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ADL Speaker Takes Aim at Anti-Semitism
Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

SWAMPSCOTT — It’s no accident that The Passion was released at a time of rising anti-Semitism, contends Dr. Robert Wistrich, director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at Hebrew University. “It is a symptom of a turn for the worse that we have to be sensitive to,” Wistrich said.

His talk — “Understanding European and Islamic anti-Semitism” — which drew a crowd of over 150 people at Temple Israel on March 17, was underwritten by the Ruderman family and co-sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, the Journal and Seminars for Adult Jewish Enrichment.

Referring to the “new features of Judeaphobia at the turn of the 20th Century,” Wistrich said that the language of European anti-Semitism during WWII has today been adopted by the Islamic world. “Sixty years ago, the most lethal fear of the Jewish community was the ultranationalist character of the racism in Germany.”

Today, he says, this aspect has been largely muted. “When it flares up in the form of nationalist or neo-Nazi demonstrations, it’s easy to identify and gather to protest against such things.” However, he asserts, there is far more anti-Semitism coming from progressive circles, what he calls humanist anti-Semitism, that “brandishes human rights to demonize Israel as a pariah nation, an apartheid, Nazi-fied state.”

Pointing to the European Union, in which Wistrich says rising anti-Semitism has been striking in the last few years, there had not been any of the usual indicators to suggest an impending rash of racism or violence against Jews: no financial crisis, no class revolution, no major political upheavals.

But, he says, although the EU is a “supernational entity that at least on paper fosters liberal democratic ideals, so quickly everything turned around, as it always does in Jewish history.”

Wistrich suggests there was a lull, a seeming decline of anti-Semitism in the mid-1990s, but that should never be taken to mean anything more than the cycle of events. “The situation for Jews is never more dangerous than when the obit is being written on anti-Semitism,” he says.

In Israel, although violence was sparked by the latest intifada beginning in 2000, Wistrich suggests that the increase in worldwide anti-Semitism is not the result of violent events in the Middle East. Rather, it is a by-product, he says.

“Muslims largely see Israel as a thorn in their side,” Wistrich says, “an illegitimate part of the Arab world.” He contends that the media frames the situation in a way that perpetuates the conflict.

“Some respond that the defamation and demonization of Israel is just criticism of the government, not anti-Semitism but anti-Sharonism. But these distortions existed before Sharon was elected. When Ehud Barak made the most far-reaching concessions ever, Israel was still subject to a barrage of criticism with a total disregard for how the violence began. If ever a war was imposed on Israel, this latest intifada is it.”

Wistrich laments an endless discussion of the danger of violence against Jews but none about the ideology that underlies it.

“Hatred of Jews and Israel is part of a dynamic of Jihad aimed at the West as a whole and Israel and the United States in particular.... We are now in the midst of a war of civilizations, with Jews and Israel on the front line against militant Islam,” Wistrich says.

“Extremists have the upper hand, but we need to figure out a way to change that with responsible advocacy by the American and international Jewish community. Public opinion in America matters, Wistrich says. “What we think doesn’t just resonate in our communities, but in Washington. This is a time when we can and must make a difference.”

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We Laughed, We Learned, We Painted

Amy Sessler Powell
Special to The Jewish Journal

Picture this: Thirty-eight Hebrew school teachers standing at easels, happily filling a canvas with colorful paint and inspirational words. Each one is wearing a paint splattered tee-shirt claiming, “Aspirations Art: We learned, we laughed, we painted.”

It was the perfect finale to the year-long Inspirational Jewish Teaching 101 offered by the Jewish Federation of the North Shore to Hebrew school teachers.

Designed to motivate Jewish educators and explore ways to inspire Jewish children to learn the richness of their heritage, Inspirational Jewish Teaching brought in 10 master teachers from across the country to work with teachers who represent more than 1,000 North Shore students in 14 Hebrew schools and camps.

They studied guided imagery, bibliodrama, Jewish text and a variety of ways to connect and inspire students.

“We opened ourselves to learn new techniques to incorporate in our classrooms with the goal of inspiring our students to be open to learning about the beauty of Judaism and our magnificent history as a people,” said Debbie Coltin, director of the Jewish Continuity Committee.

To prepare for the painting, the teachers brainstormed as a group about the words that describe their teaching. Each teacher used a single phrase like, “inspiring” or “patience” or “crazed and flexible” to describe their work in the classroom. They reviewed the “Eight Conditions that Affect Student Aspirations” developed by Dr. Russ Quaglia, the executive director of the Global Institute for Student Aspirations at Endicott College and a professor of education. Quaglia was the “master teacher,” who opened the class last year and ended it last week.

The conditions are belonging, heroes, sense of accomplishment, fun and excitement, curiosity and creativity, spirit of adventure, leadership and responsibility and confidence to take action.

The teachers brainstormed quietly about student aspirations, about their own teaching and about the things most important to them as teachers. Then, they created. “Take an action, an event, a belief or a value. Take all you want in yourselves and put it on a canvas,” said Quaglia.

Lauren Goldman, a teacher at Temple B’nai Abraham Hebrew School in Beverly, created mountains and valleys with the words, “You Are Almost Finished” flowing through her canvas.

“I’m doing my thing, reveling with wild abandon in a controlled environment,” Goldman. “It’s so much fun and a release in a positive way. There is a child alive in all of us.”

As the teachers created, the professors from Endicott, Quaglia, along with Dr. Sara Quay, dean of Education, and Dr. Dan Sklar, a published poet and associate professor of arts and sciences, made them feel like the students. They worked the room, offering both words of encouragement and orders to wash paintbrushes or fetch colors.

“It’s okay to leave in the mistakes,” said Sklar as he walked around offering assistance. “It’s okay to change your mind in the middle.”
Through a grant from the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation to the Jewish Continuity Committee of the Jewish Federation of the North Shore, Inspirational Jewish Teaching was offered free to teachers. They were also aligable to earn a stipend of up to $500 based on attendance.

“We know that the schools’ resources are so limited and that there are limited professional development opportunities on the North Shore,” said Coltin.

The teachers also enjoyed being able to learn with their peers from other local schools. Marla Mindel, who teaches at the JCC in Marblehead, Chabad Hebrew School in Swampscott, Camp Menorah and Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead said, “I love making the connections with other Jewish educators and I use what I learn here, not only from the speakers but from everyone I have met here. It was very awesome that we could do this.”

In addition to making a difference in the lives of so many children in the classroom, many of the teachers demonstrated their support of the Jewish community by contributing to the 2004 Community Campaign. Their contributions, up 56 percent from the 2003 Community

Campaign are “a tangible expression of their commitment to preserving and enriching Jewish life,” said Shari McGuirk, campaign director for the Jewish Federation of the North Shore. “We are lucky to have them teaching our children and appreciate their leadership and generosity.”
As the teachers finished painting and sat down their seats, Quay turned all the easels to the same direction so everyone could admire the work. “Talk about a sense of accomplishment. I love to look at these,” said Quay. The easels seemed to be a metaphor for all the teachers had accomplished over their year together.

Added Sklar, “I love the color, the sense, the freedom.”

As the teachers took in all that they had accomplished, Quaglia said, “Believe in yourselves. All the hopes and dreams we have for the kids we serve are all within our reach. The resources are right there in your heart. Believe you can make a difference.”

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Volunteers Give Time to Hospice of the North Shore

Susan Jacobs
Jewish Journal Staff

Once a week, Neil Cooper goes to the Jewish Rehabilitation Center in Swampscott to meet with resident Bernard Levine (not his real name.) Mr. Levine has terminal liver cancer. His wife has died, and he has no immediate family in the area. He looks forward to Cooper’s visits, where they chat about books or play cards. Cooper keeps the conversation light and friendly. They discuss whether the Red Sox will ever win a World Series, and they talk about Lee Iacocca’s business practices.

Cooper is a volunteer for Hospice of the North Shore (HNS). He has been doing this work for two years. His wife Deanna, who has been volunteering for the organization for seven years, motivated him to make the commitment.

“I’ve always been involved in social action and volunteerism,” says Cooper, who spent 10 years as executive director of the Federation. “We spend so much time nourishing our material lives, but we need to nourish ourselves and the world. One of the missions of the Jewish people is to help repair the world. Our tradition talks about doing acts of loving kindness. Doing this type of work is what we should be doing as Jews.”

Over the course of two years, Cooper has worked with perhaps a half-dozen hospice patients. The fact that his patients all eventually die does not depress him or deter him from doing the work.

“You gain amazing strength from your patients. They are inspirational in how they come to acceptance (of their mortality) and then go on with their lives,” he says. “I’m in my 60s. Everyone ends up passing on. One of the things I’ve gained from this is an understanding of the death process. I’ve learned that it isn’t something that needs to be feared. I’ve found that the patients often do better than their families,” he adds.

In his current assignment, Cooper meets directly with the patient. In the past, however, he has served the needs of the spouse or another family member who contacted HNS for help. In one situation, for example, he used to regularly drive the wife of a patient to the hairdresser.
Judy Soroko, volunteer coordinator at Hospice of the North Shore, explains that the approximately 200 volunteers she oversees do a wide variety of tasks for patients and their loved ones.

“Some of our patients are quite ill and bedridden in a residential home. In these cases, the hospice volunteer might simply talk or read to them. If they are still living at home, the volunteer might fix them a light lunch or walk their dog. If they are more mobile, the volunteer might take them out shopping or to a movie. And sometimes the volunteer is asked to do a specialty project such as finishing an afghan or blanket that the patient started but can’t complete. It really varies,” she says.

According to Soroko, volunteers range in age from 14-97 and come from all walks of life. The not-for-profit organization, which has been in existence since 1978 and is the largest provider of hospice care in Massachusetts, carefully matches patients with volunteers who are similar. For example: whenever possible, they will match a Jewish volunteer with a Jewish patient. They are always looking for more Jewish volunteers. And right now, she says, there is a great need for volunteers who speak Russian.

All volunteers must undergo 24 hours of free training, over a period of eight weeks. After the training process, they are eligible for assignment. How much time they devote to the organization and its patients is extremely flexible. Although most volunteers choose to give two to four hours per week, some work as little as 1/2 hour per month, and others take an assignment only once or twice per year. Soroko points out that many volunteers take summers off or spend their winters in Florida.

Soroko stresses that volunteering for hospice does not involve providing medical or psychological care — an interdisciplinary team exists to address those needs. Volunteers are basically asked to provide companionship.

“Some people are uncomfortable being with people who are sick because they aren’t sure of what to say or do. Instead of sitting with someone who is sick, they might prefer cooking or cleaning,” says Soroko, who adds that individuals can lend a lot of warmth and humor during illness.

Linda Wasserman, who lives in Danvers, has been a nurse for 40 years. She is accustomed to taking care of the physical needs of patients, but she became a hospice volunteer because she really enjoys connecting emotionally with patients.

“I’m a nurse. My whole career involves working with people. Connecting is the best part of my job — I get a lot of satisfaction from it. I was thinking about becoming a volunteer for HNS for a long time, and finally took the training several months ago. The training was fantastic. I learned so much about myself and others,” she says.

“I’m excited about doing this (volunteer) work,” she continues. “It gives me a different relationship with patients. I become a companion, a visitor and a friend, not a caretaker.” Wasserman has had several clients since taking the training. She often takes them grocery shopping or to the mall in Peabody.

Sylvia Mizner has been a HNS volunteer for 6 years and has worked with approximately 30 patients. “Some you work with for a couple of months, and others, who are in quite critical condition, you may see only a few times. But your presence is so important. A lot of them can’t communicate, but they know that you’re there. I had one patient who could only flip her eyelids.I would read books and newspapers to her, or bring her a flower. She was conscious of sound. It was important to let her know that somebody was there, caring for her,” she says.
“It’s the most gratifying thing I’ve ever done in my life,” continues Mizner, a Salem resident who has also volunteered at North Shore Children’s Hospital and in a cancer ward at Salem Hospital. “The patients have given me much more than I’ve given them,” she adds.
She has the utmost respect for her patients. “When you say hospice, everyone cringes. But it’s a wonderful way to see what goes on in the human mind and body towards the end of life. Most patients know they are dying. They face their end in peace. They tend to be so brave and unafraid.”

Mizner acknowledges that she feels a personal sadness when patients die. “You get attached to them, even if you’ve only known them for a short time. You put them in your schedule and include them in your life. When they die, you feel that loss,” she says.

Despite that, she believes hospice volunteering is a wonderful experience. “I wish more people would do this. It’s not gruesome. You feel like you’re doing something valuable — giving your time to someone else who needs it. It’s a mitzvah,” she says.

Judy Soroko agrees. “Hospice is about helping people live until they die. Volunteering at hospice is not for everyone, but those who want to do it will find that they get a lot out of it. It changes peoples’ lives, and is very rewarding.”

To learn more about volunteer opportunities, contact Hospice of the North Shore at 978-774-7566 or visit www. hns.org.

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The Way I See It
Can ‘Jewish Power’ Save the State’s Safety Net?

MARK ARNOLD
Jewish Journal Staff

Save the Safety Net. That was the slogan impelling more than 400 citizens — almost all of them Jewish, many of them beneficiaries — who converged on the State House March 22. They were there to lobby for restoration of funds for social service and community programs that are threatened by the state’s yawning budget deficit, which is expected to swell to $1.5 billion next year.

The occasion was the 6th Annual Advocacy Day, sponsored by the the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston and the Massachusetts Association of Jewish Federations. The two groups and the dozens of other Jewish organizations they represent are seeking, once again, to persuade the legislature to reverse cutbacks in bread-and-butter programs such as home care services for seniors, skills training for the unemployed, housing and family support for people with disabilities, and subsidies for low and moderate-income housing.

It’s hard to argue with the logic of advocates who say it is a lot cheaper, and more sensible, to keep an elderly couple at home, with help from a 20-hour-a-week home care worker, than to have to support them in a nursing home 24/7 because home-care funds have been cut back. Or to train a welfare mother so she can get a job than to cut funds for training.

But this isn’t about logic. It’s all about politics and taxes, and the simple fact is that programs like these do not have large and politically active constituencies on days other than Advocacy Day, once a year. So the advocates face a very steep, uphill fight.

The remarkable thing is that so many politicians seemed to agree with the citizen lobbyists, while insisting that there is nothing that they could do about the situation. Poliicians like Governor Romney, who couldn’t appear in person at the opening session in the marble-floored Great Hall of the State House but sent an official State Proclamation. The proclamation declared March 22 “Advocacy Day” in Massachusetts. And it not only pledged the Governor’s support to their endeavors but went on to urge all “citizens of the Commonwealth” to support the goals of the group as well.

Not to be outdone, both Senate President Robert E. Travaglini and House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, the session’s twin keynoters, added their voices to the chorus of Advocacy Day supporters. A trim, athletic and vigorous man who ignored the scattered chorus of boos that greeted his introduction by JCRC Executive Director Nancy Kaufman, Finneran said that state revenues remain “significantly below” the level of 1999. As a result, he said, we face “an incredible collision of human needs and fiscal constraints.” But he vowed his own support and wished the group well in shoring up the Safety Net.

Travaglini, who looks like a young Robert McNamara — the Kennedy/Johnson defense secretary, complained that lawmakers are subjected to a constant barrage of negative press. “We are good people, caring people, people concerned about those who are overlooked, underserved, and in some cases ignored,” he assured the gathering. “The safety net is at the forefront of the legislative priority of the Massachusetts Senate,” he added.

Both leaders got a lot of applause. And from their smiles and waves as they left the hall, they seemed pleased with the impact their words had on the citizen lobbyists.

But it occurred to me, if these two leaders, and the governor as well, support the goals of Advocacy Day, why are more than 400 citizens meeting to lobby legislators to restore the funds?

In search of an answer, I tagged along with the tiny North Shore contingent — six people — to pay a visit to Sen. Thomas McGee of Lynn, and later to Sen. Fred Berry of Peabody. Both were gracious, sympathetic — and pessimistic about the outlook for the Safety Net.

One Man Can Make A Difference says the poster above the desk in McGee’s cramped office. McGee himself listened intently to the group’s pitch and pronounced himself “totally supportive.” Then he said: “The hard part is that there is no money at all. It’s a question of money.”
Berry — who doubles as Senate Majority Leader — has a much bigger office, but apparently not much more influence. Said he: “I’m with you all the way. But I just don’t know how to make it happen.”

And that’s the bottom line. Of course the legislators could — conceivably — reverse some of the tax cuts of recent years. There have, according to a JCRC/MAJF background paper, been 45 tax cuts totalling $4.7 billion per year since 1990. Massachusetts citizens, it says, pay a smaller percentage of personal income in taxes than people in 29 states.

But that’s the way voters like it. And that’s why they routinely re-elect lawmakers pledged to keep it that way.

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Rose Family Considers Next Moves
Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

REVERE — James Rose, his wife and their 15-month-old son have now been homeless for eight months. Most recently, with one day of notice, they were moved from the Tri-City Shelter in Malden to the Ocean Lodge Motel on an extremely cold night in January.

According to shelter officials, the move was required due to what they called “serious and significant renovations to the plumbing and heating system.” However, once the renovations are complete, the Roses will not be allowed to move back there.

Instead, they will stay in the motel room while they work out a way to relocate to a warmer climate, most likely Florida, in the next few months.
Rose, formerly of Brookline, and a member of AEPi fraternity at Clark, is currently awaiting a disability hearing with regard to his lower back condition and sleep apnea, and exploring ways to have the necessary surgery.

Rose’s plans to move to Florida, where the climate is better for both him and his wife’s condition, hinges upon being approved for a rental, and being able to earn the money he once did as an account executive with Fechtor, Detwiler & Co., Inc. in Boston and Darwin Partners in Wakefield.

He is grateful for the support from the North Shore and Boston community members who made contributions on his family’s behalf.
To find out ways to help this Jewish family, call Pazit Aviv at Jewish Family and Children’s Services at 617-558-1278.

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Poll: Passion Good for the Jews

Joe Berkofsky
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

NEW YORK — You heard it here first: Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is good for the Jews.

So says demographer Gary Tobin, whose San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish & Community Research released a new poll this week concluding that the movie changed Christian attitudes toward Jews and the crucifixion for the better.

“In general, people are less inclined to see Jews as responsible for killing Christ” after seeing the movie, Tobin said.

That finding contrasts sharply with dire warnings from some Jewish leaders and groups before the movie opened. Critics said Gibson’s skewed portrayal — in which Jews pushed the Roman leadership into crucifying Jesus — could inflame anti-Semitism, if not domestically than abroad, where anti-Semitism is more prevalent.

In a random national survey of 1,003 adults conducted by Tobin’s group March 5-9, nearly two weeks after the movie’s premiere, 12 percent of the 146 people who had seen “The Passion” said it made them “less likely” to blame Jews today for the crucifixion, compared to five percent who said they were “more likely” to blame all Jews for killing Jesus.

Conducted by the Pennsylvania-based International Communications Research, a research firm that has conducted surveys for ABC News and The Washington Post, the poll found that 16 percent of Americans said they had seen the Gibson movie, which raked in more than $264 million in its first three weeks after opening Feb. 25.

A Gallup poll taken March 5-7 found that 11 percent of Americans had seen the movie, and 34 percent more said they planned to see it in theaters.

In Tobin’s survey, nine percent of those who either had seen the movie or were familiar with it due to the “buzz” surrounding it said the movie made them less likely to hold Jews responsible for Jesus’s death; two percent said they were more likely to blame Jews; 83 percent said their opinions about Jews remained unchanged.

In February, an ABC News poll found that 8 percent of Americans blamed all Jews, historically and today, for killing Jesus.

Tobin said the movie has become such a phenomenon “that you don’t have to have seen the film for it to influence your thinking.”

Sid Groeneman, who worked on the Tobin poll, said the disparity in blame between the ABC polls and Tobin’s may be due to different wording. The earlier poll asked if Jews “bear responsibility for” the crucifixion, while the Tobin poll asked if they “should be held responsible,” signaling retribution may be necessary, he said.

Tobin’s poll comes after an online survey by the Chicago-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a group devoted to interfaith ties and support for Israel, conducted an online survey showing a minority of Christians blame Jews for the crucifixion.

The survey, held Feb. 26-March 3, the days immediately after the movie opened, found that only 1.7 percent of 2,500 participants said Jews were responsible for killing Jesus, while 84 percent said “mankind” was to blame.

Most participants were evangelical Christians, many of whom endorsed the Gibson movie, said the group’s president, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, who is Orthodox.

“Despite the near-hysterical warnings issued by some Jewish groups in the wake of ‘The Passion,’ we must remember that the danger for Jews does not lie in Christians believing that certain Jewish authorities, acting to preserve their own power, desired the death of Jesus,” Eckstein said.

Instead, the threat “lies in the abhorrent notion that Jews today have blood on their hands because of the actions of a corrupt few 2,000 years ago.” The group’s survey shows “it is precisely this belief that the vast majority of Christians reject,” he said.

In the movie, the scene in question indeed carries the infamous blood libel that for centuries sparked Christian attacks against Jews.

The scene shows the Roman leader, Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of Jesus’s blood, while the Jewish high priest Caiaphas turns to the Jewish mob demanding Jesus be killed and says in Aramaic, “His blood is on us.”

Unlike the rest of the subtitled movie, that line was not translated, though the word “yadaim,” or “hands” in Aramaic and Hebrew, is clear.
Besides earning Gibson a princely $70 million profit so far on his $30 million investment, the movie has been the subject of intense media scrutiny, appearing on the covers of numerous magazines, the front pages of countless newspapers, and winning saturation coverage by major broadcast and cable television networks.

Some have called Gibson’s publicity strategy for the movie a model of marketing that will be studied for years to come. Even the Tobin poll received substantial media play, appearing on CNN hours after its release.

Among the leading critics of the film was Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who failed to convince Gibson to add a postscript to the movie saying that many Jews were crucified during the Roman occupation of ancient Israel, and that the Jews were not to blame for Jesus’ death.

“I hope he’s right,” Foxman said of Tobin’s survey, but “I think it’s a little too early to come to any conclusions.”

“I’m not sure I really understand what these findings mean, based on the fact that 146 people saw it,” he added.

The Tobin poll carried a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for those who saw the film, to 3.7 points to those who saw or knew about the film.

The ADL will conduct its own follow-up polls about the movie in the next few months, Foxman said.

Since the film’s opening, Foxman said the ADL has received more than a dozen reports of students in public schools being called Christ-killers by classmates. Six name-calling incidents occurred in one Midwestern community, he said.

But Foxman added that such incidents surface occasionally, and the ADL was only starting to examine the reports to determine whether they were connected to the movie.

For his part, Tobin said the ADL and others were right to focus attention on the movie. After seeing the movie Monday, Tobin said he found it “full of anti-Semitic images.”

“The film blames Jews in ways that are associated with anti-Semitic beliefs,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean people are coming away from the movie with anti-Semitic views.”

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Israel Defends Sheik Killing; Revenge Threatened

Dan Baron
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

JERUSALEM — Condemnations may be echoing from nearly every corner of the globe, but Israeli leaders are making no apologies for killing Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, likening him to Osama bin Laden.

“The State of Israel hit the first and foremost leader of Palestinian terrorist murderers,” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told reporters after Israeli helicopter gunships killed Yassin in a predawn airstrike in the Gaza Strip on March 22.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz called Yassin Israel’s bin Laden.

Yassin, a 67-year-old, wheelchair-bound cleric who was sworn to Israel’s destruction, was killed around 5 a.m. by three missiles fired from helicopters as he was being taken home from morning prayers in Gaza City.

Two bodyguards and five other Palestinians were killed in the strike and 17 people were reported wounded, including two of Yassin’s sons.
Within hours, tens of thousands of mourners jammed Gaza City streets for the funeral procession, the largest in Gaza in about a decade. Twenty-one Palestinian Authority police officers formed an honor guard as the coffin holding Yassin’s mangled body was carried out of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Ha’aretz reported.

“Sharon has opened the gates of hell and nothing will stop us from cutting off his head,” the Hamas leadership said in a statement announcing the death.

Asked about the assassination, President Bush said Israel has the right to defend itself but must consider the consequences of its actions.
Despite the attack, Bush said he still supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and will send a high-level team to the Middle East to “keep the process alive.”

On March 23, Hamas named Abdul Aziz Rantissi, a 57-year-old physician, as the successor to Yassin.

“We will fight them everywhere. We will hit them everywhere. We will chase them everywhere. We will teach them lessons in confrontation,” Rantissi said of Israel — before going into hiding to escape assassination himself.

Clashes were reported throughout the Palestinian-populated territories and in eastern Jerusalem following news of the killing, and at least two Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers. In Nazareth on March 23, 2,500 Israeli Arabs also protested Israel’s strike.

On Israel’s northern border, Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon fired rockets at Israeli outposts. Near Gaza, Palestinians fired rockets at Israeli towns in the Negev Desert. Israeli troops then moved into the northern Gaza Strip.

Already on alert for suicide bombings by Hamas, Israel went on high alert after the killing, sealing off the West Bank and Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces said Yassin had been directly responsible for dozens of terrorist attacks. Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide attacks during the last three and a half years.

Yassin founded Hamas in 1987, soon after the start of the first Palestinian intifada. Yassin was jailed twice by Israel, but released both times in prisoner-exchange deals.

An Israeli assassination attempt on the sheik last September resulted in only minor injuries to Yassin.

Most recently, Hamas claimed joint responsibility for a double bombing that killed 10 Israelis in the strategic Israeli port of Ashdod March 14.

The group also claimed responsibility for an attack over the weekend that toppled an Israeli tank, injuring four soldiers.
Sharon told a meeting of his Likud Party’s parliamentary caucus that the Jewish people had a “natural right” to pursue those seeking to destroy it.

Yassin’s ideology “was killing and murdering Jews, wherever they were, and the destruction of the State of Israel,” Sharon said. “The war against terror has not ended and will continue day after day, everywhere.”

The rest of the Israeli political establishment was divided on the assassination. The centrist Shinui Party and left-wing parties and groups were against it, while right-wing Knesset members and organizations supported it, Israeli media reported.

In polls, however, most Israelis supported the assassination — about 60 percent, according to two major Israeli daily newspapers — though many feared it would prompt an upsurge in terrorist attacks.

For their part, Hamas leaders vowed revenge not only against Israel but against the United States.

“The Zionists didn’t carry out their operation without getting the consent of the terrorist American administration, and it must take responsibility for this crime,” a Hamas statement said.

In response, authorities in New York stepped up security at Jewish institutions and synagogues and around Jewish neighborhoods.
Around the globe, much of the international community condemned the attack.

“Not only are extrajudicial killings contrary to international law, they undermine the concept of the rule of law, which is a key element in the fight against terrorism,” the European Union said.

The U.N. Security Council planned a meeting to discuss the assassination.

U.S. officials also criticized Yassin’s killing.

“We find it deeply troubling,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. “We find the consequences of this action, in terms of raising tension and making it harder to pursue peace efforts — those are things of concern to us.”

Earlier, President Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, had said, “Let’s remember that Hamas is a terrorist organization and that Sheik Yassin has himself, personally, we believe, been involved in terrorist planning,” in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show.

To bolster Israel’s case, the Foreign Ministry planned to put members of the foreign media in touch with Israeli victims of Hamas terror attacks and their relatives, Ha’aretz reported.

Israel’s strike against Yassin followed threats of a harsh response to the terrorist attack in Ashdod a week earlier.

Observers say Israel wants to incapacitate Hamas ahead of a planned Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The Islamic terrorist group’s power base is in Gaza’s teeming refugee camps — and Israelis, Palestinians and international observers alike have expressed concern about a rise in Hamas’ power there after an Israeli pullout.

Officials suggested Yassin was only the first terrorist leader on its hit list.

“Anyone in the Gaza Strip or West Bank, or anywhere else leading a terrorist group knows that as of yesterday there is no immunity,” Internal Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi told reporters.

An Israeli Cabinet minister said Israel now needs to get rid of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

“The Palestinian Authority is slow to understand that Israel will keep hitting all those who carry out terrorist attacks and are responsible for harming innocents,” Health Minister Danny Naveh said.

“The next stage needs to be getting rid of Arafat and his gang,” he said, and then Israel should “extend its hand to a moderate leadership that will rise up instead and reach a negotiated peace.”

Arafat declared three days of mourning in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for Yassin and opened a mourning tent outside his Ramallah compound.

Egypt, meanwhile, said it was pulling out of planned celebrations of the Camp David peace accords with Israel in protest over the Yassin assassination. March 26 marks 25 years since Egypt became the first Arab nation to make peace with Israel.

Before the airstrike, Egypt had agreed reluctantly to take part in celebrations at the Knesset and Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has tried to keep ties with Israel to the minimum necessary, particularly in the last three and a half years of Palestinian intifada.

Mubarak scoffed when asked how the assassination of Yassin would affect the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. “What peace? The world’s on fire,” he said.

In the streets of Israel, people were tense.

“I think it was the right thing to do,” said Merav Donin, 30 a clerk at a spiritual therapy store. “Although I am not for killing people, Yassin was a murderer and it had to be done.”

Echoing the view expressed by several political observers, Donin said, “In the short term we are going to be hit back, but it won’t be any worse than what we are already going through today.”

Eyal Tabib, a philosophy student, said another terrorist would just take Yassin’s place.
“It concerns me because many people, many families are about to suffer now,” he said.

JTA correspondent Dina Kraft in Tel Aviv contributed to this re

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People in the News

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JTA News Briefs

Security Stepped Up in N.Y.
NEW YORK (JTA) — Security was stepped up at synagogues and Jewish neighborhoods in New York City. The move is being taken amid fears of retaliatory strikes on Jewish targets after Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin. New York City’s police chief Raymond Kelly said there were no specific threats behind the stepped-up efforts. But an Islamic web site published a statement from an Al-Qaida-linked web site vowing revenge on the United States and its allies over Yassin’s assassination. Hamas members in Gaza also spoke of taking revenge on targets outside Israel after Yassin’s killing.

French Synagogue Damaged
PARIS (JTA) — A synagogue in southern France was badly damaged by a gasoline bomb. Congregants discovered the attack when they arrived for prayers at the main synagogue in Toulon, Yves Haddad, president of the local Jewish community, told JTA. Haddad said he didn’t know whether the attack was perpetrated by Muslims, possibly enraged by Israel’s killing of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, or by far-right French extremists. In the 1990s, Toulon, a city of about 150,000 people, elected an extremist mayor from the right-wing National Front Party. The city also is part of the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region, where the National Front polled some 23 percent of the vote in regional elections Sunday.

Hungarian Exhibit Opens
BUDAPEST (JTA) — An exhibit on the Holocaust in Hungary opened in Budapest. The “Hidden Holocaust” exhibit focuses on all those persecuted by the Nazis: gypsies, gays lesbians, the mentally retarded and Jews. The exhibit opened on the 60th anniversary of the German army’s occupation of Hungary. On April 15, Hungary’s first Holocaust museum is slated to open in Budapest.

Desecration of Gravestones Condemned
LONDON (JTA) — The central organization of British Jewry condemned the desecration of Muslim gravestones in London. Henry Grunwald, president of Britain’s Board of Deputies, called the damage to about 40 headstones last week unacceptable. “We send our deepest sympathy to the Muslim community,” he said. Muslim leaders said the vandalism resulted from a backlash against Islam in the wake of the Madrid train bombings earlier this month.

Reconstructionists Back Gay Marriage
NEW YORK (JTA) — The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association endorsed civil marriages for same-sex couples. At its annual convention in Wyncote, PA, the rabbinical arm of the Reconstructionist movement unanimously approved a resolution urging “full and equal civil marriage for gay men and lesbians.” Reconstructionism, which according to the National Jewish Population Survey represents 3 percent of the 4.3 million religiously active Jews nationwide, was the first movement to ordain gay rabbis in 1984. In 1993 the movement approved religious rituals for gay unions. The Reform movement also ordains gay rabbis, allows gay commitment ceremonies and backs gay civil weddings.

Hitler Controversy Melts Wax Museum
BERLIN (JTA) — A Berlin wax museum that opened in January closed following controversy over a figure of Hitler. The operator of the museum, Inna Vollstadt, received notice from her landlord after a slew of articles in Israeli and German newspapers drew attention to the exhibit. Vollstadt said Hitler was just one of the attractions, but critics warned that the Hitler figure might attract people to the waxworks for the wrong reasons.

House Bill Backs Fence
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Top congressmen introduced a bill on March 18 backing Israel’s West Bank security barrier. The bill criticizes the Palestinian Authority for bringing the matter of the security fence, which in places cuts into the West Bank, to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. “In going to the ICJ, the Palestinians have yet again shown their preference for scoring propaganda points instead of doing the hard work needed to achieve peace,’’ said one of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.).

Yassin First on Hit List?
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel said Sheik Ahmed Yassin was only the first terrorist leader on its hit list. “Anyone in the Gaza Strip or West Bank, or anywhere else, leading a terrorist group knows that as of yesterday there is no immunity,” Internal Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi told reporters. He was referring to Monday’s assassination of the Hamas founder in Gaza. Hanegbi did not name names, but he said terrorists who appear on television were included on the hit list — an apparent reference to senior Hamas spokesman Abdel Aziz Rantissi, who is expected to succeed Yassin as Hamas’ top man.

Israeli Arabs Protest Yassin Murder
JERUSALEM (JTA) — An estimated 2,500 Israeli Arabs protested Israel’s assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Some of the protesters at a rally in Nazareth held Palestinian flags and pro-Islamic flags. Some called for Hamas’ military wing to avenge the death of the Hamas founder. Dozens of left-wing Israelis protesting the assassination were evicted from the entrance to Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

Fear and Loathing in Israel
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Most Israelis are glad Sheik Ahmed Yassin is dead but believe his assassination will spark a wave of Palestinian terrorism. A poll by Israel’s daily Ma’ariv found that 61 percent of Israelis supported Monday’s assassination, and 55 percent are bracing for fiercer campaigns of suicide bombings and shooting attacks. Twenty-one percent of Israelis were opposed to the assassination, while 45 percent think terrorism will remain unchanged or will decline. A separate survey by the daily Yediot Achronot found that 60 percent of Israelis favored the Yassin assassination, but a whopping 81 percent expect terrorism to rise. Meanwhile, security was increased for Israeli lawmakers following threats against public officials in the wake of the Yassin killing.

U.S.: Yassin Killing ‘Troubling’
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Bush administration called Israel’s assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin “deeply troubling.”
“We find the consequences of this action, in terms of raising tension and making it harder to pursue peace efforts — those are things of concern to us,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.

Sharon-Bush Summit in April
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will present a finalized withdrawal plan to President Bush on April 14. A senior Israeli official traveling with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who is in Washington to meet with top U.S. officials, said the dimensions of the withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank would depend on the “political payoff” Israel gets from the Americans. That apparently was a reference to Israeli demands that the United States recognize Israel’s right to keep three West Bank settlement blocs. The official said the April 14 date was contingent upon U.S. and Israeli negotiators finalizing details of the withdrawal.

Egypt Pulls Out of Peace Celebrations
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Egypt is pulling out of celebrations of the Camp David peace accords in protest over the killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin. “What peace? The world’s on fire,” Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Monday after Israeli helicopters killed Yassin, Hamas’ founder, in Gaza. Friday marks 25 years since Egypt became the first Arab nation to make peace with Israel. Now, as then, many Egyptians favor downgrading ties with Israel until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. Before Monday’s airstrikes, Egypt had agreed to take part in celebrations at the Knesset and Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

Mistaken Identity
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement apologized after its gunmen killed an Israeli Arab they thought was a Jew. George Khouri, a 20-year-old Christian student from Jerusalem, was shot dead while jogging in the capital city’s French Hill neighborhood Friday night. The Al-Aksa Brigade, the terrorist wing of Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying initially that it had killed a Jewish settler.

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Young Jewish Entrepreneurs

Susan Jacobs
Jewish Journal Staff

Editor’s Note: This is the first in an ongoing series of profiles about young Jewish entrepreneurs on the North Shore.

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What to Expect from a Rehabilitation Program

Lisa M. Petsche
Special to The Jewish Journal

If your loved one has been hospitalized due to a stroke, hip fracture, prolonged acute illness, or some other type of health crisis, an inpatient rehabilitation program may be recommended at some point. Rehab may occur onsite or at an acute rehabilitation facility or skilled nursing home.

The goal of rehab — also known as reactivation — is to help people who have experienced health setbacks regain their strength and endurance. The focus is on reducing disability and, where permanent disability remains, managing it in the best possible way.

Rehab programs may be general or specific to a certain type of injury or diagnosis, such as stroke. They vary in intensity and duration, some being time-limited while others allow the patient to continue as long as progress is being made.

Typical criteria for acceptance into a program include medical stability, physical potential for improvement, mental ability (including sufficient attention span and memory) to participate in therapy, and willingness to participate in the program and try new ways of doing things including using adaptive aids (such as walkers or wheelchairs) if necessary.

Upon admission, staff assess a patient’s abilities and limitations in order to develop an individualized care plan involving measurable goals and plans. Treatment usually includes individual and group therapies.

Challenges patients may face during rehab include having to conform to a tight schedule, fatigue, especially if they are unaccustomed to physical activity, embarrassment at having to re-learn basic activities such as washing and dressing, and frustration from unrealistic expectations. Moreover, progress may be impeded by medical conditions such as clinical depression, impaired cognitive function, pain, medication side effects (drowsiness, for instance), or concomitant illnesses or chronic conditions.

Patient progress is evaluated on an ongoing basis. Evaluation also occurs formally through frequent team meetings and periodic review conferences that include the patient and family. Staff adjust goals and plans as needed and monitor patient readiness for discharge.

Service is delivered by a team of health care professionals who consult and collaborate on a continual basis, ensuring a coordinated, holistic approach to assessment and treatment. Following is an overview of each member’s role.

Case Manager — Team leader responsible for overall planning, coordinating care, and evaluating outcomes.
Physician — Diagnoses and treats medical problems, orders investigations and treatments, and consults with specialists as needed.
Nursing Staff — Assesses health status, administers medication and other physician-ordered treatments and assists with personal care as needed.
Physical Therapist (PT) — Evaluates patients’ functional ability and works with them to improve or maintain walking, balance, endurance, strength and flexibility.
Occupational Therapist (OT) — Teaches alternative ways of carrying out daily activities, including self-care skills and homemaking tasks. Performs home evaluations, recommending adaptations and special equipment to maximize safety.
Dietician — Evaluates nutritional status and recommends necessary dietary changes to help treat diet-related health problems such as constipation.
Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) — Assesses and treats difficulties related to hearing, speech, language and swallowing.
Social Worker — Helps patients and their families learn how to cope more effectively with losses, emotional issues, family problems and financial concerns, and links them with community resources.
Recreation Therapist — Fosters quality of life by providing opportunities for fun, creativity, socialization and learning.

Together the various disciplines work with patients to help them achieve the highest possible level of health, independence and quality of life.
Caregivers also play an important role, including supporting and motivating their loved one through empathy and encouragement, ensuring staff know his needs, habits and interests, to help them customize the plan of care, becoming familiar with his medical condition and treatment plan, learning what he is and isn’t capable of, so they can help with things he’s unable to do and avoid helping with things he can do himself, attending therapy and learning exercises to perform together between sessions or following discharge, and ensuring delivery of necessary equipment and completion of home adaptations prior to discharge.

Once a patient reaches his highest potential, the focus shifts to discharge planning. The team assesses patient and family needs and community resources available to meet those needs, and makes referrals as appropriate.

For those returning home, a graduated discharge is encouraged, beginning with daytime visits and progressing to overnight stays of increasing length. These temporary leaves of absence (TLAs) help the patient, family and team to determine if special services or further home alterations are required (and sometimes if returning home to live is even feasible). Referral may be made to an outpatient rehab program or to home care physical or occupational therapy if some therapeutic goals remain, or as a transitional measure.

If returning home is not a viable option, the patient and family are provided with information on appropriate residential care facilities and given an opportunity to tour them and make one or more selections, depending on whether or not there’s a waiting list.

Lisa M. Petsche is a clinical social worker and freelance journalist specializing in health and senior issues.

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Misinformation Marks Same-Sex Marriage Debate

Joel Z. Eigerman
Special to The Jewish Journal

Debate over the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling, that the Massachusetts Constitution requires extending the right of civil marriage to same sex couples, has generated a great deal of illogic and misinformation.

The Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA) believes that the court’s decision was correct and that it comports with our basic Jewish values of justice and empathy. While it is not irrational to disagree, we believe many of the arguments offered in opposition are so fundamentally incorrect they must be cleared away if the question is to be considered intelligently.

Perhaps the most glaringly fallacious allegation, repeated by every opponent from President Bush on down, is that the decision represents “activist judges” improperly imposing their will on the majority. This is a canard. The essence of our constitutional system is that basic individual rights are not subject to majority vote, of either the legislature or the general populace. The majority cannot, for example, outlaw the practice of Judaism, or forbid the expression of opinions critical of the government.

And for more than 200 years, it has been the courts that have protected those rights from the tyranny of the majority.

One of our fundamental constitutional rights is to be treated equally with other people. Any disparate treatment must have a rational justification, based on a legitimate governmental interest. This right is guaranteed both by the 14th Amendment to the federal constitution and by analogous provisions of our own. It is the basis on which the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1954, struck down segregated schools. In 1967, in a case called Loving v. Virginia, it declared a state statute barring inter-racial marriage to be unconstitutional on the same ground.

The SJC performed the same analysis when a case was brought before it challenging the state law limiting marriage to heterosexuals. It found no rational relationship between the discrimination against same-sex couples and any legitimate state interest, and struck the law down as a violation of equal protection.
It is possible to disagree with the court’s resolution of the issue. One cannot, however, argue that it should not have spoken. It had a duty to decide a case before it, and that case raised a constitutional issue that has always been the courts’ particular province. The court would have been derelict if it had deferred the matter to the judgment of the people or their representatives. If the U.S. Supreme Court had done that in Loving, or for that matter in Brown v. Board of Education, we might still be waiting for inter-racial marriage or integrated schools.

Another line of opposition is the historical notion that marriage has had a constant meaning for millennia. Nonsense. The patriarchs were all polygamous. In the middle ages, since marriage was viewed fundamentally as a property arrangement, serfs seldom bothered with it. English (and American) common law viewed marriage as the utter legal subjugation of women to their husbands, who could enjoy their wives’ property or beat or even rape them with impunity. We now have no-fault divorce and equitable property division. Marriage today would be unrecognizable to Abraham Lincoln, let alone to Abraham.
A third misconception is the notion that the court in its decision referred the matter to the legislature. The SJC was unequivocal in its conclusion that denying marriage to same sex couples was unconstitutional. All it asked of the legislature was that they use the six months following the decision to adjust state law to conform to their ruling and to clear up any statutory confusion that the extension of the right to marry might create.

This was not an invitation to legislate some alternative, nor a suggestion to submit the matter to the electorate. If it cannot do as it was asked, the legislature should do nothing.

Many opponents appear to have lost sight of the difference between marriage as recognized by the civil law and by religious doctrine. All that the state can speak to, through any of its branches, is the civil institution, which already differs from the practices of many churches. The Catholic Church does not permit divorced people to remarry within the church. Orthodox Judaism does not allow Kohanes to marry divorced persons, nor do they recognize remarriage if the previous union did not end with the husband providing a Get (religious divorce decree) to the wife.

Clergy of many faiths will not solemnize marriages across religious lines. The civil law recognizes none of these requirements. Is Catholicism, or its view of the marriage sacrament, “undermined” because a divorced agnostic can get married by a justice of the peace? No court decision can tell any religion whom it must marry. No religion, by the same token, should be able to tell the civil authority whose relationship is too sinful to be recognized.

A final word of caution: We should all be hesitant to see our constitution amended. Only the most serious defects or newly arisen conditions should get us thinking in those terms, particularly where the issue is not taxation or road building but fundamental individual rights. Historically, the protection of the individual has been a particularly Jewish concern, and we believe it remains so today. Moreover, to enshrine discrimination in the constitution, as all of the proposed amendments would do, would be a negative departure from an almost unbroken string of expanding equality through the life of the republic.

This is an area of rapidly changing attitudes and practices. Etching an anti-gay provision into the stone of our fundamental charter will likely prove an embarrassing obstacle in future years.

Joel Z. Eigerman is a member of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action in Boston.

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Jews Were Crucified, but Never Crucified Others

Roberta Kalechofsky
Special to the Jewish Journal

Crucifixion was widely practised in the ancient Mediterranean and Babylonian worlds, 1700 years before Jesus, by most civilizations — but not by the Greeks and the Jews.

Men and women were crucified for a wide variety of misdemeanors, from adultery to insurrectionary activity. In the history of torture techniques, crucifixion remains among the cruelest because of the protracted and incremental agony of the victim. Death on the cross customarily took three and a half days to complete. The victim died of multiple causes: broken bones, lacerated limbs, asphyxiation when the weight of the hanging body crushed the lungs, strangulation and exposure.

Often, while left hanging in this decaying state, the victim’s organs were dragged from his body by roaming animals and eaten in front of him. But the final cause of death was dehydration, and after three days without water, the victim descended into madness.

Jesus, who hung on the cross for six hours, was spared the agonies of protracted crucifixion, which so many others, including women and children, were forced to undergo.

The Romans crucified their enemies, whoever they were. In 70 BCE, 6,000 followers of Spartacus were crucified and their bodies hung along the Appian Way. The Roman cross traveled everywhere the Roman army went. Varus, the legate of Syria, crucified thousands of Druids in Germany in 9 CE when he served as consul there. He introduced the practice of crufifixion into Judea and shortly after the death of Herod crucified 2,000 Jews. From the time crucifixion was introduced into Judea to the fall of the Temple in 70 CE, thousands of Jews were crucified.

Already before the crucifixion of Jesus, the symbolism of the cross was familiar to Jews. According to the eminent scholar, Erwin Goodenough, “The Jews knew and used the sign of the cross...as a token for eschatalogical protection.” They carried amulets with crosses, with circles around them, or with dots in the interstices. Discoveries of the tombs of Jewish and Roman bodies reveal these marks on their tombstones.

By the first century CE Jews were familiar with the sign of the cross as a Jewish symbol, and with crucifixion as a Jewish death. So common was the sight of crucifixion for Jews during the Roman occupation that the cross acquired symbolic meaning for them. The belief that a nail from a cross had healing powers was widespread and many Jews carried such nails. According to Shabbath 6.6 in the Mishna, the rabbis even permitted them to carry such nails on the Sabbath. The nails were used to fasten the horizontal beam to the vertical beam, rarely to nail the victim to the cross. Victims were tied up to the cross, rarely nailed to them. It is doubtful that Jesus was nailed to the cross (Mark, Matthew and Luke have no suggestion of this kind and John has only a vague suggestion) and not through his palms.

These were accretions to the original already bloody enough story, which grew in later centuries, and under Mel Gibson’s direction in The Passion of The Christ have achieved even further expansion in the scenes of the scourging. But even in the time of the Romans, crucifixions were considered good theater for spectators. Under Caligul (37 CE-41 CE), Jews were crucified in the amphitheater in Alexandria.

Neither the cross nor the theme of crucifixion was a focus of early Christianity and was not used by Christians until the fourth century.

We are so accustomed to identifying the cross and crucifixion with Christianity that it is difficult to imagine a time when this was not so, or a time when the cross was a Jewish symbol. It is often the function of symbols to streamline historical content, but in becoming the symbol of the Roman’s barbarous method of punishment, the figure of Jesus absorbed and erased the collective memory of the thousands of Jews, Druids and Pagan slaves, who were also crucified. Pontius Pilate, that most bloody of Roman procurators (by Rome’s standards) emerges as saintly from the New Testament, and the Jews, themselves victims of crucifixion, emerge as the villains. The symbol of the cross, as it has come down to us, not only erased a part of early Jewish history, but became the instrument for further persecution of the Jews.

Roberta Kalechefsky, Ph.D. , of Marblehead, has written a dozen books and numerous short stories. She is publisher of Micah Publications, which produces works of Judaica, fiction, philosophy, and vegetarianism.

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The Problem Isn’t Palestine, Occupation or Fences

Joseph Yudin
Special to The Jewish Journal

Every time a European or American leader declares that the problem here in Israel and the Palestinian territories needs to be resolved peacefully with negotiations according to the “Road Map”, they are doing a disservice to both the Palestinian and Israeli people.

Every time a reporter highlights Israel and Palestine as the most important problem to be solved in the Middle East and the world today, he or she is not helping finding a solution, but is part of the problem.

The fact is there is only one solution to the bloodshed here in the Middle East and it has nothing to do with settlements, road maps, occupation or fences. The only problem that needs to be addressed here is terror. Once terror ends there will be no reason for occupation. There will be no reason for building fences.

There will be no reason for a separation of populations in Israel or the territories. There will be no reason for additional settlements. There will be no reason for transfers of people from their current addresses across artificial borders.

Once terror ends, and all people in Israel and the territories return to civilization, peace will be a cakewalk. By highlighting the false point that an “evenhanded” solution needs to be imposed upon us with pressure by the United States or Europe, the tyrants, thugs, terrorists and dictators are given their scapegoat and an excuse to hold onto power and oppress their own people further.

If Palestinians took to the streets peacefully without violence, they would soon be met in the streets by hundreds of thousands of Israelis and Jews from the Diaspora ready to take up their cause. If the violence against us ends tomorrow, it will take less than a year to finish this conflict for the foreseeable future. The vast majority of Israelis want peace even if it means giving up the majority of land over the green line.

It has been said repeatedly that the majority of Palestinians want peace as well, but the definition of “peace” on the Palestinian street may have a different meaning than that of their Israeli neighbors. For the sake of argument, lets call “peace” an end to all hostilities amongst our populations. Israeli forces can withdraw out of 99 percent of the Palestinian population centers tomorrow as it had done under the Oslo Accords. The Palestinians however must end terror by disarming the various terrorist groups. So how do we end terror?

One must remember that terror did not begin in this century. Terror has been used against the Jews for millennia. We used to call terrorism pogroms. Christians used to go and see “Passion plays” of Jesus’ last day alive, or a church or papal sermon, or by the king’s order and then go into the Jewish ghettos to burn, rape and pillage. The Jews left alive would of course move on and settle somewhere else, not having an army to defend them. This terror culminated in the Holocaust.

Pre-war Germany, however, had some interesting guests among them including the Grand Mufti El Husseini of Jerusalem, who studied in Germany and then became a “guest” of the fuehrer after being chased out of Palestine by the British for “inciting riots”. What were these riots? Between 1929 and 1949 the Palestinians murdered thousands of Jews in their homes and the streets of their villages where their families had been living in some cases for millennia. Many more thousands were driven away. The West Bank was in fact ethnically cleansed of Jews all together, the eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem included.

The terror did not stop with the artificial boundary called the green line delineated between Israeli and Jordanian-Egyptian forces. It was a ceasefire line, not a border. Palestinian groups, called at the time Fedayeen, were organized, armed and trained by Egypt, Iraq and Jordan with backing from every other Arab state to infiltrate Israel and kill any Jew they could get their hands on. These attacks became officially known as “terror” in the 1960s.

After nearly 19 years of playing this game where over 3,000 terrorist attacks cost hundreds of Jewish civilian lives, constant artillery attacks and a massing of Arab armies along the green line, Israel finally hit back with everything they had. The result was the capture of the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan, but it also ended a high rate of terrorism inside Israel and the conquered territories. The terrorists fled to Jordan where they were kicked out by King Hussein. They then fled to Lebanon where they were kicked out by Ariel Sharon, fleeing this time to Tunisia.

For a while terror in Israel declined although international terrorism grew. As the Palestinians found it hard to attack Israelis under occupation, they found it easier to attack Israeli and Western targets abroad. And that is exactly what they did, bringing their cause to the center of the world stage and gaining support from scared Europeans, radical socialists and the Soviets. Terror was working. Yasser Arafat, who called for nothing but the destruction of the state of Israel in the 70s and 80s, gallivanted around Europe, dining with its leaders and gained a seat at the UN with “special status”.

But the Americans were having none of it. President Ronald Reagan got tough with the terrorists by bombing Libya and severing ties with Iran. President Bush (the First) launched the first Gulf War which continued Regan’s tough policy in the Middle East. The Arab-Israeli conflict (as it was called then) was no longer in the world’s spotlight. The intifada was petering out. Terrorism against Israel was at an all-time low. One million Russian Jews were making aliyah and settlements were expanding at an unprecedented pace.

As a result, Arafat changed his tune from his headquarters in far away Tunis and played his last card. He “accepted” Israel’s right to exist (not as a Jewish state however), and called for negotiations after the Gulf War.

The Oslo Accords brought Arafat back from the dead. The PLO moved from exile in far off Tunisia and into the West Bank and Gaza. Terror was supposed to stop under Arafat’s thumb, but instead as we all know it increased tenfold. Every year Israel withdrew from more territory and every year the terrorists became more bold. As Israel retreated more Israelis were murdered; Arafat cried foul and pressure was put on Israel to withdraw even further. In the aftermath of 9/11 and as the second intifada raged and Jews were slaughtered at a rate unseen since 1948 even more pressure was put on Israel to withdraw. Terror works it seems.

So again I put forth the question: How do we end terror? The answer is simple. No negotiation with terrorists. No agreements with terrorists. No talking with terrorists. No retreating from terrorists. We need to fight evil not negotiate with it.

When the Palestinian people have had enough of being led by the nose by the devil himself, then they will revolt and choose their own leaders who will stop the terror and make peace with Israel the very next day.

So world leaders and reporters should do us all a favor here in the Middle East and leave us be. When the Arab people are ready for peace, they will find that the door is wide open to them, and we can settle this dispute peacefully once and for all.

Joseph Yudin was born and raised in Wyckoff, NJ. He has been living in Israel for 12 years, is a sergeant in the IDF paratrooper reserves and is a licensed tour guide. He can be reached at joe_yudin@hotmail.com

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