Agunot in the NYPost

July 20, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Crime, General, Immigrant Moments, Life, Religion 

What’s the Israel-related news in today’s New York Post? The goon-hired kidnapping, beating and handcuffing of a Jerusalem rabbi’s son who has refused to grant his wife a ‘get,’ a religious divorce, making her into an ‘aguna.’

Orchestrated by a New Jersey rabbi and his wife, the couple lured Yisrael Briskman to their home to discuss work on the rabbi’s book research, but got him into their bedroom where two goons punched, blindfolded and handcuffed Briskman. They repeatedly asked him to consent to his wife’s divorce and then called his father in Israel, telling him to fork over $100,000 to the daughter-in-law’s family, or they would receive a “special gift” of a bullet in Rabbi Briskman’s head.

They then dropped Briskman — the son — at a cousin’s home, told him not to squeal to the cops, and ended up surrendering to the FBI.

A confusing story to be sure, although their motives — getting Briskman, who has been denying his wife a divorce for years, and has been on the run for some time from the Israeli authorities — are sort of understandable, given the grief he has caused his ex-wife.

And from my perspective, seeing this front page of the Post while wandering through the NYC subway system? Bizarre and not what you want to be seeing about fellow Americans who have made aliyah. But is anything surprising any longer?

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The view from inside

July 19, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: health 

Image from Broadside.net

How often do you turn to your doctor and say – please give me a very unpleasant and painful procedure? But that’s pretty much the drill as we hover around the age of 50 and ask our family physicians to schedule a colonoscopy. The health funds recommend that everyone 50 and up get a colonoscopy and then afterward once every 5-10 years.

So that’s how I found myself one morning last week at Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem in the gastro clinic, waiting for my turn with no small amount of trepidation. Revise that: make it outright fear. Yes, I know that the anesthesia given for the procedure is supposed to knock you out so completely, you don’t feel a thing. But as a chronic worrier (and a writer who learned the golden axiom), I need to be shown, not just told.

The gastro clinic at Sha’arei Tzedek is being refurbished, so I was temporarily shunted down to what appeared to be a glorified supply closet next to the Emergency Room. That’s where a gruff but efficient nurse hooked me up with an IV in my hand to administer the sedative.

The actual room where the procedure is done was more doctor-friendly. But, as I lay on the table waiting to get started, suddenly a crew of office staff burst in – apparently to install a printer!

The nurses brought in a portable mechitza (not much more than a curtain on wheels) to separate me from the workers. I turned to my doctor in concern. “Would you like me to ask them to leave?” he suggested kindly. Well, um, like, duh, I responded.

I then asked him to please give me extra drugs. “The maximum you can do.”

That was actually the last thing I remember. When I next opened my eyes, I was in the recovery room with my wife Jody at my side. She appeared quite relieved. “You looked like you were dead,” she said.

In truth, the procedure had been as painless as they said. Now, as to the preparation, don’t get me started. You can put all the citrus flavor you want into that purgative drink, but it still tastes like motor oil coated with sewage. Or worse.

How did my colon do? Well, I’m supposed to follow up with my doctor in a month when the results from a biopsy come back, but I assume that if it was anything major, the doctor would have put a rush on it.

Colon cancer is one of the most treatable forms of cancer and can usually be detected by colonoscopy. I asked for it, I got it, and it wasn’t so terrible after all. If you’re in the appropriate age group, talk to your doctor and don’t be afraid. I won’t be…next time.

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An ambassadorial move

July 18, 2011 by · 4 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Politics, Social Justice 

Israel’s liberal policies toward alternative lifestyles was further demonstrated this week.

A diplomat from the Foreign Ministry has been appointed ambassador to an eastern European country, Yediot Aharonot reported.

However, he and his non-Jewish, non-Israeli partner have been living together and raising a child in Israel, and their continued unity was now threatened by the posting. However, in a precedent setting move, the government is going to provide the partner with a diplomatic passport and Israeli citizenship so the family can travel together for the foreign posting.

According to the report, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon and Director General of the Foreign Ministry Rafi Barak intervened on the diplomat’s behalf and requested to grant his partner permanent status is Israel so he may join his envoy partner. And then, a special exceptions committee, headed by Director of the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Administration Amnon Ben-Ami, approved the request.

The unorthodox family will now go abroad and represent Israel, showing their host country the tolerant, encompassing side of the country. We wish them luck in their new posting.

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Nostalgia Sunday – The Israeli Black Panthers

July 17, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics, Pop Culture, Profiles, Religion, Social Justice 

A few weeks ago, in an interesting footnote to history, a 1977 political poster was sold at auction for $260. The catalogue listed the opening bid at $150 so it is heartening to know that the Hadash party can still elicit public support – at least $110 dollars worth.

The poster, “Vote Vav – the Black Panthers of Hadash” was printed before the elections for the ninth Knesset in 1977, one of the most important elections in Israel’s history, and the one that brought the Likud party into party after 29 years in the opposition.

It seems only fitting, in the era of Facebook “Like”-driven revolutions, to take a look back at the granddaddy of Israeli social protest, Ha-Panterim HaShchorim (Black Panther) movement.

“The Black Panthers’ uprising was begun by a group of young, unemployed, dropout residents of the Musrara neighborhood located at the border between East and West Jerusalem,” writes Sami Shalom Chetrit, chief editor of Kedma – Middle Eastern Gate to Israel. “The neighborhood was then housed by 650 Mizrahi immigrant families, the majority of whom came from North Africa, with a minority coming from Iraq.

The immigrants and their children — people like Saadia Marciano, Charlie Biton (who went on to serve as a four-time Knesset member) and other now legendary Black Panthers — suffered discrimination at the hands of an establishment that was primarily non-religious and Ashkenazi (of European origin) that, with best if mistaken intentions, set out to educate the younger generation in Westernism and Socialist Zionism.

“The local youth self organization began with demands from the municipal youth department, regarding the educational system and extra-curricular activities. However these demands soon intersected with exposure to the radical left of Matzpen [a radical Socialist and anti-Zionist organization] which produced a radical Mizrahi social consciousness attuned to social economic perspectives…”

The revolutionary spirit of the late Sixties meant that every authority should be questioned and every establishment upended. The result: the Labor party, bastion of enlightenment, was now the enemy.

Kochavi Shemesh stated: “Saadia came up with the name ‘Black Panthers’. The idea was to frighten Golda [then Prime Minister Golda Meir]. She said that this name wouldn’t let her sleep. That’s what we wanted. We succeeded. With this name we changed the entire discourse between the social movements and the establishment.”

According to Marciano’s 2007 obituary in The Independent, “The Zionist establishment was thrown by the challenge. Golda Meir, the Labour prime minister who briefly put some of them in prison, said after meeting a delegation that they were ‘not nice people’. Teddy Kollek, the mayor of Jerusalem, bellowed at them to ‘get off my lawn, you bastards’ when they demonstrated outside the town hall. Marciano was hailed as the ‘face of the Black Panthers’ after he was given a black eye by the police.”

Despite their need to shock, the Panthers were far more interested in social and cultural causes. They stole milk bottles from middle-class Rehavia and delivered them to poor neighborhoods. They organized concerts (I love this poster featuring boy balladeer Avi, Martin Davidson’s Hassidic pop act and an Armenian band called The Moskitos). They organized politically, first as the Black Panthers and eventually as the Hadash party.

The Black Panthers fragmented after the 1973 Yom Kippur War but the movement’s influence is still with us. As Chetrit puts it, “First, they granted legitimacy and acceleration, together with additional political conditions, to the process of Mizrahim leaving the hegemonous political center, headed by Mapai [Labor]… After that came the exit from the Likud as well to the new alternative of Shas.

“Second, the Panthers prompted a Mizrahi cultural awakening… Initially it was music that blossomed forth, followed by poetry and prose, and above all, academic research. Later came cinematography and the arts. Third, the Panthers helped to bring about a radical social discourse in Israel…”

There are several online resources for more information about this seminal movement. The Israel Left Archive has a fascinating online collection that includes press clippings, photographs, leaflets, posters and other materials authored by the Black Panthers.

Interviews with Marciano and others can be seen in a documentary by Chetrit, together with Eli Hamo, called The Black Panthers Speak.

The legacy lives on. Last month, Haaretz reported that a group of Musrara artists and residents plan to rename two neighborhood streets “Black Panthers’ Way” and “They’re Not Nice”. Charlie Biton was interviewed on the radio today about the grassroots protest against high housing prices. On the other side of the spectrum, former Shas leader Arye Deri recently announced his intention to run for Knesset (I told you this would happen, months ago). Looks like the time is ripe for a Panthers revival.

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Students “write” on for Israel

July 17, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Politics, Social Justice 

Jonathan Carey, BluestarPR

I hadn’t seen or heard from Jonathan Carey for 20 years. But there he was, standing in my living room on a recent Saturday night. Jonathan and I used to be buddies back when we were both starting our careers in the then burgeoning business of “multimedia.”

Multimedia? Sure, you remember when you could buy a CD-ROM with a whole encyclopedia on it? Or a cute animated rabbit who’d teach you to read? The Internet killed the CD-ROM industry, of course. Why pay $50 for Microsoft Encarta when you have it all for free on Wikipedia. And the kind of video we called state-of-the-art back in the day is now quaintly naive.

Both Jonathan and I reinvented ourselves – me by returning to my roots as a writer; Jonathan creating with a service for lawyers. And yet, somehow, 20 years later, we’re back in the same business. This time it’s doing what we can to promote a view of Israel “beyond the conflict.”

Jonathan’s company, Bluestar PR, started in 2003 by creating pro-Israel posters and postcards to distribute on college campuses (he’s still doing it). He was responding to the fears among students to show that they were Jewish publicly at the University of California at Berkeley during the height of the 2nd Intifada. His latest venture – and the reason he was visiting Israel – is a very cool project called Write On for Israel (WOFI). 100 high school students (sophomores and juniors) sign up for a heavily subsidized two-year journalism program.

Participants interview IDF Col. Bentzi Gruber

Participants in the program, which is based in San Francisco and is now in its fourth year, learn about Israel from a variety of experts. They hone their writing skills and then, during the summer between the two years, visit Israel for 10 days where they meet with more experts, tour the country, and shoot a video about a particular slice of Israel reality, hopefully balanced with all of the knowledge they’ve gleaned.

The videos I’ve seen are a bit more hasbara then straight journalism, ranging from the role of women in Israeli society, to understanding the fabric of life here from food. But they’re well made and brimming with optimism. Here’s an example.

Jonathan says his aim is to train leaders who will jump into college with the pro-Israel skills they’ll need to combat the pervasive delegitimization that’s all but taken over most North American campuses.

Jonathan adds that he’s seen some real success stories. He points to one graduate who was so enthusiastic in her support of Israel she’d plastered the walls in her bedroom with posters about the country. Her parents suggested kindly that maybe she’d gone too far. But her tireless energy on campus has already made a difference where she goes to school.

The program is backed by the the Avi Chai Foundation. Jonathan is currently working on expanding it to college students and young adults later this year.

It was a true pleasure to reconnect with an old friend who is doing his best to do good for Israel. Maybe he’ll even make a CD-ROM out of it.

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