Archive
Why I just disinherited my alma mater
By Bruce Kesler
Bruce Kesler
ENCINITAS, California–I just updated my will and trust and, with heavy heart, cut out what was a significant bequest to my alma mater, Brooklyn College.
What caused the disinheritance is that all incoming freshmen and transfer students are given a copy of a book to read, and no other, to create their “common experience.” This same book is one of the readings in their required English course. The author is a radical pro-Palestinian professor there.
When I attended in the 1960s, Brooklyn College – then rated one of the tops in the country — was, like most campuses, quite liberal. But, there was no official policy to inculcate students with a political viewpoint. Now there is. That is unacceptable.
The book is How Does It Feel To Be A Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America It is interviews with seven Arab-Americans in their 20s about their experiences and difficulties in the US. There’s appreciation of freedoms in the US, and deep resentment at feeling or being discriminated against post-9/11.
The seven are not a representative sample. Six are Moslem and one Christian. According to the Arab American Institute, 63% of Arab-Americans are Christian, 24% Muslim. The author chose those interviewed and those included in the book.
The title of the book is drawn from communist WEB DuBois’ same question in 1903 in his treatise The Souls of Black Folk. The current book consciously draws a parallel, ridiculous on its face, between the horrible and pervasive discrimination and injustices that Blacks were subjected to a century ago and Arab-Americans today.
The author asserts “The core issue [of Middle East turbulence] remains the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” that the post-1967 history of the entire area is essentially that of “imperialism American-style,” and that the US government “limits the speech of Arab Americans in order to cement United States policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Again, preposterous.
The author is Moustafa Bayoumi. He is called an “Exalted Islamic Grievance Peddler” with the following summary of his background:
“The second featured speaker at WCU’s forum was Moustafa Bayoumi, an associate professor of English at Brooklyn College and co-editor of The Edward Said Reader. Bayoumi contends that in the aftermath of 9/11, armed INS officials, U.S. Marshals, and FBI agents routinely roused Muslims from their beds ‘in the middle of the night’—indiscriminately arresting, shackling, and investigating them for possible terrorist connections.”
In September 2002, a year after 9/11, Bayoumi lamented that “an upswing in hate crimes [against American Muslims] has already begun.” As proof, he cited statistics, which would be thoroughly discredited, put forth by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). He then pointed to CAIR’s claim that “57 percent of American Muslims report that they have experienced bias or discrimination since Sept. 11,” and that “48 percent of [Muslim] respondents believe their lives have changed for the worse since the attacks.” “This is hardly surprising,” Bayoumi reasoned. “For the past year, Muslims have endured a daily barrage of demagoguery, distortions and outright lies about their faith. Never well understood in this country, Islam is now routinely caricatured.”
In March 2006, Bayoumi took up this theme again, asserting that “Muslim-bashing has become socially acceptable in the United States.” In 2008 he wrote: “It’s been seven years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and many young American Muslims are convinced that much of American society views them with growing hostility. They’re right.”
The theme of Muslim victimhood is by no means restricted solely to Bayoumi’s view of the United States. Indeed, he depicts Palestinian suicide bombings as little more than desperate reactions to “a brutal [Israeli] military occupation that has been strangling the Palestinian people for decades.”
Most recently, Bayoumi edited a book, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara: The Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and How It Changed the Course of the Israel/Palestinian Conflict, defending it and calling it Israel’s Selma, Alabama, the focal point for US civil rights struggles in the 1960s.
Online I found two professors who protested to the college president. One, retired from Brooklyn College, said: This is wholly inappropriate. It smacks of indoctrination. It will intimidate incoming students who have a different point of view (or have formed no point of view), sending the message that only one side will be approved on this College campus. It can certainly intimidate untenured faculty as well.”
Another, currently on the faculty, said: While our community of learning is committed to freedom of speech and expression, does that require that we must expose new students to the anti-American and anti-Israeli preachings of this professor? At the least, do not our students deserve a balanced presentation?
Another retired professor living in Brooklyn, protested and received back from a Dean:
Each year professors in the English Department and I select a common reading for our entering students. We choose memoirs (a genre familiar to students) set in New York City, often reflecting an immigrant experience, and written by authors who are available to visit campus. Students in freshman composition respond to the common reading by writing about their own experiences, many of them published in Telling Our Stories; Sharing our Lives’. This year we selected How Does It Feel to be a Problem: Being Young and Arab in America by one of our own faculty members, Professor Moustafa Bayoumi, because it is a well-written collection of stories by and about young Arab Brooklynites whose experiences may be familiar to our students, their neighbors, or the students with whom they will study and work at Brooklyn College. We appreciate your concerns. Rest assured that Brooklyn College values tolerance, diversity, and respect for differing points of view in all that we do.”
The professor tells us what happened next:
“S I wrote to her again, and again, and then again once more, suggesting that she provide some balance to Bayoumi’s book, that she provide additional authors and additional speakers. I even suggested another author, Paul Berman, also resident in Brooklyn, also writing on Arab themes, also willing (I would assume) to speak to her students. And what did Dean Wilson reply to these repeated suggestions of mine ? You guessed it, she did not deign to reply at all.
Another professor’s unpublished letter (which I verified with him; I’ve verified the others also) to the college president said: “Anyone who has taught at a university during the past quarter-century and more knows that the slogan of ‘diversity’ generally alludes to its opposite (i.e., imposed uniformity of thought camouflaged by diversity of physical appearance) and also foretells mischief.”
I will always appreciate the excellent liberal arts education I received at Brooklyn College, and the critical thinking that has caused me to disinherit it.
A Board member tells me the 55,000-member Scholars for Peace in the Middle East is now considering its next move.
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Kesler, a freelance writer based in Encinitas, also published this article on the Maggie’s Farm website.
Violence flares in Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (WJC)–Muslim protestors set ablaze half a dozen vehicles in the eastern part of Jerusalem on Thursday and threw stones and firebombs at Israeli police after Jewish settlers approached a mosque, local residents and police said. There were no reported injuries in the incident in the Silwan neighborhood, where tensions have flared between Palestinians and a small group of settlers who have moved there in the past two decades.
Local residents said settlers tried to reach a spring, which religious Jews view as a biblical site, by crossing through a mosque courtyard. Israeli police said Palestinians then took to the streets in violent demonstrations, throwing rocks and firebombs at police and vehicles, burning six cars.
“At three a.m., four settlers arrived and asked to open the gate so they could take a shortcut to a spring,” Mahmoud Karin, a resident of the neighborhood, told the ‘Haaretz’ newspaper. “One of the [Muslim] worshippers saw them and yelled to them to find out what they were doing and they fled,” he was quoted as saying. The settlers involved in the incident denied the Palestinian allegations, saying that “the story with the gate is completely unfamiliar to us.”
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress
There’s a pro-Israel ‘BIG RIG’ coming down the highway of public opinion
By Roz Rothstein and Roberta Seid
LOS ANGELES — Anti-Israel activists are now putting all their energy into their Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign (BDS). Their goal is to portray Israel and Israelis as pariahs that should be excluded from all international spheres—diplomatic, political, economic, social, and cultural.
Jews have been victims of such policies before. In the millennia of anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East, they have been singled out, demonized, and excluded, as they were, for example, in 13th century England and 1930’s Europe. The Jewish State, too, has experienced such policies since its founding when Arab nations implemented strict exclusion and boycotts against Israel, most of which are still in place. The current global BDS campaign began in 2001 and grew after 2005, when Israel effectively defeated the terrorist campaign known as the Second Intifada. Today, hard core anti-Israel activists around the world are feverishly lobbying artists, universities, churches, retailers, unions, municipalities, and other institutions to adopt BDS.
Any public figures, retailers, institutions or organizations that adopt or defer to BDS policies should themselves be boycotted.
They should be boycotted because they advocate destructive rather than constructive, measures. BDS is anti-coexistence, undermines peace efforts, and does nothing to help Palestinians begin state building, improve their lives, or move toward reconciliation.
They should be boycotted because BDS policies are fundamentally anti-Semitic even though some of the movement’s advocates are Jews. The campaign uses the propaganda techniques and imagery of classical anti-Semitism now applied not to individual Jews, but to the world’s largest Jewish community and its only Jewish State. Boycott activists strip away all context for Israel’s actions, such as ongoing terrorism and the virulent ideology that propels it, in order to depict Israel as motivated by sheer malice in what are often simply modern blood libels. They obsessively put a microscope on Israel to detect its flaws, and expect it to live up to standards they do not expect of any other nation. They never call for BDS against nations that do systematically commit war crimes and human rights abuses, such as Ahmadinejad’s Iran, Bashir’s Sudan, Lebanon’s apartheid practices against Palestinians, or Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus and violent repression of its Kurdish minority.
They should be boycotted because of their hypocrisy. Where was the outrage of the boycotters, who claim to be champions of social justice and human rights, when the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign targeted innocent Jewish men, women, and children, and Hamas fired thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israeli communities, murdering toddlers and turning daily life into a lethal game of Russian roulette? Where were they when Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust even as he called for genocide against Jews? Where is their protest against the Judeophobic incitement that dominates the Middle East? Their callous indifference and implicit support of murdering Jews is both morally perverse and anti-Semitic.
Above all, they should be boycotted because they endorse the agendas of the dictatorial regimes and radical Islamist groups who share their hatred of the Jewish State and who are also enemies of human rights, social justice values, tolerance, and modernity. These states and groups like Hamas oppress women, persecute religious and other minorities, and oppress their own citizens. Those who adopt BDS should be exposed and pay the price for supporting and enabling the intransigent enemies of humanitarian and liberal values.
Boycotting those who comply with BDS means that any university that does not unequivocally denounce campus divestment campaigns should not receive another nickel from donors who care about fairness, the survival of Israel, and modern liberal values. Recording artists who refuse to perform in Israel should be labeled as extremists for the regressive, anti-Semitic values they endorse. Fair-minded people should stop buying their records and attending their concerts. Consumers should boycott any retailers who refuse to stock Israeli products, and support the new StandWithUs campaign, “BIG” and “RIG,” acronyms for “Buy Israeli Goods” and “Request Israeli Goods.”
It is time to expose the distorted values that drive the BDS movement, and its alliance with the most repressive and dangerous forces in the world today. It is time to unequivocally say no to this BDS movement and to all who would consider complying with it.
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Roz Rothstein is CEO of StandWithUs. Roberta Seid, PhD is Education Director, StandWithUs. This article also appeared in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles
The Jews Down Under~Roundup of Australian Jewish News
Garry Fabian
Compiled by Garry Fabian
Christians, Jews meet on boycott
SYDNEY, 20 August – Australian Jewish and Christian leaders have met in Sydney to heal the wounds caused by a call last month for Australians to boycott Israeli goods made in occupied Palestinian territories.
The National Council of Churches in Australia called for Australians to consider the boycott at the request of Middle Eastern churches, but the Jewish community was outraged.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) president Robert Goot wrote to the council that the resolution was a “most unpleasant surprise… we feel that we have been badly let down by people we have long thought of as our friends”.
Last week senior members from both councils – including heads of the Australian Catholic and Anglican Churches, Archbishops Phillip Wilson of Adelaide and Phillip Aspinal of Brisbane – met to restore good relations. Yesterday both council released a joint statement saying there had been
a “serious exchange of views” which helped Christian leaders better understand Jewish concerns and Jewish leaders better understand why
the resolution had been adopted.
But the resolution- which called for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to all acts of terrorism, and suggested churches
consider a boycott of Israeli goods from the occupied territories – remain in place.
Representatives of both groups will meet again to work on a “more comprehensive” statement for the Christian council to consider at its next meeting in November.
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The race for the Jewish vote
MELBOURNE, 20 August – As the election race enters itS last days, all political parties try to offer something for everybody. The Opposition Liberal Party’s go-to man this election campaign took time out of his busy schedule on Monday to drop by Adass Israel School.
Goldstein MP Andrew Robb, the shadow minister for finance and the party’s campaign spokesperson, visited the school to officially confirm the Coalition would also commit $15 million to securing Jewish schools.
He was joined by the local Liberal candidate Kevin Ekendahl, the Liberal incumbent in Higgins Kelly O’Dwyer and Kooyong Liberal hopeful Josh Frydenberg.
Earlier in the campaign, the ALP announced it would add $15 million to the Secure Schools Program, which it introduced in 2007 to protect
vulnerable schools from serious security threats.
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Jewish Group calls for partial boycott
MELBOURNE, 19 August – The Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) has defended its new policy to support partial boycotts of Israel,
posting on its website that it has become “the first community-affiliated Jewish organisation” to call for divestment from Israel.
But its support of limited boycotts and its emphasis on communal affiliation to underscore its position have triggered a strong reaction from the Jewish community.
An August 13, the AJDS website stated while not supporting full boycotts, it “envisages boycotting specific Israeli academics openly supportive of the occupation” and other sanctions, but would consider each case on its merits.
AJDS executive member Tom Wolkenberg said the shift follows a 12-month review, which culminated in a special meeting of the organisation on August 8 where the new policy was adopted.
Asked if embracing a partial boycott was the first step, he said: “I don’t think it can at all be seen as the thin edge of the wedge.
“It’s looking purely at the occupation and how a very limited BDS [Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions] policy could in some way be a lever to change the situation with the occupation.”
Wolkenberg also defended the AJDS decision to invite Australian-Palestinian activist Samah Sabawi to the special meeting, saying, “It was
more to try and be provocative and let all issues, everything, be on the table”.
Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) president John Searle said the AJDS “has placed itself clearly outside the prevailing views of
Victoria’s Jewish community” and called on the group to reverse its stance.
“The fact that the AJDS has sought to legitimate its views by describing itself as a community-affiliated Jewish organisation, claiming credibility by associating itself with the JCCV, is reproachable.
“While the AJDS is an affiliate of the JCCV, this is a tribute to the latter’s inclusive nature rather than an acceptance of the AJDS’ views.”
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry also voiced its concern, with executive director Peter Wertheim slamming the AJDS position as “naïve” and comparing it to “the global assault on Israel’s legitimacy”.
Zionist Federation of Australia president Philip Chester described the BDS campaign as “nothing more than a deliberate and concerted campaign to delegitimise” Israel.
“This decision by the AJDS is completely at odds with the position of every responsible organisation in our community and deserves the most severe condemnation.”
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Extremists move against Dreyfus
MELBOURNE, 20 August – Voters in the Melbourne seat of Isaacs are being urged not to vote for ALP candidate Mark Dreyfus ( who is Jewish) due to his support for Israel.
An advertisement, endorsed by the Australian Muslim Palestine Committee, appeared last week in The Dandenong Leader, saying “When voting put Dreyfus last. No more support for Israel.”
Meanwhile, Australian Muslim Palestine Committee president Asem Judeh wrote this month in Muslim newspaper The Crescent Times, “It is well known that the Israeli state has sponsored murderous and terrorist acts, and that it has systematically deprived Palestinians of their land and basic rights.
“One reason the Israeli lobby is so organised and aggressive is because it has to ensure that Israel is above criticism.”
Judeh then continued, “The Zionist influence is growing. There are two Zionist Jews [sic] Labor MPs, Michael Danby and Mark Dreyfus. After this election, another Australian Jew will become Liberal MP.
“Those MPs are the organised lobby representatives. Their job is to silence any MPs who dare to criticise Israel in the Parliament. They use parliamentary committees to defend Zionism and attack those who dare to criticise Israel.”
Dreyfus, who is Jewish and represents a very multicultural community that includes many Muslim families, condemned the campaign.
“These ads taken out against me are misleading and an affront to how parliamentary democracy is practised in this country,” the QC said. “I am confident that the local community recognises this hate campaign for what it is, and will reject a campaign that prejudges me for my
religious faith, not on my record of working for my local community.
“No Australian, politician or otherwise, should be prejudged or vilified for their religious belief.”
Dreyfus added that he has worked hard with the Muslim community and appreciated the support he had received in return.
“The response from local Muslim community leaders has been heartfelt and touching,” he said.
“A group of local Muslim community leaders came to my office last week to condemn this campaign and assure me that this campaign does not reflect the views of the local Muslim community.”
Muslim politician Adem Somyurek, a member in Victoria’s Upper House, also threw his support behind Dreyfus, drawing parallels between the
campaign and anti-Muslim comments made by disendorsed Liberal candidate for Chifley, David Barker.
“This advertisement . does two things: first, it seeks to question the candidate’s loyalty to Australia; and second, it publicly identifies the
candidate as a member of a minority faith and in doing so has as its objective electoral backlash by bigots, in this case anti-Semites in the community,” he said.
O’Connor pledges more funds to protect Jewish schools
SYDNEY. 19 August – Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor re-affirmed that Labor would put another $15 million into the Secure Schools Program when he visited The Emanuel School last Thursday.
O’Connor, who was joined by Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and Arts and Kingsford Smith MP Peter Garrett, had earlier
made the same pledge in Melbourne.
Also at the announcement was Wentworth Labor candidate Steven Lewis.
This week, the Coalition, led by shadow education minister Christopher Pyne and shadow attorney-general Senator George Brandis, also
pledged its support for the additional $15 million commitment.
The program, which provides schools with fences, closed circuit TV and other infrastructure, is designed to protect students and teachers from
terrorist threats. It was first introduced by the Rudd Government in 2007.
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The Age’s ‘anti-Israel bias’ condemned by Jewish leaders
MELBOURNE, 20 August==Jewish Community Council of Victoria President John Searle and Zionist Council of Victoria President Dr Danny Lamm have again strongly criticised Melbourne broadsheet The Age for its ongoing anti-Israel bias over a number of years.
The leaders of Victoria’s peak Jewish bodies jointly observed that during the tenure of Andrew Jaspan and particularly that of his successor
Paul Ramadge, The Age had increasingly engaged in a war of words against Israel. Apart from steering its readership to a more anti-Israel
position, Searle and Lamm consider that The Age’s strident line had also had the hopefully unintended by-product of legitimising antisemitism in this country.
“There is no particular reporting or opinion piece that has prompted our criticism at this time. Frankly, our community has simply just had
enough of The Age’s lack of balance”, Searle noted. “Despite our best efforts to present Israel’s case, there have been too many instances
of anti-Israel statements to count, ranging from the blatant such as Michael Backman’s ugly smear job in 2009 to the more subtle and insidious”, Searle continued. “An example of the latter includes a recent article reprinted from The UK’s The Daily Telegraph which stated “Netanyahu will come under fierce pressure from Obama to extend a
10-month freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank”. The Age’s version made the following insertions “illegal Jewish settlements in the
occupied West Bank” (The Age, 070710). Such changes make a world of difference.”
“We make this statement with regret”, Lamm continued. “However we have spoken to Mr Ramadge on a number of occasions, both privately and in public forums. While he is adept at making the right noises about The Age’s impartiality, his follow through leaves a great deal to be
desired. We believe that The Age’s record speaks for itself. Quite simply The Age is not a friend of our community.”
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Australia faces hung Parliament
CANBERRA, August 23 – The Australian Federal elections produced an outcome, or more accurately non-outcome, with both The Australian Labor Party, the current government, or the Liberal/National Party Opposition gaining an outright majority of seats. While some seats are
still in the balance, due to postal and absentee votes still to be counted, the balance of power is still in the hands of four independents and one seat won by The Greens.
What will be the impact on the Jewish Community?.
While on the domestic scene it will not change very much, one of the worrying developments is that in the Senate (The Upper House) The Greens will have the balanced of power. The Greens, while until now have not been in a position to influence Government decisions,
This is now changed with them holding the balance of power and having a strong impact on Government policy, irrespective if when the dust settles, Labour or the Conservatives will form Government.
The issue on the mind of the Jewish community is that The Greens have taken an anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian stand for a number of years in
the past, and now that they in a real position to influence Government policy, how will this play out in the future? It presents a scenario that
has serious implications, both Labor and Conservatives having been very supportive of Israel over a long period.
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Jewish Battlegrounds decided at Election
CANBERRA, August 23 – While the next government is yet to be decided, a number of Jewish MPs were successful on polling day.
Despite a strong swing to The Greens in Melbourne Ports, home to around 20,000 Jewish voters, Labor’s Michael Danby held on for the fifth time.
In Wentworth, with a similar number of Jewish voters, Liberal Malcolm Turnbull was given a resounding endorsement to continue as the local member.
In the leafy inner-eastern Melbourne seat of Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg made history by becoming the first Jewish Liberal MP in Canberra.
Declaring his win before an audience of hundreds of friends and party faithful, Frydenberg said he was proud to have been elected as only the
seventh ever member of the 110 year-old seat.
“We have won Kooyong and we can win government tonight,” he said, after thanking his family and campaign team for their support.
Labor incumbent Mark Dreyfus increased his support in the Melbourne southern bayside seat of Isaacs.
“Regardless of the final decision tonight, the people of Melbourne Ports can be assured we will stand up for them in Canberra,” Danby said.
“We have our own opinions here, we stand for a more cosmopolitan and pluralist Australia,” he said, referring to the strong national swing that saw Labor lose many seats.
“I don’t care what bogans and rednecks think elsewhere we stand up for it here and our opinions count as much as their’s.”
His Liberal opponent Kevin Ekendahl saw his party’s primary vote reduced in the seat.
Ekendahl had one message for Danby: “stop being complacent”
“Get out into the electorate. Start working hard,” Ekendahl said.
In the Sydney seat with the most Jewish voters, Wentworth, Liberal Malcolm Turnbull increased his majority by a whopping 11.5 per cent.
His opponent Jewish lawyer Steven Lewis said despite the defeat he had enjoyed the campaign.
“It was a great campaign. We fell short today but we had great enjoyment in what we did, we threw everything into it,” he said.
“Everyone said it was going to be a big ask, but we did the best we could given the facilities that we had.”
Lewis declined to say whether he would consider running again in the future.
“We’ll take it one day at a time,” he said. “It’s a bit too early to speculate on that right now, we’re still waiting for the [rest of the] results to come in here today.”
But he was full of thanks with those who had assisted with his campaign.
“I’ve been working with a great group of people, volunteers who have come in to help us, day in and day out. I’m surrounded by some fantastic people in the party and we’re just grateful that we did the best job we could.”
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Fabian is Australia bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World
Palestinian and Israeli visitors ponder business together
Emad Nuseibeh and Amir Gur-Lavie (Photo: Bonnie Stewart)
By Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison
LA MESA, California – Emad Ahmed Fuad Nuseibeh, a major Palestinian grower of vegetables and herbs, and Amir Gur-Lavie, an owner of Zeta, a large distributor of Israeli olive oil, cheerfully agreed to pose together following a dinner at Vine Ripe Market here. Nuseibeh and Gur-Lavie smiled warmly like old friends, whereas, in fact, they had only met a few days before.
The market and restaurant is part of a chain co-founded by Ali Baba Abdallah, a Palestinian refugee who had lived in Jordan and Lebanon before immigrating in 1982 to the United States, where he built a successful career as a grower and marketer.
The two men were among a group of Palestinians and Israeli Jews brought together through the combined efforts of the Peres Peace Center in Jaffa, Arab businessman Sam Husseini of Jerusalem, and the Hansen Institute for World Peace at San Diego State University. They and others met to discuss and to refine an idea that the Peres and Hansen groups have been developing over several years now: creating a blended olive oil made from Israeli and Palestinian olives to be sold as a “peace product” in U.S. stores.
Ali-Baba Abdallah (Photo: Bonnie Stewart)
If the project comes to fruition, the new brand may have a ready customer in Abdallah, whose store specializes in foods from the Middle East, both Arab and Jewish. Abdallah explained that in San Diego there are many immigrant communities who hunger for foods from home, and he makes it his business to satisfy their tastes. The chance for Arabs and Jews to peacefully mingle together as customers in his store is a side benefit paralleling the joint goals of the Peres Peace Center, the Hansen Institute and Husseini’s Lion Heart business development company, a new partner in the peace consortium.
As Abdallah had tray after tray of Middle Eastern appetizers, salads and entrees brought to the long table in a patio area alongside his market on Fletcher Parkway, the meeting was one for socializing amid the familiar tastes and aromas of the guests’ Middle Eastern homes.
The Palestinian and Israeli business people on that day had toured such markets as Ralphs, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Henry’s and now Vine Ripe, to gain an insight into California food consumer tastes. The tour followed days of lectures and panels at San Diego State University on trends in the American food industry, as well as a visit to the Temecula Olive Oil groves in Aguanga, California. The group also had some recreational outings together, including the San Diego Zoo, Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, La Jolla and on the following day would visit the Star of India at the Embarcadero.
When the meal was done, Nuseibeh and Gur-Lavie both agreed to share their impressions with this reporter.
Like the other Palestinians at the meeting, Nuseibeh lives in East Jerusalem, now claimed by Israel but which could possibly become the capital of a new Palestinian state, depending on how direct peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials —scheduled to begin next month—settle the volatile question. Nuseibeh also owns a large farm near Jericho, where he grows various desert produce, and another where he produces herbs sold directly to the U.S. market.
The San Diego trip “was a great experience for me,” said Nuseibeh. “We have met great people who in fact are our neighbors but we didn’t know them until we reached here in the States. I hope that, after knowing them, how they are thinking and what kind of businesses they have, that we can do some business together, in order to cut, or break the obstacles that have prevented us from working together.”
Asked about creating special olive oils, that might blend Israeli and Palestinian varieties, and maybe even some of Nuseibeh’s herbs, Nuseibeh responded:
“I think it is a good idea to start a business together, but there are a lot of obstacles, a lot of problems,” that must be resolved first, he said. “We have to do things here in the States, a lot of work, a lot of research, and I don’t think at this moment that we as Israeli and Palestinian business people can come up with the money. I hope we can find a source for finance, and I think that with these ideas that we have—to work with good-willed people—we will be able to succeed.”
The Nuseibeh Agricultural Co. for Marketing and Production (NAMP) has for over a half century exported oranges to the United Kingdom, as well as a variety of citrus and bananas to Jordan and to the Gulf countries. When exports to Jordan slowed down, Nuseibeh developed herb products, which he sold to the Israeli market. Initially, sales to the U.S. market went through Israel, but now NAMP is shipping about $1 million annually in herbs directly to the United States.
The joint meeting in San Diego with Israeli agriculturalists was not limited to olives, Nuseibeh said.
“We are thinking of ways to combine the Israeli produce and the Palestinian produce,” and to devise “new ideas in order to work together for their benefit and our benefit,” he said. “At the end, it is business. So we are trying hard to find new things, new ideas. It may not be in olives, or vegetables, or herbs; maybe it is a new idea that could succeed.”
Indicating other Palestinians and Israelis seated at the table, Nuseibeh added: “Everyone has their own experience. Some of us have experience in marketing or in finding finance; others have experience in growing and having good, high quality produce, and so the thing is we have to find something that can work in order to succeed in this.”
Whatever products are eventually developed, Nuseibeh said the meetings are a harbinger of what real peace between Israelis and Palestinians might mean. “We need it for both of us, the Israelis and the Palestinians,” he declared. It is a need, it is a must. And when we are doing this, maybe it is a small step, but everyone profits, the Israelis and the Palestinians. You are going toward the same light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe what we are doing is a small step, but at the end, Palestinians and Israelis are people who want to reach that same light and to get to the end of this mess we have. It might help, this thing we are doing. We are not going against anyone. The peace process is going on; maybe it (the San Diego meeting) is a mile out of the million, but it is a mile.”
Gur-Lavie is the owner of Zeta in the Galilean town of Mitzpe Hila – known throughout Israel as the hometown of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held in captivity for several years by the Hamas government in Gaza. Besides owning the company which produces three million bottles a year of olive oil, Gur-Lavie serves on a committee with Shalit’s parents trying to keep the issue of ending Shalit’s captivity before the world.
About the San Diego meetings, Gur-Lavie said: “I don’t know what will be the result, but the main goal we have already reached. It was wonderful. We (Palestinians and Israelis) had the possibility to sit together and to think together, and anyhow we have new friends, and we hope also to have new products for the grocery market. We need to find the way to do it. I am sure that we will find the way to do something—perhaps small, perhaps big—but actually the biggest thing, we already have done.
Bentzi Elisha, who is the chief executive officer of Zeta, added. “Sometimes we have to come to the States to find that we can be together and talk about everything, and laugh about the same things – really, because we became friends.”
The Hansen Institute has been quietly bringing Arabs and Israelis together—even in the absence of diplomatic relations between their countries – since the time following the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt during Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
Bonnie Stewart, the executive director, has witnessed a process many times in which the Arabs and Israelis first regarded each other with suspicion and had to air out some of their political differences before getting down to business discussions.
Not so this meeting, commented Gur-Lavie. “We had heard this would happen… but we didn’t feel that, even at the airport. We started with friendship. Look, we also talk very openly about the problems. We know we can’t avoid the problems but we think that with friendship we are able to talk about it … We know that is from business that maybe we will be able to make the peace sooner. If we wait for the conflict to be solved, and then talk about business, maybe it will take 100 years.”
While creating a peace product is a relatively new idea, Gur-Lavie said that his company has been bottling both Israeli and Palestinian olive oils for years. Noting that his company recently won four Gold Medals in an international olive oil competition, he expressed confidence that something “unique and of a very high quality” eventually can be created and marketed.
Both Gur-Lavie and Nuseibeh had praise for San Diego State and the Hansen Institute specifically, and for San Diego generally.
Said the Israeli of San Diego: “It is a very nice and pleasant place to be. I have been in many places in America, but such a nice hospitality! All the Americans we are with from the Hansen Institute and the University are doing an excellent job. They believe that it is important to help us bring the peace, and I really just want to say thank you.”
Nuseibeh concurred, saying: “People in the Middle East know Americans in two or three things, in their bullets, in their bombs that say ‘made in the U.S.A.,’ and in their vetoes in the U.N. They don’t know the people, but this time and my last visit to the U.S., I met a lot of people and I found something else. I found people who want to help, people…who need to know how they can make the people in front of them as happy as they are…. If someone here is convinced by a cause, he will devote his life, money, fortune and time to the cause. And it doesn’t matter how much effort it will take. There are many people in the Middle East who do not know the Americans well; they should see the people, the American people.”
Besides Nuseibeh and Sam Husseini, other members of the Palestinian delegation included Abdel Muti Qutob, whose businesses include agriculture produce in the Auja region near Jericho, as well as real estate development elsewhere; and Rami Assali, financial and administrative manager for Search for Common Ground, a non-governmental agency in Jerusalem.
Israelis in addition to Gur-Lavi and Elisha included Ofer Ensher, managing director of Hefer Systems & Controls, which is a large company in the fields of water and waste water processes; and the following staff members of the Peres Center for Peace: Roi Dai, the finance director; Oren Blonder, director, and Moran Diment, manager, in the agriculture, water and environment department.
Numerous Americans interacted with the two delegations. Among those who participated in seminars with them were Stewart, the director of the Hansen Institute; Sanford Ehrlich, Qualcomm Executive Director of Entrepreneurship at SDSU’s Entrepreneurial Management Center (EMC); Alex DeNoble, chair of the Management department of SDSU’s College of Business Administration; Bernard Schroeder, director of EMC programs; Evan Schlessinger, president of the Springboard Company, which helps bring new products and innovations to market, and Marvin Spira, president of Marketing Consultants, International, which specializes in the marketing of food products.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.
Peace talks 10 years ago led to an Intifada
By Shoshana Bryen
Shoshana Bryen
WASHINGTON, D.C. –The announcement has been made that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Abu Mazen will come to Washington for “face to face negotiations.” It is worth remembering that precisely 10 years ago President Clinton invited then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat to a summit at Camp David.
Mr. Barak was bringing a very far-reaching proposal – so much so that in fact that he wasn’t sure he could sell to the Israeli public if Arafat accepted it. But after what appeared to be an ill-planned and hasty IDF departure from the Lebanese “Security Zone,” he hoped to bring home an agreement with the Palestinians.
In a moment of wisdom, or at least of extreme practicality, Yasser Arafat tried mightily to get out of attending. It wasn’t the right time, he said. He objected to holding a meeting of the principals (Clinton, Barak and himself) when there was no guarantee of success. The time to hold a summit, he opined, was when everything had already been done, and it hadn’t been done. And he was, for once, right.
The crucial issues in 2000 were:
Jerusalem; The Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for refugees and their descendants to places in Israel from which the original refugees claim to have come; Territorial compromise, and; Agreement on the legitimacy of Israel’s sovereignty in the region, which was also called an “end to the war” and termination of future claims.
The result of the failure at Camp David was the so-called “second intifada,” the Palestinian war against Israel. For the next three years, Israelis were subjected to suicide bombings in buses and in cafes and other acts of violence, including the shooting of an infant in her father’s arms, the massacre of patrons in a Jerusalem pizza parlor, the murder of two toddlers in their beds, the death of a pregnant woman who had been the only child of Holocaust survivors, and a car bombing that killed worshippers at a Passover Seder. Israeli children ride public buses to school; many parents sent siblings on separate buses. More than 1,000 Israelis died (the equivalent of 42,000 Americans) and thousands more were maimed both physically and psychologically.
Israel ended the Palestinian war by going to the sources of terrorist organization and operation – by entering Palestinian cities and retaking security control of the West Bank (it is worth remembering that the war promulgated not from Gaza by Hamas, but by the “relatively moderate” PLO). The IDF took the war to the Palestinian Authority, closed the Orient House in Jerusalem, and built the security fence.
Terrorism emanating from the West Bank dropped precipitously, not because the Palestinians stopped trying, but because the Israelis got better at prevention. Only after that, after Arafat’s death, and after the bloody Palestinian civil war that evicted Fatah leadership from Gaza, did Israelis and Palestinians on the West Bank come to a relatively constructive modus vivendi based on Fatah’s fear of Hamas and Israel’s belief that economic progress for the Palestinians would lower the appeal of radicalism.
In accepting President Obama’s summons, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Abu Mazen know they will, necessarily, be discussing the same four issues that were on the table in 2000. So, as President Obama pushes Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Abu Mazen, the questions are:
If Yasser Arafat could not accept any compromise then, why would President Obama think Abu Mazen, whose legitimate term of office ended in January 2009 and who controls far less territory and far fewer Palestinians, can compromise?
What will the President do if the talks fail and increased violence is again the result?
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Bryen is senior director for security policy for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Since Sept. 21, 2008, Waxie Sanitary Supply has sponsored her column in San Diego Jewish World in memory of Morris Wax, who had been a national board member of JINSA.
Commentary: Palestinians, Israelis ever so slowly being pushed by U.S. into direct talks
By Ira Sharkansky
Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM– Israel and Palestine may be inching, crawling, or sidestepping toward direct, face to face negotiations.
We have heard this before. It is a long and contorted road even to the beginning of talks. Neither side appears to be enthusiastic. They are being pushed by the pathetically naive, led by the champion of brazen optimism who is trying to outdo his predecessor by choosing peace in the Holy Land over democracy in Iraq as an icon of foreign policy. European leaders can do no less than add their voices to that of a president with the status to define what is politically correct. Those in power hope that a miracle will occur quickly enough for them to claim credit.
What is shaping up is a call to negotiations from a quartet that includes representatives of Europe, Russia, the US and the UN with parameters favorable to the Palestinians. It is said to include the 1967 boundaries as the basis of negotiations, and a continuing freeze on Israeli construction over that line. Israel has already rejected those conditions, but may be willing to accept an invitation from the United States that is less unfriendly.
One can guess about the prospects of discussions that neither side wants, and which begin with each claiming to be operating according to different invitations. For Palestinians, the 1967 lines represent their major hope of rescuing something from an area shrinking and cut up with the settlements of Jews they do not want living among them.
Also important to the Palestinians is a continuation of a freeze in the building of settlements. They are also talking about a freeze in what they call Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, but one can reach a high level of skepticism about any chance of achieving that detail. A continuation of the freeze over 1967 boundaries outside of Jerusalem will be difficult enough, given the intensity of the opposition in the polity that counts for more than the Palestinian and perhaps more even than that in Washington.
Recent news is that settlers and their friends have approvals for 5,000 housing units ready to be unfrozen in September, and will not tolerate a continuation of a freeze that has failed to show any tangible results with respect to its contribution to peace.
One can only wonder at the importance of 1967 or any other date in a conflict between peoples that was already apparent to the authors of the Books of Joshua and Judges, whenever it was that they began to tell their stories.
“The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.” (Judges 3:5)
Today there are considerable personal interactions, cooperation in the workplace and the universities, more mutual tolerance in Jewish than Arab neighborhoods, along with few romances or conversions in the directions of Islam or Judaism.
The boundaries of Jerusalem have changed several times since the British arrived in 1917, and many times before then. The walls around the Old City reflect the lines defined by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the 1530s. They are only one of several walled arrangements meant to protect a city whose shape changed going back at least to the time of David.
Conceptions of “Palestine” are fuzzier. The bombast of activists represent their efforts to find some basis for a national claim in what can fairly be described as a backwater of empires thinly populated by diverse and quarreling families.
No doubt that all national claims–including those of the Jews–rest on contentious narratives more often spiritual than factual in nature. The Bible, Talmud, numerous other writings, and the success of modern Israel represent the Jews’ claims to legitimacy. It will take some time to see if the Palestinians can achieve the status of other Arab countries. The records achieved by Gaza and the West Bank indicate that the phrase “Arab democracy” will remain an oxymoron even if the Palestinians do accomplish something.
We should expect maneuvering rather than anticipate anything like a breakthrough. Part of the playbook we can write already. There will be some further hemming and hawing by the principals, with each adhering to its own rules of the game. Palestinians will emphasize those 1967 boundaries and maybe a settlement freeze; Israelis will insist that they are beginning negotiations without preconditions. If things go well, overseas sponsors may invite the principals to a party on the White House lawn, or some other ceremonial venue where they declare a breakthrough and their commitment to helping the parties reach an agreed solution within a short period of time.
The principals will put on their frozen smiles and express mutual commitments to settling disputes peacefully, or maybe their stern faces and commitments to what those loyal to each side will see as a reaffirmation of well known principles.
Given Muslim sensitivities, the refreshments will feature fruit juice rather than wine.
Beyond these details, my predictive capacity weakens. After a brief flurry of daily bulletins, it is likely that the weather will provide more interesting news. Americans will concern themselves with who will win and lose by how much thanks to the president’s health reform, as well as the World Series and the endless parade of college sports. For Europeans there will be a new season of football.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University.
Recent attacks underscore security concerns for the West Bank
‘Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them volley’d and thunder’d; Storm’d at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred.’ – from The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
By Bruce S. Ticker
Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA–Gaza rockets from the south of them, a Sinai rocket from the southeast of them and an OK Corral-style shootout from the north of them.
These days, Israel’s multiple conflicts resemble the aforementioned passage in The Charge of the Light Brigade. Where is Errol Flynn when we need him?
Israel endured a two-front war at this time four years ago, and in recent months it has contended with attacks on four fronts, by my count – the blockade incident on the high seas, Gaza, southern Lebanon and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty three decades ago, yet Egypt cannot control terrorists operating on its lands.
Meanwhile, President Obama and others pine for the day when Israel hands over the West Bank to the Palestinians so they can, supposedly, live happily ever after. Many in the pro-Israel camp believe that the Arabs will never be happy until all of Israel is, well, no longer Israel.
Foes of a Palestinian state have said that Israel does not need another front. The most worrisome concern over a Palestinian state is Israel’s security. The border between Israel and the West Bank is much longer than its other borders, and Israel proper is directly vulnerable to attack.
Israeli leaders have said that Ben Gurion International Airport is within range of the West Bank. Security must be directly addressed before Israel considers further negotiations about the West Bank. It has not been adequately addressed.
Some protective measures have been taken. Construction of a security barrier along the border has eliminated terrorist attacks that were rampant up to five years ago. A strong Palestinian security force has been built. The West Bank has been much calmer. Still, none of these developments, even combined, guarantee that Israel will be safe from attack if a Palestinian state is established.
Events of recent weeks underscore security concerns. Israel withdrew all troops and settlers from the Sinai Peninsula three decades ago; all troops from Lebanon in 2000; and all troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005. After Yasser Arafat rejected a peace plan in 2000, the Palestinians started a war that led to fierce fighting in Gaza and the West Bank and terrorist attacks in Israel proper. The Gaza evacuation was followed by thousands of rocket attacks into Sderot and other sections of southern Israel.
My educated guess in 2005 was that the Gaza evacuation would produce some aggression, but Israel could manage it. I was wrong.
Beyond rocket attacks, Israel fought a two-front war against terrorists in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, and again in Hamas-controlled Gaza in December 2009. More worrisome is the build-up of weapons in Gaza and Lebanon to be used for future assaults against Israel.
Last month, Gaza terrorists broke a long lull firing rockets that struck the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon and Sapir College near the border, The New York Times reported.
Then Monday, Aug. 2: A barrage of missiles fired from the Sinai Peninsula struck both the resort city Eilat in Israel and neighboring Aqaba in Jordan, where a taxi driver was killed. Egypt subsequently admitted that they were fired from Sinai, ostensibly under Egyptian control.
The following day, Lebanese soldiers – possibly influenced by Hezbollah – fired at Israeli soldiers tending a fence within Israel territory. United Nations peacekeepers declared that the Lebanese were entirely at fault.
It should be no surprise if someone – perhaps Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – was conspiring to provoke Israel to engage in yet another war.
With all this on Israel’s plate, Israeli leaders are still willing to enter negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Fortunately, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has raised security concerns.
What might that entail? Possibly Israel can evacuate the more isolated settlements while maintaining a strong military presence. However, that military presence would be trimmed somewhat because the troops would not need to worry about protecting the settlements.
Maybe that will not be necessary, but I for one do not want to be wrong again.
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Ticker is Philadelphia bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via bticker@comcast.net
The Jews Down Under~News of the Jews of Australia and New Zealand
Garry Fabian
By Garry Fabian
New Zealand Jewish Community goes to court
WELLINGTON, New Zealand, 10 August– The following announcement was released by the New Zealand Jewish Community:
As we informed the community last week, we filed legal proceedings against the Minister of
Agriculture, seeking a restoration of the right to practise shechitain New Zealand. We are pleased to report that an interim agreement has
now been reached with the Minister, which will enable the continued practice of shechita in the period up to trial (which is likely to take place during 2011).
Court orders were made by consent in the Wellington High Court this morning, giving legal effect to that agreement. Every effort is being
made to get chicken and local lamb”back on the table”as soon as possible.
The community would like to acknowledge the tremendous contribution the legal team at Russell McVeagh have made in putting together our
case to achieve this positive outcome in such a short period.
The memorandum was signed by Jewish community leaders Garth Cohen, Michael Stiassny and Geoff Levy.
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Church resolution reveals failure of interfaith
MELBOURNE, 13 August -The National Council of Churches of Australia’s resolution encouraging a boycott of Israel is absolutely indefensible, and makes a mockery of both mutual tolerance and “interfaith” dialogue. It is abundantly clear in the case of Israel, as in countless instances in Jewish history, an exception has been made of Jews.
If the churches were fair about their human rights concerns they would have boycotted Sudan, Saudi Arabia and so many other Islamic
countries for their real human rights abuses and treatment and discrimination of non-Muslim minorities.
No mainstream church group has ever openly sided with Jews, publicly criticising Iran’s President Amadinajad over his promotion of Holocaust denial and anti Semitic rhetoric or criticising Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism. There are so many other examples of the church’s hypocrisy in singling out the Jewish state as their ‘pet’ cause. Even some Christians who have seen the NCAA statement find it incomprehensible that it
does not mention Palestinian/Hamas discrimination of Christians in Gaza.
Jewish interfaith advocates should start insisting on some reciprocity and public support for the Jewish narrative in the Israel/
Palestinian, Arab Muslim conflict otherwise they are wasting their time
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Contemporary Antisemitism: What We Can Do
Contemporary antisemitism turns Israel into a collective Jew among the nations, demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish state. Irwin Cotler
defines its expression in the genocidal antisemitism of Ahmadinejad’s Iran; the political antisemitism that denies Jews the right to national selfdetermination; the racialised antisemitism that defines Zionism as racism; the legalized antisemitism that makes a mockery of the UN Human Rights procedures, and the “new protocols of the elders of Zion”, which blames Israel for everything from 9/11 to swine flu.
But, Cotler argues, we can act. We have opportunities through Holocaust memory and education, through pressuring for the implementation of the legal procedures of the Genocide Convention,
through reforming the UN, through government initiatives and through working to reframe the narrative that blames Israel and Jews for all
Middle East conflict and ignores human rights abuses in other parts of the world..
The Hon. Professor Irwin Cotler MP is an eminent human rights lawyer and Canadian statesman. A former Canadian Attorney-General and sitting member of the Canadian Parliament, he has been outspoken on issues of human rights in the former Soviet Union, South Africa and Rwanda.
The ADC was honoured to host him recently as our ADC Gandel Orator. This special report is an edited transcript of his Oration.
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Australian Foreign Minister charts positive Israel course
CANBERRA, 13 August – The diplomatic relationship between Australia and Israel has resumed on its normal course, less than three months after Stephen Smith expelled an Israeli diplomat from Canberra.
And despite a frosty few months, the two countries – which both share a desire to see Iran’s nuclear weapons program halted immediately
– never ceased to share intelligence on the rogue state.
In a wide-ranging interview during a campaign stop in Melbourne, Smith spoke about the resumption of that relationship. He made no
pledges about the foreign policy direction a future Gillard government would take, but spoke in depth about some of the decisions made over the past almost three years.
“I am now very confident that things are now back to business as usual,” he said of the diplomatic ties between Australia and Israel.
“Often when you have a difficult issue that you’ve got to manage, your capacity to manage that and then to move reasonably quickly off it,
reflects the strength of the relationship.
“Yes it was a difficult time and I obviously thought very carefully about all of the issues and came to the decision that, as I said
publicly, we could not turn a blind eye to what had occurred.
“I’m very confident now that in terms of agency-to-agency relationship,
government-to-government, nation-to-nation, it is business as usual.”
He added that at no time during the diplomatic impasse, did the two countries stop cooperating to quash the rogue Iranian regime.
“One area [of the Australia-Israel relationship] we did not want to see disturbed was the ongoing cooperation and exchange of information on Iran,” he said.
Asked whether he thought the forthcoming direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians means that the time for peace is right, Smith showed some trademark diplomacy.
“I think your attitude has got to be that it is always right,” he said. “You always have to try and take the opportunity and often when things
appear to be at their worst is often a time when you can move forward.”
“We’re very supportive of President [Barack] Obama’s efforts, we’re very supportive of Ambassador [George] Mitchell’s efforts and we
make the point to all of the players in the Middle East that it is absolutely essential that we get long-term enduring peace.
“The issues are complex, complicated and there are strong views respectively on both sides, but we can’t give up because solving these Middle East issues is very important to peace and security, peace and stability throughout the entire world,” he said.
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Jewish Music Festival hits Sydney
SYDNEY, 16 August – SHIR Madness, Sydney’s first large-scale Jewish music festival, brought Bondi Beach to life with more than 40 performers from Australia and around the world, eclectic food stalls, kids activities and an art exhibition centred around Bondi Pavilion on Sunday, August 15.
The festival is the brainchild of Gary Holzman, who has dreamed of staging a music festival for many years.
“I’ve always felt there would be somebody better equipped to put it on than myself, but as it never eventuated, I finally decided to do
something about it,” says Holzman, who is the festival director.
The festival will feature four stages, with musical styles covering klezmer, choral, Latino, Chassidic, Israeli, jazz, cabaret, folk, blues, pop, rock, funk, reggae and rap.
Among the local performers are Deborah Conway, Monsieur Camembert, The Mark Ginsburg Band, Alana Bruce, Joanna Weinberg, the Emanuel choirs and the Sydney Jewish Choral Society.
Leading the line-up of international performers are Israeli singer Ido Lederman, Alex Jacobowitz from New York and the Jew Brothers Band from New Zealand.
Lederman began his music career as lead singer of Israeli rock band Amstaf, and was bass player for the reggae group Hatikvah 6. He will also perform in Melbourne on August 21.
Holzman says: “It’s just going to be an amazing atmosphere and an absolute smorgasbord – what I would call a ‘mixed salad’ of musical delight.
“People should come to appreciate the amazing variety of musical talent within the Jewish community, both from Sydney and from other places as well.
“With the incredible variety of music on offer, a food court full of tempting delights, market stalls, kids entertainment and an exhibition of
Jewish art, this is going to be a fantastic festival for the whole family to come and enjoy.”
Holzman hopes the festival will be an annual event.
“We certainly want to make sure that it’s not going to be a one-off, but will become a highlight of the Sydney cultural calendar.”
One of the international performers from upstate New York is Jacobowitz, a master of the marimba who has plied his trade across the world, most notably in Germany. An Orthodox Jew, he focuses
on the traditional klezmer music of his ancestors.
“My music is spiritual, natural, totally unexpected and riveting,” he says. “It brings European music, African sound and Jewish geist together.”
Jacobowitz says his Jewish identity is an integral part of his music.
“Judaism is my spirit, and my spirit energises and breathes life into my music. Whether I’m playing Bach, flamenco or klezmer, my music is 100 per cent kosher.”
Jacobowitz is thrilled to be in Australia and taking part in Shir Madness.
“To be part of the first Jewish music festival in Sydney makes me proud and humble at the same time, and I hope that the music finds a special echo there.”
For AJN Ghetto Blasterz competition winner Shannon Gaitz, Shir Madness is the highlight of her fledgling music career so far.
“I’m extremely excited, especially to be able to get my name and my songs out there,” says Gaitz, 17, from Bondi, who describes her music as country pop.
“It’s very honest – it’s all based on personal experience and very emotional.”
Gaitz is grabbing the opportunity to perform at Shir Madness with both hands.
“It’s just a huge opportunity of being able to get performance experience, especially with my original songs, and I’m going to be playing with
Philip Foxman, he’s my mentor and that’s also a really big honour.”
Gaitz will also spend a day recording tracks at the Green Sound Music studios in Sydney’s Castle Cove as part of her prize.Sydney band The Naked Parade has been causing quite a stir with its infectious brand of alternative pop-rock.
Singer Talya Rabinovitz explains with a laugh: “We’ve been told that we are the love child of Jeff Buckley and No Doubt if they went travelling
though Eastern Europe and South America.”
“We definitely have a Middle Eastern vibe to our music, with the violin, melodies and the drumbeats.”
Rabinovitz is excited to be performing at Shir Madness.
“It just looks like an amazing music festival,” she says. “This will be a different age group for us as well –
I know that a lot of my family like my aunts and uncles are coming and they don’t usually come to our gigs. I’m excited to see their reaction and put on a show.”
Local singer Natan Kuchar has spent the past four years plying his trade in the United States.
Kuchar has performed solo at Carnegie Hall, but the humble performer speaks more enthusiastically about his recent album release at a small Surry Hills venue in Sydney.
“It made me feel like people really dig what I have and were really interested in me,” he says. “It was a really great confidence booster and it
helped propel me to apply for Shir Madness.”
Kuchar describes his music as “a really raw sound, merging pop music and soul music.”
“I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from people like Stevie Wonder and Regina Spektor for their melodies and for their storytelling within their music,” he says.
“I really love to subtly add melodies from synagogue services or from High Holy Days or just lyrics that are found in certain religious texts
that help to support some other kind of contemporary story that I’m trying to tell in my songs.”
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Fabian is Australia bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World
sdjewishworld 