Jerusalem Diaries
         Judy Lash Balint
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Warm comforting breeze blows over
Yom Hazikaron rites in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM—It's eerie how often the elements reflect events
occurring here in Israel. At last week's Yom Hashoah commemoration
at Yad Vashem, participants huddled together in the chill of the
Jerusalem evening as the ceremony marking the systematic murder
of six million European Jews unfolded.  The youthful members of
the choir were shivering in the frigid air.  Six survivors delegated to
light the memorial torches stood stoically at attention as a cold wind
blew across the hilltop.

But just one week later, as the State of Israel pauses to remember
her fallen soldiers, the ritual takes place as a soft, warm, almost
comforting breeze envelops hundreds of bereaved families gathered
in the plaza facing the Kotel.

The flag at half mast barely flutters in the gentle flurries of the wind
and the memorial flame remains virtually immobile in front of the
subdued crowd. 

Those commemorated on Yom Hazikaron are not the mass victims
of yesteryear’s death camps, they’re our youth who died and continue
to die, defending the state and its citizens.  We need the warmth and gentleness to reassure us, to enable us to look to the future.

It’s slightly disconcerting to see the Kotel bereft of worshipers,
replaced by rows and rows of men and women with sadness in their
eyes. A significant number of the men choose not to wear any head covering—I can’t help wondering if it’s an indictment of God or an expression of secularism that has nothing to do with their loss. Apart
from the ultra-orthodox who generally do not serve in the army, the
full spectrum of Israeli society is represented at the service—national religious and secular; Ashkenazi and Sephardi; rich and poor; old
and young.  Bereavement itself is a social strata here —according to
the Defense Ministry 23,305 soldiers have died in the fifty nine years
of statehood leaving thousands of families to join the ranks of the
bereaved.

This year, thanks in large part to last summer's Hizbollah war, another
233 names have been added to those we mourn.

As the siren sounds marking the beginning of the ceremony, I notice
a young child next to me dropping her head along with the formal
honor guard who face us across the plaza.  Sadly, the culture of
grieving and remembering is ingrained at an early age here in Israel.

At the end of the formal program, acting President Dalia Itzik, Chief
of Staff Gabi Askenazi and Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski pass
among the families offering brief words of comfort.  The gesture
reinforces a remark made by Itzik during her address to the
gathering—that each loss is a national loss, felt keenly by the
entire country.

As we wait to leave at the close of the 30-minute ceremony, I fall
into conversation with the young couple sitting next to me.  The
wife is the sister of Oded Bachrach, a soldier murdered in 1996
while on a hike in Wadi Kelt. Michal, 33, tells me she finds it difficult
to attend the Memorial Day observance. “There were a few years
when I actually got ready to go, but just couldn’t make myself get
here,” she says with tears in her eyes.  Her parents have never come
to the Kotel ceremony.  They find it easier to sponsor a Torah lecture
in Oded’s memory in their community of Beit El.

What upsets Michal most is the fate of her younger brother’s
murderer.  Captured by officers of the Palestine Authority in
Jericho, the terrorist spent just one month in jail before being
released in Yasser Arafat’s notorious revolving door policy. Today,
Israel is deliberating whether to release 1,400 Arab security prisoners in return for the promise of the safe return home of captured IDF soldier, Gilad Shalit.

As we walk together out of the Old City through Dung Gate, the warm breeze evaporates into the night, leaving a chill wind in its place.
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Judy Lash Balint writes from Jerusalem and is author most recently of Jerusalem
Diaries II: What's Really Happening in Israel (Xulon Press, 2007)
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© Judy Lash Balint. All rights reserved. 2007
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Letter from Jerusalem
_________________By Ira Sharkansky____________

 

'Holding fingers' for young woman
who embodies the Zionist dream

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Jews in the News                    -------------------------------------------------------------
 News spotters: Dan Brin in Los Angeles, Donald H. Harrison in San Diego, Marsha
Sutton in North San Diego County. To see a source story click on the link within the
respective paragraph.  If you spot a Jewish-interest story in your favorite publication,
please send us the link.
_______________________________________________________________________

*Director Breck Eisner was among those called to testify in a court
battle over the movie Sahara between author Clive Cussler and
industrialist turned producer Philip Anshutz.  Matt Krasnowski of
Copley News Service has a story suggesting in today's San Diego
Union-Tribune that the trial is far better than the movie.

*Kitty Carlisle Hart, who died last Tueday, is the subject of
a portrait by Marilyn Berger of the New York Times News Service
in today's San Diego Union-Tribune

*The last moments of Liviu Librescu and other victims of the
Virginia Tech massacre are chillingly recounted in a New York
Times News Service story in today's San Diego Union-Tribune. 
The story corrects previous accounts that Librescu was shot
through the door of the classroom he had attempted to bar to killer
Seung-Hui Cho.  He did bar the door briefly, butCho was able to
force his way in, then shot the professor point-blank, and went
around the room killing students.

*Sandy Levinson and other members of The Book Club, a group
still going strong as it celebrates if 50th anniversary, are featured
in a story by Ozzie Roberts in the Passages section of today's
San Diego Union-Tribune.

*Should Paul Wolfowitz be fired as president of the World Bank? 
The San Diego Union-Tribune has a pro-con debate in its Insights
section today. The article in favor of sacking Wolfowitz is by H.D.S. Greenway.  The article defending him is by Christopher Hitchens.

                                     
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                           _________________________

When evangelical Christians invite
Jewish dialogue, background helps

By Sheila Orysiek

SAN DIEGO, Ca—A recent headline on the Global News Service
of the Jewish People read “Jews Urged to Embrace Evangelicals.”
The article  included the following  information:

“Two prominent representatives of the evangelical community
who addressed a panel Sunday at the Jewish Council for Public
Affairs’ annual plenum said that if Jews feel uncomfortable with evangelicals, the solution is to expand the dialogue, not limit it.”

“Our community does not know how to dialogue,” said Susan
Michael, U.S. director for the International Christian Embassy
in Jerusalem. “We are very good at preaching, we are very weak
at dialogue.”

Her appeal: “Help us to learn.”  

Certainly in recent years evangelicals have been approaching
Jews on issues such as Israel and Judaism and their stated
support for both. It is therefore important for us as Jews as we
look forward to also review some of the history that has separated Christianity from Judaism in the past and then consider what issues
might unite us in the future.

This brings to mind a book written by David Klinghoffer,
Why the Jews Rejected Jesus (Doubleday, 2005)

What if Jews had accepted Jesus as Christ – the Messiah? 
Examining this question is only one of several mind expanding
theories Klinghoffer offers as a basis upon which to explore why
the Jews did not.  As the oldest intact continuously identifiable
social group, Jews had already observed various religious systems
such as the Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian and Greek, come and go,
ebb and flow. 

By the year 30 CE a new religious entry was nothing new to them. 
Miracle workers and self-proclaimed redeemers, or a redeemer
proclaimed by others, was not a rare occurrence.  The Jews were
like an audience that sat in a movie theater watching the coming
attractions, or even the complete film, and then went home to their
own reality.  And that reality was One G-D.  It was the concept from
which they might occasionally stray, but they continued to return,
time and again.

Klinghoffer asserts that Judaism was never meant to be a religion
easily taken on and therefore not for mass consumption.  The rigors
of circumcision and commandments that dictate an almost hourly commitment, investing every facet of life and living, are not easily proselytized. When Jews would not accept Jesus, the apostle Paul |
turned instead to non-Jews.  He realized that “selling” Judaism was
difficult, so he left behind the strictures of Jewish orthodoxy, the rules,
the commandments, and simplified it all into a concept of G-D and
His son, Jesus, and eventually a trinity.  But what if the Jews had
accepted Jesus?  The author postulates that Christianity would have remained a small sect within the larger mosaic of Judaism still
indigestible to the larger community of non-Jews.

How differently would history have evolved!  Islam would still have
come into being and finding an ideological vacuum in Europe, instead
of being stopped at the gates of Provence, Lepanto and Vienna, would
have swept in much earlier than we are now witnessing.

Would the Age of Exploration have taken place in quite the same
way?  Would the Portuguese and Spanish still have explored across
the oceans without the drive to plant the cross of the Catholic
Church?  Lacking the Puritan desire for a New Canaan would
North America have been colonized?  What would the United States
be like minus a Judeo-Christian foundation?  And with a surging
Islam where would Jews have gone without the possibility of the
New World as a haven?

Klinghoffer also presents both specific as well as intuitive reasons
why Judaism refused to accept the idea that a Messiah had already
come, had died, and would return.  Why do Jews have an almost gut reaction to this possibility and both head and heart say: “No”?

Judaism’s paradigms for the advent of a Messiah are carefully
presented and laid against the historical facts we know of Jesus’ life
and activities.  Did he meet those requirements that Judaism says are necessary for a Messiah to be proclaimed?  How will we know when
the Messiah comes?  What will change? How will the world look? 
The answers to these questions are why Jews said “No” then and
continue to say “No” now.

However, there are levels of that “no” that go beyond the stated
criteria.  There is the gut reaction that G-D with a son and even a
trinity, is counter-intuitive to a person steeped in the Jewish concept
of the One G-D of Sinai.

Klinghoffer also proposes that another way to view Christianity is
through the prism of bringing countless millions closer to the Jewish concept – relegating paganism, pantheism, to a barbaric past.  Better
a divine trinity than a pantheistic view of divinity.  Perhaps, Jews
should view Christianity as a daughter rather than a rival. 

Of course, because of the turbulent history Jews have suffered at
the hands of Christianity, this necessitates a considered willingness
to look again: to see Christianity for what it is now.  There is certainly
still anti-Semitism, but it is not government sanctioned in Christian
nations as it used to be. 

Evangelicals have stretched out a hand toward Judaism, with strong
support for Israel, and perhaps Jews need to reconsider, and accept
this hand.  Embrace this offer – until it proves otherwise.  The
argument that this hand of friendship is only offered because
Evangelicals hope to convert Jews, should not be a reason to reject
the offer.  It could be reversed – should an Evangelical wish to
convert to Judaism, would we reject that desire?  We as Jews are not
free of the thought that human civilization might be better off if
everyone believed as we do.

This book is well worth reading for the several themes it explores
as well as a reasoned and clear explanation of why the rejection of
Jesus occurred. If one accepts the author’s conclusions, the world
religions as presently constituted are part of G-D’s plan to bring the
nations to a closer knowledge of Him, and is a far better place – even
with all its present problems – than it would have been had the Jews accepted Jesus and Christianity had not become the underlying
foundation of Western civilization that it has.

Perfection it is not – certainly – but better than it might have been.

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The Jewish Grapevine
                                                 
 

*Marsha Sutton has an opinion piece in today's North County Times, arguing in the wake of the Virginia Tech Massacre for restrictions
on guns... Herb Braverman, an accomplished web surfer, passes on the
link to a site featuring Yiddish and other Jewish songs and melodies. ...

                       Israel's Accomplishments

Lou Press, thinking of Yom Hazikaron today and Yom Ha'atzma'ut tomorrow, passed on this compilation of Israel's accomplishments
sent to him by an Israeli friend.  While we cannot vouch for the
accuracy of every statement below, we can share in the obvious pride
of the anonymous author.

Israel the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the
world's population, can lay claim to the following:

Agriculture