Canary In The Coal Mine

Emanuel Litvinoff, Poet and Detractor of T. S. Eliot's Anti-Semitism, Dies at 96

by Margalit Fox  |  NYTimes.com  |  October 3, 2011

 

Emanuel Litvinoff with his wife, teacher Mary McClory" title="Emanuel Litvinoff with his wife, teacher Mary McClory. Photo from April 2011

 

Emanuel Litvinoff, an English-born Jewish poet known for his scathing verse indictment of T. S. Eliot’s anti-Semitism — and for reading it before an audience that happened to include Eliot — died on Sept. 24 at his home in London. He was 96.

His son Aaron confirmed the death.

The author of several volumes of poetry, Mr. Litvinoff also wrote well-received novels centering on the struggles of Jews in the European diaspora. He was the author of “Journey Through a Small Planet” (1972), a highly praised memoir of the straitened yet vibrant Jewish community in London’s prewar East End.

Mr. Litvinoff also advocated on behalf of the rights of Jews in the postwar East Bloc. He was the founder and editor of a newsletter originally titled Jews in Eastern Europe, which was published regularly from the late 1950s to the late ’80s.

But it was for his poem “To T. S. Eliot” that he was best remembered. Written after World War II and widely anthologized, it was a response to work by Eliot that contained unapologetic anti-Semitic elements. One such poem, “Burbank With a Baedeker: Bleistein With a Cigar,” included the lines:

But this or such was Bleistein’s way:

A saggy bending of the knees

And elbows, with the palms turned out,

Chicago Semite Viennese.

A lustreless protrusive eye

Stares from the protozoic slime

At a perspective of Canaletto.

The smoky candle end of time

Declines. On the Rialto once.

The rats are underneath the piles.

The jew is underneath the lot.

Money in furs. The boatman smiles. ...

This poem was first published in 1920. Before World War II, Mr. Litvinoff, who otherwise admired Eliot’s work, was prepared to dismiss it as simply another link in the venerable chain of British literary anti-Semitism.

Eliot chose to reprint the poem in his anthology “Selected Poems,” published in 1948. That, in the post-Holocaust world, struck Mr. Litvinoff as inexcusable. Mr. Litvinoff was by this time established himself, his published work including the volumes “The Untried Soldier” (1942) and “A Crown for Cain” (1948).

He set to work and wrote “To T. S. Eliot.” Addressed directly to the poet and invoking Shakespeare, the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer and the Vistula River in Poland, it opens:

Eminence becomes you. Now when the rock is struck

your young sardonic voice which broke on beauty

floats amid incense and speaks oracles

as though a god

utters from Russell Square and condescends,

high in the solemn cathedral of the air,

his holy octaves to a million radios.

I am not one accepted in your parish.

Bleistein is my relative and I share

the protozoic slime of Shylock, a page

in Stürmer, and, underneath the cities,

a billet somewhat lower than the rats.

Blood in the sewers. Pieces of our flesh

float with the ordure on the Vistula.

You had a sermon but it was not this. ...

In early 1951, Mr. Litvinoff was invited to take part in an illustrious public poetry reading at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He brought the poem with him.

He had no idea, though, that just before he began reading it aloud, its subject would walk through the door.

Emanuel Litvinoff was born in the Whitechapel section of London on May 5, 1915, one of four children of parents who had fled czarist pogroms in Odessa, Ukraine. After the start of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Emanuel’s father returned there to fight with the Bolsheviks and was never heard from again.

His mother supported the family as a seamstress. She eventually remarried and had five more children; Emanuel was reared in the East End with his mother, stepfather and eight siblings in two tiny rooms.

So nervous that he could not hold a pencil when he sat the entrance exam for academic secondary school, Emanuel was relegated to trade school, where he was trained as a shoemaker. The only Jewish boy there, he endured anti-Semitic baiting, and beatings, as he later wrote, at the hands of his schoolmates.

After leaving school, he held threadbare jobs, including fur nailer’s apprentice, helping to stretch pelts on boards before they were cut and sewn. He could not always afford food and often slept in doorways.

During the war, Mr. Litvinoff served with the British Army in Northern Ireland, West Africa and the Middle East. He began writing poetry at this time.

Mr. Litvinoff was divorced from his first wife, Irene Maud Pearson, a celebrated British fashion model known professionally as Cherry Marshall and said to have had the smallest waist in London. He is survived by his second wife, Mary McClory; their son, Aaron; two children, Julian and Sarah, from his first marriage; a half-brother, Phil; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. A daughter, Vida, from his first marriage, died last year.

His other books include the novels “The Lost Europeans” (1959), “The Man Next Door” (1968) and “Falls the Shadow” (1983), and “The Penguin Book of Jewish Short Stories” (1979), which he edited.

Before Mr. Litvinoff took the stage to read “To T. S. Eliot” that day in London, a murmur ran through the crowd, which included some of Britain’s leading literary lights: Eliot, the 1948 Nobel laureate in literature, had just entered the room.

By the time it was Mr. Litvinoff’s turn to read, he said afterward, he was keenly aware that the target of the corrosive lines he was about to utter was sitting in the audience.

His voice shook, he recalled, giving his poem unintended force. After the opening stanzas, it continued:

Yet walking with Cohen when the sun exploded

and darkness choked our nostrils,

and the smoke drifting over Treblinka

reeked of the smouldering ashes of children,

I thought what an angry poem

you would have made of it, given the pity. ...

So shall I say it is not eminence chills

but the snigger from behind the covers of history,

the sly words and the cold heart

and footprints made with blood upon a continent?

Let your words

tread lightly on this earth of Europe

lest my people’s bones protest.

When Mr. Litvinoff finished, as was widely reported, pandemonium ensued. The poet Stephen Spender stood up and denounced him for insulting Eliot, prompting others in the crowd to cry “Hear, hear” in assent.

There was, however, a dissenting voice. Amid the tumult, a man in the back of the room was heard to mutter: “It’s a good poem. It’s a very good poem.”

The speaker was Thomas Stearns Eliot.

Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/03/books/emanuel-litvinoff-poet-dies-at-96.html?_r=1

Polish Club Legia Warsaw Brandish 'Jihad' Banner Aimed At Israeli Athletes

by AFP  |  news.com.au  |  October 1, 2011

 

Shocking: Police are investigating after Legia Warsaw fans displayed a "Jihad" banner during a match against an Israeli team. Picture: AFP

ANTI-racism groups are outraged after Polish soccer fans waved a "Jihad" banner at an Israeli team.

Anti-racism groups have called on European football's governing body UEFA to punish Polish club Legia Warsaw after fans brandished a "Jihad" banner during a Europa League match against Israeli side Hapoel Tel Aviv.

"This is yet another case of anti-Semitic behaviour by extremist groups active in Polish football stadiums, and it could have been predicted," said Rafal Pankowski of the campaign group Never Again.

At the start of Thursday night's Group C home game in Warsaw - which Legia won 3-2 - a group of fans unfurled a huge banner stretching across three blocks of a stand.

Written in Arabic-style letters, it read "Jihad Legia". The banner was green, which is one of Legia's colours but also that of Islamist groups.

"Some Legia fans have been known for anti-Semitic and extreme-right behaviour for years and they had a chance to express their hatred of Jews again when Legia played an Israeli team, this time adopting a pseudo-Islamist guise," added Mr Pankowski, who runs the UEFA-backed Football Against Racism in Europe network.

Miroslaw Starczewski, deputy head of security at Poland's PZPN football association, said Legia could be hit hard by UEFA.

"Legia should pay the price for this," Mr Starczewski told the daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

"A fine is the most likely penalty. And UEFA may even ban Legia fans from the second leg in Tel Aviv."

Legia's away game in the Israeli city is scheduled for December 15.

Under its disciplinary rules, UEFA could levy a fine of up to a million euros ($1.4 million).

The club's spokesman Michal Kocieba said Legia were investigating.

"We certainly didn't approve the display of this banner," he said.

Stadium racism and hooliganism are in sharp focus in Poland ahead of the 2012 European Championships, which the country will host along with neighbouring Ukraine.

"It can be expected that UEFA will take this case seriously, in light of its efforts to tackle racism and anti-Semitism in Euro 2012 host countries," said Mr Pankowski.

Far-right and anti-Semitic banners and slogans are notably shocking given Poland's World War II history, when millions perished at the hands of occupying Nazi Germany, including the overwhelming majority of Europe's Jews.

 

Source:  http://www.news.com.au/national/outrage-over-polish-jihad-banner/story-fn7mjqus-1226154545617

Awww...Is Nothing Sacred? Mecca For The Rich: Islam's Holiest Site 'Turning into Vegas'

From: The Independent  |  Independent.co.uk  |  September 24, 2011

 

Historic and culturally important landmarks are being destroyed to make way for luxury hotels and malls, reports Jerome Taylor.

 

A £690m expansion of the Grand Mosque in Mecca has begun to accommodate an extra 1.2 million pilgrims a year. Photo: Getty Images

 

Behind closed doors – in places where the religious police cannot listen in – residents of Mecca are beginning to refer to their city as Las Vegas, and the moniker is not a compliment.

Over the past 10 years the holiest site in Islam has undergone a huge transformation, one that has divided opinion among Muslims all over the world.

Once a dusty desert town struggling to cope with the ever-increasing number of pilgrims arriving for the annual Hajj, the city now soars above its surroundings with a glittering array of skyscrapers, shopping malls and luxury hotels.

To the al-Saud monarchy, Mecca is their vision of the future – a steel and concrete metropolis built on the proceeds of enormous oil wealth that showcases their national pride.

Yet growing numbers of citizens, particularly those living in the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, have looked on aghast as the nation's archaeological heritage is trampled under a construction mania backed by hardline clerics who preach against the preservation of their own heritage. Mecca, once a place where the Prophet Mohamed insisted all Muslims would be equal, has become a playground for the rich, critics say, where naked capitalism has usurped spirituality as the city's raison d'être.

Few are willing to discuss their fears openly because of the risks associated with criticising official policy in the authoritarian kingdom. And, with the exceptions of Turkey and Iran, fellow Muslim nations have largely held their tongues for fear of of a diplomatic fallout and restrictions on their citizens' pilgrimage visas. Western archaeologists are silent out of fear that the few sites they are allowed access to will be closed to them.

But a number of prominent Saudi archaeologists and historians are speaking up in the belief that the opportunity to save Saudi Arabia's remaining historical sites is closing fast.

"No one has the balls to stand up and condemn this cultural vandalism," says Dr Irfan al-Alawi who, as executive director of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, has fought in vain to protect his country's historical sites. "We have already lost 400-500 sites. I just hope it's not too late to turn things around."

Sami Angawi, a renowned Saudi expert on the region's Islamic architecture, is equally concerned. "This is an absolute contradiction to the nature of Mecca and the sacredness of the house of God," he told the Reuters news agency earlier this year. "Both [Mecca and Medina] are historically almost finished. You do not find anything except skyscrapers."

Dr Alawi's most pressing concern is the planned £690m expansion of the Grand Mosque, the most sacred site in Islam which contains the Kaaba – the black stone cube built by Ibrahim (Abraham) that Muslims face when they pray.

Construction officially began earlier this month with the country's Justice Minister, Mohammed al-Eissa, exclaiming that the project would respect "the sacredness and glory of the location, which calls for the highest care and attention of the servants or Islam and Muslims".

The 400,000 square metre development is being built to accommodate an extra 1.2 million pilgrims each year and will turn the Grand Mosque into the largest religious structure in the world. But the Islamic Heritage Foundation has compiled a list of key historical sites that they believe are now at risk from the ongoing development of Mecca, including the old Ottoman and Abbasi sections of the Grand Mosque, the house where the Prophet Mohamed was born and the house where his paternal uncle Hamza grew up.

There is little argument that Mecca and Medina desperately need infrastructure development. Twelve million pilgrims visit the cities every year with the numbers expected to increase to 17 million by 2025.

But critics fear that the desire to expand the pilgrimage sites has allowed the authorities to ride roughshod over the area's cultural heritage. The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimates that 95 per cent of Mecca's millennium-old buildings have been demolished in the past two decades alone.

The destruction has been aided by Wahabism, the austere interpretation of Islam that has served as the kingdom's official religion ever since the al-Sauds rose to power across the Arabian Peninsula in the 19th century.

In the eyes of Wahabis, historical sites and shrines encourage "shirq" – the sin of idolatry or polytheism – and should be destroyed. When the al-Saud tribes swept through Mecca in the 1920s, the first thing they did was lay waste to cemeteries holding many of Islam's important figures. They have been destroying the country's heritage ever since. Of the three sites the Saudis have allowed the UN to designate World Heritage Sites, none are related to Islam.

Those circling the Kaaba only need to look skywards to see the latest example of the Saudi monarchy's insatiable appetite for architectural bling. At 1,972ft, the Royal Mecca Clock Tower, opened earlier this year, soars over the surrounding Grand Mosque, part of an enormous development of skyscrapers that will house five-star hotels for the minority of pilgrims rich enough to afford them.

To build the skyscraper city, the authorities dynamited an entire mountain and the Ottoman era Ajyad Fortress that lay on top of it. At the other end of the Grand Mosque complex, the house of the Prophet's first wife Khadijah has been turned into a toilet block. The fate of the house he was born in is uncertain. Also planned for demolition are the Grand Mosque's Ottoman columns which dare to contain the names of the Prophet's companions, something hardline Wahabis detest.

For ordinary Meccans living in the mainly Ottoman-era town houses that make up much of what remains of the old city, development often means the loss of their family home.

Non-Muslims cannot visit Mecca and Medina, but The Independent was able to interview a number of citizens who expressed discontent over the way their town was changing. One young woman whose father recently had his house bulldozed described how her family was still waiting for compensation. "There was very little warning; they just came and told him that the house had to be bulldozed," she said.

Another Meccan added: "If a prince of a member of the royal family wants to extend his palace he just does it. No one talks about it in public though. There's such a climate of fear."

Dr Alawi hopes the international community will finally begin to wake up to what is happening in the cradle of Islam. "We would never allow someone to destroy the Pyramids, so why are we letting Islam's history disappear?"

Prophet's Wife's House

The house of the Prophet's wife Khadijah was destroyed and replaced with a public toilet block. After lengthy negotiations the site was briefly excavated with artefacts found dating back to the Prophet's time.

Expansion of the Grand Mosque

In order to accommodate the ever growing pilgrim numbers, the authorities have begun a £690m expansion. Houses have been pulled down, and it is likely the old Ottoman and Abbasi columns will also go.

The Prophet's Birth House

The building where the Prophet once lived lies just a few hundred yards from the Grand Mosque. Currently a library, the fear is that it could suffer the same fate as his wife's house when the mosque expands.

Royal Mecca Clocktower

In order to build the clock tower and its surrounding skyscrapers – most of which house luxury hotels – the Saudi authorities approved the destruction of an entire mountain and the Ottoman Ajyad Fortress that lay on top.

Also under threat

Bayt al-Mawlid

When the Wahabis took Mecca in the 1920s they destroyed the dome on top of the house where the Prophet Mohammed was born. It was thenused as a cattle market before being turned into a library after a campaign by Meccans. There are concerns that the expansion of the Grand Mosque will destroy it once more. The site has never been excavated by archaeologists.

Ottoman and Abasi columns of the Grand Mosque

Slated for demolition as part of the Grand Mosque expansion, these intricately carved columns date back to the 17th century and are the oldest surviving sections of Islam's holiest site. Much to the chagrin of Wahabis, they are inscribed with the names of the Prophet's companions. Ottomon Mecca is now rapidly disappearing

Al-Masjid al-Nawabi

For many years, hardline Wahabi clerics have had their sites set on the 15th century green dome that rests above the tomb holding the Prophet, Abu Bakr and Umar in Medina. The mosque is regarded as the second holiest site in Islam. Wahabis, however, believe marked graves are idolatrous. A pamphlet published in 2007 by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, endorsed by Abdulaziz Al Sheikh, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, stated that "the green dome shall be demolished and the three graves flattened in the Prophet's Masjid".

Jabal al-Nour

A mountain outside Mecca where Mohammed received his first Koranic revelations. The Prophet used to spend long spells in a cave called Hira. The cave is particularly popular among South Asian pilgrims who have carved steps up to its entrance and adorned the walls with graffiti. Religious hardliners are keen to dissuade pilgrims from congregating there and have mooted the idea of removing the steps and even destroying the mountain altogether.

 

Source:  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mecca-for-the-rich-islams-holiest-site-turning-into-vegas-2360114.html

David Mamet Says It All - The Connection Between The Left And Hatred Of Israel

by Zalman Shoval  |  JPost.com  |  September 20, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

Photo: Reuters

 

 

Pulitzer Prize winner and Oscar nominee David Mamet (Pictured), who in the eyes of many is America’s greatest living playwright as well as a successful screenwriter and movie director (his better known plays and films include Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo, Speed the Plow, The Verdict and House of Games) has published an important book called The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, in which, in a no-holds barred approach, he expounds his political and cultural beliefs on the world in general and America in particular.

Mamet, like many in the US today, though probably less so among the usual Hollywood and Broadway types, has in recent years come full circle from starry-eyed liberal to determined conservative, giving short thrift to most of American liberals’ “sacred cows,” in particular ridiculing many of the programs and policies of the current administration with regard to education, economics, health-care, multiculturalism etc.

Liberalism is understood in the US in a very different way than in Europe (and Israel). While in the Old World liberalism is a political philosophy which argues for freedom of the individual in all his activities, including economics, religion, etc. and in particular espouses limited government – in America it is nearly the exact opposite, connoting, among other things, a major role for the state in most of the above. In effect, American liberalism has a much closer relationship with European-style socialism than with classical liberalism.

But while some of Mamet’s polemics about the American political and social scenes may, in the view of some, be debatable or exaggerated, what makes his new book especially important, certainly for Jews, and what sets him apart from some other Jewish intellectuals, is his straightforward, clear-headed and clear-eyed approach to all things Jewish and Israeli. A proud and committed Jew, he closely identifies with the State of Israel, referring to its enemies as “our opponents.”

One of the main reasons why this book is so timely is that it consistently and logically establishes the nexus between the current wave of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism, especially in the West, including the attempts at denying Israel’s (and sometimes even the Jewish people’s) very legitimacy, and the socalled “Liberal” Left, including not a few leftist Jews like Noam Chomsky and his ilk (he could have included several Israeli writers and professors as well...). He points out that “the truly disquieting enormity of Israel is, to them, its existence, because of which a largely anti-Semitic world forces them to choose. They, as opposed to non-Jews, are forced to have an opinion on a difficult and dangerous topic; and they would rather not. They are angered neither at Israel nor at world anti-Semitism, but at ‘the Jews.’” 

Mamet doesn’t mince words, e.g. “many Liberal Jews (are likely to believe) the statements of Hamas rather than those of Israel”; and “the State of Israel is, in itself, an incurable affront to the Left, for it is a demonstration of the possibility of choice... the free men and women of Israel persevere in spite of the Left’s casuist carping and bellicosity and displeasure, backing their convictions with their lives, an intolerable affront to those preferring equality to liberty.”

As Mamet explains further, “there is, historically, much rancor on the Left against the existence of the State of Israel, and frequent mention is made, and, more destructively, implied, of Israel's ‘aggression.’ But what does the State of Israel want? To be left in peace within its borders. What does the Arab world want? To destroy the State of Israel...! 

“Western sympathy for the Arab cause, then, can only rest upon a sliding scale of Humanity – the Arabs, and, thus, their demands, being of a weight sufficient to nullify those of Israel, though the former want slaughter and the latter peace....”

Also, “while Israel is willing to concede any scant and still-disputed land, the Arabs want all of Israel.”

The question “what has Israel ever wanted except peace within its borders is greeted, largely, in the West, by the response: Shut up, I’m watching the news.”

He then explains that many Leftists feel they “may gain status by embracing the ‘Arab cause’” – with the Liberal West exhorting “the citizens of Israel to take the only course which would bring about the end of the disturbing cycle of violence – which they hear of in the Liberal press. That course is abandoning their homes and country, leaving with their lives, if possible, but leaving in any case.”

Mamet asks: “Is this desire anti-Semitism?” He replies: “You bet your life it is.”

Mamet’s book is not an optimistic read, but it should be required reading not only for Americans, especially American Jews, but also for many Israelis, not least in academia.

The writer is the former Israeli Ambassador to the US, and currently heads the Prime Minister's forum of USIsrael Relations.

 

Source:  http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=238769

‘Diplomacy of September’ By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

From:  JewishWorldReview.com  |  September 20, 2011

 

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Guns of August," Barbara Tuchman chronicles how a cascading series of seemingly minor developments led inexorably to World War I and the worst carnage known to man up to that time. In the future, historians may point to the present "Diplomacy of September" as the catalyst for the next horrific conflict now in the offing in the Middle East, and potentially beyond.

I am thinking specifically of three agenda items slated to take place in the United Nations or on the margins of its meetings in coming days:

The first is a portentous move by the Palestinians with the strong backing of the 57-member bloc now known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The idea is to secure international recognition of Palestinian statehood by, if possible, the U.N. Security Council and - failing that in the event of a U.S. veto - by the General Assembly.

The true purpose of this gambit, as the Wall Street Journal called it in an editorial Monday, could not be more invidious: "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas offered a hint of his real ambition when he wrote, in the New York Times in May, that 'Palestine's admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only as a political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Criminal Court.'

"That means not the usual feckless resolutions at the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, but travel bans and international arrest warrants for Israeli soldiers involved in the 'occupation' of a supposedly sovereign state. In other words, what Palestinians seek out of a U.N. vote isn't an affirmation of their right to a state, but rather another tool in their perpetual campaign to harass, delegitimize and ultimately destroy Israel."

Secondly, the U.N. shortly will host the third in a series of gabfests aimed at furthering this campaign - the so-called "Durban III" Conference. It is absolutely predictable that, like its predecessors in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 and in Geneva in 2009, this event will amount to an international anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate-fest. One clue: The stated purpose of Durban III is to memorialize Durban I, which was so toxic toward the Jewish state and its friends that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell directed the U.S. delegation to walk out.

The Durban trilogy serves to reinforce and legitimate the hostility toward Israel that will, when combined with the recognition - de facto if not de jure - of "Palestine" as a U.N. member-state occupied by another member-state, encourage military action to rectify this "injustice."

Third, it appears that meetings of OIC representatives with U.S. government officials - possibly including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton - will occur in conjunction with the U.N.'s September follies. The purpose will be to try to "bridge" differences between the OIC's 10-year campaign to prohibit expression that offends Muslims and the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Now, it is unclear how Shariah blasphemy law can be squared with freedom of speech. But Mrs. Clinton seems to be pushing forward with the idea that, by focusing on the "consequences" of expression, one can find a basis for meeting the OIC's demands for prohibiting and criminalizing what some call "Islamophobic hate speech."

Lest anyone think that Shariah blasphemy laws cannot come to the United States even if Mrs. Clinton wants them to, consider the case of Fred Grandy. Mr. Grandy, a former Republican congressman from Iowa and past president of the billion-dollar charity Goodwill Industries, was the host of the top-rated morning drive talk show in Washington - until, allegedly, he ran afoul of Shariah activists who were "offended" by the reporting about that doctrine that he and his wife, Catherine (aka "Mrs. Fred"), provided each week.

Not content with denying Mr. Grandy gainful employment, proponents of Shariah have enlisted the leadership of the Democratic Party in Maryland's legislature and Montgomery County to denounce him publicly as a "divisive" figure and to object to him addressing a private meeting of Republicans in the Washington suburbs. Such conduct by people who have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States is a scandal. It should be strenuously denounced by their fellow Democrats, as well as by Americans of every other stripe.

The effect of the Clinton-OIC exercise, like the others at the U.N. this week, will be to reinforce the perception on the part of freedom's Islamist enemies that Israel, the West and the United States are in retreat and in decline. Recognizing Palestine, excoriating Israel and restricting free expression will seen by such enemies for what they are: acts of submission. According to the threat doctrine they call Shariah, its adherents are required in the face of submissive behavior to redouble their efforts to make, in the words of the Koran, the infidels "feel subdued."

When combined with the ascendancy throughout the Middle East and North Africa of Islamist organizations and regimes that make no secret of their determination to wipe Israel off the map, we stand at the precipice. Tragically, the weapons with which the next war will be fought - an avoidable war brought on by the "Diplomacy of September" - will make the lethal "Guns of August" seem like pop-guns by comparison.

Source:  http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/gaffney092011.php3?printer_friendly

'First Jewish Global 24 Hour News Channel Set To Launch'

by EJP  |  JPost.com  |  September 18, 2011

 

Jewish News One unaffiliated with political movements, will be broadcast in Europe, America and Middle East, according to EJP report.

 

BRUSSELS - Jewish News One (JN1), the world’s first Jewish global 24hr news  channel "that offers a new vision of current affairs," will be launched next week.

JN1 presents itself as a fully independent worldwide news channel "which is not tied to any nation, government or political party."

Its slogan is "informing opinion, expanding horizons."

It will broadcast in 8 languages.

"The arrival of JN1 on the global media landscape reflects the 21st century trend towards international news broadcasting diversification towards an ever-wider range of perspectives and points of view," the channel explained.

It seeks "to provide objective and balanced coverage of events while offering a fresh and unique perspective on contemporary affairs, filling a gap which existing channels are currently unable to provide."

The channel owners are Igor Kolomoisky and Vadim Rabinovich, respectively President and Vice President of the European Jewish Union (EJU), a body dedicated to promote Jewish life in Europe.

Jewish News One will have news bureaus in Tel Aviv, Brussels and Kiev. In the coming months the channel is planning to open further bureaus in Washington, Paris and London

The arrival of JN1 on the global media landscape reflects the 21st century trend towards international news broadcasting diversification.

JN1 will begin broadcasting on September 21 via satellite and will be available in Europe, America and the Middle East.

A launch and presentation event will take place in Brussels on the same day. 

 

Source

iTunes Categorizes Jewish Music as ‘Christian & Gospel'

by Michael Freund  |  JPost.com  |  September 18, 2011

 

Apple's iTunes doesn't seems to have a separate category for Jewish, hassidic melodies.

Apple Inc.’s popular online digital media outlet iTunes classifies many of the most well-known Jewish performers and their albums as “Christian & Gospel” material and does not have a separate category for Jewish melodies, The Jerusalem Post has found.

Albums by Avraham Fried, an Orthodox Jew, with titles such as Yiddish Gems Volumes 1 & 2, My Fellow Jew and The Baal Shem Tov’s Song all appear under the “Christian & Gospel” category. Other songs of his appear under the heading “World.”

Similarly, Mordechai Ben- David’s collections Just One Shabbos and Yerushalayim Our Home, as well as songs such as “Yom Tov Medley,” are all listed as “Christian.”

And the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s album Shaarei Shabbat – Songs and Blessings for your Jewish home” which includes the song “Am Yisrael Chai” (“the People of Israel live”), is included in the Christian category.

Music for Jewish children and cantorial works by Joseph Malovany of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Synagogue are also not exempt from Apple’s unusual classification system, which deems them to be Christian.

Contacted by the Post, Fried expressed astonishment. “Why would they put Jewish and Hassidic music under the ‘Christian and Gospel’ category? It makes no sense,” he said.

“I don’t understand where they are coming from and what the point is of doing this,” Fried said. “I would hate to think this is an attempt to bury Jewish music under a Christian or Gospel label.”

Repeated requests for comment to Apple’s corporate headquarters in California and its UK branch went unanswered.

Fried said Apple should change its policy and create a Jewish grouping.

“It is time to have Jewish and Hassidic music stand on its own,” he declared. “It should have its own category and be called by its right name – Jewish music.”

Apple’s iTunes is said to be the largest online music and video vendor in the world. In February 2010, the company announced that more than 10 billion songs had been purchased and downloaded from the site since its inception in 2003.

Source:  http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=238359

Friday Film: 'True Story' of Olympic Anti-Semitism

by Ralph Seliger  |  Blogs.Forward.com  |  September 16, 2011

 

Courtesy of Corinth Releasing

 

As told in the German feature film “Berlin 36,” opening in New York September 16 and Los Angeles September 23, Gretel Bergmann, Germany’s greatest female high jumper at the time of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, was very much “out” as a Jew, and she suffered the consequences. But a competitor, Marie Ketteler, who figured prominently in the story, was in the closet sexually.

There are immediate hints in the movie that there’s something amiss about this 17-year-old, who is flat chested and affirms to her doctor that she’s not yet had a period. Eventually, it becomes clear that she is really a he. A 2009 article in Der Spiegel indicated that Ketteler was actually Dora Ratjens, whose gender was misidentified upon birth because of ambiguous genitalia, and who was brought up as a girl.

The article disputes the movie’s assertion that the Nazis knew Marie/Dora was a male when they recruited him to replace Bergmann on their Olympic team. What is important, however, is that they were conspiring to blunt the American threat to boycott the Berlin Olympics if Jews were not allowed to compete, even as they prevented a superior Jewish athlete from undermining their racial ideology by defeating “Aryans.”

In 1934, Bergmann had moved to England where she won a women’s high-jumping championship. Yet she returned to Germany, setting the Nazi scheme in motion for her to train with, but be disqualified from, their team.

In September 1938, a few days after winning a women’s high jump competition in Austria, Ratjens was arrested on a German train for being a transvestite. According to Der Spiegel, an examining police doctor pronounced him a man, but also noted the following: “A thick band of scar tissue running backwards from the underside of the penis in a relatively broad line. It is therefore questionable whether this band of scar tissue would allow him to engage in sexual intercourse in a normal manner.” The article continues: “This anatomical anomaly probably explains the confusion about Ratjen’s gender at birth.”

Thereafter, Ratjen lived his life as a man, but probably a very lonely one. In the closing credits of the film he is said to have died, “in total reclusion,” in Germany in 2008.

By contrast, Gretel Bergmann, now known as Margaret, immigrated to the United States in 1937; her family fled to England that year and came to the United States a few years later. Gretel/Margaret married Bruno Lambert, her fiance and fellow exiled German athlete, who became a physician in the U.S. Margaret won American championships in the high jump and shot put in 1937 and ’38.

The Lamberts have been married for 73 years, living in the New York City borough of Queens. They have two sons and two grandchildren.

In a phone conversation with the Forward, the former champion, now 97, indicated that the film had taken some liberties in dramatizing her story. For example, she didn’t know that Dora was a man until learning about it from an article she read decades later. Moreover, she does not recall being shunned by all the German athletes (other than Dora), nor does she know if Dora intentionally under-performed at the Olympics.

But she has no problem with the film’s dramatization, and was delighted to meet the director, Kaspar Heidelbach, and others in the production, including actress Karoline Herfurth, who trained for three months in the high jump to play Bergmann credibly and without a stunt double. She hosted them in her New York home with what Heidelbach characterized as a “typical Swabian meal — veal goulash, spaetzle and cucumber salad.”

Watch the trailer for ‘Berlin 36’:

 

Source:  http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/142968/

 

Devout Taxi Drivers Allowed to Veto Strip-Club Roof Ads

by Jennifer Fermino and Hannah Rappleye  |  NYPost.com  |  September 16, 2011

 

The great religious war, waged on top of yellow cabs, has ended.

Devout Muslim hacks -- who were crouched behind their steering wheels in shame while driving with ads for strip clubs atop their taxis -- won a major victory yesterday in their war on roof smut.

The city’s Taxi & Limousine Commission agreed to give cabbies who own their vehicles absolute veto power on the content of ads on their cars -- delighting scores of modest hacks of various faiths who had fought hard for the rule overhaul.

“We are Muslims, and we do not like the ads!” crowed cabby Mohamed Tahir, 66, whose cab is topped with an image of a sexy brunette from Flashdancers Gentlemen’s Club.

'We are Muslims and we do not like the ads. If I had another ad I’d change it right away. It bothers many of us.' - Cabby Mohamed Tahir (above) Photo: James Messerschmidt

He added, “If I had another ad, I’d change it right away! It bothers many of us.”

It won’t have to anymore.

Under the new rules, Tahir and other conservative cabbies who own their vehicles will have the right to nix any advertisements they deem offensive.

Previously, the owners of the taxi medallion -- often someone other than the car’s owner -- could decide what ads went up.

“The law is now on our side!” said a jubilant Osman Chowdhury, a longtime cabby and leading member of the Bangladesh Society in Queens.

Last week, he was so embarrassed at the strip-club ad on his cab -- which he uses as his primary mode of transportation during off hours -- that he refused to drive it to his mosque for services.

“I had to walk to mosque,” said Chowdhury.

“People getting out of the mosque would see the disgusting things.”

Prior to the vote, several cabbies recounted their shame at promoting jiggle joints to the TLC board of commissioners -- in a desperate effort to convince them to change the rules.

In one horrifying example, cabby Mohan Singh recalled his 6-year-old granddaughter telling him she wanted to be a “dancer” -- after seeing a Flashdancers ad atop his taxi.

That risque ad also prompted his grandnephew to ask what a “gentlemen’s club” was and if he could ever go to one.

“We should keep [the advertisement] there to tell the children that it is good?” he asked angrily.

In lobbying the board to vote yes on the rule change, Singh said, “I think you will be kindhearted and do what is right.”

The TLC board obliged yesterday, prompting a burst of applause from the appreciative crowd.

Medallion owners make, on average, about $125 a month from the rooftop ads.

It is now illegal for medallion owners to dictate what ad content is displayed over the wishes of the car owners.

Singh -- the driver whose granddaughter noticed the Flashdancers ad -- said he would never again have another strip-club ad on his car.

“The most important thing is for the children,” he said after the TLC’s action.

[email protected]

 

Source:  http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/hacks_win_bid_to_take_it_off_29GCtU0xlRREHC0uWgm2nJ

New Reports Highlight Renewal of Jewish Life in Hungary, Poland

by eJP  |  eJewishPhilanthropy.com  |  September 16, 2011

 

 

The Jewish Summer Festival, introducing Hungarian Jewish culture and traditions of many others is a multicultural, ever-growing, Hungary’s most important and biggest cultural-artistic event series. It attracts segments of the population which show less inclination to visit such events during the year in the last week of the summer. Date: 27.08.-05.09.2011. Ticket: depends on the programmes.

 

The renewal of Jewish life in Hungary and Poland comes under scrutiny in two reports published by the U.K. based Institute for Jewish Policy Research. The research, conducted by local experts on behalf of JPR and funded by the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe, was designed to assess the development of Jewish communities in East-Central Europe since the collapse of communism, as well as the challenges they face going forward.

Research in Hungary reveals a community re-invigorated over the last 20 years, but nevertheless facing the challenge of low engagement in communal life: only 10 per cent of the Jewish population is affiliated to any Jewish organization. The report calls for:

• the restructuring of the Hungarian Jewish communal infrastructure to ensure that decisions on issues affecting the whole community are made in a democratic and transparent fashion;
• help to build a religiously pluralist communal environment;
• greater levels of co-operation and co-ordination among Jewish communal organizations and initiatives.

The report on Poland testifies to the rebirth of a small community that has a disproportionate impact on world Jewry, not least because of the importance of Polish Jewish history and heritage. It also points to increased non-Jewish interest in, and sympathy for Jewish issues, and calls for:

• greater investment in Jewish cultural and educational models that allow for new and creative expressions of Jewishness;
• continued support for the minority Orthodox community which is likely to remain a pillar of Jewish life;
• greater support for the development of non-Orthodox forms of Judaism;
• an urgent need for the establishment of a Jewish old-age home in Warsaw.

The reports draw on structured interviews with communal leaders, professionals, youth leaders and analysts to create a multi-dimensional and up-to-date picture of Jewish life in both countries. They provide a practical guide for all those wishing to understand, develop or invest in the future of Jewish life in Europe, including national and international donors and foundations, leaders, community professionals, researchers and ultimately members of the communities themselves.

Commenting on the reports, Jonathan Boyd, JPR Executive Director and series editor, says:

“There are claims and counterclaims about contemporary European Jewish life – at one end of the spectrum there are reports of a remarkable renaissance of activity; at the other there is a strong narrative of decline. These reports are designed to navigate a path through this complexity, and they paint a rich portrait based on the views of community leaders and activists, as well as existing statistical data. They illustrate that both perspectives are correct: while Jewish life has undoubtedly been reinvigorated since the collapse of communism, considerable investment is required to ensure the long-term sustainability of Jewish life in both places.”

This series examines Jewish life in four East-Central European countries since the collapse of communism, and identifies the major challenges facing the Jewish communities in each place. The areas covered in the reports include religious life, education (formal and informal), cultural development, academic studies, preservation of heritage, young adult engagement, leadership development, innovation and social entrepreneurship, funding and philanthropy, welfare (children and the elderly), combating antisemitism, Israel education, advocacy and aliyah (emigration to Israel).

Each report is published simultaneously in English and in the vernacular. Further reports in this series will focus on Germany and the Ukraine and will be published in 2012.

The reports can be downloaded here in full:

Jewish life in Hungary: Achievements, challenges and priorities since the collapse of communism

Jewish life in Poland: Achievements, challenges and priorities since the collapse of communism

 

Source:  http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/new-reports-highlight-renewal-of-jewish-life-in-hungary-poland/