Internet Dating for Dummy Jews like Myself

1. It's not personal. Really - when I make contact with someone else or vice versa, we are just two cards on a screen at first. Rejection simply means I or my opposite number decided that two random cards out of thousands don't match.
2. Corollary to the above: We all have a sense of humour and a love of life (or some other generic meaningless trait). You need to stand out to get noticed. For instance, you can tell a joke to prove your humour, or perhaps tell something quirky or interesting about yourself that isn't on the "traits" list.
3. Pictures are not a negotiable item. They increase exponentially the chance of you getting noticed. Conversely, items with no pictures will be skipped over quite often. Few of us like "blind dates", so don't expect people to take that chance on the net.
4. Corollary to the above (3): In your picture, you should smile friendly-like. Nothing is more off-putting than a bland serial-killer style stare at the camera. Also, choose your picture wisely - not too artificial looking, but still nice.
5. When you address someone, do so directly - in the second person ("you"). Don't write some general statement about how nice marriage is or send holiday greetings. We simple folk prefer direct communication over oblique hints.
6. If you don't like someone, have the decency to say so. There are few things more agonizing than sending a message to someone and never receiving even a formal response.

If anyone has anything to add to this list, I'm all ears.

Torn, Part II: On Being a Failure

Last year, I started a journal to express my anxieties and dillemas as a religious Jew learning in a university. Now that the new academic year is coming around, I have decided to try and renew this journal with the hope of expanding on the points I made in the introductory post.

I made mention in the introduction of my conversation with my RM (teacher) in yeshiva. There I complained of adjustment difficulties and keeping myself busy all the time. Finding hevrutas was very difficult, and I just did not succeed in filling up every seder with activity. Even more frustrating was what I felt to be a lag in my learning abilities. Try though I might, I rarely succeeded in finishing all the sources in the mar'e mekomot, and I always felt that everyone else understood everything and could keep up, while I was forever behind. My RM wisely suggested that I start studying some courses at University, a path that I would begin to take a year later.

Still, my failure to be able to last more than a year really smarted. My attempts to study in the BIU kollel were similiarly doomed to failure. In the easy class I was bored; in the challenging classes I couldn't make any headway. In the end, I just gave up, a veritable reject. It turns out I'm not the only one. From what I have heard, yeshiva students who decide to go to university rather than stay on were seen for many years, and saw themselves, as failures. Even though this perception is beginning to change, the amount of prepapration of yeshiva students for university is still lacking. Nothing resembling the corpus of the 'Torah U-Madda' ethos in America exists here.

So here I am, a guy who couldn't cut it in yeshiva now plowing his way through the dangerous minefield of Academic Judaism (more on that in the next post). The real question is, am I a failure, a grade-B Jew? Am I doomed to be considered inferior in two worlds - the yehsivish for not being able to learn, and in the academic for being frum?

If anyone has any answers, I'm all ears.

To Rectify an Historic Injustice (on Rav Goren)

As we approach the Day of Judgement, I would like to take this opportunity to adress a major injustice done to one of the major Rabbinic thinkers and activists in the State of Israel - Rabbi Shlomo Goronchik (Goren) (1918-1994), Chief Rabbi of the IDF from 1948-1967; of Tel Aviv from 1968-1972; and of the State of Israel from 1972-1983. Rav Goren was a highly prolific and original thinker, both in terms of halakha and general thought. He almost singlehandedly established the IDF Chief Rabbinate and helped turn it into an institution that positively affected not just religious Jews but all Jews in the army (indeed, the IDF Rabbinate's authority declined when he left).

His contribution to the subject of halakha and war, in all its aspects, is so large that it is simply impossible to mention the subject of war and religious Jewish thought without mentioning him. A highly public figure, he aroused considerable controversy (such as when he suggested blowing up the Muslim buildings on the Temple Mount) and demonstrated halakhic backbone - for instance, when he was matir the agunot of the Israeli sailors who died at sea, such as the members of the submarine Dakar. He left behind an impressive literary corpus (link includes only some his post-humously published writings) on virtually every subject regarding Jewish law and thought.

Yet, a review of the scholarly literature published in Israel on religious-Zionist thought finds almost no reference to Rav Goren. Thinkers and authorities from all ends of the religious spectrum - from the Rav Kook school to the Kibbutz Hadati and beyond, has been given due scholarly treatment. Relatively marginal figures (for their time) such as Rav Hayim Hirschenzon, as well as oppositional thinkers such as Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Eliezer Goldman have entire books and collections of essays analyzing their work and thought.

And Rav Goren? A footnote here, a short mention there, if we're lucky enough. True, he has been the subject of a popular biography and a few, very recent, articles by Dr. Aryeh Edrei of Tel Aviv University. A PhD Thesis is presently being written in Bar Ilan on the IDF Chief Rabbinate that will undoubtably discuss his contribution to the same. Still, even if we were to dig deep for scholarship and study of Rav Goren, we would still come up with a mere fraction of the attention given to others. A man who dedicated his life to the Jewish people, who was publicly involved in so many fields of thought and halakha, now seems doomed to endure the ultimate insult - that of being ignored and ultimately forgotten. I believe that those of us in the field of Jewish Studies have a moral responsibility to ensure that this does not happen. At the very least, we owe him the courtesy of acknowledgement.

On the Matter of Bagatz VS. Katzav

I'm sure you've all heard of Bagatz's decision to suspend the plea bargain with Moshe Katzav. In all likelihood, given the temprament of the court and the media circus, the arrangement will be overturned. While many are exulting at this reversal, I belive that Bagatz's present policy is nothing short of a disaster. This has nothing to do with the specific case of Katzav himself. If he really is guilty of the charges, then I would like nothing more than to see him put in a jail cell alongside a very lonely 300-pound prisoner named Bubba, or the Israeli equivalent, for the rest of his natural life.

So what's the problem, you may ask? There are many, actually, but I will focus in this post on one immediate issue - plea bargains. The overwhelming majority of criminal convictions in this country are based on plea bargains of one kind or another. Only a small percentage of cases actually see the inside of a courtroom. Even so, the judicial system suffers from backlog and there is a lack of judges.

Now imagine that Katzav's plea bargain is overturned. The judges can claim that it was an exceptional ruling from now till Doomsday - once the precedent has been set, there will be no turning back. Every bereaved family member or two-bit politico with a grudge can apply to have cases re-opened or the thousands of pleas arrived at each year examined. As a result, there will be fewer pleas, fewer "deals" to get at least partial justice or catch criminal fish higher up the ladder. Thousands of cases will result not in pleas, since the defendants aren't going to sign agreements that could easily be overturned. Many cases which could have had some good results will be thrown out, many other will reach the courtroom. Trials will take years longer to be resolved, if ever.

In its effort to achieve absolute "justicity" over every facet of administration in this country, Bagatz will end up paralyzing the justice system. Bagatz would have done well to take a cue from Moses, who realized that even he could not handle every single complaint. As for the "lynch-mob" public enthusiastically endorsing a Bagatz reversal, I would advise: "Be careful what you wish for...you just might get it".

Man Bites Dog

Tom Segev, hardly a Zionist, gives Avrum Burg's screed a good thrashing (in Hebrew). Well worth the read.

Saladin's Jordanian Castle

A few years ago I did a paper on Qal'at Ar-Rabad, otherwise known as Castle 'Ajlun. It was built by a deputy of Saladin on the eastern bank of the Jordan River directly opposite the famous crusader castle Belvoir (Cochav Ha-Yarden).

I have seen two reasons for the establishment of this castle. One, in the wikipedia link above, is the traditional one. According to the traditional explanation, the castle was primarily meant to protect against the external threat of Crusader expansion. Another reason, given by a Muslim contemporary historian, is that it was also meant to bring the Ajlun area under central control (before it had been controlled by the local bedouin) - i.e. to matain internal order in a crucial border region.

Does anyone know which explanation is correct? Perhaps both are true?

The War Against Brit Milah

The new Azure is out, with plenty of excellent articles to choose from. In this post, however, I would like to adress a very serious matter brought up in the correspondence section. There, no less than three letters to the editor responding to Dr. Ido Hevroni's article on circumcision as rebellion in the context of Roman domination. These letters, which include a "Rabbi" who endorses "alternative" britot milah that do not involve surgery, are all united in their utter disgust and repulsion at brit milah, describing it in the grossest and bluntest terms. Obviuosly, all are "enlightened" Jews, the type which have tried to "redefine" Judaism to make it indistinguishable from Western fads ever since the coming of modernity. A recent post by Gabriel Schoenfeld on the subject generated no less than 45 responses, much larger than any other post on the Commentary blog by an order of magnitude. There, too, the comments are filled with a disgusting venom.

My main concern here is not the existence of such opinions but their apparent legitimacy within the Jewish world - not just the fringes. I consider it nothing short of horrifying that the editors of Azure saw fit to publish only the anti-Brit Milah letters and not one in support. I can not stress the ramifications of this campaign enough. Brit Milah is not some transitory miderabanan that can be "intellectualized" out of existence, it is one of the core identifying marks - yes, marks - of Jews since the beginning. It is an issur karet, one which the Jews often risked their lives to perform.

The past couple of decades has seen quite a wave of Jewish religious thinkers "intellectualizing" various mitzvot and obligations out of existence for the sake of pleasing individualistic whims and secular humanist Western dogma. I live in dread of the day that the move to abolish this last red line becomes a real intellectual movement, backed up by distorting "Jewish Sources" of course (no doubt with a helthy dose of how kevod ha'adam supersedes every issur in Judaism).

I really don't know how to react to this ?%$@ anymore. When I see and hear of stuff like this, all I want to do is break down and cry. I feel so helpless.

The Massacre That Almost Was

Last year the news services reported a horrifying scholarly discovery. Though everyone knew that if Rommel reached Palestine, the Yishuv would share the same fate, we did not know that an eizentzgruppe had already been formed and plans made for the annihilation of the Jewish community in Palestine, in advance of Rommel's expected victory.

Now this study has been published in a detailed, point-by-point discussion in Yad Vashem's journal. We learn there of the planned Final Solution for the Yishuv, in which Palestinian Arabs were meant to take a large part, similiar to that of the Eastern European collaborators such as those in Latvia and the Ukraine. The Grand Mufti, Haj Amin Al-Husseini apparently worked feverishly to ensure a "clean sweep" of the Jews in the Holy Land, providing statistics and maps for the SS.

Next time you hear about how the Palestinians would never dream of annihilating the Jews, mention this article.

Nice Try (On the Van Leer Institute)

The Van Leer Institute is known throughout Israeli academia as the most influential bastion of the hard-core anti-Zionist left. Boasting a large budget and an impressive array of academics from various fields, this institute is the one-stop shop for all your anti-Zionist needs. For years, left-wing as well as right-wing Zionists have lambasted the institute for its one-sided, radical agenda, embodied in its flagship journal Theory and Criticism. Assaf Sagiv did a wonderful deconstruction of their alternative history of the 50 years of Israel, the conclusion of which I have re-posted from an earlier comment at the bottom of this critique.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw the following extensive puff-piece on Van Leer. Even more surprising was the fact that the article appeared not in Haaretz, but in the Jerusalem Post, which I had thought was at least Zionist in orientation. The article is symptomatic of the intellectual attitudes of the hard-left as a whole - only members of the institute are quoted extensively to praise Van Leer to the sky, critics and detractors are anonymous and lumped under "many [critics]". Needless to say, the fawning reporter does not ask any hard questions about the radical agendas of the academic team such as in the aforementioned journal or in the many books it supports which bash Israel incessantly. We do not learn of the blatant abuse of the Holocaust by Messrs Ophir and friends as documented by Prof. Elhanan Yakira. We learn nothing of the "Palestinians are innocent victims and Jews are evil aggresors" school constantly pumped the people in question.

I don't think it would be an exagerration to say that Van Leer bears a substantial part of the responsibility for the present demonic image that Zionism and the State of Israel "enjoy" abroad in critical academic, cultural and political elites. As mentioned below, their negative attitude pervades many humanities and social sciences departments here in Israel, to the point where finding pro-Zionist comment in academic articles is equivalent to finding buried treasure. All the "we love everyone" rhetoric is, in my opinion, a mask that covers a very poisonous hatred of everything the State of Israel stands for. To say that they represent the Israeli left is no less pretentious and false as the Bolsheviks' claim to represent the whole of the "people". The Jerusalem Post would do well to encourage moderate alternatives to Van Leer rather than serving as their unofficial spokespeople.

Post-modern academics cannot come to terms with the “existing order,” but they do not know how to change it without turning today’s “oppressed” into tomorrow’s “oppressors.” They do not know how to wage an effective fight against the evil, which, in their view, is inevitably rooted in political reality. Lacking the possibility of engaging in practical action, all they have left is negation for its own sake. Despite the impression conveyed by some of its articles, Theory and Criticism is not the ephemeral publication of a fringe group. Unfortunately, it presents us with a reliable picture of a mode of thinking now accepted as the norm in important circles in Israel’s academia, especially in the humanities and social sciences. In light of this fact, it is impossible to avoid certain depressing conclusions about the role played by the academic elite in Israeli society.

Most Israelis expect that their institutes of higher learning will contribute to the advancement of the public discourse in Israel; that the tens of thousands of young people who enter the universities each year will benefit from their education by becoming better citizens, and learning to make intelligent political decisions within a democratic framework. Yet Israel’s campuses are gradually becoming hothouses for political anarchism, as the Israeli intelligentsia busily educates towards resentment of the Jewish state and the values that permit it to exist. Academic “post-Zionism” does not even play the important positive role that intellectual opposition sometimes does in a pluralistic society; it does not bother to advance realistic alternatives or formulate a creative, inspiring vision which offers a kernel of hope. In its cultivation of chronic and sterile resentment, bereft of both responsibility and imagination, the trend represented so powerfully by Theory and Criticism in the end offers nothing more than “theory” and “criticism.”

It's going to get worse, much worse.

Sorry for the blogging hiatus. I had a lot to write, and still do, but I could not bring myself to actually sit down and get it out of my system. I hope that this post will help "break the ice".

A while back, I made mention of Norman Finkelstein's false claim that there is a scholarly "consensus" that Israel had expelled the Palestinians in 1948. Unfortunately, this falsehood is part of a much bigger pehnomenon - the creation and solidification of a new, anti-Israel orthodoxy, according to which Israel and Zionism were always in the wrong during its existence. According to this narrative, Israel was the guilty party in 1948 and launched an unjustified quasi-colonial war in 1956. Everything that happenned to Israel after the victory of the Six Day War was also mostly if not solely Israel's fault due to the occupation and Israel's militaristic nature. It goes without saying that only Israel's faults - which do indeed exist - are stressed while positive qualities are ignored. The Arabs and especially the Palestinians are of course perfectly innocent victims - the 'New Jews' if you will.

The only task remaining for the new orthodoxy is to connect the two halves of this portrait, by 'proving' that Israel was not justified in launching a pre-emptive strike in 1967. This task was somewhat stymied by the fact that Dr. Michael Oren's careful historical account demonstrated that Israel had very good cause to strike first. Rest assured, anti-Israel scholars are hard at work trying to undermine Oren. No less than two articles have been published in the mildly pro-Arab Middle East Journal doing just that. This is merely the opening salvo of the historiographic debate Oren predicted would happen even before he came out with his book. I don't doubt that Tom Segev's tome will help things along.

I check new books and articles on a regular basis, and I am not comforted by what I see. The new orthodoxy, a rather extreme mirror-image of yesteryear's heroic image of Israel and Zionism, is all-encompassing. The "concensus", especially that of 1948 but soon to include 1967, is present in virtually every "objective" or critical work coming out - and there are many. No-one is willing to cut Israel any slack, or at least take the historical zeitgeist of various periods into account. Israel apparently must act perfectly or not at all. Its wars are either completely "no choice" or "choice". It is either stands up to every unrealistic demand of purist liberal democracy or it is not a democracy at all.

There are few real protesters to this orthodoxy. Many of the legal scholars, historians and sociologists that study Israel, including those who are native Israelis, either adopt the "critical" narrative wholesale, or at least in part. Indeed, some of the worst bile has come from native Israelis.

I'm not sure what to recommend at this point. The few attempts to fight the "new orthodoxy" feel like too little too late. Perhaps a new approach is needed, one where the new orthodoxy is shown for what it is - an "establishment" and "hegemonic" position, and no longer the rebellious challenge it once was. Then the tables can be turned, since now it is those who support Zionism and Israel who are the true contrarians in worldwide academe.

If anyone has any better ideas, I'm all ears. AIWAC

On The Self-Delusion of Anti-Zionist Jews

The anti-Zionist Jews are up in arms. For years they have had the intellectual playing field almost entirely to themselves - in the media, in academia and in literary circles throughout Europe and the States. The "post" and anti-Zionist terminology and rhetoric has achieved near hegemonic status in all these fields. Whenever someone called their hatred and negationism for what it was - they balked. "We're just critics of Israel", they say, or "We just criticize Israel's policy in the territories/policy towards its Arab citizens/its Zionist nature".

Recently, Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld has called a spade a spade. In a thoroughly documented study, he demonstrates the virulent, hateful and annihilationist rhetoric spewed by "progressive Jews" on a regular basis. Their response is exactly the same as before. They hide behind the grain of truth in their accusations to justify the fabric of pointless and stupid venom.

At this point, this argument is not just annoying, it is an insult to the intelligence of anyone above the age of three. If you support the "Right of Return", the creation of a bi-national state between the Jordan and the Sea, or deny the Jews any moral agency or national rights in the land of Israel, then you can no more call yourself a "critic" of Israel than a rabid atheist can call himself a "critic" of religion. They are calling for the state's dissolution, and it would be better if they stood up and were counted as opponents and negationists, not "critics" of one type or another.

A similiar thing can be said for those who do nothing but condemn Israel as the worst thing ever created by humankind, who call it "Nazi", "an apartheid state", but say "but I defend Israel's right to exist" in whatever form. This too is an insult to the intelligence of thinking human beings. It is like saying that Voltaire's disgusting, hate-filled and wholly negative essay on Jews is "not anti-Semitic" because he said at the end of it "Still, we ought not to burn them".

"Criticism" that does nothing but villify in the worst possible terms, leaves the other side utterly blameless and refuses to posit any useful advice or attach positive traits to the object of its "criticism", is hatred, pure and simple. Anti-Zionist Jews would do well to keep that in mind.

Website Recommendation

There are a lot of current events sites in Israel, but only a few are worth taking seriously. One such site, which discusses issues in Israel in depth is Omedia. Here's a link to one of their English-language articles, discussing the nature of popular political culture in Israel.

More Carter Commentary

Enjoy the following review of Carter's screed by a Shalom Achshavnik (Peace Now), of all people. Carter would seem to be really out of his depth.

A Partial Fisking of the 'Carter Letter'

The magalomanaical Jimmy Carter has come out with a letter justifying his recent screed blaming Israel and exonerating Palestinians everywhere (Check out the following analysis of Carter's misrepresentation of Camp David and the Clinton Proposals. Hat Tip to both links: Martin Kramer, who has been covering this from day one). I thought I might give a try at a (partial) fisking:

There are no significant countervailing voices (emphasis added) (to pro-Israel outfits such as AIPAC)

Has Carter been living on Mars over the past few years (then again, that would explain a lot...)??? What about the constant attacks in the New York Review of Books, the "evenhandedness" of the New York Times and NPR, not to mention the bile coming out of British outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, the London Review of Books? Heck, what about the English version of Ha'Aretz? What about the "expert" analysis of MESA members such as Juan Cole and Charles Smith, which is very pro-Palestinian?

I am familiar with the extreme acts of violence that have been perpetrated against innocent civilians, and understand the fear among many Israelis that threats against their safety and even their existence as a nation still exist. I reiterated my strong condemnation of any such acts of terrorism.

WTF?? Who were these extreme acts of violence commited by - Eskimos? Aliens? Is it so hard to admit that acts of terrorism and political violence have been commited by Palestinians (and supported by many Palestinians) against Jews? Is it that hard to admit that Palestinians sin, or that they are largely responsible for their own predicament, by rejecting, time and again, partition plans - in 1937, in 1948 etc?

When asked my proposals for peace in the Middle East, I summarized by calling for Hamas members and all other Palestinians to renounce violence and adopt the same commitment made by the Arab nations in 2002: the full recognition of Israel's right to exist in peace within its legally recognized 1967 borders (to be modified by mutual agreement by land swaps). This would comply with U.N. Resolutions, the official policy of the United States, commitments made at Camp David in 1978 and in Oslo in 1993, and the premises of the International Quartet's "Roadmap for Peace."

I see...what about the demand for the 'right of return', also enshrined in UNresolutions according to Palestinian pressure groups??

In addition, I pointed out that the Palestinian people were being deprived of the necessities of life by economic restrictions imposed on them by Israel and the United States because 42% had voted for Hamas candidates in the most recent election. Teachers, nurses, policemen, firemen, and other employees are not being paid, and the U.N. has reported that food supplies in Gaza are equivalent to those among the poorest families in sub-Sahara Africa with half the families surviving on one meal a day. My other request was that American Jewish citizens help to alleviate their plight.

Why, may I ask, is this solely the fault of Israel? What about Hamas, committed to Israel's destruction and spending oodles on arms and weapons procurement? Also, what about Israelis right to life, that most basic right, which, if we removed all restrictions now without a renouncement of violence from Hamas and others, would be constantly denied by suicide bombers and the like? Why, also, is there no mention of the Qassam rockets and munitions constantly rained on Sderot and Ashkelon?

that I acknowledge the deep concern of Israelis about the threat of terrorism and other acts of violence from some Palestinians (emphasis mine)

Now we acknowledge that some Palestinians engage in violence. Hows about the fact that one such organization now runs the parliament?

Jimmy Carter declared that he won't debate Alan Dershowitz. Maybe Norman Finkelstein would be a better choice.

Tidbits - Book Reviews

• Mitchell Bard rips Jimmy Carter a new one for his putrid piece of pro-Palestinian propaganda. The book has clearly demonstrated that Carter is a complete pro-Arab tool. If the links provided by Martin Kramer are any indication, it is also a very poorly written tract.
• Efraim Karsh takes Rashid Khalidi to the cleaners.

That's all for now, folks.

Throw the Jews Down the Well!

Well, it's official. If anyone ever doubted it, comes the Iraq Study Report and makes clear that we are to be sold down the river. This report is the culmination of years of anti-Israel propaganda which deligitamized Israel and Zionism from every angle, and in which, frustratingly, Jews played a major role.

Myself and my family are beginning to feel what the Jews in Israel felt right after the invasion of Israel in '48 and during the hamtana in '67 - palpable existential dread, the fear that we are going to be wiped off the face of the earth. Even during the worst times of the past intifada the main fear was that any of us would be killed individually. Now it look like we will all go together when we go, only it's not funny.

Don't give me BS about how the world's sympathy will prevent it from happenning. The world's sympathy did not stop Auschwitz. It did not stop Rwanda, the boat people of Vietnam or the killing fields of Cambodia. I don't believe that Olmert, the most venal, corrupt (morally and legally) and unprincipled bum we have ever had the displeasure of representing us has the guts to order a strike or push the red button when the time comes.

God help us all.

Kudos to Prof. Kenneth Stein...

for resigning his position at the Carter Center in protest of Jimmy Carter's recent screed which, a la Prof. Stein, is a parody of academic standards (Hat Tip: Martin Kramer). Prof. Stein is known to be on the left wing of the political spectrum, which makes his stand even more admirable. Thank God there are still people of principle in this world...

I've said it before, I'll say it again...

Israeli scholars are highly critical and engage in debate, Palestinian and pro-Palestinian scholars don't. This last is confirmed by Shalom Lappin's response to Jacqueline Rose's response to his excellent review of her book. Money quote (emphases are mine):

In response to my statement that no significant element of Palestinian society has challenged the official myths of the Palestinian narrative in a way comparable to that in which the official Israeli version of history has been subject to fierce debate among Israelis, Rose ‘is left wondering whether he reads any Palestinian writing’. She cites the work of several Palestinian (and Israeli Arab) writers and poets as evidence of such a challenge. Given this list it seems that Rose has seriously misunderstood the question at issue here. While the writers whom she mentions have certainly expressed empathy for Israeli Jews and, on occasion, criticised Palestinian terrorism, none of them, to the best of my knowledge, has questioned the view that Jews came to Palestine as European colonialists with a program for dispossessing its Arab inhabitants and establishing a western enclave of imperialist power. Quite the contrary, Mahmoud Darwish is a nationalist poet who promotes this idea. In fact, he resigned from the executive of the PLO in 1993 in protest when Arafat signed the Oslo Accords with Rabin. Similarly, Ghassan Kanafani was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a close associate of George Habash. [8] Anton Shamas, although he writes in Hebrew, is a militant advocate of this approach to Israel and Zionism. Elias Khoury (who is actually Lebanese, born in Beirut in 1948 to a Christian family) does indeed seek to overturn stereotypes of Israelis dominant in the Arab world. Moreover, to his credit, (together with Darwish and Edward Said) he publicly opposed the convening of a Holocaust denial conference, planned in Beirut for 2001. However, like Darwish he does not question the official Palestinian understanding of the history of the conflict.

Palestinian intellectual life is vibrant, and it has produced political theorists and historians of considerable distinction. But when one reads the work of some of its most notable representatives, such as Edward Said, Ahmed Khalidi, and Rashid Khalidi, one generally finds that moderation consists in the grudging acknowledgement of Israel’s non-eliminability. In historical terms Palestinians are portrayed as passive victims who have been the blameless targets of relentless Zionist aggression. The decisions, political programs, and military initiatives of the Palestinian leadership throughout the period leading up to 1948 (and, often, well beyond) are rarely if ever subjected to serious critical evaluation, even from the narrowest perspective of national self-interest. The fact that, in many cases, the solutions that these thinkers now suggest were previously proposed by the leadership of the Yishuv (or by the international community), and rejected by the Palestinians themselves, is rarely, if ever, acknowledged. Bi-nationalism, partition, and a federated state were all originally Zionist ideas that the Palestinians turned down in their time as incompatible with their political aspirations. The intense controversies over the facts of the 1948 war are being conducted entirely by Israeli historians, on the basis of recently opened Israeli public archives. Palestinian and Arab archives remain closed, and historical debate and revision is not part of the Palestinian public discussion. One can see this state of affairs as, at least in part, due to the fact that the Palestinians remain under a deeply repressive occupation within the territories beyond the Green Line. Unfortunately, the absence of critical debate is itself a factor that prevents the emergence of viable political strategies for ending this occupation.

QED. The last point bears repeating. When, and only when Palestinians acknowledge that Jews have right and justice on their side as well, can we have true peace and co-existence. As long as they keep viewing "justice" solely in Palestinian terms or adding "rights" of refugees, or "peace with (their) justice" as a price tag, peace will remain an impossiblity. It takes two to tango.

Job Application

Seen in the Bar-Ilan copy shop (HaMaf'il) (rough translation):

Needed for a state in the Middle East:

• A Prime Minister
• A Defense Minister
• A Chief of Staff
• A Minister of Justice
• A Chief of Police

Experience not necessary. Good conditions.

Torn: The Cry for Help of a Religious University Student

I have recently finished, besha'ah tovah, my requirements for a BA in Land of Israel Studies. I am now continuing my studies in an interdisciplinary graduate program at Bar-Ilan. Although I am still quite busy and sometimes feel overwhelmed with work, I will continue to blog as much as possible anyway.

When I started this blog two years ago, I had two main reasons - hasbara (defending Israel) and personal catharsis. While my need to debunk libels against Israel has waxed and waned over the years, my need for some outlet to pour out my thoughts and musings on life, especially university life, has only increased. The dillemas and questions I've faced have not gone away - they have only increased in intensity, and I feel that if I do not "spill my guts" somewhere, I will explode. Although I will not give up other aspects of this blog (such as the "Research Suggestions" section), I will be spending more time wrestling with questions rather than debunking certain falsehood.

Perhaps the most fundamental tension that I feel is that of a religious Jew, commanded to believe and follow the Law of God, studying in a University, an institution where nothing is sacred save the right to question and criticise. True, I study at Bar-Ilan University, where ostensibly the tension should not be as great as avowedly secular or even anti-religious universities elsewhere. Judaism, although not preached as dogma, is certainly treated with respect and deferrence at Bar-Ilan - historical analysis, and critique, of Jews and Judaism throughout the ages is done more often with a surgeon's knife rather than a machete.

Even when it comes to politics we are something of an anomoly. Although there are certainly plenty of left-wingers at Bar-Ilan, we have no Ilan Pappes or Zeev Sternhalls. Dr. Menahem Klein is the exception that proves the general rule, a curiosity if you will. You will notice that on many of the various moonbat petitions supporting refusal to serve in "the territories" or in favour of the Palestinians, people from Bar-Ilan are either not represented at all or only a handful of people are signatories.

All this is true, and yet Bar-Ilan University is still just that - a University, a part of the scholarly world. We still have to read articles and discuss views of Judaism and faith-involved issues (such as the accuracy of the Rabinnic sources in the Second Temple period; analysis of archaeology that is not in line with the accepted biblical historiography and so on). It is impossible to be an honest student or scholar without hearing and having to seriously argue with scholarly opinions and analysis that are simply anathema for a believing Jew.

It often feels that even when our beliefs and lifestyle are not challenged, they are ridiculed. How many times have the loaded, negative terms - "fundamentalism", "conservativism" (in the sense of "not liberal", not the religious meaning) and other such verbal daggers been bandied about, with the reckless abandon of a street demagogue, in "respectable" scholarly forums? I often feel that a religious Jewish scholar feels a need to have to apologize for not being a secular liberal humanist, has to apologize for his/her existence. How can I live, function, grow in such a world as a Jew?

One answer would be that it is impossible. The Gordian Knot must be cut - it is either the university or the kollel/yeshiva. I remember an exchange between a student and a teacher, whom I respect tremendously, over the issue of scholalrly opinion on the Chumash, which of course does not hold that it was written by God through Moses. The teacher ended the argument that, if you don't want to deal with these questions, then don't go to university.

I wish I had that option, but I don't. Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated with learning new things, gaining new knowledge. At first I tended towards "hard science", later I caught the "history bug". People who know me can tell you that I read an enourmous amount of non-fictional books on every subject in history, at a speed that has earned me the monicker of bola'at sefarim (literally, swallower of books, a play-on words for the hebrew term for bookworm - tola'at sefarim). I check academic publishers' websites on a daily basis to see if there's anything new and exciting to read.

Even when I was at yeshiva, my Ram suggested to me that I spend at least some time studying university courses. Although he didn't intend it, I felt and still feel this to have been a rejection. In the end, he was right, though - I wasn't capable of studying at yeshiva 24/7, and I gravitated towards university and academic study. For me, learning, researching and especially writing are for me no less critical than food and sleep. To read a particularly well-written piece; to write a well-written article or blog-post, these things are my psychological oxygen. To deny myself that would be equivalent to forbidding a pianist to touch a piano or a basketball player from shooting hoops.

I'm not sure who to turn to for help, either. Plenty has been said and written about how Judaism deals with "hard sciences" such as physics or biology. I am not aware of anything even remotely comparable dealing with Judaism's attitude towards the "soft sciences" of the humanities and the social sciences. I am sure that each religious scholar now in the field has developed his/her individual approach to the problem, but this is of no help to newcomers such as myself. Also of no help is the suspicious and often negative attitude of those who might render assistance - the yeshiva world - to the world of scholarship, known derisively as 'mehkar'.

I feel alone, exposed to the elements with no guide and no-one to hold my hand. I have tried to duck this feeling, to ignore it or deny it. Now it stares me in the face, filling me with terror and dread.

God give me strength to get through this. גם כי אלך בגיא צלמוות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי