	San Diego Jewish World 'There's a Jewish story everywhere'

In today's issue...

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Ask 'why' and then sauté those tensions in your subconscience"

Dov Burt Levy in Salem, Massachusetts: "Response to 'Jewish
Conspiracy' libels"

Larry Zeiger in La Jolla, California: "Adding up the Zeroes in La Jolla Playhouse's The Adding Machine"

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Dov Burt Levy
Response to 'Jewish conspiracy' libels

SALEM, Massachusetts—One of the Jewish community's least welcome books since Henry Ford's"The International Jew" in the 1920s may be The Israel Lobby and U.S.Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, which arrived in bookstores on September 4. A second book, published the same day,is Anti-Defamation League chief Abraham Foxman's, The Deadliest Lies:The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control, a rebuttal to Mearsheimer-Walt.

If you consider the Mearsheimer-Walt's screed as akin to "blood libel," you have every right. It's the tired old anti-Semitic charge that Jews, in underhanded and secretive ways linked to their supposed great wealth, control the American government and pull the strings in the White House and Congress, all for the benefit of Israel.

Amazing how these charges of Jewish control and duplicity always gain currency during or after a bad war. Hitler made similar charges against Jews after the German defeat in WWI. And, make no mistake, these slanders can be devastating to the Jewish community. Claiming that Jews practice dual loyalty and use their economic power conspiratorially is not only wrong-headed but is completely anti-Semitic.

Two reasons why you should not dismiss the M-W book (let's abbreviate it) as a blip in the firmament, a book like all other books, soon to be a non-seller that people will forget.

First, M-W have launched a very impressive speaking campaign, including engagements at major universities. Surely, as the book becomes a numerical best seller, we will see them offering their anti-Jewish notions on television. In the first ten days, the M-W book is 44 in the Amazon book sale ranking, the Foxman book at 6,811. Round one to M-W.

The two authors, Mearsheimer and Walt, hold impressive positions at prestigious universities and present their case calmly and sound reasonable. It is what they say that is abominable. And incredibly, they smile as they proclaim their thesis that ending the so-calledJewish control of Washington is "in the long-term best interest of Israel." This patronizing foolish statement makes me want to revert to my Revere roots and punch 'em out.

No doubt publishing the Foxman book on the same day as M-W wasdesigned to promote a one-on-two shootout between the two books' authors. The Jewish holidays has reduced Foxman's public appearances. Maybe the battle will begin later, although I hate to see additional publicity resulting in increased sales of the M-W book.

Second, the M-W book is but one book of many about the so-called American-Jewish-Israeli conspiracy. Another, as you know, is Jimmy Carter's heavily publicized Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006).

Other books by professors and politicians with the same themes but more bombastically stated and over-reaching have emerged in the past two years. I don't intend to give additional publicity by naming them at this time. But anyone visiting the Amazon website to check the M-W book gets advertising for these other books.

These professors and political writers go beyond Carter and M-W, ascribing every problem in the world, the 9/11 terror attack, the war in Iraq, the coming war (so they say) in Iran, and even the American housing and economic crisis to the Jewish conspiracy. Lies, "facts" that aren't facts at all, by professors from good universities, not the usual diatribes by Swastika-adorned hate mongers like David Duke and his mumserim. Bad news.

These books travel under the radar, absent from the pages of Jewish newspapers or from the websites of Jewish defense organizations.

All of this poses difficult questions. What do these books really
mean? Do they really impact the general community and/or the Jewishcommunity? What are possible community responses? To what extent is time, plus basic American decency, on the side of truth and rationality, and against the falsehoods of these outrageous anti-Jewish conspiracy theories?

More on this troubling subject in my next column.

Dov Burt Levy of the Jewish Journal –Boston North welcomes comments at dblevy@columnist.com.

____________________

The Jewish Citizen
by Donald H. Harrison

Ask 'why' and then sauté those tensions in your subconscience

SAN DIEGO--Mutual friends in Israel recommended that Nancy and I meet Reut Schwartz-Hebron and her family, who relocated to San Diego last December from Berkeley.

“She has some very interesting theories about business,” I was told. She also has bilingual children the same age as our grandchildren, and on a recent Sunday they all played together very nicely.

Reut Schwartz-Hebron

As the children cavorted, we chatted over helpings of backyard barbecued hamburgers and the fixings. I learned that Reut had worked as a human resources director in Berkeley, but that she and husband Ariel packed up son Shahar, 5, and daughter Inbar, 3, to move here so that Ariel could pursue postdoctoral studies in computer sciences at UCSD.

Reut grew up on a farm in Israel’s Arava, where her father today grows

organic mangos and red peppers. She studied social sciences at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, served as a lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces, and then earned an MBA at Tel Aviv University, eventually going to work for Lotem, one of Israel’s best known consulting firms.

Now starting her own company under the name of Meta Consulting Solutions, Reut told me that the advice that many of us have been given at one time or another, to “sleep on a problem” as a way to solve it, is not just folk wisdom. It works so well that under the right circumstances, it can be an important management technique.

No, she wasn’t recommending setting up hammocks in board rooms, but she did say that a person’s subconscious can be summoned as an ally in problem-solving. This didn’t surprise me because I often like to write stories in the early morning after I have had a chance to “sleep on” the facts that I have gathered. Somehow when I wake up, the approach I want to take to the story simply presents itself to me.

At my request, Reut sent me the manuscript of a book that she is completing. I found it quite interesting, and was particularly taken with an elaboration in the book of the concepts we had discussed.

In fact, I so enjoyed portions of Reut’s manuscript that I immediately took an afternoon nap upon completing it, as ironic as that may sound. I wanted to let some of the concepts rattle around in my subconscious, and catch 40 winks at the same time, before writing this column.

In her manuscript, she describes a process by which one may frame a problem for the subconscious to work on. It involves identifying possible sources of “tension” in a business by taking note of behavioral patterns that either are repeated in various ways or which stand in contradiction to each other.

It’s not fair to quote authors extensively while their books are in the manuscript stage because they deserve the freedom to make changes right up to the time of publication, but I’d hate for Reut to take one particular culinary metaphor out: “Tension, if left to sauté, ‘wants’ to be resolved,” she writes.

Think of it, your business problem is like a raw onion. Sauté it in your subconscious and by nature’s own processes, it may become a suitable topping for a fine roast!

There are other “recipes” for improving business communications formulated by Reut from her work experience coupled with her reflections from wide-ranging travel and reading. The manuscript includes helpful quotations from philosophers, novelists, poets, Zen masters and the Torah.

Have you ever tried to answer the questions of a bright, but ultimately annoying, toddler? “Time for dinner, honey.” Why? “Because mommy has made a yummy dinner for us all.” Why? “Because it’s important that we eat.” Why? “Because food can help your body grow and give you plenty of energy.” Why? Because our bodies are both amazing and miraculous systems.” Why? “Because, er— we’ll have to discuss that another time. Meanwhile, just please come to the table!”

Reut suggests that when businesses are analyzing their own problems that they take the same approach as that child—to keep asking the ‘why’ question until they get to the root problem. They should not accept the first-level answer. For example, if the sales figures are falling; it’s not enough to say it was because there was a coordination problem between the sales staff and the marketing staff. Nor is it enough to answer the next ‘why’ question by saying that James the marketing manager and Adam the sales manager don’t like each other.

Another round of ‘why?’ might produce the revelation that they don’t like each other because they believe the company’s incentive system pits them against each other, rather than fostering cooperation. And why such a system should have been devised in the first place may produce more and more why questions.|

The book also is loaded with tips on how to encourage employees to show creativity and to work together as team members. I can hardly wait for it to be published. And it would be nice if other people also sleep on it.

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Larry Zeiger

Critic at large

Adding up the Zeroes in the La Jolla Playhouse's The Adding Machine

LA JOLLA, California——During the high holidays, I tend to become quite introspective and take time to think about what I have done for myself and others during the past year and how I can improve on my past efforts. When I learned that The Adding Machine based on Elmer Rice’s expressionistic play written in 1923 was being produced at the La Jolla Playhouse, I felt that it was an interesting choice of theatrical works for the time of year coinciding with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Directed by Daniel Aukin and featuring an outstanding cast, the play is dark and uneven but at points it is thought-provoking.

When the lights come up, we are immediately introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Zero, a truly unhappy couple. Mr. Zero is sitting in his easy chair, staring into space while Mrs. Zero proceeds with an endless monologue about her miserable existence with her husband. The play is staged in the round and the center part of the stage rotates so all members of the audience may witness Mrs. Zero’s unhappy marriage – she truly unloads on us the depressing existence she has with her husband. He does not react at all. I mean after all, what should we expect from a family of “zeroes? “

And what about the Zero’s friends and neighbors? They speak in unison and reveal their boring, pretentious personalities. Like the Zero couple, they are profane, racist, and narrow-minded. At this point in the play, it becomes evident that there is not going to be a single character to admire. All are cynical and nasty people who bring on a great deal of their own misery.

Mr. Zero is celebrating his 25th anniversary of working as a bookkeeper (actually not much of a celebration – there is no joy in his job) in a company where his boss, an energetic insensitive man (dressed in jogging attire), has decided to replace Mr. Zero with what else – an adding machine! As a result of this huge insult, Zero murders the boss. There is not even a single thought in Zero’s head about the hideous nature of the crime. He is simply insulted that a machine is replacing him.

As a result of the crime, Zero finds himself in the afterlife (or perhaps not) in Elysian Fields. A fascinating scene transition designed by Andrew Lieberman, takes us from the bleak world of the Zeroes to the natural world of a heavenly existence. Birds are singing, flowers drop from the sky, and music is in the air.

Zero is first confronted by Shrdlu, a man who is disappointed in being in Elysian Fields; he wants a real punishment. After all, he is guilty of murdering his mother! In a short while, Zero is surprised to find that one of his co-workers, Daisy, is also in Elysian Fields. She is evidently so depressed by the loss of Zero (she also reveals her love for him) that she takes her own life to be with him. It is evident by this time that all the characters in Rice’s play create a self-inflicted world of isolation and dehumanization where there is no escape. They have literally made themselves into machines with no hearts and no souls.

This is a very depressing work which has only small moments of humor. I was reminded of the great Charles Chaplin and his film, Modern Times, which is a superior work of art to The Adding Machine. At the end of The Adding Machine, Mr. Zero is symbolically seen clutching a computer in his lap, an allegorical device of things to come. In Modern Times, who will ever forget the marvelous scene of Chaplin, the Everyman character being swallowed into the machinery at a factory and becoming a cog in the wheel of industry.

The difference between Modern Times and The Adding Machine is that in Chaplin’s movie, we actually care about the character which makes the story more interesting and more introspective, whereas in The Adding Machine, Zero, along with all the other characters, is a miserable, immoral, perverse, and pathetic soul and we simply do not care about him at all – after all, he is a Zero.

The Adding Machine is currently at the Potiker Theater at the La Jolla Playhouse