Elliot Jager's Blog On Jewish Civilization

Monday, April 29, 2013

Mechina Academies: Israel's Gap-Year Phenomenon"

My latest piece, "Mechina Academies: Israel's

Gap-Year Phenomenon"

now available to subscribers of the

Christian Zionist magazine

"Israel My

Glory

"http://www.foi.org/magazine/

May/June issue

Thursday, April 04, 2013

'Depressed,' 'Sad,' Childless Men?

Here's a study that's garnered lots of attention.

"Researcher Robin Hadley carried out a survey of 81 women and 27 men who did not have children, and asked them if they wanted them. He found that men were almost as likely as women to want children — 59 percent to 63 percent — but actually more likely than women to feel depressed, angry and jealous if they didn’t have them."

Now, I have no way to evaluate the validity of the thesis which claims that men who want children but don't have any feel more isolated, depressed, even angry than women similarly situated.

Sociologist Robin Hadley of Keele University (which is located in North Staffordshire halfway between Manchester and Birmingham) acknowledges that his results are in no way a statistical representation of British society.

I'm not surprised by how much attention the results of Hadley's online questionnaire has earned.

The reason may be that men's feelings and attitudes about being childless are seldom explored.

Abbas Inflames the 'Street' -- Adheres to intransigent negotiating line

Tension high today in Jerusalem in advance of funeral of Hamas terrorist -- he planned to blow up the Caffit cafe on Emek Raf'im -- who died of cancer in prison.

It's a tension orcastrated by the Palestinian leadership or leaderships.

Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas is meanwhile telling US Sec of State John Kerry that he will give the US about a year to pressure Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines, accept the "right" of Palestinian Arabs and their descendants who became permanent refugees to "return" to a truncated Israel -- or he will seek these same goals via the automatic majority the Arabs enjoy at the UN.

So Abbas and Hamas compete for the Palestinian Street by ratcheting up anti-Israel violence. While Abbas collects his salary from well-meaning Western donors.

Too bad Abbas isn't interested in a peace deal. Too bad he won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

With all the chaos in the Arab world too bad Abbas is not a force for genuine moderation.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Talking Points -- 2013 Israeli Elections -- the morning after

I suspected something was up when Lisa and I did our "stroll poll" and came upon neighbors and friends who told us that they'd voted for Yair Lapid.

Earlier, my father-in-law, voting for the first time in Israel and after weeks of thoughtful reflection, told us he'd be voting for Lapid.

Was this a trend in the making?

Turns out the answer was yes.

So here are some basic talking points the morning after.

Big Picture

PM Netanyahu emerges weakened but still Israel's next PM

- Likud + YB held 42 seats together; now they'll be down to 31. And they've already said they are not going to stay a unified faction.

- It was an unhappy merger.

- Keep in mind the Likud Party does not reflect not Bibi (he's more centrist, the party "members" less so)

Centrist party Yesh Atid, new player, emerges.

PM and Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett want “broadest coalition possible.”

Centrist electorate didn't disappear – as Amotz Asa El says, it simply found new home(s)

Israelis are asking for a moderate governing coalition in voting for Yesh Atid and Labor lite

There has been no political re-alignment. No Right-Left shift. The blocs are technically tied.

Remember "right" and "left" don't mean the same things in Israel as in the US. Shas is "right" theologically, "left" economically and, basically, dovish on security.

We the electorate chose from a losuy menu

So here are the 8AM Jerusalem numbers (without soldiers & prisoners etc.)

NB Israel does not have winner take all system. The only losers are those who don't cross the electoral threshold – no party has ever ruled alone --- coalition building is next stage – see "what next" below….

Likud-Beytenu 31 [Shalom and Feiglin –most prominent Likud talking heads] [People want-- though don't trust –Bibi, but they neither trust nor want his party]

Yesh Atid: 19

Labor: 15 [lost by pledging not to participate in coalition/dumb] [Labor lite—de-emphasized foreign policy/smart]

NRP /Habayit: 11 (NB captured NRP from old guard] [a return to the Old NRP influence with new NRP values]

Shas: 11 [lost to two Sephardic schismatic parties that didn't cross threshold] [Deri return a bust]

UTJ: 7

Meretz: 6 [picked up from less leftist Labor]

Livni: 6 [the Area 51 vote]

Mofaz: 2

Arabs: 12

The stats in Hebrew as of 8 AM

הליכוד - ישראל ביתנו	מחל	23.25%	832,099
יש עתיד	פה	14.19%	507,879
העבודה	אמת	11.45%	409,685
ש"ס	שס	8.83%	316,151
הבית היהודי	טב	8.76%	313,646
יהדות התורה	ג	5.31%	189,931
התנועה	צפ	5.02%	179,818
מרצ	מרץ	4.59%	164,150
הרשימה הערבית המאוחדת	עם	3.80%	135,830
חד"ש	ו	3.12%	111,685
בל"ד	ד	2.66%	95,312
קדימה	כן	2.09%	74,735
עוצמה לישראל	נץ	1.73%	61,825
עם שלם	ץ	1.20%	43,095
ע

Who is Lapid?

Telegenic celebrity; columnist; son of Tommy; Middle Class Israel; Tel Aviv Icon

“What is good for Israel is not in the possession of the right, and nor is it in the possession of the left. It lies in the possibility of creating here a real and decent center.”

--anti-Haredi

--pro-business

--pragmatic on security

--quintessential middle class

--Yair Lapid called on senior members of the political establishment to do everything in their power to form a government that is as broad as possible in order to face the challenges before Israel.

-- Said Israel was facing an economic crisis that threatened to shatter the middle class, mounting international criticism, and security threats.

--Acknowledged the weight of the responsibility he was now shouldering, and recalled the similar situation faced by his father, Yosef Lapid when the latter was leader of the Shinui party

Who is Shelli Yachimovich? (Labor)

-- Convinced that the election results amount to a resounding vote of no-confidence in Binyamin Netanyahu,

-- Labor would serve as a fighting opposition and would work to topple the government soon

What did Bennett say last night?

-- his party had returned to the center of the political map,

-- Israel had “returned to itself.”

-- new home for those in search of a proud, non-servile Zionism

Is there a consensus on FP?

All major Zionist parties – Likud, Yesh Atid & Labor skeptical of the Palestinian leadership’s willingness to negotiate

What Bibi Got Wrong

Tone: on FP

Columnist Ari Shavit, a for the hard-Left newspaper Haaretz: “This was a lesson in how not to run a campaign.”

Better to ask what he got right—not much.

The Real agenda…

--domestic: economy; Haredim; oligarchic capitalism

-- $10 billion budget deficit

--Iranian nuclear program

--upheaval in Arab world security threat to Israel

-- unknown unknowns (revolution in Jordan); war with Egypt; reassessment with US and Europe etc etc

Turnout

Turnout was nearly 67 percent, higher than the 65 percent in 2009

3,616,947

What next?

Build a coalition…

Likud + Yesh Atid == obvious

>>> next pieces of the block far more problematic

+add NRP

+add Labor? -- ideal for pragmatist/though unlikely

+add Haredim – recipe for paralysis

+NB Haredim and settlers have differences

oi vey

Wildcard (science fiction)

Peres asks Lapid to form government – he turns to Labor, Likud (Likud fragments) Kadima and Livni – highly unlikely scenario -- could pull together 48 seats plus 15 Likud moderates led by Bib --

How'd the polls do?

aggregate of early polls gave Likud /Lieberman 42-- closing polls 34

Labor 20:17

NRP12: 13

truth is major polls weren't that far off (even predicted Kadima with 2; Meretz with 6; livni with 7

Media Reaction

Yediot Aharonot:

* A Blow for Netanyahu, A Surge for Lapid

* The Father of the Failure

* A Vote of No-Confidence

Ma’ariv:

* The Right Wing Weakens; A Blow for Netanyahu; the Big Winner Is Yair Lapid

* Protest Vote

* Forget About A “Blocking Majority”

Haaretz:

* Spectacular Achievement for Yair Lapid; Disenchantment in Likud

* Netanyahu Has a Future

* Why Netanyahu Failed

Makor Rishon

* 2013 Elections: Setback for Likud Beiteinu; Major Accomplishment for Lapid

* The message: Social Agenda

* Netanyahu Lost Because of Fear

Israel Hayom

* Surprise for Lapid. Disappointment for Netanyahu

* Possibility for Stability

* The Lessons of the Elections

Stay tuned.

In Israel elections aren't over the morning after the election but the morning after a coalition deal is signed between the various parties….

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Budapest Blues -

"Be sure not to wear a kippa on the street," a veteran Hungarian-Israeli businessman cautioned as we deplaned at Budapest's Ferihegy Airport. I took warnings to be Jewishly discreet to heart throughout our visit to the Hungarian capital. In fact, the only time I was made to feel out-and-out uncomfortable was at the airport on our way back to Israel when two uniformed officials, one staffing the screening machine and the other a customs desk, separately, went out of their way to be antagonistic to me and another El Al passenger.

Even as they confirmed that anti-Jewish sentiment was spiking, Israeli medical students, longtime Israeli ex-pats as well as members of the local community seemed inured. Security is tight at all Jewish institutions though apparently the threat stems less from Islamists than from locals. In fact, Muslim visitors have not been immune to attacks from local thugs and I saw few women in traditional Muslim dress. Some Roma (Gypsy) feel under siege. And, strikingly, unlike other European capitals there are no African street vendors.

From a tourist's vantage point, Budapest appears clean, orderly and safe. Away from the pedestrianized streets, upscale malls, tourist restaurants and pubs catering to the soccer-obsessed, however, these are hard times in Hungary. The country is part of the EU though not the euro zone. A copy of the weekly English-language Budapest Times, for example, costs an inflated 750 forints (about NIS 13 or $3.25). Unemployment stands at over 11 percent, though considerably higher among young people. One in four Hungarians has had problems paying their utility bills, the newspaper reported.

The populist-oriented government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban finds it politick to kowtow to Gabor Vona's ultra right-wing Jobbik Party which holds 46 out of 386 parliamentary seats. There are credible rumors afloat that Jobbik has received financial backing from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Embarrassingly, a regional Jobbik leader, Csanad Szegedi, recently learned that he had Jewish ancestry. With one genetic firm offering dubious tests to establish racial purity, Jobbik leaders now allow that, perhaps, what really matters is to behave like a Hungarian.

While I was in Budapest, Elie Wiesel repudiated a Hungarian state award he had received in 2004 because government officials recently attended a ceremony for World War II-era Nazi sympathizer Jozsef Nyiro. For the same reason, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin disinvited his Hungarian counterpart, László Kövér, from a Jerusalem ceremony honoring Raoul Wallenberg. Instead, President Janos Ader will represent Hungary.

Dominated by the Danube, Budapest is a charming river city incorporated only in 1873 with the integration of Buda, Pest and Obuda. Today's Hungarians are the progeny of the Magyars who invaded from central Asia in the 9^th century. Their dogged paganism was bloodily overcome by Christianity, circa 1000. As for the Jewish presence, there have been Jews in Buda on and off since the 11^th century; in Pest and Obuda since the 1400s. Jewish fortunes were always subject to the capricious whims of Christian authorities. Not surprisingly, Jews preferred the comparatively broadminded Ottoman rulers to Christian overlords. The 150 years of Islamic administration ended by the late 1600s. Only in 1840 were Jews no longer officially restricted from settling in Pest.

The "golden era" of Hungary Jewry, upheavals such as the Blood Libel of 1882-1883 notwithstanding, mostly coincided with the height of the Austria-Hungary Empire (1867-1919) as emancipated, mostly German-speaking Jews pursued acculturation, assimilation, and economic and cultural advancement. This was the Budapest milieu into which Theodor Herzl and Max Nordau (and also Joseph Pulitzer) were born.

The Jewish community built synagogues, schools, mikvaot and colleges (since Jews could not routinely attend Hungarian ones). The stunning Moorish-style Dohany Street Synagogue, affiliated with the once dominant Neolog stream was built in 1859 (well before the nearby Basilica) using a state-of-the-art cast-iron foundation. The structure is able to accommodate 3,000 worshippers and was testimony to the confidence Hungarians of the Jewish persuasion had about their prospects given that it was completed before they were granted their right to citizenship in 1867.

Even today it is one of the biggest synagogues in the world. The edifice was refurbished after decades of Communist-era neglect with the help of Bronx-born Hungarian Jewish actor Tony Curtis and the Lauder foundation.

On a recent Shabbat morning fewer than 100 locals and tourists gathered for services. The organ, actually played by a non-Jewish woman, remains integral to the liturgy. Egalitarianism, however, is not embraced. Men and women sit separately in the sanctuary and women play no role in the services.

The synagogue's interior courtyard is a graveyard and memorial to the city's Jews murdered during the Holocaust.

The compound is also home to the Jewish museum and impressive archives, described by senior historian Gabor Kadar as the one of the few continuous surviving community archives of the continent.

Herzl lived in a building that once stood in what is today the Dohany compound. The small square in front of the shul is named after him though in its prime the Dohany elders were anything but Zionists.

Nearby are some other architecturally interesting synagogues: the "status quo" traditionalist Rombach (1872) and the Orthodox Kazinczy (1913). The dilapidated Rombach is open to tourists but does not hold services. Further afield, I attended an inspiring Friday night service at the (traditionalist conservative) Frankel Leo Street Synagogue which has been rejuvenated by Tamas Vero, its dynamic rabbi and his wife, children's book author, Linda Vero-Ban. There was a parallel children's service; a dozen young women lit Shabbat candles, and part of the service was beautifully chanted by a cantor who also happens to be an opera singer. Again, women play no role in the service and sit separately in the sanctuary, but there was a genuine sense of community.

We ate Shabbat lunch with Chabad -- across the street from the Dohany -- which caters mainly to Israelis living in Budapest. While waiting for davening to end, I met a Holocaust survivor visiting from Australia. Accompanied by his son and grandsons he was visiting the concentration camps he had survived to memorialize members of their family who had perished. Though he did not hold the right papers, he had somehow managed to find refuge in the protected "International Ghetto" for Jews who carried life-saving passports from neutral countries.

As a Jew, you simply can't visit Budapest without encountering the Holocaust and what preceded it. The interwar years were punishing as Jews were made to pay the price for having been in the vanguard of two leftists revolutions that convulsed Hungary after the First World War. By 1938, discriminatory laws were well codified.

Under Miklós Horthy, Hungary sided with Nazi Germany and thousands of Jews were conscripted into dreadful labor battalions. Polish Jews living in Hungary were summarily expelled only to be murdered by the Nazis. A rescue committee headed by the controversial Rudolf Kastner was later established to assist Slovakian Jews who sought refuge in Hungary. Whatever outsiders may think, Kastner is remembered fondly in the Dohany compound.

Germany entered Hungary only in March 1944. By July, close to 450,000 Jews from the countryside were deported by the Hungarian authorities to Nazi concentration camps under Adolf Eichmann’s personal supervision. Budapest is also where Switzerland's Charles Lutz and Sweden's Raoul Wallenberg heroically used their diplomatic offices to save as many Jews as possible. (Lutz was punished by the Swiss government for exceeding his authority; Wallenberg disappeared into the Soviet Gulag).

In October 1944, as Horthy wavered in his fidelity to Berlin, the fascist Arrow Cross took direct control of the country. Death marches, pogroms and extermination followed. In November-December tens of thousands of Budapest's Jews were herded into a ghetto in a compact area bordered roughly by the Rombach, Kazinczy and Dohany synagogues.

Many other thousands remained confined to the “International Ghetto.” But in early January 1945 the fascists stopped honoring its neutrality. By the time the Red Army conquered Budapest on January 16, half of Hungary's Jewish population – some 564,000 souls -- had been wiped out.

Then, as was the case elsewhere in eastern Europe, there were pogroms carried out by the locals against Jews who had survived the war.

When the communists took over in 1948-1949, Hungary still boasted one of the largest Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. (There were many more Jews in the Soviet Union.) Thousands would flee in the wake of the 1956 uprising against the Soviets. Yet relative to the Soviet Union, Hungary's Communist rulers allowed a semblance of organized Jewish life.

Which brings me to today. The community numbers somewhere between 80,000 to 120,000, many of whom are unaffiliated and Jewishly illiterate. Some discovered only recently from elderly or dying relatives that they are Jewish.

With all that historical baggage, and without minimizing the difficulties, Hungarian Jewish life appears resurgent stoked financially from abroad by family foundations such as the Rothschild, Balint and Lauders and by Jewish Federations from the US, the JDC and the Dutch JHF. The real burden on the ground falls to the locals who patronize and maintain the JCC, kosher bakery, grocery, restaurants, café, shops, mikva and chevra kadesha.

It would be easier to be optimistic about Hungary's Jewish future were its political elites actively promoting the kind of tolerance that needs to go hand-in-hand with Western-style democracy and if public opinion surveys did not show it to be among the most anti-Semitic country in Europe.

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