Poverty rate in Israel higher than in Mexico

Editor’s Note:  The following story, “The Threat from Within,  is reprinted with permission from The Forward, in which it appears in the August 27 issue.

*
In May, when Israel was invited to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a 31-nation club of the world’s most elite, developed economies, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz called it “a badge of honor.” Indeed, it is.

Acceptance means that Israel can now access sources of capital investment available only to developed countries, but it means something even more rewarding: It’s a legitimization of the tiny country’s economic strength and innovation capacity, reinforcing the image of the scrappy “start-up nation” — where once early Zionists made the barren deserts bloom, now their 21st-century heirs are driving a high-speed technological revolution.

No surprise that the number of millionaires in Israel soared by 43% in just one year, from 2008 to 2009, a rate bested only by Hong Kong and India.

But the “start-up nation” narrative hides another story: Poverty in Israel is more widespread than in any of the other OECD countries, worse than even Turkey and Mexico. Almost one in five Israelis live in poverty, according to OECD guidelines; for children, the rate is nearly one in three.

This economic inequality, among the highest in the world, poses a serious danger to Israeli society beyond that caused by war or terrorism. Poverty in Israel is a direct result of non-employment, the fact that many Israelis will not or cannot work. The two largest segments of citizens outside the labor force are Haredi men, 67% of whom study full-time, helped by government subsidy, and Arab women, 80% of whom are at home, prevented by culture and discrimination from participating in the workforce. A government report issued in July said that Haredi unemployment alone will cost the Israeli economy $1.55 billion in 2010 — 300% higher than the comparable cost in 2000.

And the consequences are not just economic. Those who don’t work generally don’t serve in the Israel Defense Forces, absenting themselves from a fundamental pillar of Israeli life, sowing resentment among the majority and, given the high birth rate among the poor, threatening military capacity in the future. With nearly half of Israeli primary school students either Haredi or Arab, who will defend the country in 20 years?

‘When this country was very poor, we had our act together,” notes Dan Ben-David, an economist and executive director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, a think tank and research center supported by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

“Now the percentage of families dependent on government is growing all the time.”

“The fundamental problem is that a large and increasing share of the Israeli population is receiving neither the tools nor the conditions to work in a modern community,” he says. “It harms them personally. It harms us nationally.”

It should be noted that while Ben-David’s data are generally accepted, his interpretation has been disputed. Gidi Grinstein, founder and president of the Reut Institute, another nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank in Israel, believes that the Haredi community has awakened to the challenge and is entering the workforce in ever growing numbers.

“Very few societies drive themselves over the abyss without survival mechanisms kicking in,” Grinstein argues.

Nonetheless, among the Haredim this shift is slow and fraught with resistance. Back in June, ultra-Orthodox protests against a high court ruling on a school segregation case nearly shut down Jerusalem for a day, but another ruling issued earlier that week was arguably more important. The court ordered that, by the end of this year, the government stop paying welfare to an estimated 11,000 married yeshiva students who chose study instead of work.

While Haredi political leaders have vowed to restore those cuts, they must be rebuffed; government action is essential to turn around this dangerous trend. The numbers of Haredi unemployed surely would be even higher had not then-finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu instituted cuts in child allowances and yeshiva subsidies in 2003.

But simply cutting off benefits won’t address the root causes of non-employment, and is hardly the right step for a moral society. Israeli Arabs want to work, but are isolated from employment centers and discriminated against by employers; Arab women face the additional hurdle of living in a culture where female autonomy is suppressed. In far too many Haredi communities, full-time learning is prized above economic self-sufficiency — a relatively new phenomenon. Ben-David points out that 30 years ago, the rate of non-employment for Haredim was 21%. Now it is more than three times that amount.

Clearly what’s needed is a committed investment in education and social programs to provide the wherewithal for these significant minorities to integrate into the high-tech economy of Israel’s future. There truly is no time to lose. Ben-David estimates that if present growth rates continue, by 2040, 78% of Israel’s children will be studying in the Haredi or Arab education systems.

And if the fate of worldwide Jewry is tied to the fate of Israel, as we believe, then this stark situation — generally hidden from most Diaspora Jews — must not be ignored or denied. Ben-David has been amassing and analyzing this worrying economic data for years, but only recently put aside his concerns about going public because of the urgency of the message.

“This country is on an unsustainable long-term trajectory,” he warns. “We’re a very young country — if we educate our youth, the sky’s the limit. But we’re quickly reaching the point of no return. This is the only Jewish country we have. This better concern the Jewish people.”

*
Preceding provided by The Forward via the Trylon SMR Agency

Women’s weekend set for Oct. 22-24 at Camp Mountain Chai

SAN DIEGO (Press Release)– Dynamic, energizing, stimulating, heimish and lots of fun – that’s how women have described their  weekend at camp — Camp Mountain Chai.

The 4^th Annual Women’s Weekend is coming up October 22, 23 and 24.

The $225 fee includes a comfortable charter bus to the camp in an idyllic setting in the San Bernardino mountains; healthy and delicious kosher cuisine;  workshops; social activities, games, yoga, crafts, hikes and a ropes course, and singing and dancing.  A highlight will be spirited, inspiring Shabbat services with Rabbi Lenore Bohm.

Workshops will include yoga with Lee Fowler Schwimmer, (Yoga Through Jewish Eyes); Torah study with Rabbi Bohm; book discussion; Israeli Jazzercize; music (bring instruments); chanting; spiritual nature hike; creating mezzuzot and more. The outdoor havdalah service has been an especially moving part of the program.

“Happy campers” have been all ages (18 and over), including women in their 70s who never went to camp before (and keep coming back); mother/daugher pairs, sisters, and even out-of-town friends and family.

For anyone worried about whether camp is too rustic for them, the cabins are carpeted and heated (it may be pleasantly crisp in October), and there are plenty of electrical outlets if you really need to plug in.

The bus will leave from the La Jolla JCC at noon Friday and will depart from Camp 12:30 pm Sunday, returning to the JCC about 2:30-3 pm.

The Women’s Weekend Committee Cochairs are Roz Brotman and Diana Lerner.

You can check the camp website,  for more information about Camp Mountain Chai.

*
Preceding provided by Camp Mountain Chai

‘Non-Aryan’ surprises found in Hitler’s family tree

LONDON (WJC)–Nazi leader Adolf Hitler possibly had Jewish as well as African ancestors, according to a report by the British newspaper ‘Daily Express’, citing new DNA tests done in Belgium.

Samples taken from Hitler’s relatives link him to both the Jewish community and people from northern Africa. Belgian journalist Jean-Paul Mulders said he had investigated Hitler’s DNA after managing to lay his hands on a serviette dropped by the dictator’s great-nephew Alexander Stuart-Houston in New York. He said he got a second sample from an Austrian cousin of Hitler, a farmer known as Norbert H., the report said.

The DNA tests revealed a form of the Y-chromosome that is rare in Germany and the rest of Western Europe, but common among Jewish and North African groups. Experts now think that Hitler had migrant ancestors who settled in his homeland. Mulders said both the test samples had a form of genetic material known as ‘Haplopgroup E1b1b’, proving an “irrefutable link” to the Nazi leader.

“It is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, in Algeria, Libya and Tunisia, as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. One can from this postulate that Hitler was related to people whom he despised,” Mulders was quoted as saying. The link to Hitler’s ‘migrant ancestors’ could go back anything from three to 20 generations, said experts.

Ronny Decorte, a professor of Forensic Genetics and Molecular Archeology from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, told the ‘Daily Express’: “Hitler would not have been pleased about this. Race and blood was central in the world of the Nazis. Hitler’s concern over his descent was not unjustified. He was apparently not ‘pure’ or ‘Aryan’.”

*
Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress

Norwegian government pension fund withdraws investments from companies in Israel and Malaysia citing ‘grossly unethical activity’

OSLO (WJC)–The Government Pension Fund of Norway (GPFG) has divested from two Israeli firms and a Malaysian business claiming they engage in “grossly unethical activity”.

The Ministry of Finance, which sets the financial guidelines for the fund, has excluded Africa-Israel Investments and its subsidiary Danya Cebus, as well as Malaysian company Samling Global.

“The decision to exclude these companies from the GPFG is based on the Council on Ethics assessment that they are contributing to or are themselves responsible for grossly unethical activity,” Finance Minister Sigbjørn Johnsen was quoted as saying. Africa-Israel Investments is the majority owner of Danya, which develops Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance said in a press release.

“The Council on Ethics bases its recommendation on the fact that the international community is united in the view that the area east of the 1967 line is occupied territory and as such comes under the purview of the fourth Geneva Convention. Several United Nations Security Council resolutions and an International Court of Justice advisory opinion have concluded that the construction of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory is prohibited under this Convention,” says Johnsen.

Samling Global, a producer of timber, plywood, veneer and palm oil, has operations in Malaysia and Guyana that contribute to illegal logging and environmental damage, the Ministry claimed.

The fund, which is managed by Norway’s Central Bank, owned around US$ 1.2 million worth of stock in Africa-Israel Investments. The GPFG’s total assets are worth US$ 450 billion.

*
Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress

Canadian Jewish Congress says Ottawa should decline to honor anti-Semitic former mayor

OTTAWA (WJC)–The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) has criticized posthumous honors for the first female mayor of Ottawa because of her opposition to taking in Jewish refugees during World War II.

CJC officials, writing in the ‘Ottawa Citizen’, charged that Charlotte Whitton, who served as mayor of Canada’s capital city from 1951 to 1956 and from 1960 to 1964, “never publicly recanted her anti-Semitism and sought no atonement for the dire consequences of her actions. Her poisoning of the well helped close Canada’s door to Jewish refugee orphans, dooming them to their fate in the Holocaust.”

Last year, the Ottawa Committee of the Famous Five Foundation had asked the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to recognize Whitton for her pioneering work as a politician, feminist and social worker. Whitton’s role in blocking non-British refugee children – 80 percent of whom were Jewish – is cited in the 1982 book None is Too Many authored by the historians Irving Abella and Harold Troper.

According to the book, which takes its title from a phrase uttered by a Canadian bureaucrat in response to a query on how many Jews Canada would accept after the war, Whitton was an “influential voice” in the early 1940s, when she served on the Canadian Welfare Council and the Canadian National Committee on Refugees. She “nearly broke up” the inaugural meeting of the committee on refugees “by her insistent opposition and very apparent anti-Semitism,” the book says. The Canadian Jewish Congress, it adds, considered Whitton – who died in 1975 – “an enemy of Jewish immigration.”

Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber told the ‘Jewish Telegraphic Agency’ he was confident that “given [Whitton] acting on her anti-Semitism, it is highly unlikely she will receive honors from any level of government.”

*
Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress

Ahmadinejad calls Iran’s new drone ‘a messenger of death’

TEHERAN (WJC)–President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has unveiled Iran’s first bomber drone and said it would serve as a “messenger of death” to Iran’s enemies.

The ‘Karrar’ unmanned fighter plane can carry two 115-kilo bombs, or one precision bomb twice that weight. The drone reportedly has a range of 1,000 km, not enough to reach Israel.

On Monday, state television reported that the Iranian military had opened production lines for two new types of assault boats. Iran frequently announces advances in military technology, boasting of self-sufficiency in the face of international sanctions and efforts by the West to isolate the country. However, US State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley warned the new weapons could reduce Iran’s security as Washington partners with allies in the region to counter a potential Iranian threat.

“This is one of the reasons why we believe that if Iran continues on the path that it’s on, that it actually might find itself less secure,” he told reporters in Washington.

The Iranian announcements came amid growing international concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. On Saturday, Russian experts began loading fuel rods into the reactor at the Bushehr nuclear power station. Iran has maintained all along that the site will produce energy, but the United States and some other international observers remain unconvinced.

*
Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress

Pig’s head at Lithuanian synagogue door enrages community

KAUNUS, Lithuania (WJC)–Jewish organizations in Lithuania have strongly condemned an apparent neo-Nazi attack in which a pig’s head was left Saturday at the entrance of a synagogue in the city of Kaunas.

“The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Religious Community of Lithuanian Jews judge this as Nazi provocation aimed at insulting the ethnic and religious feelings of Lithuanian Jews,” the heads of the two organizations, Simonas Alperavicius and Chief Rabbi Chaim Burstein, said in a joint statement.

Simonas Gurevicius, executive director of the Lithuanian Jewish community, told the news agency AFP that the incident should be treated as an attack on all believers, not only Jews. “We hope that Lithuanian society will not be impassive, as this act of a few anti-Semitic vandals does not reflect the attitude of Lithuanian society.”

Kaunas police have launched a formal investigation but there are no suspects so far, according to the ‘Baltic News Service’. 

Lithuania was once home to a 220,000-strong Jewish community, and Vilnius was a cultural hub and world center for the study of the Torah, also known as the ‘Jerusalem of the North’. At the end of the 19th century, there were over 100 synagogues in Vilnius. During the Holocaust, 95 percent of Lithuania’s Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators.  

*
Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress

Audience becomes part of the action in ‘Waiting for Lefty’

By Cynthia Citron

Cynthia Citron

LOS ANGELES–If you’ve always wanted to be in a play, you’ll get your big chance on September 3rd, when Director Charlie Mount brings Clifford Odets’ stirring Waiting for Lefty to the stage of Theatre West.  As an engaged member of the audience you’ll be expected to whoop and holler appropriately as the leaders of the taxi drivers’ union call for a strike for higher wages.

 “Many of the 16 cast members will be in the audience, too,” Mount says.  “And while we can’t force the audience to take part, we do intend to immerse them in the action.”

Written in 1935, Waiting for Lefty is an old-fashioned play full of outdated passion—or so it would seem.  But Charlie Mount thinks otherwise.  “It has its parallel in the present time,” he says, “when economic and political institutions are running amok and the people are calling for regulation.  We’ll be taking those universal elements and making them relevant.”

 “The audience knows that the Depression sucked,” Mount continues, “but this play personalizes that time by exploring the stories of different individuals: a couple who can’t marry because they can’t afford to, a woman who dies because her surgery was handled by an incompetent physician who happens to be the nephew of a Senator.”

The core of the play, Mount says, is “the choice between the dollar bill or a human life.”  (Could anything be more relevant in the time of BP?)  “It’s a look at democracy and capitalism from a different perspective,” he says.  “The taxi drivers want to change the world despite the fact that they recognize they might get hurt.”

He quotes Odets, who said, “A play is like shouting ‘Theatre!’ in a crowded fire…”  explaining “The theatre is a conflagration of ideas, and bringing life to that conflagration is what theatre is all about.”

The “Lefty” of the play’s title is the head of the union and, like Godot, he never shows up.  But “management” does, along with their gunman, to talk the drivers out of uniting and to label those calling for a strike “reds.”   It’s necessary for the union to prevail, however, as “It takes a village to make a revolution,” Mount says.

“We were told ‘It’s your fault!’ in the 1930s and we’re told that now,” he says.  “The rich have a vested interest in a system that exists to keep you where you are.”

Booms and busts are cyclical, and when there’s no work we’re told, “Go into the Army!  Go kill someone!” and those without work become cannon fodder.  “What power does the president actually have?” he asks rhetorically.  “At least the hippies had good music!”

Charlie Mount began his career as a cabaret clown and magician at the Magic Townhouse in New York.  “I was a cross between Harpo Marx and Penn and Teller,” he says.  He did stand-up in The Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village and in nightclubs, resorts and casinos, and had the first play he wrote, The Indecent Act of Jeff Zelinski, produced Off Off Broadway in 1987.

Coming to Los Angeles in 1994, he joined Theatre Geo as an actor and playwright and had his play Trumpets and Table-Tipping, about Harry Houdini and a clairvoyant, produced at Theatre 40.  His next play, The Junto, was mounted at The Road Theatre and dealt with a secret government conspiracy and the six people who actually run the country.

Mount joined Theatre West in 1996, teaching acting and improv, and started directing.  Gaslight, Waiting in the Wings, and Acting—The First Six Lessons are among his recent hits.  Six years ago he founded “Chestnuts,” a new wing of Theatre West designed to stage classic plays, and he currently serves as its Producing Director.

For the past 11 years he has also served as General Manager of the Classic Arts Showcase, a free 24-hour arts channel available in more than 50 million American homes.  “It’s like MTV for the classic arts,” he says.

Mount has been married for 19 years to actress Arden Lewis, whom he met at the Drama Project collective in New York.  She currently runs a website, Reel Housewives of Theatre West, which is seen on YouTube.  The couple also writes plays for kids, such as It’s Elementary School, Watson.

His latest opus, Waiting for Lefty, will open September 3rd and run Fridays and Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 2 through October 10th.  Theatre West is located at 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, in Los Angeles.  Call (323) 851-7977

Charlie invites you to come and bring your vocal chords.  And you don’t even have to audition!

*
Citron is Los Angeles bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World             

Actor Richard Dreyfuss to keynote library’s book festival Oct. 9

Richard Dreyfuss (Photo: Dreyfuss Initiative website)

ENCINITAS, California (Press Release)–On October 9 from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m., the Encinitas library is hosting the San Diego County Library Book Festival.  The all-ages event will host popular authors, discussion panels, free entertainment and activities, as well as local food vendors.

The Book Festival will feature: a keynote address by Richard Dreyfuss, who will speak on civics and the Dreyfuss Initiative, Pulitzer Prize winning poet Rae Armantrout, and Justin Halpern, author of Sh*t My Dad Says, which will soon become a television series.  For teens, author of the popular Pendragon series, D.J. MacHale, will be there, along with world-class skateboarder Lynn Kramer who will be hosting a Deck Out Your Deck skateboard art program. 

Children can enjoy meeting Gretchen Wendel, author of Becka and the Big Bubble, and Edith Hope Fine, California Young Reader Medal winner, while also taking part in face painting, airbrush tattoos, and a Hullabaloo children’s concert. 

Library Director José Aponte is “excited to offer the San Diego community this fun all-ages event which also embodies our library’s vision to create and support informed, literate, and engaged communities.”

The San Diego County Library Book Festival is a free, fun-filled day of literacy and entertainment.  For more information, contact the Encinitas library at (760) 753-7376.

*
Preceding provided by San Diego County Public Library

‘Smart bomb’ treatment could destroy cancer cells while avoiding neighboring healthy cells

TEL AVIV (Press Release) ― Chemotherapy, while an effective cancer treatment, also brings debilitating side effects such as nausea, liver toxicity and a battered immune system. 

Now, a new way to deliver this life-saving therapy to cancer patients ― getting straight to the source of the disease — has been invented by Dr. Dan Peer of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Cell Research and Immunology and the Center for Nano Science and Nano Technology together with Prof. Rimona Margalit of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Drs. Peer and Margalit have developed a nano-sized vehicle with the ability to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly into cancer cells while avoiding interaction with healthy cells, increasing the efficiency of chemotherapeutic treatment while reducing its side effects.

“The vehicle is very similar to a cluster bomb,” explains Dr. Peer. Inside the nano-vehicle itself are tiny particles of chemotherapy drugs. When the delivery vehicle comes into contact with cancer cells, it releases the chemotherapeutic payload directly into the cell. According to Dr. Peer, the nanomedical device can be used to treat many different types of cancer, including lung, blood, colon, breast, ovarian, pancreatic, and even several types of brain cancers.

Their technological breakthrough was recently reported in the journal Biomaterials.

The key to the drug delivery platform is the molecule used to create the outer coating of this cluster nano-vehicle, a sugar recognized by receptors on many types of cancer cells. “When the nano-vehicle interacts with the receptor on the cancerous cell, the receptor undergoes a structural change and the chemotherapy payload is released directly into the cancer cell,” says Dr. Peer, which leads to more focused chemotherapeutic treatment against the diseased cells.

Because the nano-vehicle reacts only to cancer cells, the healthy cells that surround them remain untouched and unaffected by the therapy. The nano-vehicle itself, adds Dr. Peer, is made from organic materials which fully decompose in the body once it has performed its function, making the treatment safer than current therapies.

This drug will be an improvement on anything currently on the market, says Dr. Peer. Delivering chemotherapeutics directly into cancerous cells themselves is not only more potent, but also much safer.

Drs. Peer and Margalit are working with ORUUS Pharma in California, which has licensed the “cluster bomb” platform from the university and can ensure a quick transition from the lab to clinical trials, which should begin in two years or less, says Dr. Peer.

*
Preceding provided by American Friends of Tel Aviv University