July 29, 2007 | 9:09 pm

A picture is worth how many words exactly?

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JewishJournal.com’s latest ‘7 Days in the Arts’ weekly feature is getting three or four times as many page views as similar stories.  The story’s URL is spreading virally, via e-mail.

Could it be one of the photos illustrating the story is extra special?

This photo, perhaps, of ‘Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad?’

—Dennis Wilen

July 29, 2007 | 5:40 pm

Blogs are so vicious (according to Fox News, anyhow)

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—Dennis Wilen

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August 14, 2006 | 10:57 am

[Amy]: Who knows what to think anymore?

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The heat has abated somewhat in Israel on Monday morning.

Maybe the cease-fire has something to with it.

Maybe. Who knows what to think anymore?

I came to Israel two weeks ago in the middle of the war without a suitcase but with my American belief there was another way. That, contrary to Israelis’ mantra, “we had no choice,” there was another choice. That Israel was entering its very own unwise Iraq. That a ceasefire would be best for both parties.

But I’ve spent two weeks here, hardly in the war zones at all. I’ve spoken to a panoramic—schizophrenic—array of people: Left-wing Israelis, Israelis under fire, taxi-drivers, right-wing American immigrants, West Bank settlers, dismantled settlers, dislocated Northerners.

The news is no help either.

Read Ha’aretz or Ma’ariv and you get a completely different picture.

The war was necessary/the war was unpreventable/ the war was bungled. The army is going too much/too soft/too scattered. The ceasefire is a victory/a failure/an embarrassment.

Who knows what to think anymore?

“Reservists say they are ordered in for ten minutes, then pull back, then go in again,” a woman tells me today in the Judean Hills. “They are getting mixed messages. Israel is only using 20% of its strength.”

Watch CNN you get a different picture.

An Israeli commentator on a midnight news analysis show says we have no stomach to fight a real war. The host argues that you can’t fight against a guerrilla army successfully.

Who knows what to think anymore?

At least 154 Israelis were killed in the war; 115 of them were soldiers.

Hundreds of Lebanese were reportedly killed. “It’s not the same thing,” my settler friend says. But still.

Israeli novelist David Grossman’s son was killed in battle on Saturday. For many, this death was more shocking, if possible.

Perhaps it personalized the war for those few who had no relatives or friends in it; perhaps it’s because it happened to a national icon; or perhaps it hit the intelligentsia, because one of its heroes had suffered a fatal blow.

Uri Grossman, 20, died two days after his father came out publicly with novelists Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua demanding a ceasefire. They spoke to their son Saturday night, who was happy about the cease-fire.  His tank was hit a few hours later. Ha’aretz reported that ever since the war broke out, the Grossmans had been worried about their middle of three children. Did they know? Or were they just like everyone else, scared to death for the soldiers.

Meanwhile, everyone is skeptical about the ceasefire. Some think it will last days, others think a regional war is just around the corner. In any case, northerners aren’t returning to their homes just yet and reservists are advised to hang out “just in case.”

Who knows what to think anymore? There are people who do—many, many, here and in the United States—but their certitude makes me more dubious.

I listen on the radio to a song by Sarit Hadad. She’s not particularly religious, but this anthem is:

Kshehalev bohe rak elokim shomea
Hake-ev ole metoh haneshama
Adam nofel lifne shehu shokea
Vetfilat ktana hoteh et hadmama
Shma Israel elohay ata hakol yahol
Natata li et hayay natata li hakol
Beenay dima halev bohe besheket
Oo’kshe halev shotek haneshama zo-eket
Shma Israel elohay ahshav ani levad
Hazek oti elokay asse shelo efhad
Hake-ev gadol veen lean livroah
Asse shehigamer ki lo notar bi koah

When the heart cries, only God hears
The pain comes from the soul
A man falls before he invests
In a small prayer that cuts through the tears.
Shema Yisrael My God, you are Almighty!
You gave me my life, you gave me everything
In my eye is a tear, the heart cries silently.
And when the heart is silent the soul screams.
Shema Yisrael My God, I am alone now.
Strengthen me, my God, make me unafraid.
The pain is great, there is no place to run.
Make it end, because I have no strength left.

—Amy Klein

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August 11, 2006 | 12:10 pm

[Amy]: Shabbat is coming, and the war goes on

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A woman on the street is shouting into her cellphone a recipe for “pashtida”—a quiche, kugel.

The Mahane Yehuda market is bustling—people practically trample each other to buy fruit and vegetables in this Jerusalem open air market.

It’s a market that had been the site of many terror attacks in the past, but on this Friday, the war is somewhere else, up North.

As the world watches the UN resolutions—cease-fire/no cease-fire/yes cease-fire—security is raised in America from yellow to orange to red, and airports go crazy, barring even toothpaste from flights, here in Israel the attacks in the North go on, and the costs keep rising.

Fifteen soldiers were killed yesterday. “I don’t know if I would be upset if I lived in America and I heard 15 soldiers died in Iraq,” a friend of mine says. She’d be upset, but she wouldn’t be crying, like she is here, over the baby-faced 20-somethings who just lost their lives. “I mean, I wouldn’t *know* anyone or know anyone who knew anyone who was killed, and here, it’s 15 new families who have lost a father, a son, and dozens, if not hundreds more who are touched by this war.

In Yediot Aharonot, the main newspaper here, their faces are plastered across the front cover. One was on the beach Sunday, telling his girlfriend how to do his funeral. Another just came back from his “Big Trip” in Thailand, a custom after three years of service.

On the inside page, another article says soldiers are complaining that the cessation in adding ground troops is hurting the troops already there; another article next to it says that much of the Israeli public prefers more air strikes rather than ground troops.

No one knows what to think. Or, everyone has a different opinion: Israel can’t leave now till they finish Hezbullah; Israel already has a victory; Olmert should go; Olmert should stay; a cease-fire is good; a cease-fire is bad.

At 6:31 pm, Ha’aretz newspaper reports that Olmert and Peretz agree, after hours of deliberating, to approve expansion of the operation in Lebanon.

At 6:45 the Shabbat siren sounds.

Some of the country will take a rest from the news, the television, the radio, the war, but many—in Lebanon, in the army, in government—will continue.

—Amy Klein

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August 8, 2006 | 12:33 am

[Amy]: There are no siren warnings for incoming Katyushas

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We crowd into the elevator in the empty Haifa mall and
take it down to the parking lot on -2.

There are no sirens down here.

There are no siren warnings for incoming Katyushas, no
whistle of the rocket overhead, no boom of the
explosion or and no vision of the smoke cloud after.

That’s why this is an enclosed shelter; an extra-safe
shelter with no windows that can shatter, no open
areas where a blast can enter.

And that’s why we’re down here, this handful of the
StandWithUs group, those who were not afraid to come
to Haifa, in the North of Israel, as scheduled.

It’s rather dark down here, even though it’s 11 A.M.,
the time when Nasrallah told Sky News reporters he’d
be sending another round of Katyushas into Israel.

And so we go downstairs to wait, to wait to visit the
summer camp that’s been set up down here.

The municipality of Haifa has set up four mall parking
lots into a playground, of sorts. There’s still the
oil stained asphalt of the garage, the colored pillars
with numbers on it so people can find their cars, but
there are no cars. Instead, a few dozen kids and their
parents playing games and making crafts.

“Yesterday there were more than 200 kids,” says Mira
Steiner, an employee of the Haifa municipality, which
has set up these summer camps, and sent its workers to
run them. When she says yesterday, she means the
Monday, the day the Katyushas hit Haifa, for the first
time in weeks, surprising its residents—shocking
them. Depressing them. Keeping them at home the day
after, even though it’s probably safer here
underground.

“They express themselves in artwork,” Steiner says,
pointing around the room at kids making paper plate
turkeys; the walls are papered with coloring book
pages filled in and other evidence of time spent here.

Today there are two social workers here too, to deal
with yesterday’s trauma. And even though the children
are hidden down here, away from television and radio
and katyushas and rubble, “they always want to know
‘Was there a siren? where did it hit? how many
casualties were there?’ And every day some kid steals
the microphone and fakes the sound of a siren,” says
Steiner. “But it’s not funny. Peoople are so anxious.
They are so nervous.”

Today, after an hour in the shelter and giving blood
in the empty mall upstairs, there has been no siren.
We leave the kids, and resume our tour of Haifa.

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August 7, 2006 | 1:13 pm

[Matthew]: It is raining fire!

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I must write to tell you all what is happening right now in Haifa…it is horrible and Hezbollah MUST BE STOPPED!!!!

Explain one thing to me! Where is our warning 15 minutes before that they are going to try and kill everyone they can…NOT SOLDIERS, INNOCENT PEOPLE!

I was sitting inside watching the news when the air sirens came on. Usually they last about 15 seconds and it seemed to never shut off.  All I know is that 6 long range rockets hit the town I have been staying in Haifa, Israel.

The first few hits sounded like normal…but then think what the loudest firework you can ever imagine sounds like…one hit outside where I am staying. Then another! Then another!  It is complete and utter chaos right now! Sirens are going off everywhere! I have no idea how many people have been killed, but I can only guess the number is very high.

Please tell everyone you know that they must get behind Israel now as Israel is fighting the worst terrorists in the world and if Israel doesn’t destroy them, we are about to enter World War III.  The news media is INSANE and the fact that they report anything positive about these murders is asinine! I am coming home on the first flight I can, but don’t expect it to be before Tuesday. 

Israel NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT NOW MORE THAN EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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August 5, 2006 | 4:15 pm

[Amy]: Chaos: A State of Disorder and Confusion.

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Or: when there’s no lap lane in an Israeli swimming pool.

Things are flying in every direction: precocious tweens in bikinis are diving into the deep end, parents are tossing toddlers up in the air, beach balls are lobbed over the wire holding the sign “Shallow water” and a few intrepid souls like myself are trying to get some exercise, banging into the above every few feet. 

There might be a war going on in the North and South of Israel, but here in Jerusalem, it’s business as usual. Sort of.

See, the lifeguard won’t put up a rope to divide off a lap lane because he feels bad. “There are 300 kids here, what am I supposed to do?” He shrugs and blows his whistle in the air at no one in particular as he walks off to the throne of his lifeguard chair.

He’s a shvitzer, a proud man. exaggerating a little, as Israelis are wont to do. There are probably 50 or 60 people in the hotel swimming pool, but still, I won’t force the issue—as Americans are wont to do—because I know what he means.

Many of the people here at the Crowne Plaza hotel are here from the North, and even though this kind of revelry might usually call for more control, no one has the heart to stop these victims of war.

“We welcome our visitors from the North,” a sign in the hotel lobby reads.

Even though tourism to Israel has virtually disappeared, it’s hard to tell here in the untouched regions—Jerusalem, Tel Aviv—because Northerners have come to stay.

For how long, no one knows.

My girlfriends in Jerusalem hosted a guest from Akko, until she got a free room for her family at a hotel, which some are kind enough to offer.

My former editor is hosting a family, his daughter’s best friend and her parents, for the duration. “The education minister says school will start on September 1, as usual,” the mother tells me, but she looks doubtful.

On Hof Nitzanim, a beautiful beach near Tel Aviv TK, two huge camps of tents are set up by the shore. Giant white tents, like a circus, are peppered on the sparkling sand, a soundstage is set in the middle. Kids play at pool tables and ping pong tables and adults watch a belly dancer perform. It seems like a regular Israeli festival—one of those rock or rave or craft fairs that last for days—but it’s actually a refugee camp for about 6,000 Northerners, many who have been here for weeks.

“I’ve had enough already,” says Yulia itomirson, a tenth-grader from Karmiel. She’d been here for two weeks, and it was fun, hanging out with her friends, meeting new people—there are about 600 kids under 18 here—but the bathrooms, the showers, the food, the crowding, it’s time to go. Not home, not yet, but to relatives in the center of the country.

Israel, someone once told me, is the type of place where someone might push you to get on the bus and break your leg, but he’ll spend all night in the emergency room with you.

The North is being bombed, but everyone is welcoming its residents.

That’s the way it is, in Israel.

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August 4, 2006 | 6:07 pm

[Matthew]: This is my last report

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This past week and a half that I’ve spent here in Haifa and Northern Israel, has affected me on many levels.

While at times it seemed to move quickly by, there were moments that seemed to last forever, because of the danger and fear that they brought with them. It’s the same way with Israel…such a beautiful and wonderful place, but I was repeatedly struck by its incredible vulnerability. While I had visited here many times when I was younger as a tourist, this time will remain unique in my memory.

Such a small country…such a proud and strong people…surrounded by countries and peoples who want to wipe it off the face of the earth. Israel fights for its survival every day and now more than ever!

I plan to head home on Wednesday, because I believe I can help more efficiently now in the states educating people about what I’ve seen here, first hand.  We must help defend Israel’s right to exist in peace, no matter who we are and no matter what we believe in. If we don’t, we may be next.

I look forward to speaking with all of you at home. Your e-mails and words of support have been life sustaining. Now we must act together to help ensure Israel’s survival. “If not now…when? If not us…who?”

There are many ways we can support Israel as I will discuss when I come home but the most immediate way, which I am doing as well, is by donating funds to www.haifaemergencycampaign.com as I have seen how they can help first hand. You can send tax deductible donations to their WEST COAST office at:

American Associate of the Haifa Foundation
175 Conifer Circle
Oak Park, CA 91377
Checks made out to The American Associate of the Haifa Foundation

Thank you all again for you kind words of support and blessings of safety!

Matt Altman

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