

Shor , a student at Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, responded that Moses has switched his loyalties—from being an Egyptian prince to being a leader of the downtrodden Hebrews.

Besides Star Trek and Harry Potter, the stories of the Torah are among Shor’s favorite  literary reference points.

This most recent Passover, he had the opportunity to help his one-year-old cousin, Brian, search for the afikomen during a seder at our house.   Later in the week, visiting his great-grandfather Sam at the sprawling senior complex at the Ocean Hills Country Club, Shor and his brother, Sky, along with Brian, got to see what Christian kids do, participating with excitement in an Easter egg hunt.

Of course, the similarity between searching for the afikomen to later ransom and searching for an Easter egg to win a prize did not escape Shor.  Nor did he fail to note that in both Passover and Easter an egg symbolizes the renewal of life.

Whether in The Da Vinci Code, Pesach, Easter, Star Trek or Harry Potter, symbols are an important part of story telling.  I give Shor a thumb’s up for catching on.

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World
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Turkey and Israel escalate war of words

(WJC)–Following another critical remark about Israel by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the Turkish leader was “slowly turning into a Gaddafi or a Hugo Chavez”, the Libyan and Venezuelan rulers. Lieberman said: “It is his choice. The problem is not Turkey, the problem is Erdogan.”

On Monday, the Turkish prime minister said that his country could not be indifferent to the question of Jerusalem and to the “murder of innocent children in Gaza.” Erdogan added that Turkey would always be on the side of Muslims, wherever they lived.

Lieberman suggested that Erdogan should deal with Turkey’s “problems with the Kurds” rather than “preach” to Israel. Kurdish rebels have been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey for more than two decades, killing tens of thousands.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry in Ankara swiftly condemned Lieberman’s statements as “inappropriate and impertinent remarks which bear no truth,” and called on Israel to “trade their meaningless and unacceptable attitude with common sense.”

Meanwhile, it has been reported that Ankara will soon replace its ambassador in Israel, who reportedly requested a transfer after being publicly belittled by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon in January. Ahmet Oguz Celikkol is set to be replaced by Kerim Uras, an expert on Middle Eastern affairs.

Relations between Israel and Turkey have been strained since Israel’s operation against Hamas in Gaza in 2009.

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The preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.

Jewish group alleges fraud in sale of pre-war Torah scrolls

(WJC)–The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants has called on authorities in the US state of Maryland to launch an investigation into the sale of Holocaust-era Torah scrolls. The non-profit foundation Save A Torah Inc. of Rabbi Menachem Youlus claims it is purchasing and restoring European Torah scrolls, and four Maryland synagogues have recently bought scrolls from Youlus. A ‘Washington Post’ article published in January suggested that the dramatic stories told by the rabbi of the scrolls’ origins were false.

An independent investigation by two scribes commissioned by Save A Torah found that eight of the 11 scrolls restored and sold by Youlus were “suitable for ritual use in the synagogue,” according to a statement and report issued by foundation president Rick Zitelman. All of the Torahs examined were found to be written in pre-Holocaust years in eastern Europe.

Youlus has claimed that he found the scrolls in monastery basements, buried in the ground, and in former Nazi concentration camps. Whilst smuggling Torahs out of some countries, Youlus claimed he was beaten up and threatened.

Last week, the New York-based American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants – which represents 80,000 survivors of the Shoah – filed a request for a criminal inquiry. The complaint was written by historian and attorney Menachem Rosensaft, vice president of the group, and filed with Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler and Maryland Secretary of State John McDonough.

Rosensaft said the request for an official inquiry reflects “disturbing information” indicating that Save A Torah, a tax-exempt organization, may have raised charitable contributions based on “incredible and, in some instances, demonstrably false representations” regarding the origin of some of the scrolls.

Rosensaft, the son of survivors of the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp in Germany, said in an interview last week that evidence of misrepresentation was drawn from the Post story as well as his independent investigation.

In one of the claims which Rosensaft has disputed, Youlus said he discovered a Torah scroll in 2002 beneath the floorboards of a barracks at Bergen-Belsen. Rosensaft said his late mother had told him that she and other inmates helped burn down the barracks and other buildings at Bergen-Belsen in May 1945 to combat a typhus epidemic. “I know for a fact that no barracks at Bergen-Belsen existed after May 1945,” Rosensaft said, adding that he had visited the Bergen-Belsen site several times. “Any statement that he discovered anything, let alone a Torah, at the barracks at Bergen-Belsen is an absolute lie.”

Rosensaft also rejected other claims made by Youlus, including that he had recovered two Holocaust scrolls from a mass grave in western Ukraine and one from a cemetery adjacent to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.

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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.

Hungarian Jews demonstrate against rising anti-Semitism and extremism

(WJC)–More than 1,000 Jews marched through Budapest’s Old Ghetto district in response to a series of anti-Semitic incidents and the polarized political climate in the run-up to Hungary’s elections next week. The marchers defied a police recommendation to keep a low profile and marched through the neighborhood of the Great Dohány Street Synagogue wearing yarmulkes. The police recommendation was issued last week, after the windows of a Chabad rabbi’s home had been smashed twice during a Passover Seder.

Over the last week, anti-Semitic graffiti has appeared in various places in Budapest, a Holocaust memorial was damaged in the western Hungarian city of Zalaegerszeg and neo-Nazis held an anti-Semitic rally in the eastern city of Tiszaeszlár, where a notorious blood libel against the local Jewish community led to pogroms in 1882-83.

Organized by the Hungarian Jewish community, the Budapest demonstration was secured by the police, and no violence was reported.

Jews in Hungary have repeatedly expressed concern about anti-Semitic overtones in the election campaign. The poll is set for 11 April, with a possible run-off on April 25, and the extreme-right Jobbik party is expected to score significant gains. Jobbik is campaigning on a platform that blames most of Hungary’s woes on Roma (Gypsies)  and Jews. In 2007 it also founded the now banned paramilitary Hungarian Guard.

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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.

The culture and music of Seattle

By David Amos

David Amos

We traveled to spend the Passover holidays in Seattle, together with our children and grandchildren, and this afforded us the opportunity to attend a very fine concert of the Seattle Symphony, directed by Gerard Schwarz.

We took our nine year old grandson to the concert, and even as we were entering Benaroya Hall, where we have been multiple times, I could not help but to draw some comparisons with what we have here in San Diego.

The one repeated impression I was feeling is that Seattle seems more comfortable with its arts organizations than San Diego does. Our daughter is involved in theatre in the city, so we can draw as well from other disciplines.

 But for this concert, it might have been the hall, the acoustics, certainly the attending public, the reaction of the audience to really sophisticated and esoteric music, the sound of the orchestra, or the overall ambiance. Even the way the ushers carry themselves manifests a sense of pride and awareness. I miss all of these elements in San Diego.

The audience members, most of them casually dressed came to hear the music, some of which was not totally accessible at a first hearing. There was total silence at the right times, applause at the appropriate places, and awareness of the prominent soloists from within the orchestra, when the conductor pointed to them during the applause. And, yes, I did not see a stampede to the parking lots while the musicians were being recognized on stage. What an abysmal difference!

But, what impressed me the most was the orchestra. Call it the hall’s acoustics, or the 25 years of work in Maestro Schwarz’ shaping of such a fine ensemble, but the tone of the orchestra is simply glorious. The tutti sonorities (that is, when everyone is playing at the same time), and the individual instrumental choirs, the brass, the strings and woodwinds, sparkled with energy and purpose. Sometimes we neglect the heroes in the percussion section, but again, I was impressed with its playing; there was focus and spirit.

Earlier that day I attended the final rehearsal, and walked backstage at the end of the concert. I did not talk to any of the musicians directly, but their sense of pride in what they do, and the organization to which they belong, was quite obvious.

What about the music that was played? We heard two rarely performed works which are not the paragon of accessibility, but are a delight nevertheless, and a perennial orchestral showpiece.

The program started with the suite from the opera The Cunning Little Vixen by the Moravian composer Leos Janacek. Although we hear frequently this composer’s popular Sinfonietta and some of his other works, this particular set of musical selections have been unjustifiably neglected. The music is fresh and brilliant, and the composer, who was by all descriptions a late bloomer in his life, captured so exquisitely the sounds of nature, the forest and its animals.

What was evident throughout this piece and for the entire concert was Schwarz’s fine attention to detail, to subtleties, and delicate orchestral colors. And for their part, the musicians responded with precision, focus, and artistry.

The music that followed was even more dynamic and memorable. The Russian composer Serge Prokoffiev wrote five piano concertos and the one most frequently performed in the Concerto No. 3. This evening, we were treated to the Fifth Piano Concerto, and it was quite obvious why this work is not performed very often. It is a snake pit of technical challenges, which requires a solo pianist with an almost demonic control of the keyboard.

Most pianists will not touch this work, but it was a walk in the park for guest soloist Alexander Toradze. Originally from Tbilisi, Georgia, and now in the faculty of Indiana University, Toradze has already recorded all five of Prokoffiev’s concertos. His familiarity and assertive approach of this work was only matched by his joyful ferocity and abandon. He immersed himself so completely in the music’s calisthenics and emotional impact that he cut his right thumb after a violent finger-twisting phrase. He needed a tissue to wipe the blood from the keyboard between the first and second movements! We all enjoyed a quick laugh and a moment of levity.

His confidence and dynamism was matched by Schwarz and the orchestra, who provided a taut, secure, and impressive accompaniment.

The second half of the program was devoted to the popular and beloved Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, in the orchestral arrangement by Maurice Ravel. Here, we were faced with familiar music, which lends itself to comparisons with other celebrated performances, on recordings and live concerts.

Although I might personally have taken certain movements at slightly different tempos, I was again impressed with the fine attention to details, the overall sound of the orchestra, and of the various individual solos by members of the Seattle Symphony. Especially noteworthy were the saxophone, euphonium, and principal trumpet solos.

All the elements that come into play to make for a memorable performance were there, and this is directly attributable to the dedication, talent, organization, artistic direction, and love for music which Gerard Schwarz has given the city of Seattle for over a quarter century. It manifests itself with a feeling and weight of tradition and pride, in one of the finest success stories of a major orchestra in our country.

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Amos is conductor of the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra and a guest conductor of professional orchestras around the world.

Just a peace or a just peace?

By Rabbi Dow Marmur

Rabbi Dow Marmur

JERUSALEM–Avishai Margalit, arguably Israel’s most significant living philosopher, has recently published a book with the intriguing title, On Compromise and Rotten Compromises. As I haven’t read it, I’m not in a position to comment on it, but one quote as it appears in John Gray’s review in The New York Review of Books, struck me as highly relevant: “The book is in pursuit of just a peace, rather than of a just peace. Peace can be justified without being just.”

Margalit is said to deal mainly with “the moral dilemmas that surround World War II.” But in view of his long and distinguished record as an Israeli “peacenik,” his formulation seems eminently relevant to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trying to follow what’s going on in Israel, one comes easily to the conclusion that as long as justice is defined in absolute terms there’ll be no peace in the Middle East. Here not only religious Zionists but also secular nationalists believe that the whole of the Land of Israel belongs solely to the Jewish people; for the former because God so decreed, for the latter because history has bestowed it upon us. Anything less would be regarded by them as a rotten and untenable compromise.

Palestinians also see the whole land as theirs and theirs alone. According to them, it has been forcibly settled by Jews, many using the Holocaust as an excuse for occupation. They accuse the Jews of having distorted history to provide a framework for their claim, which is nothing but a version of neo-colonialism. The only just outcome, in this scheme of things, is for Jews to accept the one-state solution for all of Palestine and learn to live as a minority within it, just as they once did under Muslim rule in the region.

In practical terms neither version of absolute justice can be realized and no outside force could impose it, even if we concede that the issue is a struggle between two rights, ours and theirs. The way to resolve the impasse is through compromise: just a peace even if not a just peace. In the many peace plans on the table each side would get much less than it wants and that it deems to be just. For Palestinians it may mean a state of their own, albeit not of the size and the sovereignty they would want. For Israelis it would mean giving up territory and learning to make do with less, perhaps much less.  

 It seems that this is the kind of (not rotten) compromise that the new United States administration is trying to impose on the two sides. To reassure the Palestinians as part of his overall plan for the region, Obama has put the screws on the government of Israel. Nobody seems to know if the new US approach will work and what the consequences might be if it doesn’t. The danger of a nuclear Iran is always in the background.

 The risk is, of course, that if they don’t settle for a compromise, each may end up with a rotten compromise. That’s why many serious analysts are saying that the clamor for what they see as a just peace is endangering the existence of the Jewish state no less than the Palestinian Authority while enabling enemies of both to take undue advantage.

This leads to the not unreasonable conclusion that while intransigence may be the order of the day, the popular consensus at least in Israel is pointing toward a compromise: just a peace, whether or not it’s a just pace. If this can be achieved under Israel’s and the Palestinians current political leadership is difficult to predict. Looking in from the periphery as I do, the consequences of not achieving it are too gruesome to contemplate.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.  He now divides his time between Canada and Israel.

How Israel avoided the global economic meltdown

 

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

MEVASSERET ZION, Israel–Been there, done that. Why was Israel not affected by the global economic crisis to the same extent as some other countries, specifically the US and the UK? It was probably due to a number of factors.

In the 1980s, due to a combination of ideological rigidity and economic mismanagement, Israel experienced galloping inflation. This was accompanied by a major banking crisis, triggered in part by the banks’ manipulation of their share prices. There are only five major banking groups in Israel, and just two of those are really large, so that they essentially operate as a cartel. In 1985 the government bailed out all the banks, i.e., nationalized them, in order to prevent the entire banking system from collapsing. Private assets and savings were frozen for several years, the local currency was devalued and the entire economy was revamped through the concerted efforts of the government, the Histadrut (National Federation of Labour), and the Employers’ Association. Most significantly, strict controls on banks’ activities were put in place, with particular reference to the Basle Banking Supervision Regulations.

Since then the socialist ideals that motivated Israel’s founding fathers and dominated its political and economic thinking have been gradually replaced by an awareness that in the long run the capitalist model has more to offer. Even the kibbutzim, the last stronghold of the socialist ethos, have been privatized to a great extent.

There are, of course, other factors at work. As a country with little or no natural resources, Israel has had to rely on its only comparative advantage, its people. Israeli brainpower has given the country high-tech and bio-tech industries that are considered among world leaders. In fact, one of Israel’s  foremost exports in recent years has been its start-up companies, which are often bought by foreign companies, thus bringing in large amounts of foreign exchange, enriching Israel’s treasury through taxation and creating a thin stratum of extremely wealthy people.

But ‘exits’ apart, there are other reasons for Israel’s relative immunity to the global crisis. Israel has no pretensions to being an international financial centre, it has focused on niche markets and its fiscal and monetary policies have been reasonably sensible. Thus, the budget deficit and government expenditure are kept low by law, and taxes are relatively high. There is an extensive welfare system, and anyone seeking a mortgage must provide adequate proof of payback ability. Government intervention in the currency and financial markets has been drastically reduced and funds are channeled more to R&D and less to propping up unsustainable industries.

Bankers’ bonuses exist in Israel, but a relatively small number of people are involved and in recent years there has been greater transparency in this regard. High-tech companies also hand out bonuses to employees, but no-one seems to begrudge these. The one public institution that pays its employees a decent wage, the Bank of Israel, comes under criticism for this but justifies it on the grounds that its employees are of a higher caliber than the average civil servant and that it has to compete with the banking sector, where wages are higher than average. It is only fair on my part to admit that, as a former employee of the Bank of Israel, I may be biased on this point.

There are still many aspects of the political system which are deleterious to attaining a healthy economy. These will continue to constitute a drain on Israel’s resources until the electoral system is changed to ease the stranglehold that pressure groups have on coalition governments. But unfortunately that is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.

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Shefer-Vanson is a freelance writer and interpreter based in Mevasseret Zion, Israel

Is U.S. rushing into bad deal with Russians

 

By Shoshana Bryen

Shoshana Bryen

WASHINGTON, D.C. –Arms control, a vestige of the Cold War, is back. Negotiations to determine the future size and shape of the American and Russian arsenals have been concluded and a new accord will be signed Thursday in Prague. How fitting to sign in the Czech Republic, stripped of a planned missile defense system by the Obama Administration in hopes of gaining Russian help on Iran (which never materialized).
 
There is a huge, gaping hole in this agreement on the role-if any-of missile defenses in the future. The Soviets/Russians understand American missile defenses as a threat to their interests. If the United States is able to defend against a Russian attack, the theory goes, it could be more willing to strike first. Nonsense, say the Americans, defense is defense, and the United States needs it against other threats.

The Russians are clear: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that, “Russia will have the right to opt out of the treaty if … the U.S. strategic missile defense begins to significantly affect the efficiency of Russian strategic nuclear forces.” While American plans for a missile shield in Romania does not affect Russia, he added that Russia could opt out if U.S. missile interceptors become capable of intercepting Russia’s strategic missiles. “We cannot forbid the USA to work on missile defense. But this treaty will have clearly worded linkage between this work and the number and quality of strategic offensive weapons. The treaty and all the obligations it contains are valid only within the context of the levels which are now present in the sphere of strategic defensive systems.”

Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko said, “The negotiators’ task was to ensure that inseparable mutual connection between strategic offensive and strategic defensive arms (missile defense) was adequately reflected in the new treaty. That task has been successfully accomplished- the linkage between strategic offensive arms and missile defense, as well as ever greater importance of this linkage in the process of strategic offensive arms cuts are set down in the treaty and will be legally binding.”

The United States says no, not true. A White House press release and a statement by Secretary of Defense Gates say there is no linkage and there will be no impact on U.S. plans to improve and deploy missile defenses.

Whose word will prevail when the question arises? Will the Russians walk away when they think they’ve gotten everything they can from the United States in terms of arms reduction? What would keep them in a treaty that has outlived its usefulness?

The treaty will go to the Senate for ratification-needing 67 votes. The first obligation of the Senate should be to understand the depth of the Russian understanding that future American missile defense capability is hostage to Russia. The second would be to ensure that missile defense-crucial to the United States and to our allies in Asia and Europe-is hostage to nothing.

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Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.  Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member

Doubts that Obama would recognize borders of self-declared Palestine state

By Ira Sharkansky

Ira Sharkansky

JERUSALEM–On Tuesday we read that the Hamas regime in Gaza had reached a consensus with other rejectionist movements to cease firing into Israel. They were not giving up the struggle, but agreed that escalation at this time was not in their mutual interests.

Today (Wednesday) we read that six mortars were fired toward Israel, but none of them made it out of Gaza. There are conflicting reports of injuries.

Also today, one of my internet friends wrote that President Obama will join Europe in recognizing Palestine in the borders that it demands, with the threat of sanctions upon Israel if it does not go along.

So where are we?

First, the contrary indications coming out of Gaza are typical of Palestine. It is not an isolated incident, but an indication of an ostensible regime that does not function as such. Announcements mean little in the presence of factions that will go along, if at all, only for a moment of demonstrating unity.

Things in the West Bank things are hardly more orderly. Against the pledges of peaceful protest are those who stretch the concept to the throwing of stones at Israeli police and soldiers, shooting at cars or buses, and individuals waiting at bus stops. And the West Bank, as well as Arab communities in Israel, smolder from preachers and politicians who insist that the Jews are intent in occupying the sacred ground of Islam.

Will President Obama enter this thicket and bless the occupants with a recognition of a state that they cannot manage?

What I perceive in the White House is a man who is willing to push the limits, but not necessarily break them. Despite Israel supporters who faulted imperfections in the Cairo speech, I persist in seeing it as balanced. And for those who think that he is overreaching in pressing Netanyahu, I say again that many in the Israeli center agree that Netanyahu deserves pressure. If Obama overreached himself on demanding an end to construction in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem, Netanyahu is overreaching just as far in the direction of incitement when he goes along with Jews moving into hostile Arab neighborhoods.

In the shouting back and forth of various ideologues, it is easy to lose the delicate point that Jews should have a right to live where they want in Jerusalem, but it is not wise for the government (or overseas donors) to help them upset a delicate and fluid quiet in this most delicate of places. The prime minister and others at the summit of Israeli government cannot prevent Jews from moving into Arab neighborhoods, but they can use their prestige to dissuade them. Arabs also have a historical memory that includes Jerusalem. There is no way to deny it, or to minimize its capacity to ignite an international crusade.

News from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq does not suggest a White House on top of things, waiting for an opportunity to do something dramatic for Palestine and against Israel.

It is difficult for me to believe that serious western governments will recognize Palestine in the boundaries wanted by Palestinians, even those who enjoy a label of being moderate.

And if they do, Israel has more than a few ways to make everyone sorry. The menu includes delays at the borders, using the next drive by shooting as a reason for reestablishing road blocks throughout Palestine and doing other nasty things, to encouraging overseas friends to redirect their political donations.

It is best for all concerned to encourage the continued cooperation between Israel and Palestine that has seen an improvement in Palestinian security forces, and development in the economy of the West Bank.

If western countries go beyond the reasonable and actually impose meaningful sanctions or invade in order to implement their intentions?

That would be a world so far removed from what I recognize as to declare my retirement.

I have no greater threat.

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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University

San Diego’s Holocaust Commemoration to be held April 11th

By Michael Bart

SAN DIEGO (Press Release)–San Diego’s Community Holocaust Commemoration will take place this year on Yom HaShoah, April 11^th, at 1:30 pm at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, David and Dorothea Garfield Theater.  The theme for this year’s program is “Remember, Honor, and Teach: Liberation 65 Years Later.”  Each year San Diegans gather to remember the victims of the Holocaust, honor the survivors, and teach future generations.

Our guest speaker will be Stephen Smith, Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute.  His talk on “Liberation 65 Years Later,” will be followed by a short film containing interviews with three local survivors and U.S. military camp liberators. The film was developed especially for this program and utilizes footage from the Shoah Foundation as well as footage from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.  The program will recognize and honor World War II veterans, with a military color guard and as part of the candle lighting ceremony. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders will be attending and making a few remarks.                                                           

Liberation 1945

As Allied troops moved across Europe in the fight against Nazi Germany, they began to encounter thousands of concentration camp prisoners. Many of these prisoners had survived forced marches into the interior of Germany and most were suffering from starvation and disease.

Soviet forces were the first to encounter a major Nazi camp, reaching Majdanek near Lublin in July 1944. The Germans had attempted to hide the evidence of mass murder by demolishing the camp, but in their haste to evacuate the camp, they had left the gas chambers standing. In the summer of 1944, the Soviets also overran the killing centers of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. The Germans had already dismantled these camps in 1943, after most of the Jews of Poland had been killed.

In January 1945 the Soviets liberated Auschwitz, the Nazis’ largest mass murder and concentration camp.  There they found several thousand emaciated prisoners barely alive. The Nazis had forced the majority of the prisoners westward on a death march. The Soviets later liberated the Stutthof, Sachsenhausen, and Ravensbruck concentration camps.

U.S. forces liberated more than 20,000 prisoners at Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, on April 11, 1945.  They also liberated Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenburg, Dachau, and Mauthausen camps.

British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on April 15, 1945. Some 60,000 prisoners, most in critical condition, were found alive. Thousands, diseased and starved, died after having been liberated.

Liberators found unspeakable conditions in the Nazi camps. Only after liberation of these camps was the full scope of Nazi horrors exposed to the world.  Liberators often remained scarred by the enormity of the evil they encountered. Survivors of the camps faced a long and difficult road to recovery.                             

Steven Spielberg and the Shoah Foundation

Inspired by his experience making Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg established the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in 1994 to gather video testimonies from survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust. Within several years, the Foundation’s Visual History Archive grew to nearly 52,000 video testimonies in 32 languages, representing 56 countries; it is the largest archive of its kind in the world.

In January 2006, the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation became part of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where the testimonies in the Visual History Archive will be preserved in perpetuity. The change of name to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education reflects the broadened mission of the Institute: to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry—and the suffering they cause—through the educational use of the Institute’s visual history testimonies. Today the Institute reaches educators, students, researchers, and scholars on every continent, and supports efforts to collect testimony from the survivors and witnesses of other genocides.

Our guest speaker, Stephen D. Smith, is Executive Director of the Shoah Foundation. Stephen founded the UK Holocaust Centre in Nottinghamshire, England and is an international speaker, lecturing widely on issues relating to the history and collective response to the Holocaust, genocide, and crimes against humanity. In recognition of his work, Stephen received the Interfaith Gold Medallion, the Andrew Cross Award for religious broadcasting, an Honorary Doctorate of Law from Leicester University, and became a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

Stephen is committed to making the testimony of survivors of the Holocaust and of other crimes against humanity a compelling voice for education and action. His leadership at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute focuses on finding strategies to optimize the effectiveness of the testimonies for education, research, and advocacy purposes.

San Diego Community Holocaust Commemoration

For the past thirty five years San Diegans have commemorated Yom HaShoah with a community event, which has grown to become one of the largest Holocaust Commemoration program in the United States. Last year more than 600 people packed the theatre at the JCC, and the overflow watched the program on a big screen in the JCC library. The event is covered by both print and broadcast media and attended by politicians and dignitaries.

Event sponsors are:   The Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County, the New Life Club, the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center Jacobs Family Campus, the Agency for Jewish Education, Jewish Family Service, Jewish Community Foundation, and the San Diego Rabbinical Association.           

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Michael Bart is the son of Holocaust survivors and has chaired the Community Holocaust Commemoration in San Diego for the past five years.