The authorities would probably call the 30 U.S. citizens who scoured the Negev last week Christian tourists. But the members of the group think of themselves as American Marranos, and they are determined to return to the faith they say their ancestors were forced to renounce and strike root in Israel. Like Del and Helen Sanchez, who headed the group, most of the tourists grew up going to church on Sunday. Only recently did most of them discover what they call their "Jewish roots."And the trip to the Negev was the first step in a quest to realize the prophecy in Obadiah 1:20, stating that "the captives of Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad [Spain], will possess the cities of the Negev." The group was looking at places to settle as Jews in Israel. Like all the other members of the group, the Sanchezes believe that their ancestors were in fact Spanish and Portuguese Jews who escaped the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century to flee the Spanish Inquisition. Soon after arriving, some of these Jews found themselves once again under the rule of the Spanish conquistadors, who set up colonies in the Americas. [...]
Did you hear the one about the black Harvard professor who got arrested breaking into his own home? No, this is not a joke. It was the beginning of a Shabbos lunch that left me traumatized.
It's always the same. I feel safe, comfortable and carefree, and suddenly, punched in the gut, violated, uncomfortable, and all the cares of the world weigh on me. When I feel safe, I feel part of the Jewish community, but when I do not, I feel like an outsider on the outskirts, not fitting in.
My husband and I started speaking out about racism in the Jewish community when a friend asked us to speak at a synagogue in Washington Heights, in my hometown of New York City. As an interracial Jewish couple (my husband is white, I am Dominican), our friend was sure we'd have plenty to say. I wasn't. But as I started to write about my experiences in Washington Heights (from both white Jews, who thought I was dark and foreign, to Dominicans, who thought I was too light and American), I filled four single-spaced typed pages. I knew from the stories of other Jews of color that this meant I was lucky. I learned still others had been even luckier.[...]
President Obama's Middle East peace plan faces a key hurdle on Tuesday, when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas convenes the first conference in two decades of his Fatah movement. The conference, to be held in the West Bank city of Bethlehem under heavy Palestinian Authority security, is seen as critical to the prospects of restoring Abbas' waning political legitimacy and authority. But early signs suggest that the conference will, if anything, weaken the Palestinian leader's ability to follow Washington's script.
Since the death of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, U.S. peace efforts have relied on the moderate and relatively pliable Abbas to negotiate a two-state agreement with Israel. But the prevailing view within Fatah is that Abbas has achieved precious little for his negotiation efforts, and that this has been a prime factor in weakening Fatah in the face of the challenge by its more militant rival, Hamas. The Islamists trounced Fatah in the last democratic elections for the Palestinian parliament in 2006, and many fear that a candidate backed by Hamas would likely beat Abbas in presidential elections currently scheduled for early next year. Much of the Fatah rank-and-file, and even many in the leadership, believe that the only way the movement can be saved is to break with American tutelage, and seek to reclaim the mantle of "resistance" from Hamas. The result is that the political statement adopted by the conference is unlikely to please the U.S. and Israel.
Indications from within Fatah suggest that the conference political document will reaffirm the Palestinians right to "resistance," specifying non-violent challenges to the occupation, but remaining silent on the question of armed resistance and the future of the Fatah-affiliated militants of the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade. It will flatly reject Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a "Jewish state," on the grounds that this undermines the rights of Palestinian refugees and of those with Israeli citizenship. It will also insist on a complete freeze on Jewish settlements in occupied territory as a precondition for any talks with Israel, which it will stress must be based on U.N. resolutions — which will include recognition of the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees expelled from Israel in 1948, a demand that Israel deems a deal-breaker.[...]
An indictment was served Tuesday in the Jerusalem District Court against a haredi woman suspected of starving her three-year-old child over a period of two years. The woman's internment sparked riots in Jerusalem which lasted nearly a week.
The mother is being accused of abusing a helpless infant. The ultra-Orthodox Toldot Aharon sect to which the woman belongs threatened to renew riots if she is remanded again or if the conditions of her house arrest are worsened.
The woman underwent a psychiatric evaluation last week and was found to be fit for trial.
Since her arrest, the mother has consistently refused to cooperate with investigators, and has been erratic in appearing for both court hearings and psychiatric evaluations.
Her son, who weighed just seven kilograms when he was admitted to Hadassha Ein Kerem Hospital at the end of June, was discharged last Friday to the care of relatives. He gained at least three kilograms while he was hospitalized.
At the end of June, Toldot Aharon members rioted throughout religious neighborhoods in the capital in protest of the arrest of the mother. Only after police released the woman to house arrest did the violence subside.
Throughout the saga, the mother has maintained her innocence, and has insisted that her child suffers from multiple illnesses which have caused him to eat improperly. [...]
Israel and America are having one of those periodic marital spats they have had over the years, replete with "I-am-not-taking-any-more-of-your-guff" outbursts by Obama officials at American Jewish leaders, and, yes — it wouldn't be a real Israel-U.S. dust-up without it — Israeli accusations that Jewish Obama aides are "self-hating Jews," working out their identity crises by working over Israel. Having been to this play before, and knowing both families, I'd like to offer some free marriage counseling.
Here's what Israelis need to understand: President Obama is not some outlier when it comes to Israel. His call for a settlements freeze reflects attitudes that have been building in America for a long time. For the last 40 years, a succession of Israeli governments has misled, manipulated or persuaded naïve U.S. presidents that since Israel was negotiating to give up significant territory, there was no need to fight over "insignificant" settlements on some territory. Behind this charade, Israeli settlers bit off more and more of the West Bank, creating a huge moral, security and economic burden for Israel and its friends.
As Bradley Burston, a columnist for Israel's Haaretz newspaper, put it last week: "The settlement movement has cost Israel some $100 billion. ... The double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing, heavily subsidized social services, and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property. ... Settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures, military directives, and government decrees in order to boost settlement, block Palestinian construction, agriculture, and access to employment, and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress."
For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements. Everyone in Washington knows this, and a lot of people — people who care about Israel — are sick of it.
The Times's Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, captured the we-are-untouchable arrogance of the settlers last week when he quoted Rabbi Yigael Shandorfi, leader of a religious academy at the settlement of Nahliel, calling Mr. Obama in a speech "that Arab they call a president."[...]
