Anarchy has its place

Junk art causes no harm,
and sometimes even amuses.

The same can't be said
for junk politics


It could have been the Tel Aviv Museum or London's Tate Modern, but this time we had plunked down our cash for admission to Vienna's Secession Building. We were intrigued by this 1898 edifice, with its gold cupola and Art Deco facade, and we vaguely knew there was some kind of Gustav Klimt connection. Sure enough, we found Klimt's famous "Beethoven Frieze" and felt we had got our money's worth.

Afterwards, strolling around the museum, we came across a mammoth, well-lit, white-walled room containing what is euphemistically known in the post-modern art world as an "installation." This one consisted of overturned chairs, shirts and trousers hanging askew on clothing racks or strewn on the floor, shoes thrown about helter-skelter and an open chest of drawers. Two guards patrolled the room in case some working-class philistine took it into his head to try and bring a semblance of order to the place by picking up the clothing or setting straight the overturned chairs.

I've been contentedly trained by my more cultured partner to enjoy the work of a Mark Rothko or a Piet Mondrian and, on a tolerant day, maybe even a Jackson Pollock; I've learned to enjoy colorful paintings that are little more than paint splotches dribbled on canvas - but I draw the line at "installation art," which seems to revel in mayhem, meaningless rebellion and nihilism.

Put it this way: Some folks consider a six-foot-high collection of wooden shipping pallets sandwiching construction debris and packaging material to be "art" - I don't.

But junk art is harmless. Sure, there's the question of whether tax money ought to be thus squandered, but those with nothing to believe in and no frames of reference also pay taxes. So, I say, let them have their overturned chairs, shipping pallets and moaning suitcases (trust me on this one). But in the political realm, I would not cede an inch to anarchy.

THE CHIEF imperative of any political system is stability so that citizens can pursue lives worth living. Everyone is "born free," but the reason, philosophers tell us, that human beings cede their natural-born and absolute freedom to a sovereign (the modern nation state, for example) is because the alternative, every-man-for-himself jungle would be beastly. It would mimic "the solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" state of nature depicted by Thomas Hobbes in his 1651 masterpiece of political theory, Leviathan.

In other words, the anarchist idea that the authority of the state is inherently illegitimate and ought to be resisted is a prescription for sending humanity back to the early Stone Age.

To buy into the anarchist worldview requires a very special combination of naivete and nihilism. Still, though few in numbers, anarchists have made their raucous, often violent mark on society by hijacking the anti-globalization cause and, locally, by championing the Palestinians' war against Israel.

Most anarchists align themselves with the hard Left (though libertarian capitalist thinkers such as Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick were exceptions).
Generally speaking, anarchists share a wildly optimistic conception of human nature, believing that people are intrinsically good; and that if only the corruptive, coercive State would get out of the way, humanity's default temperament would lead it to mutual aid and utopia. Emma Goldman asserted in 1917: "Anarchy stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraints of government."

In her 1931 autobiography, Goldman explained that such absolute freedom would be feasible because anarchy offers "the possibility of organization without discipline, fear or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty."

FRANKLY, I can more easily abide anarchy's pie-in-the-sky idealism than its down-to-earth hypocrisy. But in any event, I cannot forgive anarchists for having, in effect, made common cause with retrograde Islamist and Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Anarchist hypocrisy manifests itself in a myriad ways. You won't find anarchists jetting off to Moscow or Beijing searching for a confrontation with Russian or Chinese security forces. So what if those regimes are illegally trading weapons to Sudan for use by the Janjaweed militias in the Darfour genocide? So what if Russia and China are polluting the earth's environment with abandon while restricting civil liberties - killing reporters, blocking access to the Web? None of this tips the scales for "direct action" against Russia or China.

You won't find anarchists peacefully marching in any Arab capital, let alone looking for a "direct action" opportunity in defense of gay rights, women's rights or workers' rights. The most you can hope for is a limp Web site posting support for Egyptian textile workers.

Mugabe's reign of terror in Zimbabwe draws a yawn from the worldwide anarchist community. You won't see anarchists marching in the streets of Brazzaville to protest the exploitation of children kidnapped and forced to become soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The mass starvation of Korean peasants carried out by the murderous Pyongyang regime doesn't elicit anarchist "direct action."

Nor does Iran's institutionalized oppression of women, execution of children as young as 14 or campaign against the Baha'i community serve as an incentive for "direct action." And, needless to say, anarchists are not rioting outside Iranian embassies to call attention to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's efforts to build nuclear reactors - let alone proliferate atom bombs - in the Middle East.

Come to think of it, as venues for rioting, anarchists prefer more comfortable Western settings - Scotland (2005), Davos (2000), Seattle (1999), Genoa (2001), Prague (2000), Madrid (1994), Nice (2000) and London (1999) - places where you're never too far from good food, hot water, the Internet and a not-unsympathetic media.

The next big anarchist circus will take place on the outskirts of Heiligendamm, a Baltic Sea resort in northern Germany, where leaders of the G-8 are scheduled to meet in June. It's tough to be a revolutionary.

THE MAJORITY of non-Arab foreign "activists" who come to Israel for "direct action" in support of the Palestinian war effort are anarchists. Israel offers that extra buzz of (self-inflicted) danger - you never know, you might slip under an army bulldozer and your suddenly meaningful life become fodder for a progressive playwright.

In fairness, we can't really expect foreign anarchists to know that had the Palestinian Arab leadership not defied the UN's 1947 plan for the Partition of Palestine, there would already be a Palestinian state alongside a truncated Israel. Or that - more recently - it was Yasser Arafat who launched the second intifada, in September 2000, by rejecting Ehud Barak's obscenely munificent peace offer. Or that before the IDF got a handle on the "free flow of Palestinian traffic," suicide bombers and drive-by shooters had slaughtered 1,130 Israeli bus passengers, caf and mall patrons and schoolchildren.

We can't expect anarchists to know that thanks to the barriers, checkpoints, fences, walls and ancillary "indignities" Palestinian Arabs now face, the number of Israeli fatalities is down dramatically, from 451 killed in 2002 to 30 last year.
We really can't expect foreign anarchists to be aware that before the current Palestinian violence, West Bank and Gaza Arabs could travel to Tel Aviv unimpeded (you'd see cars with the PA's green license plates all over the country) or that traffic between Gaza and the West Bank flowed freely.
Nor can we expect foreign anarchists to know that Arab terrorists relentlessly attacked Israel between 1948 and 1967 - before there was a West Bank "occupation."

I suppose a deeply-rooted ignorance of history is as essential to any genuine anarchist as a complete misreading of human nature.

I AM, HOWEVER, far less indulgent of Israeli-born Jewish anarchists. They know the deadly consequences of removing IDF blockades from roads connecting Palestinian Authority areas of the West Bank to thoroughfares such as Route 60, which runs up and down the spine of Judea and Samaria.

And yet these anarchists can be seen trying to remove those same barricades. Every Friday the Israeli anarchists join comrades from abroad and local Palestinian Arabs at the security barrier near Bil'in (just over the Green Line, in the vicinity of Modi'in Illit) for a choreographed "direct action." They know how many lives the security barrier has saved, yet they try to tear it down.
Israeli anarchists live at the furthermost anti-Zionist reaches of hard-Left lalaland. How else to explain why well-educated, financially comfortable Jewish young people would commit themselves to dismantling the world's only Jewish country (on the grounds that they oppose the coercive structure of the state), yet devote themselves to promoting, in its place, the building of what in all likelihood would be a violently coercive Islamist state?

They assiduously film, photograph and disseminate their violent encounters with the IDF, hoping to make it onto the Israeli evening news (and into the international media). Their modus operandi is to taunt the soldiers with some form of vandalism or violence; and then, in a sort of video ambush, "document" the troops "overreacting" to the anarchists' "direct action."

Good footage isn't hard to manufacture, and it was fairly predictable that producers of Israeli television news programs would allow "good pictures" to trump their news judgment.

Forced on May 9 to choose between another installment of the annual State Comptroller's Report on government efficiency or IDF soldiers and Border Police wrestling with anarchist women and poking male anarchists in the stomach with a rifle barrel south of Hebron, Channel 10 and Channel 2 both opted to lead their broadcasts with the action footage helpfully supplied by the anarchists.

DR. URI GORDON, who is both a scholar of anarchism and himself an anarchist, defended, in the course of a telephone conversation and exchange of e-mails, the behavior of Israeli anarchists. He said that Israel's 200 to 300 anarchists place greater importance on the journey ("direct action") than on the destination - a world without states or borders comprising communities where everybody lives in equality and mutual aid.

According to Gordon, anarchists champion a Palestinian state because the Palestinians are anyway living under the dominion of a state - Israel. Anarchists' commitment to human rights, he explained, must take precedence over their principled opposition to the state in general. You can't tell the Palestinians to live under occupation forever - which is why anarchists' solidarity with the Palestinians is worthwhile, even at the price of ideological inconsistency.
And anyway, Gordon argued, on a qualitative level, a Palestinian state is superior to the present situation even if it brings yet another state into existence.

Gordon complained that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has served as a sort of lightning rod for Islamists, as well as deflecting both Israelis and Palestinians to the wrong issues when they should be thinking about anti-capitalism, feminism and ecology.

Finally, by working hand-in-hand with the Palestinians via direct action, anarchists feel they are swaying Palestinian minds and showing them that not all Israelis support the occupation. Solidarity, he argues, is not about supporting those who share your politics, it's about supporting those who struggle against injustice. It matters little that their assumptions, methods, politics and goals differ from our own.

IN A SENSE, anarchists like Gordon have adopted Fatah's plan for the phased destruction of Israel: First dismantle the "occupation" of 1967, then the "occupation" of 1948.

His politics isn't intended as charity for the Palestinians, he explained, it's part of his commitment to building the non-chauvinistic society he envisions.
Such extraordinary inability to gauge reality, and the anarchists' odd blending of naivete and nihilism, does little harm when confronted in a museum art installation. But in the political sphere, muddled relativism and irrationality of this sort are lethal.

It may not be his intent, but Gordon's way will bring us not Emma Goldman's anarchist utopia but a Hamastan, Shari'a law, and the very centralized fascism anarchists claim to oppose.

Thankfully, however, unlike the world of museums, the civilized political realm encourages law, order and stability.

Brest-Litovsk and all that

A nation has a right - even and obligation - to transmit particularistic values


If H.G. Wells was right that human history is a race between education and catastrophe, then I am prudently running with the pessimists. Consider the poor return on the investment we Jews have made in perpetuating the memory of the Holocaust - museums, memorials, anti-genocide curricula and entire libraries weighted down by personal testimonies - only to discover that the forces of ignorance, or evil, prevail after all.

Each Holocaust Remembrance Day brings fresh disappointments: This year, former Sephardi chief rabbi (no less) Mordechai Eliahu put the blame for the destruction of European Jewry on the Reform movement for making God angry. Previously, another former Sephardi chief rabbi, Ovadia Yosef, explained that the murdered were "the reincarnation of earlier souls who sinned and caused others to sin and did all sorts of forbidden acts." They returned to be killed in atonement for their sins.

Such being the thinking of benighted "spiritual authorities," is it any wonder that a majority of Israeli youth (66 percent of high school students) prefer to focus on the universal rather than the "narrow Jewish" message of the Holocaust?

Should we be taken aback that one in four Israeli Arabs believes the Holocaust never happened? That a German bishop on a visit to Yad Vashem (of all places) could compare Ramallah 2007 to the Warsaw Ghetto? That more than a quarter of British young people "don't know" if the Holocaust is a myth; and that 31% of them would rename Holocaust Memorial Day the more generic "Genocide Day"?

Let them. Long ago, I came to the conclusion that Israelis should discontinue preaching "our" Holocaust to the outside world and stop schlepping every foreign dignitary who lands at Ben-Gurion Airport to Yad Vashem. That we should not much care how non-Zionist Jews, whether ultra-Orthodox or ultra-assimilated, spin their lessons of the Shoah.

SINCE 1945 the Jewish world has gone through a series of stages in grappling with memorializing the Holocaust. Historian Peter Novick, in The Holocaust and Collective Memory (a problematic book, yet well worth reading), examines how the Holocaust narrative became part of the collective Jewish consciousness.

In the wake of World War II, Holocaust memory was marginalized, compartmentalized; for Israelis there was a country to build; for US Jews there was a ladder of upward mobility to climb. Novick writes: "Between the end of the war and the 1960s, as anyone who has lived through those years can testify, the Holocaust made scarcely any appearance in American public discourse, and hardly more in Jewish public discourse - especially discourse directed to gentiles."

By the late 1960s and early 1970s (when violent Black and Puerto Rican anti-Semitism in the inner cities was at its peak), the memory of the Holocaust was redefined as a basis for a new Jewish identity: We had been victims once, but now "never again." This form of identity, I know from my own experience, evolved into ethnic pride, Jewish nationalism, pro-Israelism (in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War), and served as a catalyst for the Soviet Jewry movement.

Somehow by 1993, when Hollywood's Steven Spielberg came out with Schindler's List and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened its doors (with the federal government covering most of the operating expenses), the Holocaust had been transformed from a unique collective Jewish memory into a shared phenomenon of pop culture.

Today we're at the point where popular culture remembers the Holocaust as a manifestation of "man's inhumanity to man," while reactionaries (and the badly informed) dispute whether it ever really happened.
Novick argues that Holocaust remembrance is too complex for a single "bumper sticker" message to emerge. He's basically right. He's also correct that no one can impose a single "lesson" to be derived from the Holocaust on all Jews, much less all humanity.

On the other hand, as a society, Zionist Israel (at least) needs to establish parameters for understanding and perpetuating Shoah remembrance.Specifically, we don't want to see a repeat of the way Holocaust imagery was exploited by ultra-right-wing opponents of the Gaza disengagement, any more than we want young Israelis to comprehend the Shoah through post-Zionist lenses.

EVERY POLITICAL culture has a right - indeed an obligation - to politically socialize its youth.Thus if education is to defeat catastrophe, the beleaguered Israeli educational system needs to find a way to make sacred again that which has been profaned. We must abandon teaching the universalistic message of the Shoah - not because it doesn't have one, but because non-Israelis can be counted upon to promulgate it. No one but we Zionist Israelis can be counted upon to remember the Shoah as a unique tragedy of Jewish statelessness.

In the face of medieval-thinking rabbis, Iranian Holocaust-deniers and an indifferent, relativist world, I wouldn't shy away from a sort of Shoah "catechism," so that, at a minimum, Zionist-educated youth (secular, religious, left- and right-wing) know how to understand, and how to remember, what happened to the Jewish people between 1933 and 1945.

For instance, had I the ear of Education Minister Yuli Tamir, I'd suggest she encourage Israeli teachers to instruct our youth about events in Poland this very month 70 years ago. And to remind our youth that May 1937 was two years and four months before the Nazi invasion of Poland.

Thus they'd learn that on May 9, the Polish Medical Association resolved that Jews would no longer be eligible for membership. The Polish Lawyers Association decided to create a quota limiting the number of Jewish attorneys to 10% of its membership. And Fascist parties were marching through Warsaw in support of an "Anti-Jewish Month."

I'd want our young people to know that on May 13 the worst pogrom experienced by Jews in years burst out in Brest-Litovsk (today in Belarus). Perhaps they would also be taught that, as a result of Holocaust desensitization, the very word "pogrom" has lost its meaning: "an organized, often officially encouraged massacre" against the Jews.

The police of Brest-Litovsk - whose population was more than 50% Jewish - provided back-up as peasants raped, robbed and looted. What set off the violence was a report that a Jewish butcher, discovered illegally slaughtering meat, had stabbed a Polish policeman.

I DON'T KNOW if there was a Reform temple in Brest-Litovsk, or if the pogrom's victims had been reincarnated, but this I do know: The events of May 1937 were part of a long series of anti-Semitic outbreaks ignited in the wake of Poland's emergence as an independent state after World War I.

The country had come into being in 1918, with 19 million ethnic Poles despising the fact that they had been saddled with three million Jews. And so it was that by 1920, the Polish Army under Jozef Pilsudski (who himself was said not to be an anti-Semite) stormed through the Jewish communities of the Ukraine, slaughtering 30,000 Jews.

How many Israeli students know that in 1922 Polish Jews had to stay off the streets during democratic elections so their mere existence didn't enrage their Polish neighbors? Or, getting back to 1937, that Jewish college students were obliged to sit on segregated classroom benches (many preferred to stand as a form of protest)?

And how many Israeli students know that by 1937 a "cold pogrom" had systematically eliminated Jews from Polish economic life? That during the period between the two world wars, Poles made Jewish life utterly miserable? That the Polish oligarchy, gentry, Church and politicians shared a mutual interest in blaming Poland's economic depression and political difficulties on the Jews?

Who today recalls that Polish industries in which Jews were prominent (tobacco, shoemaking, liquor, matches, salt) were nationalized and Jewish workers summarily dismissed? One example: Of 2,800 shoemaking establishments, 2,060 were closed.Thus, prior to the Shoah, there had been an almost complete collapse of Jewish economic life. Before a single Nazi boot set foot in Poland, 80% of Jewish children in Vilna already had TB or anemia.

A Zionist education also requires the following knowledge: Even as Poland officially implored Britain to open the gates of Palestine so it could be rid of its accursed Jews, the Catholic primate of Poland, August Cardinal Hlond, was instructing his flock to boycott Jewish businesses.
THIS, THEN, was Poland in the "good times" before the Nazis came. Similar narratives played out elsewhere in Eastern Europe. One calamity washes away the memory of another.

It's bad enough that so much of post-World War I European Jewish history - the pogroms, the starvation, the institutionalized racism - has been forgotten, overshadowed by Hitler's war of annihilation that came afterwards. But the ultimate obscenity is that we should live to see the memory of the Holocaust itself perverted, desensitized and robbed of its Jewish character and Zionist message.

In the race between Zionist education and the catastrophic loss of the Holocaust's message for Jews, it seems to me that Israel's educational establishment needs to develop a core curriculum, acceptable across the political spectrum, from Hashomer Hatza'ir to Bnei Akiva, from Meretz to the National Union. Let each Zionist worldview bring its own nuances, so long as this fundamental and, yes, particularistic message is transmitted: that our statelessness set the stage for the Shoah, and only a secure Israel can increase the prospect of Jewish continuity in history.

The rest is commentary

Prayer books and resurrection

Banished to a desert island
which 'siddur' would you
want to take with you?

Our sages instructed: When you address the Holy One, let your words be few.

That's certainly been my approach, though I've piously managed to accumulate scores of siddurim, or prayer books. My latest acquisition - a gift from my London-based parents-in-law - is the recently released Authorised Daily Prayer Book, popularly known as the "new Singer's."

You'll find a siddur, along with the Pentateuch, in every Jewishly-literate home across the denominational divide. But while the Hebrew words of the Torah are firmly codified, the siddur thrives in a multitude of variations. Lately, I've been ruminating on their relative merits and theological approaches.

My most prized siddur, recently rebound, is my late mother's Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem by Philip Birnbaum (1904-1988) issued by Hebrew Publishing. It's the quintessential American Orthodox siddur, first published in 1949. Birnbaum wanted the Hebrew text of his siddur to be of uniform typeface, abhorring the helter-skelter boldface paragraphing found in Old World siddurim.

His translation sought to express reverence, as Birnbaum explained, without appearing archaic. By including the prayer for the State of Israel, "the Birnbaum" reflected American Orthodoxy's newly discovered identification with the Zionist enterprise.

A good yardstick for gauging a siddur's theology is to examine how it handles the resurrection prayer in the thrice-daily Amida (18 Benedictions). Here's how Birnbaum does it: "Thou art faithful to revive the dead. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who revivest the dead." No fudging the literalist definition of the original Hebrew.

SIDDURIM DIFFER liturgically, while maintaining a core of standard prayers. The style differences - what's included, and in what order - is called nusah. (Just to confound matters, nusah can also refer to the different melodies employed in the service depending on a congregation's cultural roots.)

The prayer "style" I'm most comfortable with is nusah Ashkenaz, in which the prayers are comparatively concise, following the practice favored by Jews whose roots are traceable to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belorussia and Lithuania. The Birnbaum siddur follows this tradition.

My father, a hassid from Central Europe, favors nusah Sephard, which is comparable (but not identical) to the Sephardi minhag, or "binding custom," favored by Middle Eastern Jews. But the Yiddish commentary in his siddur quickly establishes that while my father may daven Sephardi, he's not of the Orient.

The point is, there are dozens of style variations in how prayer books are organized - Italian, Yemenite, Spanish and Portuguese, Western European, Central and East European, and so on - just as there are a wide range of melodic variations. While Jewish prayer eschews personal improvisation and is ideally conducted in a quorum, don't let anyone tell you there is only one "correct" approach to Jewish worship.

INFLUENCED by the Talmud, the first prayer book was compiled by Amram Gaon (circa 846-864); his Seder Rav Amram Gaon is the basis of all subsequent siddurim. Other sages followed with modifications, adding layers of rules to guide worshipers on how the three daily services should be ordered and conducted.

As best as I can discover, the siddur was first mass-distributed only in 1865; though an Italian siddur printed by Soncino dates back to 1486. The siddur began appearing in the vernacular as early as 1538. The first - unauthorized - English translation, by Gamaliel ben Pedahzur (a pseudonym), appeared in London in 1738. A different English translation came out in the US in 1837. Incidentally, many of the siddurim in print today are knock-off editions of originals which have lost their copyright.

Search Amazon.com for "siddur" and you'll get 1,200 hits.

GETTING BACK to my collection: There's the Hirsch Siddur, with commentary by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (born 1808) and published by the German-Jewish Feldheim house in 1972. Hirsch was unyielding in his opposition to Reform Judaism, and this is made plain in his commentary on the Amida's references to resurrection: "There can hardly be another thought that can so inspire man firmly to resolve to live a life so vigorous, unwavering, fearless, and unswervingly dutiful than the belief in [resurrection]…"

Then there's the Authorized Daily Prayer Book by Dr. J.H. Hertz, published by Soncino in 1941, a classic in British modern Orthodox erudition.

Let me digress to explain that, for me, "modern" Orthodoxy does not connote laxity in adherence to Halacha, but rather openness to constructive influences from the larger cultural milieu. This worldview permeates Hertz's Pentateuch even more than his siddur.
Hertz's siddur gives helpful margin citations indicating the textual origins of the prayers; not surprisingly, most come from the Bible.

Here's how he translates the Amida's resurrection prayer: "Yea, faithful art thou to revive the dead. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who revivest the dead."

Comments Hertz: "This emphatic statement concerning the resurrection was directed especially against the worldlings who disputed the deathlessness of the soul, its return to God, and its continued separate existence after its reunion with the Divine source of being."

For reasons best known to my British friends, Hertz's siddur never took off, and United Synagogue congregations stuck with the Authorised Daily Prayer Book translated by Rev. Simeon Singer (1890). His work includes the cherished "He-who" supplication: "He who giveth salvation unto Kings and dominion unto princes, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, - may he bless Our Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth… and all the Royal family…."

Like the Birnbaum, the post-1948 Singer also provided the Prayer for the State of Israel.

THE 1984 PUBLICATION of the Artscroll Mesorah Siddur, edited by Nosson Scherman, heralded an ultra-Orthodox ascendancy in America.

Frankly, I have a love-hate relationship with Artscroll. I adore the clarity of the radically improved Hebrew font and typography; I appreciate that the siddur is a godsend for thousands who have returned to tradition but may feel like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming Orthodox service, not knowing when to rise, when to genuflect, when to take three paces back, or which way to shake a lulav. Artscroll tells them all that.

I'm not a fan of the English font because the script is difficult to read. But my biggest criticism is of the translation and commentary, which is fundamentalist to the core - for example, the use of "Hashem" for the Tetragrammaton instead of "O Lord," or the decision to use Ashkenazi transliteration (aleph-beis).

Here's how Artscroll handles the Amida resurrection prayer: "And You are faithful to resuscitate the dead. Blessed are You, Hashem, Who resuscitates the dead."

I also don't appreciate the absence of a prayer for Israel (special imprints excepted). And it troubles me that many folks will come to the conclusion that Artscroll's approach to prayer is the "authentic" one, and innovation a sin.

I HAVEN'T broken in the "new Singer" yet, but I already value its Artscroll-like Hebrew typeface, fine paper and uncluttered layout. The new translation and commentary is by Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks and includes a section on understanding prayer, in which he addresses the perennial question: "Is prayer answered?" concluding: Yes, it is never in vain.
Singer traditionalists will be glad to know that while "giveth" is gone; the "He-who" prayer survives.

And Sacks largely sticks with the old Singer's traditionalist translation of the resurrection prayer: "Faithful are You to revive the dead. Blessed are You, Lord, who revives the dead."

THE GAPING holes in my collection are the absence of siddurim from the Reconstructionist, Yemenite and Chabad rites. But I do have siddurim from the Conservative and Reform movements. For instance, the Conservative Sabbath and Festival Prayer Book edited by Morris Silverman with Robert Gordis (1927/1946), now outdated - no prayer for Israel - had much to recommend it.

In keeping with the ethos of classical Conservative Judaism, the editors write: "There will naturally be instances… where reinterpretation is impossible and the traditional formulation cannot be made to serve the modern outlook…. Thus, the emphasis in the Prayer Book upon the messiah need not mean for us the belief in a personal redeemer, but it serves superbly as the poetic and infinitely moving symbol of the messianic age."

In other words, this is not the siddur for those of you inclined to Chabad's messianic mantra, Yechi adonenu, rabbenu vemorenu, melech ha-mashiah le'olam va'ed at the conclusion of your morning prayers.

I kind of like what Silverman does with resurrection. He translates the Amida prayer: "Faithful art Thou to grant eternal life to the departed. Blessed are Thou… who callest the dead to everlasting life."

I have another Conservative prayer book, Siddur Sim Shalom, edited by Jules Harlow (1985). I like that it provides various liturgical options; is egalitarian - so that worshipers thank God for making them in "Thine image" rather than, for instance, "a man." I also never liked thanking God that he didn't make me a gentile, and much prefer the Conservative approach captured in Sim Shalom: "who made me an Israelite."

They've also deleted all the stuff about Temple sacrifices (which I skip, anyway). But there's no way this could have become my "regular" siddur largely because the page flow just isn't intuitive and the alternate services options just get in the way once you pick a direction.

My Reform collection is sparse. I have Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayer Book (1975), which captures the movement well into its Zionist phase. Commendably, there are special prayers for Yom Ha'atzma'ut and for Holocaust Remembrance Day, though it has far too many service options. But the interface of the Hebrew and English (on the same page) is seamless. There is also a welcome emphasis on spiritualism and meditation; think of it as "structured improvisation."

When it comes to resurrection, my Reform siddur radically transforms the blessing to: "O Lord of life and death, source of salvation… blessed is the Lord, the source of Life."
As it happens, the Reform movement is scheduled to issue Mishkan T'filah: A New Reform Siddur later this year.

WERE I banished to a desert island and able to take, say, just two siddurim, I'd bring the prayer book I use every morning, V'ani Tefilati, issued by the Masorti movement in Israel (Hebrew only). It's egalitarian where you want it to be, but basically it's a straightforward, classical siddur for folks who known their way around the liturgy, are Zionist in orientation and appreciate the clean (ragged) layout.

The other siddur I'd take is the ubiquitous (throughout Israel) national-religious standard bearer Rinat Yisrael (Hebrew only), edited by Shlomo Tal (1976). There are rudimentary instructions, a good, readable font, citations (like the Hertz) for many prayers, and that much-appreciated clean layout.

Funnily enough, none of these siddurim contain one of my favorite prayers, attributed to Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. It's adored at Alcoholics Anonymous sessions (and equally appropriate, incidentally, for those who've made aliya).

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference."

Amen.

Taking Ghana for granted?

Israel still has no ambassador
in the capital of one of Africa's
most influential countries

The Zionist fascination with Africa began even before the birth of modern Israel. In his 1902 novel Altneuland (Old-New Land), Theodor Herzl wrote: "There is still one other question arising out of the disaster of the nations which remains unsolved to this day, and whose profound tragedy only a Jew can comprehend. This is the African question... I am not ashamed to say, though I may expose myself to ridicule in saying so, that once I have witnessed the redemption of the Jews, my people, I wish also to assist in the redemption of the Africans."

Herzl didn't live to see it, but in 1957 Ghana, then known as the Gold Coast, became the first African state to gain independence from British colonial rule; it also became the first African country to grant diplomatic recognition to the Jewish state.

Herzl's dream of "redeeming" Africa came closer to fruition soon after, when Israel began sharing what it itself was learning about development with African countries, including Ghana.

This month, Ghana celebrated 50 years of independence and Jerusalem marked 50 years since the opening of Israel¹s first embassy in Africa.

JERUSALEM'S relations with Accra have been characterized by a mixture of idealism and pragmatism even as they¹ve encapsulated the complexities encountered by Israeli foreign policy in the developing world. Israel¹s goal has been ­ and remains ­ to reach beyond our immediate, antagonistic neighbors in search of friendships and alliances in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Arab bloc has endeavored ­ then and now ­ to checkmate our every advance, isolate us from the developing world and the family of nations, their ultimate goal being to extinguish the Zionist enterprise.

I should explain my own interest in this west-coast African country. I first became acquainted with Ghana while in graduate school, through friendships with Ghanaian students at New York University. Before I knew it, I had stumbled upon a vibrant Ghanaian diaspora in New York ­ physicians, scholars, ex-government officials ­ each one fascinating, bright and full of warmth. My friend Norbert, for instance, made it a point to visit my mother during her many hospitalizations as a sign of respect for her age and a token of our friendship. He seldom so much as spoke with his own mother for years on end ­ because her village had no telephone.

So, as we mark 50 years in the Ghana-Israel relationship, I thought it worthwhile to reflect on where our two nations have been, where we are, and what we can realistically expect from each other.

FIRST TO where we¹ve been: It was foreign minister Golda Meir who, in 1957, sent Ehud Avriel to become Israel¹s first ambassador to Ghana, transforming our consulate in Accra into an embassy. Golda herself attended Ghana¹s first anniversary celebrations in 1958, later reminiscing: "I didn¹t have any illusions whatsoever about the fact that [Israel¹s] role [in providing aid to Africa] would inevitably be small, but I was fired by the prospect of going to a part of the world to which we were so new and which was so new to us."

Golda met with Ghana's first president, the pan-African hero Kwame Nkrumah. Taking in the statues and coins bearing his likeness, she concluded that the ³charming² Nkrumah had transformed himself into a "demigod." In her autobiography, Golda wrote that it was impossible not to admire Nkrumah ­ yet she found him less than candid and, in practice, unrealistic:

"He talked about the problems of Africa as though all that mattered was formal independence, and he seemed far less interested in discussing the development of Africa¹s resources, or even how he could raise the standard of life for his people. He talked on one level, and I talked on another. He talked about the glories of freedom, and I talked about education, public health, and the need for Africa to produce its own teachers, technicians and doctors."

Abba Eban, then our ambassador in the US, met Nkrumah in Washington in 1959, and found him "modest." Some years later, Eban wrote in his memoirs, he arrived in Accra and asked where he should go for his first appointment.

"I was informed that my driver would take me down Nkrumah Avenue, past Nkrumah University, and that on reaching Nkrumah Square, he would take me to my appointment with the nation¹s leader, whose title was The Redeemer. From this," Eban concluded, "I learned that modesty was a quality that could easily be overcome by a protracted taste of power."

DESPITE THIS political-cultural divide, Israel and Ghana enjoyed friendly relations. Jerusalem established dozens of development programs in a wide range of areas, and Israelis came to play a prominent role in Ghanaian construction and engineering projects. They helped Ghana set up its Black Star steamship company and trained its police force, air force pilots, doctors, dentists and veterinarians.

The relationship was by no means a one-way street, however. Ghana was the vanguard African nation. And Israel¹s connection with Accra was Jerusalem's gateway to diplomatic relations with 27 states in post-colonial Africa. By 1964, Israel was providing development assistance to dozens of countries on the continent.

For Israel, the African relationship was also psychologically important. The Jewish state wanted an outlet for its idealism ­ call it "Light unto the Nations Syndrome." Helping Africa allowed us to realize our altruistic aspirations. And with premier David Ben-Gurion focused on Israel's security and survival, the Foreign Ministry had substantial leeway in crafting an ambitious (even idealistic) African policy for Israel.

And yet, along every step of the way, Nkrumah was being challenged by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, father of pan-Arabism, whose political backing Nkrumah needed for his own pan-African aspirations, to explain Ghana's relationship with Israel. Arab countries used their leverage within African forums to push relentlessly for the "right" of Palestinian war refugees to return to their homes on the Israeli side of the 1949 Armistice Lines.

It¹s worth recalling that the nonaligned bloc ­ theoretically, countries that would not ally themselves with either Moscow or Washington ­ had been established at the 1956 Bandung Conference in Indonesia, just before Ghanaian independence. That¹s where Ghana's soon-to-be-president, Nkrumah, met and exchanged ideas with Third World luminaries including Nasser, Nehru, Ho Chi Minh and Zhou Enlai.

SOON AFTER independence, Nkrumah moved Ghana toward becoming a one-party socialist state. His leadership became ever more autocratic, his failed pan-African pretensions forcing the country to spend money it didn¹t have. A country which had become independent amid such high hopes sank into a morass of corruption and wastefulness.

Meanwhile, the more Ghana became "non-aligned," the more it tilted toward the Arabs. The January 1961 Casablanca Conference marked, in the words of University of Haifa political scientist Zach Levey, "the end of the special relationship between Israel and Ghana." Nkrumah signed a resolution promoted by Nasser "singling out Israel as the pillar of imperialism in Africa."

Still, at ambassador Avriel's urging, Israel¹s development aid to Ghana continued essentially until 1973 ­ when, in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Accra joined the rest of black Africa in cravenly bending to Arab desires by breaking ties with Israel.

The rupture was not only a political blow for Israel; it was an emotional one as well. Jerusalem's model for reaching beyond the Arabs using development aid in Africa had been shattered.

GHANA did not fare well on the course Nkrumah set. His regime was overthrown in 1966; another coup followed in 1972, yet another in 1979. Finally, in 1981, army lieutenant Jerry Rawlings seized control and created a stable populist regime. It tried to bring sanity to Ghana¹s socioeconomic affairs, though Rawlings was criticized for his regime's brutality toward political opponents.

To Rawlings's everlasting credit, in 2000 he facilitated a peaceful transition of power and the election of John Kufuor as president. Kufuor was reelected in 2004, in what outside observers attested was a fair campaign.

Sadly, though, given nearly 50 years of chronic political and economic instability, Ghana has suffered a demoralizing brain drain. Far too many of its best and brightest (using their Commonwealth connection) fled to Britain or the United States.

Still, Ghana's fortunes today are, relative to the rest of Africa, on the ascendant, as are the prospects of its 22 million people. Sixty-three percent are Christian; 16% Muslim and 21% traditional (though there is an overlap between those adhering to traditional African beliefs and Pentecostal/charismatic Christians).

Less than 3% of the Ghanaian population is HIV-positive compared with, say, 20% in Zimbabwe, 18% in South Africa, and 7% in Uganda. The country is rich in gold and cocoa; its per-capita income is $2,600, though much of the population lives on less than a dollar a day.

Subsistence agriculture engages 60% of its people; the World Bank puts the Ghanaian poverty level at 37%. And Ghana borrows heavily to stay afloat (38% of GDP is devoted to public debt). The country receives a staggering amount of international aid, but the consensus seems to be that it¹s actually doing good.

IN 1994, Israel and Ghana signed a renewal-of-relations agreement, and in 1996, Ghana reopened its mission in Tel Aviv. So where do Israel-Ghanaian relations stand today?

Ghanaian GBC Radio recently reported that Yossi Gal, the senior deputy director-general for political affairs at the Foreign Ministry, and other Israeli officials were in Accra on March 6 to attend the country's 50th anniversary celebrations.

It turns out that Israel's foreign policy decision-makers are keenly interested in nurturing closer ties with Ghana (and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa). But it strikes me that they have not been able to garner the attention of the political echelon. How else to explain that Israel couldn't muster a cabinet minister to attend the Accra festivities?

Today, Israel has diplomatic ties with 39 of the 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. African officials are regular visitors to Israel, and Nigerian Christians make frequent pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

Overall, Israelis returning from the continent report, with pride, that Israel's image is remarkably good.

Regrettably, however, despite the continent's importance to Israel, we have only nine embassies for all of Africa, making do with roving ambassadors. Thus Israel's ambassador to Ghana, Noam Katz, is actually stationed in Abuja, Nigeria. And despite Israel's appreciation of Ghana¹s weight in our Africa policy, its role as an island of democracy and its path of economic development, there is no Israeli embassy in Accra.

In 2006, trade between Ghana and Israel was relatively modest. Israel imported $6.5 million and exported $13.9 million worth of goods and services. Yet these numbers belie Ghana's true worth to Israel.

WHEN ISRAELIS look at today¹s Ghana, they see a country that is a major, responsible player in the international political arena, a leading contributor to UN peacekeeping efforts worldwide. Ghanaians staff the highest echelons of power in any number of international organizations (Kofi Annan, for instance, recently returned to Ghana after his tenure as UN secretary-general).

Ghana is also an important player in the Economic Community of West African States, as well as sitting on the International Atomic Energy Commission, where it recently voted with the West against Iran. It is currently one of 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, where it has been voting for sanctions against Teheran. And President John Kufuor chairs the 53-member African Union, successor to the Organization of African Unity.

All this may help explain why those who craft Israel's foreign policy want ­ despite an agenda necessarily dominated by the Arab-Israel conflict ­ to give a higher profile to Jerusalem¹s relationship with Africa in general, and Ghana in particular.

Israelis familiar with the issue say that current development aid to Africa is mostly free of any desire for a political quid pro quo. They say our involvement in Africa allows Jerusalem to spotlight the "good Israeli" and tap Judaism's tradition of tikkun olam or "mending the world." Israel's support for Africa goes beyond "doing the right thing." Helping where we can allows our national psyche to feel like we¹re a real country, like we have an existence outside the Arab-Israel conflict.

And while it's unlikely that the scope of our aid to Africa will ever replicate 1950s-60s levels, Israel today administers a variety of training and development projects for Africa, directed by the Foreign Ministry's Center for International Cooperation (Mashav), that do the Jewish state proud.

For example, Israelis have been instrumental in building a trauma center in Ghana¹s second-largest city, Kumasi. Israel¹s private sector is heavily involved in Ghanaian agriculture, dairy farming and fisheries. Solel Boneh and Rolider are renowned names in the Ghanaian construction sector.

TO THE extent that we expect any return from the Ghanaians, Israelis familiar with the country¹s involvement in Africa tell me that Jerusalem would like Accra¹s help in regaining its official observer status at the African Union. (The current list of 47 non-African observers includes such countries as Finland and Iceland.) Since Israel is actually the only country bordering Africa (in Sinai) and has a long history of positive involvement with the continent, it strikes me that Jerusalem does deserve an observer slot. This is a message that Israel has repeatedly, and so far unsuccessfully, sent to Ghana.

What would we do if we got our observer status back? While Israel doesn¹t seem to want a say in African affairs, it views the African Union as a venue for facilitating a dialogue with Africa.

I ASKED some Ghanaians I met what their country expected from its relationship with Israel. Topping the agenda, they said, is for Israel to station an ambassador in Accra. They had thought this would happen when relations were reestablished. In a recent speech, Ghana¹s ambassador to Israel, Nana Owusu-Nsiah, called on Israel to send a resident ambassador to Accra, "for more meaningful bilateral cooperation."

At the very least, the Ghanaians told me, they'd like to see an Israeli consulate in their nation¹s capital. If an Israeli wants to visit Ghana, the applicant needs to spend about an hour filling out forms at Ghana¹s embassy in Ramat Gan. But if a Ghanaian in Accra wants to visit Israel, he needs to travel to Abuja, Nigeria ­ easily a day¹s journey ­ to the nearest Israeli consulate.

Ghanaians would also like to see Israel make it easier for them to work here legally. They asked why the Israeli government won¹t reach a deal with their government to allow, say, 400-500 Ghanaians to work here for a three-year period. Their talents could easily be put to use in our hotel industry and in practical nursing of the elderly. After three years the Ghanaian workers would go home, with badly needed hard currency, and a new batch would replace them.

If you want better relations, the Ghanaians said, why not show some reciprocity?

A number of high-level Ghanaian officials and delegations have been to Israel in recent months, but almost no ranking Israelis have traveled to Ghana. It boggles the mind that when a country like Ghana asks for greater engagement, Israel's political echelon responds with indifference.

Ghanaians I spoke with also expressed frustration that too few Israeli businesspeople were taking advantage of opportunities in Ghana. Granted, they said, Ghana's bureaucracy can be off-putting. On the other hand, numerous incentives, guarantees and tax abatements make doing business in Ghana worthwhile. Ghanaians would welcome private-sector collaboration in any number of spheres, especially electricity, water purification and water distribution.

ISRAEL FINDS itself in a striking position: A country with huge influence in international affairs has repeatedly asked for our government to fulfill its commitment and station an ambassador in its capital, but for reasons beyond my ken, Israel is dragging its heels.

Not that we need more reasons to cozy up to Ghana, but here's another: Ghana plays a unique role for an important segment of the African American community ­ including members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Many black Americans trace their ancestors¹ forced exile out of Africa and into slavery to the Gold Coast. For its part, Ghana maintains a diaspora affairs minister to nurture its special relationship with the black diaspora. Closer ties between Accra and Jerusalem couldn't hurt the efforts of the pro-Israel community in Washington to solidify African American support for Israel.

THESE DAYS Africa still needs to be redeemed ­ not so much in the Herzlian sense, but from poverty, disease and despair. Of course, Israel has its own staggering societal and security problems, and there are those who¹d say that Israel itself is in need of redemption.

Yet myopic and insular policies are unlikely to bring us the deliverance we seek. The more we reach out beyond the confines of the Arab-Israel conflict, the greater the chances of fulfilling our Zionist aspirations of normalcy, and our Jewish aspirations of being an light unto the nations.