Yudeline

Monday, May 3, 1999

Tolerance is our Fundraising Slogan: Required reading at Bar-Ilan U. calls gays 'criminals' (Ha'aretz)

In Israel, International Law is for Losers: The Haifa District Court sets a precedent as kidnapped son is ordered to remain with his father in Israel (Ha'aretz)

Flashback 1997 (related) Israelis detain Americans in divorce tiffs (NY Daily News)

The State Department warned: "Jewish-American visitors should be aware that they may be subject to involuntary and prolonged stays in Israel if a case is filed against them in a rabbinical court. This may occur even when the marriage took place in the U.S."

Sunday, May 2, 1999

From the Folks who Brought You 11/22/63 Local officials yank a cigar magazine from Miami International Airport newsstands

``Our administration decided that it was indeed very flattering to the Cuban government,'' airport spokesman Hernando Vergara told the Miami Herald. "We don't want to be part of enhancing Castro's government.

Burger Barn Blues: Does anyone care about the working poor? (Slate)

"The problem isn't with the jobs; it's that for some people the jobs don't lead to a better job. That's what really differentiates the working poor from the rest of us."

TV for Monotheists: Tonight NBC presents Noah's Ark, a four-hour miniseries featuring "dazzling special effects, computerized creatures and hundreds of real animals" and, in a supporting albeit ahistorical role as Noah's friend, Lot of Sodom. Hey, anything that gives Lot a speaking role is fine by me.

TV for Polytheists: Xena episode "The Way" features Krishna

Xena, it seems, journeys to India, where Krishna tells our Greek heroine that "she must open her heart to her own way - the Way of the Warrior, which is her true path in this life." Following the show's initial U.S. broadcast, however, the production company, which had hired a Hindu expert to consult on the episode, faced protests from Hindu groups and withdrew the episode from circulation. Outraged by Hindu political correctness? Then check out the Xenites Against Censorship homepage, which includes the intruging suggestion that the protesters are in fact a front for a Hare Krishna splinter group.

Milosevic's Willing Occupier: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen argues in The New Republic that NATO should do in Yugoslavia what the Allies did in Germany and Japan: Take over the country and rebuild it with a culture of democracy.

"The remaking of Serbia is desirable for the well-being not just of its neighbors but also of its inhabitants, now caught in the grip of delusions, hatreds, an ever-more-belligerent society and culture, war, and death. Occupation is the prerequisite for pr oducing a thoroughgoing democratic transformation in Serbia and, more broadly, in the former Yugoslavia (there should be no illusions that all the Serbs' neighbors are angels)."

Life in these Post-Mandatory States: Diary of Palestinian free-lance journalist Saud Abu Ramadan (Slate)

"All I could think was, how can I possibly write an 800-word news feature story and send it in by 4 and work with the Swiss crew the whole day, translating from Arabic to English and distracting the dozens of kids who gather in front of the camera when the cameraman films general shots in the streets of the poor refugee camps in Gaza?"

Parenting Today: Bob Herbert: America's Littlest Shooters

"Does your youngster follow directions well? Is he conscientious and reliable? Would you leave him alone in the house for two or three hours? Would you send him to the grocery store with a list and a $20 bill? If the answer to these questions or similar ones are 'yes,' then the answer can also be 'yes' when your child asks for his first gun." -- National Shooting Sports Foundation

Marriage Today: The Seven-Year Itch: Where Are They Now? (NYTimes)

"Recently I called several couples from my earliest columns, curious to find out whether they were happy, miserable or somewhere in between. Some of their stories surprised me...."

Saturday, May 1, 1999

Nostalgia: Why 'Fiddler on the Roof' still works (Austin American Statesman)

"As the Austin Musical Theatre prepares to revive the magnum opus Tuesday, it is proper to ask why this show endures like none other in the hearts of theatergoers. "

Friday, April 30, 1999

I'd rather be Web surfing: Yes, the media do make us more violent. Gregg Easterbrook in The New Republic

"The debate on violence in the media is missing three vital points: the distinction between what adults should be allowed to see (anything) and what the inchoate minds of children and adolescents should see; the way in which important liberal battles to win free expression in art and literature have been perverted into an excuse for antisocial video brutality produced by cynical capitalists; and the difference between censorship and voluntary acts of responsibility."

Travelogue: The State of the Palestinians Hillel Halkin reports for The New Republic

"It is a curious place, the state of Palestine in progress, free for an Arab country and far from that by the standards of the West, equipped with a full range of potentially vigorous democratic institutions that now churn in a void like an engine disconne cted from its driveshaft"

Related: The Jerusalem Post reviews Palestinian Stories

And this just in: Statehood deferred till June (Ha'aretz)

Sephardi Torah Guardian vs. Tobacco: Deputy Health Minister MK Shlomo Benizri unveils plan to reduce smoking (JPost)

"Benizri said he was inspired by Shas Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who has issued a halachic ruling against smoking and ordered the party newspaper, Yom Le'Yom, to stop advertising cigarettes."

Torahed Radicals 'Jewish Leadership' wants a revolution now (Ha'aretz)

"The movement rejects the current regime in Israel, which it recognizes only as a stepping-stone to a Hebrew regime. Its leading activists are the alumni of "revolutionary organizations" like the Kahanist "Chai Vekayam" group and the "Zu Artzeinu" movement which spearheaded the anti-Oslo campaign between 1993 and 1996. Moshe Faiglin, a Zu Artzeinu founder, used to belong, but dropped out. Controversial military historian Uri Millstein, and Joseph's tomb Rabbi Yizhak Ginzberg were among those on stage for the group's largest convention so far, a 2,000-person affair in Jerusalem two years ago."

The watcher watched: Nahum Barnea, Israel's most influential journalist, has just published his book, 'Days of Netanyahu.' Ari Shavit interviews him for Ha'aretz

Black Panther: Tel Aviv rapper Adam 'Fishy' Levinzon has plenty to say about ethnic discrimination, the conformist education system, the ratings culture and preteen groupies. (Ha'aretz)

Bulldozer Bagged? Police: Indict Sharon; decision after elections (Ha'aretz)

"Police recommended yesterday that Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon be indicted for allegedly bribing former general Avigdor Ben Gal in return for his giving favorable testimony in Sharon's libel suit against Ha'aretz."

Meanwhile, Bibi has this to say:

"I have full confidence in Ariel Sharon and his innocence, and I also have full confidence in Israel's justice and legal system."

Thursday, April 29, 1999

Bill Murray for Chief Rabbi: Dybbukmania continues in Israel. Arutz 7 interviews the exorcist's son, and promises a Real Video broadcast.

"An unbelievable amount of people have called and expressed the desire to observe the commandments as a result" of the Dimonah exorcism

"I soon discovered that there were no cases of demonic possession among Jews preserved in Jewish literature for centuries before their appearance in the last decades of the sixteenth century. The striking contemporaneous appearance of this phenomenon among Jews and Christians demanded interpretation and explanation."

Annals of Monopoly: Caldera's statement of fact in its anti-trust case against Microsoft, charging illegal predation in Microsoft's war against DR-Dos.

Irrelevant but fun quote:

"At the Exec Retreat in Feb, I suggested that we should lock up the LDS Church (and BYU) as a 100% MS account. . . . Were we to own his account, we would inflict an incredible amount of FUD on the new Novell/WP. The influence of the LDS Church in the Utah economy and culture is difficult to appreciate from a distance." "

Wednesday, April 28, 1999

Musical Notes (1) George Robinson reviews Chasidic Metal, Raucous Klez plus a few folkies, a couple of cantors, and third-rate Rochester Klezmer.

Musical Notes (2) Jerusalem Post reviews Aviv Gefen's latest album, White Nights

"In the absence of larger-than-life rock 'n' roll heroes, the flamboyant and controversial Gefen has tried to cast himself as Israeli rock's Lennon, its Bowie, its Morrissey. From the sound of Gefen's latest release, it looks as though he wants to be Israel's Elton John and Richard Thompson as well. "

Tuesday, April 27, 1999

"But Temple Beth Solomon in Arleta, founded by and for the deaf in 1960, has developed a system for deaf Jews to study Hebrew. It is the only temple of its kind in the nation"

"The Interior Ministry said it didn't recognize her conversion because it was a "quickie" conversion abroad. The decision came despite a letter from the Orthodox rabbi who converted her, the spiritual leader of a community in Monsey, New York, who wrote, "I have been a rabbi for 40 years, and I have never before met any convert who had as much knowledge and who was so committed to religious Jewish life."

"The ceremony was carried out by Rabbi David Batzri, a well-known kabbalist and head of Yeshivat Hashalom in Jerusalem, whose grandfather, Rabbi Yehuda Petaya of Baghdad, wrote a basic guide to such ceremonies. What made this ceremony unique was that it was broadcast live by all of Israel's haredi pirate radio stations and videotaped as well."

" In the interview, Suissa was quoted as saying: "We would have preferred that Deri be tried in [Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser] Arafat's military court rather than this one... It's always the 'black' man that's the scapegoat. As a minister, I am obliged to honor the justice system, but if it were up to me, I wouldn't agree to be tried by it." "

JPost: Comptroller highlights official apathy towards the weak ; State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg's careful debut

Ha'aretz: Jerusalem burial societies scolded for illegal land grabs; Torah institutions get multiple funding; Corruption revealed in religious charities and Hanegbi ignored last year's report, Foreign worker population swells despite gov't efforts; Planning snafus delay Ben Gurion 2000 development project

Flashback or Blowback? PA frees three 1996 bus bomb planners (Ha'aretz)

"Arafat is trying to gain Hamas's support for postponing the declaration of a state, and to prevent a challenge to his presidency. The security sources estimate that the release of Hamas members does not signal a "green light" to a renewed wave of attacks, but signals the contrary: Arafat expects that in return, Hamas will refrain from any attacks until after the Israeli elections."

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