February 28, 2008 | 3:14 pm

The WGA strike is over, but what will it mean for YouTube videos?

Posted by JewishJournal.com

The WGA strike is over, the picket lines are gone, and now, thankfully, the screenwriters can go back to being out of work.

But will they make more videos like this?

—Dennis Wilen

February 26, 2008 | 2:38 pm

The ‘red alarm’ has just sounded and you have 15 seconds to take shelter—welcome to Sderot

Posted by JewishJournal.com

What can you do in 15 seconds?  Where can you hide?

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February 22, 2008 | 3:32 pm

‘The Last Words of Daniel Pearl’ YouTube video tops 100,000 views

Posted by Dennis Wilen

When I got the idea to shoot a webcam video with Danny Pearl’s parents (Judea and Ruth)  discussing Danny’s last words (“I am Jewish”), I never imagined that a year later it would have been watched by over 100,000 YouTube viewers.

Dr. Pearl e-mailed me to point out the numbers: ‘Impressive production,’ he wrote.

I never wanted any fame from this video; I didn’t even credit myself in the production.

I wish we never had to make a video like this.  And I thank the Pearls for showing amazing courage and heart—they are examples of tolerance and respect for others all of us can learn from.

You can find Judea Pearl’s columns for The Jewish Journal here.

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February 21, 2008 | 3:14 pm

Orit in Israel: I was an instant Israeli paparazza

Posted by JewishJournal.com

I became a member of the Israeli paparazzi for a night.

I didn’t mean to, but I was at the Ben Gurion airport, waiting for my mother to be dropped off by relatives in Tel Aviv, so that I could see her off back to LA. I was getting over a cold, and right before I left my apartment in Jerusalem, I put on baggy jeans and an oversized, paint-stained sweatshirt, wanting to be comfortable, thinking “who am I going to see at the airport.”

So I’m waiting for my mom in the departure hall when I notice a skinny man with an E! channel microphone and a few other photographers. What American celebrity is coming to Israel, I wonder? With my reporter’s radar up, I approach one photographer. Turns out the cast of the film Beaufort is on its way to LA for the Oscars. I saw the movie and read the book (in Hebrew, no less). Don’t get me wrong—they were both good—but all this press for a few Israeli actors going to a freakin’ airport? They are not Britney

All of a sudden, just as my mother calls, the paparazzi sprints to another entrance. There Israeli actors Oshri Cohen and Eli Altonia (who, I later learn, are Israel’s movie “stars”) roll in with their carts. I go to help my mom with her luggage and escort her to area D for her non-stop El Al flight to LA, but my eyes keep wandering off to the flashes. I remember I have my digital camera in my bag. As my mom waits for security check, I dash back to the flash fest. I could hardly get a shot, and I realized the story isn’t the actors: but the paparazzi. Maybe Bar Rafaeli is right…Israeli paparazzi has a lot of chutzpah. The two actors could hardly move with their carts after the ambush. Some passersby had trouble getting through the aisles. “What is this?” one blonde asked in English.

Some guy from Channel 10 randomly shoved a videocam in my face too—without any warning—and asked me what I thought. I looked at the stains on my sweatshirt, hoping they’re not noticeable and told him, “This is not America!”

I return to my mom who is waiting to check-in her bags, and the desk clerk jokes that she could seat my mom next to a celebrity. I perk-up. “Where is he?” I asked. He was a few counters down, waiting in line with everyone else, only with a bunch of photographers clamoring around him for the glamorous shot of the actors in the airport. That’s it. I thought. If no one will beat ‘em up, join ‘em. I rush to the counter, whip out my camera and tell Oshri in English that I’m from The Jewish Journal. (I knew Naomi [Pfeffermann] would be proud.)

Oshri is on his cell phone, so I try to wait politely, but I admit it was hard. I’m feeling the paparazzi spirits running through me, and I want my shot! Finally he gets off the phone and I shove my camera in his face. It didn’t matter what I asked him, did it? It only mattered that I got him. This is the result.

I left before he even got his baggage on the turnstile. I felt like a horrible person—or rather like a scavenging animal. People need to catch a freakin’ plane! The security guard was looking at all of us like we were fools. I don’t think the airport was expecting this.

Maybe the Israeli paparazzi converged on these guys because it’s their vicarious chance at the red carpet. Or maybe the pictures are worth a lot of money, but I doubt that. Maybe there’s an adrenaline rush when you get that shot that no one else could get.

I can only wish Oshri the same paparazzi treatment where it really matters—in LA.

—Orit in Israel

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February 19, 2008 | 11:03 am

Contest, contest at the mall, who’s the fairest of them all?

Posted by JewishJournal.com

This video follows Orit in Israel’s participation in the “Prettiest of Women” beauty pageant held on Valentine’s Day at the Israel Mall, Talpiot, in Jerusalem.

There were 13 contestants total. Click to see how it all turned out . . .

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February 17, 2008 | 5:23 pm

It’s official, Jews are more like Jews than they are like non-Jews

Posted by JewishJournal.com

Thanks to Brad A. Greenberg, The God Blogger, for tipping me off to this JPost article on a special interest of mine, Jews as family—Jewish genetics.

Genetics and the Jewish identity
[Daily Edition]
Jerusalem Post - Jerusalem
Author: DIANA MUIR APPELBAUM; PAUL S. APPELBAUM; MD
Date: Feb 12, 2008
Start Page: 13
Section: Features
Text Word Count: 2542
Abstract (Document Summary)

Genetic researchers have not neglected more than 90% of Jews who are neither kohanim nor Levi’im. They began with good reason to suspect that a great deal of mixing had taken place during the millennia of dispersion. People had noticed, after all, that the pale-skinned redheads common in Lithuanian Jewish communities do not look much like petite, dark-haired Jews from Yemen. It was assumed that Jews were bound more by tradition than by genetic kinship, that in the distant past Jewish men had followed opportunity to some far-off city, married local girls, persuaded them to separate the meat and milk dishes and founded new Jewish communities. Moreover, it was believed non-Jewish ancestors had continued to mix into the Jewish community. The idea that the traditional story - Jews driven into exile faithfully marrying only fellow Jews - might be largely true was startling. And yet, so it seems.

More studies have been carried out on the genetic history of the Jews than on most ethnic groups, perhaps because there are so many Jewish doctors to take advantage of the fabled willingness of Jews to participate in research. These studies not only show that almost all Jewish populations have origins in the Middle East, but that the DNA of Jews from almost every corner of the Diaspora is more similar to that of other Jews than to any other population. When compared with non-Jewish groups, the closest match is with the Muslims of Kurdistan, not with the European peoples alongside whom Ashkenazi Jews lived for centuries or the Arab neighbors of many Sephardi populations.

The utility of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) studies is demonstrated by recent findings concerning one of the least known Jewish groups: the Bene Israel, descendents of 6,000 Jews “discovered” on the west coast of India by Jewish traders from Baghdad in the 1830s. They carry the kohen modal haplotype along with other Middle Eastern genetic markers, and have substantial mtDNA found only in the Indian population among whom they lived - always keeping the Sabbath - for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. From the genetic evidence, it looks as though a small group of Jews, all or mostly male, arrived on the Indian coast, married local women and built a Jewish community.

The B’nai Menashe—Indian Jews—return to Israel

I’ve written about other studies that have gotten similar results; this new study confirms one of the things I was always taught—we are a family—descendants of Avraham Avinu.

What ever else we know about our story as told in the TaNaKh, we do know this.

Am Yisrael Chai! 

עם ישראל חי

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February 15, 2008 | 5:10 pm

Baruch Obama music video includes Hebrew, was directed by Bob Dylan’s son Jesse

Posted by JewishJournal.com

I love this music video (above), and its anti-video (which parodies the style to skewer McCain) but I never noticed that one of the “yes we can” lyrics was actually in Hebrew (ken, anu yecholim) sung by Israeli-born actress Maya Rubin ; and I certainly just learned that it was bankrolled and directed by Jesse Dylan, Bob Dylan’s son.

All this thanks to our friends at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

With ordinary folks contributing remarkable videos like these, who can doubt that this year’s electemization will feature the greatest voter turnout in history?

I keep thinking of this old Dylan lyric (pay attention, Super Delegates!):

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

—Dennis Wilen

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February 8, 2008 | 11:33 am

Orit in Israel:  Just say ‘no’ to the Jewish state

Posted by JewishJournal.com

At the risk of losing some loyal fans and readers who have considered me their dear defender of the Jewish state, I’m coming out of the closet as a detractor of its current incarnation. No longer will I silently obey the exhortations of the Jewish community that I support the Zionist dream. I will unabashedly admit that this Jewish State is no longer a supreme value in my life.

The main reason for this: the “Jewish State” no longer really means anything. All too often it is an empty idol worshiped by the Jewish community and Israeli citizens to which the happiness and rights of individual Jews are routinely sacrificed.

The “Jewish state” means something different to so many Jews, just as the term “Jewish” does. For many Jews today—from Reform to Orthodox—the Jewish state simply means a political entity with a Jewish majority. This ranks the citizen’s race and religion as the top criteria for determining the state’s Jewish nature. This definition creates an obsession with Jewish demography, leading the State to view Jews as chess pieces on the board game of its borders. This definition is what has allowed 9,000 Jews to be cruelly uprooted from their homes in Gaza in the summer of August 2005 for the sake of the “Jewish majority.” A state can have many Jews, but what if most of those Jews are criminals? Of what value then is a Jewish majority?

Some consider a state “Jewish” if its leaders are Jewish. Give me a wise, righteous gentile over the power-hungry, incompetent Olmert any day. A leader’s Jewish blood does not guarantee justice for the Jews.

For the more liberal elements of the Jewish population, “Jewish” translates into altruism, compassion and self-sacrifice. These Jews, many of whom have no solid backing in the pshat (plain meaning) of Jewish texts, interpret Judaism to make it a competitor for Christianity in touting the virtue of altruism. As a light unto the nations, Jews must exhibit chesed, kindness, and that includes giving the poor Palestinians a state, ensuring the terrorist nest in Gaza receives humanitarian aid and care, removing all checkpoints even at the risk of terror infiltration. I’m afraid the Jewish state won’t last much longer if it’s too kind.

And then there are the more religious, conservative elements who translate the “Jewish” state as a state governed by halachah. Halachah is a system of law that has developed throughout the years, particularly in the Diaspora, replete with rituals that do not necessarily translate into the just governance and management of a country. Furthermore, halachah has all too often become obsessed with the small ritual details over the broad ethical principles of the Torah, such as the Ten Commandments. I for one do not want to live in a Jewish state in which I am forced to eat kosher or keep Shabbat. For me, keeping the minutiae of halachah is the not the ikar, the main essence, of what it means to be a Jew.

Some define the Jewish state as a state which employs Jewish symbols and holidays. When I have to deal with draconian Israeli bureaucracy, exorbitant taxation, and countless parking tickets, I am not comforted by the fact that my legal notices are imprinted with the state symbol of a menorah. Especially after being dragged out of a synagogue in Neve Dekalim in Gush Katif by soldiers wearing caps and vests imprinted with the Jewish star and menorah, I don’t view state symbols with joy and excitement. Countless of Jews in the Diaspora are not rushing to live the Jewish state because they are eager for a passport with a menorah on its cover.

At the end of the day, no matter how religious Jews are or aren’t, what most truly seek is to live a happy, fulfilled life. If the Jewish state is a state that doesn’t create the conditions for its Jewish citizens to pursue happiness: to realize themselves creatively, to feel secure crossing the street and its borders, to start businesses with undue hassle, to worship their form of Judaism, then of what true value is the Jewish state? For what are we really fighting? A symbol? A border? A piece of real estate?

What then, you might ask, would make the Jewish state different from the United States of America? There is a reason why the Unites States was called the New Zion. Let us not forget that many of the Founding Fathers of the United States were inspired by Scripture—only they looked towards the broad ideals of liberty and justice that permeate the Biblical tradition, not the ritual minutia, not the gushy moralism.

Like an individual, every nation has its own character and history. I uphold the necessity of a state to provide Jews refuge from persecution and to give Jews full cultural and religious expression on their soil. But those values will only take Jews so far if, on that soil, Jews are not protected from harm by its enemies, from government corruption, or from state-sponsored suppression of individual rights.

When the state of Israel gives every single Jews the opportunity to truly flourish and thrive, each according to his or her inalienable rights—and the Jewish symbols stand for that—I will be a proud defender of the Jewish state. I won’t mind if a sizeable Arab population lives within it, so long as they too uphold right of Jews to pursue happiness. I guess you could say my vision for Israel is a pure theocracy, where God translates into an objective, rational, moral rule of law that guards the unfolding of the human—and Jewish—spirit in all its beauty.

—Orit in Israel

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