Philosopher and theologian Martin Buber characterized the kibbutz as “an experiment that did not fail.” It’s important to see the kibbutz as an experiment that is still in progress, and this, I believe, is what the new documentary movie by Toby Perl Freilich on the history and evolution of the kibbutz movement (“Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment”) does.

Rabbi Lerner’s reaction to the original version of my review of this film was a multifaceted challenge:

… the failure of the kibbutz movement [is] not because it was too ideological, but because it was not principled enough:
a) to reject the militarism that came with the 1967 war
b) to honestly evaluate their own role as taking Palestinian land
c) failing to reach out with “caring values” to Sephardim/Mizrachim who came to Israel and were treated poorly, but instead looked only inside their own communities and embraced a wrong Stalinist ideology of “socialism in one kibbutz,” rather than seriously challenging the growth of capitalism within Israeli society, and finally
d) expanding their operations by tying themselves with loans from the large banks in the 1970s and 80s which led to a financial crisis when those banks raised interest rates in ways that the kibbutzim could not pay, during the upsurge of capitalist consciousness after the electoral victory of Likud in ’77. Thus, unlike the dominant ideological explanation of the failure of kibbutzim, it was precisely their unwillingness to take seriously their own socialist roots that was at the heart of the problem. …

My response begins as follows: I do not agree with the notion that the kibbutz was too “ideological.” The kibbutz has engaged in a conscientious effort to marry a utopian vision with practical realities; this project is still ongoing, as it must be. It can be critiqued at times for failing to live up to its principles, but it has succeeded far better in this regard than Marxist-Leninist regimes, and far more humanely. For example, there was never a one-to-one correspondence between being a kibbutznik and being a peacenik, but the kibbutz movement has had a disproportionate presence and influence in the peace camp, as it has in most Israeli institutions, including in the army and in the economy. Still, since it was never more than five percent of the country’s population, and usually much less, it was never capable of being the decisive factor in Israel’s economy, foreign policy or culture.

Iconic photo of concentration camp survivors in port at Haifa

Benny Morris’ Righteous Victims (a history through 2001) is perhaps the most comprehensive and fair-minded book yet written on the Arab-Israeli conflict. I don’t agree with the author’s post-2001, Intifada-inspired assertion that the Palestinians resist making peace because of a religious prejudice against the concept of a Jewish state, but this book (written before he reached this conclusion) is very thorough and balanced in depicting the history. On the other hand, its encyclopedic scope may be tedious for many readers.

What follows is an abridged version of a review I wrote (published in the Nov. 2001 issue of Jewish Currents magazine) of a livelier book by Meron Benvenisti. This author, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, moved to an opposite conclusion to Morris, but he is likewise very factual and makes no apology for having been born as a Jew in pre-State Palestine. His book is emotionally wrenching but more fluid and shorter than Morris’. My understanding is that Benvenisti has become even more exasperated and caustic in his criticisms of Israel in the ensuing years. My own views fall in between what Morris and Benvenisti believe today.

“Original Sins Revisited”

SACRED LANDSCAPE: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948 by Meron Benvenisti. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 2000, 366 pages, indexed.

Meron Benvenisti writes both analytically and personally. As a boy during the time of the British Mandate, he would accompany his father, a cartographer for the Jewish Agency, on his travels to map the countryside; his father was especially engaged in work to Hebraicize as many place names as possible. His son drew from these trips an initial appreciation for the Arab landscape of pre-state Palestine which has matured over the decades of conflict into this poignant reflection….

In all, 9,000 Arabic place names were renamed after the 1948 war, to reflect biblical/ Jewish themes – usually without exact historical justification for that particular location – or to convert Arab or Muslim sites to bogus Crusader castles. Benvenisti quotes Ben-Gurion in his charge to the Negev Naming Commission: “We are obliged to remove the Arabic names for reasons of state. Just as we do not recognize the Arabs’ political proprietorship of the land, so also do we not recognize their spiritual proprietorship….”

The Mufti reviews Bosnian Muslim SS troops in 1943.

In a previous post, I’ve written something on my parents’ narrow escape from the Holocaust. My grandparents, two aunts, an uncle and a number of cousins did not make it, while others survived by getting to Palestine in the 1920s or ’30s. Currently, about half of my relatives are Israeli. It’s with them in mind that I’ve been a staunch supporter of the Zionist peace camp for many years. It broke my heart when the peace process of the 1990s foundered so dismally in the violence that began with the Second Intifada in the fall of 2000, and again following Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

On this Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, I’m loosely adapting material from a letter to the editor I submitted the other day, about an article that has appeared in the spring issue of Tikkun, “Setting The Record Straight: The Arabs, Zionism, and the Holocaust” by Ussama Makdisi. He reviews a book by Gilbert Achcar, “The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives.” Both writers are professional historians of Arab background.

The reviewer acknowledges that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, had a “sordid” relationship with the Nazis, but does not elaborate. The Mufti helped recruit Bosnian Muslims into the SS, made incendiary shortwave radio broadcasts in Arabic, from Berlin, advocating hatred and genocide against all Jews, and played a prominent on-the-scene role with the pro-Nazi 1941 coup attempt in Iraq.

I would agree with the reviewer that it’s too simple to lay all the blame on the Mufti for the periodic post-1917 Arab attacks on Palestinian Jews (1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-’39, 1947-’48), but it would be refreshing and useful for historians to honestly analyze his impact without getting bogged down in ideological finger-pointing. Indeed, some Israeli and pro-Zionist writers do engage in finger-pointing from their side—perhaps most shockingly in the writings and public statements of Benny Morris in the last ten years.

The following teaching is adapted from the Partners for Progressive Israel (formerly Meretz USA) weblog:

As we sit with families and friends for the Passover Seder, we rightly celebrate the liberation of the Jewish people. “Liberation” means the legendary emergence from slavery in Egypt, of course, but also the story of the Jewish people’s national liberation, which led to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

In the wake of centuries of persecution suffered by the Jewish people, Israel’s establishment was in keeping with the first of Rabbi Hillel’s great ethical guidelines, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” But, however important, the many aspects of statehood–territory, a flag, a currency, a government, an army–they do little to answer Hillel’s inseparable follow-up question, “And if I am only for myself, then what am I?”

For progressive Zionists, Passover is a time when we are challenged to reconcile the tension in Hillel’s dualism: We celebrate national liberation as a Jewish success story, even as we realize today that Israel’s creation was also a Naqba, a catastrophe, for others.

I returned to my City College of New York (CCNY) alma mater on the evening of March 29 to be inspired by a truly gifted and socially committed journalist. The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The NY Times, Nicholas D. Kristof, began his talk by asking the audience whether there were more males or females in the world. I, along with most, responded incorrectly; despite a natural numerical advantage in female births, there are more males alive today. Why? Because gender discrimination drives greater mortality among girls, including abortions and infanticide of females, as well as instances of abuse and the exploitation of women. This 2012 Samuel Rudin Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture at CCNY was entitled “Half the Sky: Changing the World by Empowering Women.”

Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, his wife and colleague.

At the end of the evening, when it was my turn to get his autograph for my newly purchased copy of Half the Sky, I told him that I write & blog for Tikkun, and that I had nominated him for Tikkun’s human rights award last year, and expect to do so again, if this prize is still in the offing. He smiled broadly. (Are you reading this, Michael?)

In a recent column, Kristof follows up on his exposé of Backpage.com, an online marketing vehicle which allegedly deals in the enslavement and trafficking of underage girls for the sex trade. This company is owned by Village Voice Media (yes, the owner of The Village Voice, no longer the crusading progressive voice that it once was) and among its investors is no less than Goldman Sachs (putting graphic new meaning to the notion of a “rapacious” Wall St. firm); the latter moved rapidly to divest itself in response to his initial column (to be fair, Goldman claims to have had no say in, nor knowledge of, VVM’s operations).

But Kristof’s most impressive work has been in Asia and Africa. When asked by a journalism student of any ethical dilemmas between his dual roles as a reporter and as an advocate, he recounted what happened when he and his wife

The Jewish Daily Forward website, and other sources, are reporting upon this positive phenomenon of Israelis and Iranians reaching out to each other, via the Internet, to renounce war. Unfortunately, these do not include the decision makers in their respective governments. This article includes recent survey data showing 50% of Israelis “completely opposed to an attack on Iran, even if diplomatic efforts to stall the nuclear program failed” and 78% knowing “that even a successful attack would at best delay Iran’s acquisition of an A-Bomb by a few years.” The following is the heart of this Forward blog piece:

…. On Saturday night, two graphic designers, Israeli couple Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir uploaded photos of themselves superimposed with a logo saying, “Iranians, we will never bomb your country. We ♥ You” to the Facebook page of Pushpin Mehina, a small preparatory school for graphic design students. In no time, others were copying the meme and the Facebook page garnered a thousand “likes.”

Prof. Lipstadt

On March 6th, the renowned Holocaust historian Deborah E. Lipstadt lectured at Manhattan’s famed Temple Emanu-El. She spoke with obvious erudition and considerable charm on a difficult subject: “On America, The Holocaust, And Playing the Blame Game.” I had blogged here on a related topic last fall, “How FDR Was Influenced by Anti-Semitism.”

Prof. Lipstadt readily stipulates that the US administration should have done more to let in Jewish refugees, especially during the 1930s, but she warns against judging Franklin D. Roosevelt and the American Jewish community of that time too harshly from the moral standpoint and knowledge of events that we came to have in the post-war years; she characterizes such an imposition of present standards on past eras as a fallacy called “presentism.” She also criticized those in the pro-FDR “defensive school”–including Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., William vanden Heuvel and Lucy Dawidowicz–who indignantly countered that the US did all it could to save Jews during the ’30s and ’40s.

I personally know the latter not to be true, given my parents’ narrow escape from the Nazis–no thanks to Roosevelt’s Department of State–as I wrote about in a Meretz USA blog post in 2009:

There were a few small-scale Palestinian terrorist incidents in the preceding months, but this one instance of Jewish terrorism (on Feb. 24, 1994) was the first major blow to the Oslo Peace Process. Baruch Goldstein’s murder of 29 Palestinians at prayer, and the wounding of 125 others, provoked numerous revenge attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. These cost over 100 Israeli lives and wounded scores more in the course of the next 25 months, and poisoned the atmosphere for a successful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Goldstein was acting out a Purim revenge fantasy that concludes the Megillah (scroll) of Esther, read each year. In the Megillah, the Persian king permits the Jews to run amok, killing their enemies at will. But Jeremiah Haber, the “Magnes Zionist” blogger, points out that Goldstein was acting contrary to the story (a fable, not a true historical account), ignoring its deeper implications that:

… self-defense is the last resort; and one should act only with the consent of the legitimate authority.

Meretz (Yitzhak Rabin’s main coalition partner), and other dovish elements, argued for Israel to forcibly remove the extremist settlers from Hebron and/or nearby Kiryat Arba (where Goldstein lived). We don’t know if such a resolute act of contrition would have changed history by allaying Palestinian anger, but it might have, while also removing the most militant of settler communities from its base at a time that most Israelis would have supported such a radical step. Prime Minister Rabin reportedly came close to doing so.

Ulysses S. Grant

The Jewish holiday of Purim began last night, concluding at sundown tonight (Thurs., March 8). Published last week in the NY Jewish Week, the following article (excerpted below) is written by Jonathan D. Sarna, a distinguished professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University and the author of “When General Grant Expelled the Jews,” just published by Schocken/Nextbook:

Purim serves as an appropriate moment to recall a man known for a time as “America’s Haman.” …
On Dec. 17, 1862, … Gen. Ulysses S. Grant issued the most Haman-like order in American history: “The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.” Known as General Orders No. 11, the document blamed “Jews, as a class” for the widespread smuggling and cotton speculation that affected the area under Grant’s command. It required them to leave a vast war zone stretching from northern Mississippi to Cairo, Ill., and from the Mississippi River to the Tennessee River.
…. Cesar Kaskel, a staunch union supporter, as well as all the other known Jews in the city, were handed papers ordering them “to leave the city of Paducah, Kentucky, within twenty-four hours.” ….
Kaskel decided to appeal to Abraham Lincoln in person. Paul Revere-like, he sped down to Washington, spreading news of General Orders No. 11 wherever he went. With help from a friendly congressman, he obtained an immediate interview with the president, who turned out to have no knowledge whatsoever of the order, for it had not reached Washington. …

'A Separation' publicity still

I believe that an Israeli attack on Iran would be disastrous for Israel and also bad for the US, but Israel needs to be reassured that its existence is not on the line. It’s up to Iran to step back from its belligerent posturing and policies against Israel, in order to alleviate the crisis atmosphere.

Hopefully, an intelligent application of diplomacy and sanctions can persuade Iran to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency to assure that its nuclear facilities are only used for peaceful purposes; still, in this coming week’s visit of Prime Minister Netanyahu to Washington, the US and Israel must get on the same page. The US needs to prevent Israel from launching a preemptive attack, but this can only be done if Israel knows that the US has its back when it comes to deterring Iran.

I wrote this in a recent post:

Ten years ago, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran and still a leading figure now associated with reformist elements in the Islamic Republic, chillingly speculated that since “the Islamic World” is so much larger than Israel, it could destroy the Jewish state in a nuclear war and survive (“the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything“). This reinforced Israeli concerns that some Shi’ite religious fanatics in the Iranian leadership may believe in a theological doomsday scenario, which would invite a horribly destructive war with “infidels.” The threat that Israelis sense from Iran is logical—augmented further by Iranian allies inhabiting three of Israel’s borders (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Assad in Syria) ….

I’ve heard that the Islamic Republic couldn’t stop itself from touting “A Separation,” Iran’s winning submission for the Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language category, as a victory over “Zionism” for triumphing over Israel’s “The Footnote” and three other contenders. No thanks to the regime’s censors, the Iranian film industry has long earned well-deserved international acclaim for its artistry. Israel’s film industry is also outstanding but not lucky in this venue, with “The Footnote” being the tiny Jewish state’s fourth Oscar finalist in the last five years (with no cigar as of yet).

In contrast to his government, the Iranian director showed class and grace in his acceptance speech and in his general behavior in his visit to LA for this Hollywood extravaganza. This is how the JTA news service put it:

Norman Finkelstein

Back in 2007, Norman Finkelstein was supposed to take part in an Oxford University Student Union debate about the future of Israel and Palestine. Incongruously to the British-Jewish organizations that vociferously objected to, and torpedoed his participation at the time, Finkelstein was scheduled to debate for a two-state solution.

Widely known as a stridently anti-Israel writer-activist, the former academic supports Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) as tactics against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, but condemns the global BDS movement for being dishonest about its real agenda of displacing Israel as a Jewish-majority state. He also views a full right of return for Palestinians as unrealistic.

To the outrage of the anti-Israel far-left, he denounces the BDS movement as a “cult.” Finkelstein says he’s “not going to be in a cult again,” as he admits to having been a Maoist in his youth. In this connection, he argues that the BDS (or Palestinian solidarity) movement cannot realistically meet its goal of displacing Israel, because this is a non-starter with most Israelis and with the international community as a whole.

Reading the NY Times online the other day, I was drawn toward a tailored “Recommended for You” item listed to the side of the screen (apparently a benefit of my subscription) about a Palestinian political activist being held in administrative detention, who is on a hunger strike which may lead to his death. This “Lede” blog story makes reference to a historic parallel in Northern Ireland, with the fatal hunger strike of Bobby Sands and other IRA prisoners in 1981, and the fact that a current leader of the IRA’s political arm, Sinn Fein, has called for the Palestinian’s release.

I’m troubled by the practice of administrative detention, but the fact that this individual, Khader Adnan, is evidently a political activist for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an extreme terrorist organization with much civilian Jewish blood on its hands, gives me pause from the other direction. So I’m not arguing strongly for either side in this matter, but I do hope that his life is spared and that administrative detention rules are relaxed enough to allow attorneys for detainees to effectively represent their clients in court.

What moves me to write is that this first post links to a 2010 Lede blog post by the same NY Times blogger, Robert Mackey, “Thinking Outside the Two-State Box,” (Sept. 7, 2010), which mentions right-wing elements within Israel calling for a one-state solution involving a single political entity for Israel, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, but excluding the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip would be excluded in order to insure either a Jewish majority or a more equal ethnic balance between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, and presumably to isolate Hamas. This provision alone would probably make it a non-starter from the Palestinian point of view, but the unrealistic excision of Gaza is curiously not considered by the blogger.

One aches for a solution to a long-standing conflict that continues to bedevil Arabs and Jews on both sides of the divide, and in which neither side seems capable of making adequate concessions or accommodations to the other. Although recent Israeli governments have made territorial concessions and offers, they have still been too broadly ensconced in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to satisfy minimal Palestinian needs and aspirations; and settlements expand in spurts but inexorably, on territory claimed by the Palestinians.

On Monday night, Zehava Gal-On was overwhelmingly elected the new chair of the Meretz party. She is now the third female leader of an Israeli political party represented in the Knesset, joining Tzipi Livni of Kadima and Shelly Yachimovich of Labor. (In addition, Einat Wilif is the Knesset caucus leader of Ehud Barak’s new Independence party.)

Under my leadership, Meretz will bring Israel‘s Left home… it will no longer be a boutique, north Tel Avivian faction. Meretz will translate last summer’s social protest into political power. It will be a true social-democratic party that supports dividing the land [of Israel with the Palestinians].

Osteen with wife Victoria

I’m not a follower of Joel Osteen, but after occasionally stumbling upon his program while channel surfing, I’ll admit to appreciating his charm. Why would I, who mostly fits the profile of a “secular humanist” who inhabits the Upper West Side of Manhattan–and also identifies strongly as Jewish and occasionally attends synagogue–feel some fondness for a Christian televangelist and mega-church preacher?

I’ve just caught most of his hour on Oprah Winfrey’s program on the OWN network, which taught me a great deal about what he believes. What I learned is that he’s a fundamentalist Christian, as befits the Southern Baptist faith he inherited from his pastor-father, but he’s nothing like the fire & brimstone preacher someone like me would imagine. Why? Because he presents himself and his faith in a relatively non-judgmental way, a stance illustrated by his response to Oprah on whether he believes that gays can get into heaven.

His answer is yes, because who would qualify for heaven if we had to be without sin? And further, why focus upon the “sin” of homosexuality beyond others? Obviously, he sees homosexuality as “sin,” but when asked on exactly this by Oprah in a follow-up, Osteen explains with some evident discomfort that he cannot deny from his reading of the relevant Biblical text that homosexuality is a sin. But the fact that he apparently doesn’t expend energy in condemning this phenomenon marks him off from others of this background. This is how the Huffington Post recaps Osteen on this matter:

I made a point of seeing Rabbi Lerner twice in his recent sojourn to New York. Last Sunday evening, he was part of a panel discussion of religious leaders and academics at Riverside Church, called “Occupy the Mind: Progressive Moral Agenda for the 21st Century.” It was organized by James Vrettos, a professor of sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, who began the discussion with an impassioned recitation of progressive concerns.

Dr. Cornel West

Dr. Cornel West contributed his usual brilliant oratory: witty, entertaining and challenging. In a mutual exchange, he pointed out that fellow panelist Dr. Serene Jones, president of the nearby Union Theological Seminary, will be his “boss” when he moves from Princeton to Union Theological in July, where he began his academic career in the late 1970s. He mentioned that he’s returning to New York to enjoy the cultural richness and social vitality of the Big Apple and especially to be near Harlem, to again experience its energy and its music.

Michael Lerner connected well with the audience, getting us to stand and stretch, after sitting over an hour listening to speeches, and to sing with him a couple of Biblically-inspired songs for peace. His talk was about promoting a politics of love, hope and generosity versus right-wing themes of fear and “power over.” To this end, he touched upon the Global Marshall Plan initiative, and the Environmental & Social Responsibility Amendment. He pointed out that the latter would overturn “Citizens United” by ending the corporate funding of elections and would subject large corporations of over $100 million in gross income to having to prove their environmental and social responsibility every five years to be recertified with a public charter. I don’t know how “practical” these ideas are in every detail and in their implementation, but hopefully they will promote constructive public discourse on what we are about as a society and as citizens of the world. Moreover, Michael urges us not to be “practical.” This runs somewhat counter to my nature, but I have enough experience in this world to know that we can undermine ourselves as individuals and collectively when we too readily define things as impossible or impractical.

I also caught him the next evening at Romemu, a Jewish Renewal congregation in my neighborhood in Manhattan,

NY Times Magazine cover, Jan. 29, 2012

The New York Times Magazine’s Jan. 29 cover story, “Will Israel Attack Iran?” frighteningly argues that Israel is nearing a decision to make an all-out military effort against Iran’s nuclear program. What may prompt an imminent go-ahead is the calculation that Iran’s facilities will soon be hardened and dispersed beyond Israel’s capacity to cripple its program.

I’m very much against an Israeli attack on Iran and I agree with Prof. Shibley Telhami that moving toward regional nuclear disarmament may facilitate a solution. But I take Iran’s nuclear program seriously as a security threat to the region.

The crisis would likely end once Iran reverses course: quickly opening its facilities to international inspection and stopping its constant “death to Israel” rhetoric and other overt expressions of hostility toward Jews (Holocaust denial being one); Iranian officials usually do not even mention Israel by name, referring instead to the “Zionist regime” or some such. When coupled with its ongoing support for Hezbollah and Hamas, it’s no wonder that many Israelis and Jews believe they face an existential threat from Iran. (It would not be enough for Iran to invite renewed negotiations, such as Pres. Ahmadinejad claims to have just done in a rather belligerent way; negotiations can be used as a delaying tactic, and Iran has backed away from solutions proposed in previous discussions.)

Yet, aside from inviting a catastrophic war, an Israeli attack would not deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions (quite the opposite). Part of the problem is the already hardened and dispersed nature of Iran’s nuclear facilities; another is Israel’s limited military capability. Over five years ago, I blogged about the widespread myth that Israel is a military superpower (with the supposed implication that it’s invulnerable) beginning as follows:

The world is abuzz with the ongoing fallout of the Arab Spring, while the Occupy movement still reverberates in the US. But what endures from Israel’s less-noted summer months of street protest for social justice? I’m going to review what I’ve learned in recent months and project forward.

Protest leader, Daphni Leef

First of all, street protests continue, including a clash in recent days with police over the removal of protest tents; but these activists are in the hundreds rather than the tens and hundreds of thousands who rallied peaceably during the summer. Still, the structure I reported on for In These Times magazine, continues to operate, with the movement attempting “to carry itself beyond the streets”:

…. Alongside “general assembly” meetings in parks, neighborhood committees have been formed around the country, as well as advisory committees comprised of prominent personalities from Israel’s diverse ethnic and religious communities.

By any estimation, Israel’s summer of protest was an impressive display of progressive social activism, rallying nearly half a million protesters (out of Israel’s seven million population) into the streets at its high-water mark on September 3rd. More than one hundred tent encampments for social justice dotted the entire country. It united Arabs in Jaffa (at least rhetorically) with traditional working class Likud and Shas supporters in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Hatikva. (See this YouTube video of the great liberal Orthodox activist, Leah Shakdiel, speaking on this unifying theme at the Yerucham protest.)

Hillel Schenker

Sadly, the lack of progress toward a two-state solution is creating a backlash among some Palestinians who are now turning against dialogue and cooperation with dovish Israelis. An article in Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, published on Dec. 30– “Don’t let them shut down discussion” by Hillel Schenker, co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal– tells the tale. Here are highlights:

…. [T]he Palestine-Israel Journal, the quarterly I co-edit, was obliged to postpone a public conference we were organizing at an East Jerusalem hotel … due to pressure on Palestinian speakers and threats against the hotel owner. …
A news item … earlier in the week stated that the Fatah leadership had decided to halt all unofficial Palestinian-Israeli meetings due to … Prime Minister’s Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing settlement expansion. Unnamed Palestinian officials were quoted claiming that Israel exploits such meetings in order to tell the world that a dialogue is taking place between the two peoples, and that it is only the Palestinian Authority that refuses to sit down at the negotiating table.
This seems like a parallel to the familiar criticism of such meetings by right-wing Israelis, who accuse Israeli participants of being concerned only about Palestinian rights, as opposed to Israeli security needs. Suffice it to recall recent campaigns by NGO Monitor, Im Tirzu and others against Israeli peace, human rights and civil liberties NGOs….
What was so threatening about a conference at which Israelis and Palestinians were going to discuss the potential impact of the Arab world’s uprising, whose speakers were to include Ron Pundak, co-chair of the Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO Forum, and Khalil Shikaki, the renowned Palestinian public-opinion specialist?

The mother of the Yiddish song and language revival, Adrienne Cooper, has left us suddenly and entirely too soon. I knew her slightly, seeing her sometimes at social events, organizational meetings and performances. On occasion I’d see her on the street or even in a parking garage.

She was always cordial, even when an article of mine angered some colleagues, and she went out of her way to reassure me that I was still welcome. She even thanked me for the “free publicity.”

And then there was her voice, her scholarship and her activism, perhaps more cultural than political. She made a choice to devote her professional life to Yiddish and Yiddish song, rather than American history, in which she nearly completed a doctorate. Highlights of her career included about a decade each in important executive positions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, and in the Workmens Circle/Arbeiter Ring, a longstanding cultural and fraternal organization with a legacy of social democratic and labor union activism. I last saw her at a Passover “model seder” she presided over for the Workmens Circle, a traditional event that I used to attend with my retired parents in the South Florida chapter years ago. We had no inkling of her illness, a rare and vicious cancer that was difficult to diagnose–a diagnosis she didn’t receive until July.