Happy Hanukkah... Upcoming programs

The first night of Hanukkah is Sunday, December 21. Happy Hanukkah!



Community Hanukkah Party! Sunday, December 21st - with Tifereth Israel, Temple B’nai Jeshurun and the Jewish Federation Community School -- at Tifereth Israel Synagogue.

9:30 - 10:30 am - An instructional candle lighting program for the community.

10:30 - 11:30 am - adult programming with the Rabbis ; decorating your house for Hanukkah and recipes!

11:30 am - lunch for $6 offered by the TI Women's League. RSVPs to office@tifereth.org

For additional information contact: jfcsdm@aol.com

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Beth El Jacob Chanukah Party - Here is your invite to join us on December 27 ohhh...about 6-ish for a great celebration. Open gymnasium, Chanukah "Taco Bar" (honest!), Games, Arts, Crafts, Live Music...lot's of FUN! Suggested donation is only $5 per person or $10 per family. Come on...let's enjoy the season together!

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Lubavitch of Iowa Hanukkah events:

Family Ice Skating Party, Sun. December 28, 2- 4 pm at Buccaneer Hockey $3.

Schedule for the Grand Menorah Lighting, Dec. 21- 28 at Maccabee Deli

For more information, contact jrcspark@msn.com or call 277-1770

December 16, 2008 Letter to the Iowa City Press- Citizen

Palestinians missed another opportunity

In 2005, the Palestinians of Gaza were presented with an opportunity of a lifetime. Israel had just withdrawn every one of its citizens and soldiers from the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians could have chosen the path of peace and reconciliation or the path of resistance and extremism. Tragically, they overwhelmingly chose the latter, and the dire situation they now are in is a direct result of that collective choice.

The entire world was willing to pitch in to help the Palestinians' fledgling country, assist them in developing a healthy economy, building hospitals, schools and factories. All they needed to do was to demonstrate their peaceful intentions. Instead, Gazans chose the path of violence, firing rockets into Israeli communities nearly daily, and investing their resources in building an arsenal of ever more powerful weapons.

Six months later, Gazans had the privilege of voting in democratic elections for the first time in their history. They could have voted for a party that advocates peaceful coexistence with Israel. Instead, they voted in the terrorist organization Hamas on a platform of rejecting Israel's right to exist and the goal of replacing Israel by a Palestinian state. Time and again, Palestinians prove the constant historic truth: "Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."

Paul Meyer, in his Dec. 6 letter, shifts the entire blame onto Israel. By so doing, not only does he turn reality upside down, but he also acts counter to the best interest of the Palestinians.

Pnina Luban
Ames

No doubt: Jewish American mainstream condemns Jewish extremism in Hebron. Attacks on Palestinians by extremists are unacceptable. Israel's government has a right to enforce the law. AJCommittee: "“While we fully understand the bonds of history and faith that tie the Jewish people to Hebron, this cannot be a justification for violating the law.”


It is clear. The mainstream and predominant voice of the Jewish American community is resolutely opposed to Jewish extremism.

Most recently, and perhaps I should have reported this about a week ago, because there are some who apparently wish to make this a wedge issue, the "Big Three" Jewish American watchdog organizations expressed their condemnation of the attacks upon Palestinians and Israeli soldiers enforcing the law in Hebron by "certain segments of the settler community."


AJC Appalled by Settler Provocations in Hebron
December 5, 2008 – New York – The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is appalled by the actions of Jewish settlers who were forcibly removed from a home in Hebron by the Israel Defense Forces yesterday.


“Israel cannot permit a small minority to challenge its legitimate institutions through violence,” said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris. “We fully support Israel’s government and security forces in their resolve to maintain order in the West Bank city of Hebron, whether the protagonists are Jews or Arabs.”


The IDF and Israeli police enforced the ruling of Israel’s High Court of Justice to evict Jewish settlers from a house in Hebron whose lawful ownership is disputed. The settlers balked, with some verbally abusing and physically attacking Israeli security forces, and later assaulting Palestinian residences and neighborhoods in Hebron.


“The behavior of certain segments of the settler community, pitting Jews against Jews in a highly combustible environment, is a threat to the democratic foundation of Israeli society,” said Harris.


“While we fully understand the bonds of history and faith that tie the Jewish people to Hebron, this cannot be a justification for violating the law.”
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AJCongress: Threats of Violence and Resistance to Court-Ordered Eviction in Hebron Undermine Israeli Democracy

December 5, 2008 — In the wake of the show-down over Jewish residence in a house in Hebron the American Jewish Congress today called on Israelis to rally firmly behind the rule of law and the democratic process.

Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that the courts will need more time to settle the dispute over the ownership of the house and that in the meanwhile the defiant Jewish settlers must exit the residence. The Court gave the residents several weeks to evacuate peacefully. Settler leaders and the goverment held talks to try and broker a compromise that would avoid a clash, but these talks took place under the threat of violence by supporters of the Hebron house residents. According to reports, settlers resisted the eviction. Subsequently, bands of settlers attacked Palestinians in an intolerable outbreak of lawlessness.

The question of whether or not Jews can remain in key parts of the ancient Jewish homeland, and specifically in Hebron, evokes deep feelings. Honorable people can disagree, and vigorous debate does not threaten the fabric of a democratic society.

But it would be a tragic irony if actions motivated by Zionist attachment to the land of Israel undermine the great achievement of the Zionist movement — the creation and the sustaining under great pressure of a democratic state based on the rule of law. We know that not all settlers are engaged in violence; those who are undermine the state that Jews longed for over two millennia.
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ADL Condemns Violence by Jewish Extremists in Hebron
New York, NY, December 5, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today condemned the rioting and violence by Jewish extremists in Hebron against Palestinians and their properties. The violence, first directed at Israeli police and military personnel, escalated into physical attacks against Palestinians -- their homes, land and Muslim cemeteries -- as the Israeli authorities moved to enforce an order of the Supreme Court to evacuate a contested building.

ADL issued the following statement:

The attacks against Palestinians, their farms, cemeteries and other Muslim property by Jewish extremists are deeply troubling and unacceptable. These attacks and those against Israeli soldiers and police, who were there to enforce a Supreme Court order to evacuate a contested building, are a direct assault on the rule of law and only serve to undermine Israel’s democratic institutions.

We are also disturbed at reports that some of the Jewish extremists wrapped themselves in the imagery of the Holocaust by sewing yellow Stars of David into their clothing and shouting “Nazi” at Israeli soldiers. This is an outrageous and cynical abuse of history and has no place in the Jewish State.

Israel cannot tolerate extremists who defy the law and democratic values. It is time for all Israelis, religious and non-religious, settlers and non-settlers, to respect Israel’s democratic institutions and to stand up against those who would use violence and intimidation.

Would Federal Prosecution's Argument in Agriprocessors' case make Jews, as a class, ineligible for bail?


Feds Argue [Israel's] Return Law Makes Jews Flight Risk
Marc Stern ( AJCongress): "I think it’s an argument that’s too aggressive and I think they need to justify it by evidence that I can’t imagine them producing.”


Sholom Rubashkin, former Agriprocessors’ CEO: Deemed a flight risk and denied ball.
by Stewart Ain, Staff Writer, New York The Jewish Week


In a legal argument called “astounding and very troublesome,” a federal prosecutor has argued that Israel’s Law of Return makes American Jews a flight risk and therefore ineligible for bail.

The claim, believed to be unprecedented, came in the bank fraud case of Sholom Rubashkin, the former Jewish head of the embattled Iowa kosher slaughterhouse, Agriprocessors, Inc.

And the federal judge in the case, Magistrate Jon Stuart Scoles, cited the Law of Return in his Nov. 20 decision denying Rubashkin bail.

“Under Israel’s Law of Return, any Jew and members of his family who have expressed their desire to settle in Israel will be granted citizenship,” the judge wrote, adding that the government had claimed that at least one other Agriprocessors’ defendant had already fled to Israel.

Rubashkin’s lawyers wrote in their appeal filed last Friday: “It is ironic that a law designed to provide refuge to persecuted Jews has now become the basis for detaining a Jew who might otherwise have been released pending trial.”

Deborah Lauter, director of the civil rights office of the Anti-Defamation League, said the prosecution’s “referencing the Law of Return is highly unusual.”

Marc Stern, acting co-executive director of the American Jewish Congress, called the move “very troublesome.”

“All Jews are suspect because of the Law of Return?” he asked. “It’s a very astounding and troubling argument. It’s different from saying he might run to Israel — whether or not there is a Law of Return.”

Stern said the government’s argument is “probably impermissible, but it’s hard to say without being more closely involved. ... I think it’s an argument that’s too aggressive and I think they need to justify it by evidence that I can’t imagine them producing.”

In last Friday’s legal papers, defense attorneys for Rubashkin asked Scoles to reconsider his decision. And, in order to preserve their right to appeal, they also filed papers with federal District Court Judge Linda Reade in the event Scoles does not grant Rubashkin bail.

Defense attorneys F. Montgomery Brown and Guy Cook argued in their papers that the U.S. has an extradition treaty with Israel and that therefore “the Law of Return should have played no role whatsoever in the analysis.”

They noted that when they argued that position in court, the office of U.S. Attorney Matt M. Dummermuth countered by insisting that the extradition process “could take years.” And the prosecutor also introduced a copy of the Law of Return.

The defense attorneys said their research “has not uncovered a single instance involving a Jewish criminal defendant where the prosecution invoked the Law of Return in support of detention.” And they quoted an attorney with years of experience in the Brooklyn and Manhattan federal district courts as saying he too could “recall no instance where the prosecutor invoked the Law of Return in arguing that an American Jew is a bail risk.”

Bob Teig, a spokesman for Dummermuth’s office, said the defense papers were filed last Friday and that “we have had no chance to file a response.”

Asked if the defense’s characterization of the government’s argument was correct, he replied: “The judge’s order speaks for itself.”

Laura Sweeney, a Justice Department spokesperson, said when asked about the prosecutor’s argument, “This is an ongoing matter and therefore the department declines comment.”

In their request to deny bail after his second arrest in November — he had been arrested in October on charges alleging that he hired illegal workers for his plant — prosecutors noted that Rubashkin had $20,000 in his home, much of it in a travel bag that also contained his birth certificate and his children’s passports; he has 10 children. He and his wife surrendered their passports after Rubashkin’s first arrest.

One of Rubashkin’s lawyers, Baruch Weiss of New York, acknowledged the cash was in the house but said that much of it was in one-dollar bills that had been collected for charity. And he said the rest was used to pay expense. He noted that a $1,700 car bill had recently been paid in cash.

Rubaskin’s Iowa defense team contended in their papers that in “the prosecutors’ view, anyone subject to the Law of Return is an increased flight risk. Consequently, under that view, ‘every Jew’ is to be viewed for bail purposes as a greater risk of flight than a non-Jew. That means that 5.3 million Americans would be viewed as heightened bail risks simply because they are Jews.”

They pointed out that would include Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff and two U.S. Supreme Court Justices, Steven Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In their papers, the defense lawyers said the extradition treaty the U.S. has with Israel “has always been workable,” and that after recent amendments it is “now better than workable.”

“It applies to everyone, Jews and non-Jews,” they said. “It even applies to Israelis. This treaty will ensure that Rubashkin — even if he were to become a citizen of Israel under the Law of Return — will be returned to the United States, tried in the United States and if convicted, that he will serve any sentence in the United States. Were he to flee to Israel, he would be detained pending extradition. Because of this treaty, the Law of Return is irrelevant.”

In addition, the defense lawyers said that by denying Rubashkin bail, the court was denying him the constitutional right to equal protection.

“Jews are a protected class for Equal Protection purposes,” they wrote. “Thus, singling Jews out in any way when determining bail is unconstitutional...

“The government has failed to demonstrate a compelling government interest in a rule that implicates all Jews, and has failed to demonstrate that its interest here cannot be met with a more narrowly tailored approach. ... The government introduced no evidence that Jews are more likely to flee because of the Law of Return than non-Jews.”

The defense lawyers concluded that “rather than locking Jews up with greater frequency, the United States could rely on a general array of bail conditions, and then utilize the valid, streamlined, regularly-invoked extradition treaty with Israel in those few cases where the defendant actually flees. Certainly it is better to have the government on rare occasions be forced to resort to this streamlined extradition than to brand over 5 million Americans a bail risks. ... Otherwise, the government slurs Americans because of a law passed by a foreign country over which these Americans have no control and which they may have no desire to invoke.”

Obama: We must talk to Iran, but threats against Israel unacceptable

By Reuters 12/8/2008


U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said on Sunday that the West must engage in "tough but direct diplomacy" with Iran, but empahzied that Tehran's vocalized threats against Israel stand "contrary to everything" the United States believes in.

He also said that he was prepared to offer Iran economic incentives to stop its nuclear program, but warned that sanctions could be toughened if it refused.

"We need to ratchet up tough but direct diplomacy with Iran, making very clear to them that their development of nuclear weapons would be unacceptable, that their funding of terrorist organizations, their threats against Israel are contrary to everything we believe in," Obama said.
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"We are willing to talk to them directly and give them a clear choice and ultimately let them make a determination in terms of whether they want to do this the hard way or the easy way," Obama told NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

Dealing with Iran's uranium enrichment program, which some Western countries say is being used to develop a nuclear bomb, will be one of the first foreign policy tests for Obama after he takes office on January 20.

Iran last month signaled it was expanding its nuclear enrichment program, a clear sign that it has no intention of bowing to Western pressure. Tehran says the program is purely for peaceful purposes to generate more electricity.

Iran said last week it did not believe U.S. policy would change under Obama. Washington, which cut ties with Tehran after the 1979 revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed shah, has been pushing hard to isolate Iran over its nuclear program.

He said his administration would work with international partners to present a set of carrots and sticks to encourage Iran to halt its nuclear development program.

"In terms of carrots, we can provide economic incentives that would be helpful to a country that despite being a net oil producer is under enormous strain, huge inflation, lot of employment problems," Obama said, without specifying what form the incentives would take.

"But we also have to focus on the sticks. In order for us to change Iran's behavior we may have to tighten up those sanctions."

Iran's refusal to stop enriching uranium, which can provide fuel for nuclear power plants or material for bombs if refined to a higher degree, has drawn three rounds of UN sanctions since 2006 as well as separate U.S. measures.

During a presidential debate with Republican rival John McCain in October, Obama said his administration would work to restrict gasoline imports to Iran, which suffers a shortage of refined fuel.

Ceasefire endures its 26th consecutive day of shelling from Gaza into Israel

More than 20 Qassam rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip over the weekend. (Ha'aretz, Dec. 7, 2008)

There has been fire from Gaza 34 out of the 35 days since November 4. (elderofziyon.blogspot.com)

"At the end of the day, terrorists often are just acting on what they sense the majority really wants but doesn’t dare do or say." --Tom Friedman

December 3, 2008 New York Times
Op-Ed Columnist
Calling All Pakistanis By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai?

After all, if 10 young Indians from a splinter wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party traveled by boat to Pakistan, shot up two hotels in Karachi and the central train station, killed at least 173 people, and then, for good measure, murdered the imam and his wife at a Saudi-financed mosque while they were cradling their 2-year-old son — purely because they were Sunni Muslims — where would we be today? The entire Muslim world would be aflame and in the streets.

So what can we expect from Pakistan and the wider Muslim world after Mumbai? India says its interrogation of the surviving terrorist indicates that all 10 men come from the Pakistani port of Karachi, and at least one, if not all 10, were Pakistani nationals.

First of all, it seems to me that the Pakistani government, which is extremely weak to begin with, has been taking this mass murder very seriously, and, for now, no official connection between the terrorists and elements of the Pakistani security services has been uncovered.

At the same time, any reading of the Pakistani English-language press reveals Pakistani voices expressing real anguish and horror over this incident. Take for instance the Inter Press Service news agency article of Nov. 29 from Karachi: “ ‘I feel a great fear that [the Mumbai violence] will adversely affect Pakistan and India relations,’ the prominent Karachi-based feminist poet and writer Attiya Dawood told I.P.S. ‘I can’t say whether Pakistan is involved or not, but whoever is involved, it is not the ordinary people of Pakistan, like myself, or my daughters. We are with our Indian brothers and sisters in their pain and sorrow.’ ”

But while the Pakistani government’s sober response is important, and the sincere expressions of outrage by individual Pakistanis are critical, I am still hoping for more. I am still hoping — just once — for that mass demonstration of “ordinary people” against the Mumbai bombers, not for my sake, not for India’s sake, but for Pakistan’s sake.

Why? Because it takes a village. The best defense against this kind of murderous violence is to limit the pool of recruits, and the only way to do that is for the home society to isolate, condemn and denounce publicly and repeatedly the murderers — and not amplify, ignore, glorify, justify or “explain” their activities.

Sure, better intelligence is important. And, yes, better SWAT teams are critical to defeating the perpetrators quickly before they can do much damage. But at the end of the day, terrorists often are just acting on what they sense the majority really wants but doesn’t dare do or say. That is why the most powerful deterrent to their behavior is when the community as a whole says: “No more. What you have done in murdering defenseless men, women and children has brought shame on us and on you.”

Why should Pakistanis do that? Because you can’t have a healthy society that tolerates in any way its own sons going into a modern city, anywhere, and just murdering everyone in sight — including some 40 other Muslims — in a suicide-murder operation, without even bothering to leave a note. Because the act was their note, and destroying just to destroy was their goal. If you do that with enemies abroad, you will do that with enemies at home and destroy your own society in the process.

“I often make the comparison to Catholics during the pedophile priest scandal,” a Muslim woman friend wrote me. “Those Catholics that left the church or spoke out against the church were not trying to prove to anyone that they are anti-pedophile. Nor were they apologizing for Catholics, or trying to make the point that this is not Catholicism to the non-Catholic world. They spoke out because they wanted to influence the church. They wanted to fix a terrible problem” in their own religious community.

We know from the Danish cartoons affair that Pakistanis and other Muslims know how to mobilize quickly to express their heartfelt feelings, not just as individuals, but as a powerful collective. That is what is needed here.

Because, I repeat, this kind of murderous violence only stops when the village — all the good people in Pakistan, including the community elders and spiritual leaders who want a decent future for their country — declares, as a collective, that those who carry out such murders are shameful unbelievers who will not dance with virgins in heaven but burn in hell. And they do it with the same vehemence with which they denounce Danish cartoons.