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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review Feb. 19, 2007 / 1 Adar, 5767

Running with the jackals of hate

By Jonathan Tobin



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Prominent 'progressive' Jewish critics of Israel stake a false claim of victimhood


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Sometimes, the most daring thing a scholar or an organization can do is to mention the obvious. That is a lesson that Indiana University's Professor Alvin H. Rosenfeld and the American Jewish Committee have recently learned to their sorrow.


Rosenfeld is the author of a 30-page study titled " 'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism," which was published in December by AJCommittee. In it Rosenfeld, briefly surveys the international rise of anti-Semitism and then goes on to touch on the various excesses of intellectual anti-Zionists with an emphasis on those leftist Jews who are important elements in the massive contemporary assault on Israel.


Rosenfeld's conclusion is that those Jewish writers and thinkers who have aided the assault on Israel's legitimacy and its right to exist cannot pretend that their stand is unrelated to the wave of violent Jew-hatred, which is itself largely focused on the delegitimization of Israel and Jewish self-defense. He rightly asserts that anti-Zionist Jewish authors such as British historian Jacqueline Rose, New York University's Tony Judt and Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright Tony Kushner have been carrying the intellectual water for a weird coalition of the far-left, the far-right, and the Arab and Islamic propagandists.

TARRED AND FEATHERED
Rosenfeld is careful to specify that questioning policies of Israeli governments is not the same as being anti-Israel, let alone anti-Semitic. But he has the bad manners to point out that those who aggressively question Israel's right to have any government or to defend itself against those who seek to destroy it are, at best, unwitting allies of a growing anti-Jewish movement.


That movement's end goal is, whether these so-called "progressive" want to admit it or not - the extinction of the world's only Jewish state, an event that would obviously entail the mass slaughter of Jews.


For this, Rosenfeld and his sponsors at AJCommittee have been treated to the sort of public tar and feathering that is usually reserved only for the troglodyte denizens of the far-right.


In a New York Times feature on the controversy (accompanied by a posed photo in which Rosenfeld is shown looking like a Kafka-esque prosecutor pictured from above in an oddly sinister light), Boston University scholar Alan Wolfe wondered if AJCommittee were not itself fostering "anti-Jewishness" by its criticism of liberals.


In an editorial, the Forward huffed that Rosenfeld's essay is "a shocking tissue of slander" that attacked all liberals.


Scholar Stanley Kutler wrote in The Boston Globe that Rosenfeld was merely trying to smear liberal critics of the Iraq war and those who thought America's strong support of Israel during the recent war with Hezbollah as an " embarrassment.


The New Republic's John B. Judis accused Rosenfeld, not to mention the entire pro-Israel movement of being hypocrites because they won't admit to having a " dual loyalty" toward Israel that the Jewish state's foes accuse them of having.


And author and Columbia University journalism professor Samuel Freedman wrote in The Jerusalem Post accusing Rosenfeld of using innuendo in accusing leftists of complicity with anti-Semitism. Even worse, in his view, is that by singling out these anti-Zionists, Rosenfeld has made martyrs out of them.


This is a consistent theme in much of the criticism of the piece, which largely centers on the notion that what the American Jewish Committee has engaged in is an attempt to censor critics of Israel and to suppress debate about its policies.


Like Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, the authors of "The Lobby," the widely criticized attack on American supporters of Israel, those in Rosenfeld's cross-hairs, think they are victims of a witch hunt. AJCommittee, a bastion of American liberalism for a century (which was bizarrely labeled a "conservative" group in the Times piece), has been forced to defend its credentials as a defender of freedom of thought.


But they have not indicted all "liberals" or "progressive" as anti-Semites as has been alleged. Nor is the Rosenfeld's piece a slam on mainstream liberals or the Democratic Party, the vast majority of whose members are supporters of Israel. Nor do they intend to silence Jewish dissidents, something that, given the access to mainstream media bully pulpits that these leftists possess, would be impossible anyway.


To the contrary, in recent years, it is the supporters of Israel who are becoming pariahs in intellectual circles, not its critics. For all the talk of " martyrdom" on the part of people like Tony Judt, the fact is, they have not suffered one bit for pot shots at Israel or their sneers at those who stand up for Zion.


If we want to know where we are headed, we need only look to Britain, where in intellectual and artistic circles it has gotten to the point where it may no longer be possible to identify as a Jew without also disavowing any support for Israel.

BUYING INTO SLANDER
A group of British Jewish celebrities, including actor Stephen Fry and playwright Harold Pinter recently signed a joint statement titled lambasting official British Jewish institutions for continuing to support Israel. Since they agree with the slander that Israel is an oppressor, incredibly, they see support for it as justifying anti-Semitism.


Those who want a more in-depth look at this phenomenon of growing Jewish anti-Zionism than Rosenfeld's slim pamphlet provides should instead go to the recently published "The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders," a collection of essays on the topic published by Transaction Books last year. In it, authors such as literary critic Edward Alexander (who edited this important volume along with British writer Paul Bogdanor) and Rosenfeld himself contribute essays on this puzzling and deeply dangerous trend.


It is not innuendo to note, as Rosenfeld does, that calling Israel a "Nazi state" and urging its dismantling is not unrelated to the attacks on Jews in Europe or to the verbal violence against Israel that is becoming bolder here. That anti-Zionism has established a beachhead among leftist intellectuals and academics in this country cannot be denied.


What is yet to be determined is whether more Jewish liberals and centrists are prepared to fight back and answer this insidious trend with the sort of plain talk it deserves or if, afraid of being branded as "intolerant" as was the case with Rosenfeld, they will back away from the fray. If the pasting Rosenfeld and AJComittee has taken does serve as a deterrent to frank discussions about the abandonment of Israel by the hard left and its impact on academia and our political culture, the consequences will not be inconsiderable.


Despite their braying about martyrdom, it takes no courage to run, as some " progressive" do, with the pack of media and academic jackals who defame Israel or whitewash its foes. But while these ideological zealots brazenly disavow the Jewish state, many other Jews have simply disengaged from the cause because they do not wish to be identified with an "illiberal" Israel. The result is an increasingly open field for the haters and a new growth for anti-Semitism just as Rosenfeld and others have asserted.


It is an encouraging sign that a mainstream group like the American Jewish Committee was prepared to publish Rosenfeld's piece and stand by it despite the abuse they have absorbed. The question that remains unanswered, is whether they and other groups will continue this necessary fight?

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JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. Let him know what you think by clicking here.

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