May 14, 2012 | 1:32 pm

One state or two? UCLA student group to host a two-night conversation

Posted by Jonah Lowenfeld

Looking at the central program of the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI) at UCLA’s “Month of Ideas,” a two-night event called “Perspectives on Partition: A 1-state vs. 2-state debate,” it seems pretty clear that the only people who are invited to speak about whether to partition the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea in the polite setting of a student-sponsored event are those who support the idea of a two-state solution, at least in principle, even if they have declared that a one-state solution is, practically speaking, the only possible outcome in the region, given the current state of affairs.

Why the group decided to convene two separate panels, one with only Muslim panelists and one with only Jewish ones, is a question I haven’t yet had the chance to ask the organizers. But it seems clear that, as a result, there will likely be less internal disagreement at each of these two events than there would have been at a single panel with Jews and Muslims both participating.

But enough about what won’t happen.

On May 15, two Muslim speakers will address the subject. Reza Aslan, an associate professor of creative writing at UC Riverside who wrote “No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam,” will almost certainly express some variant of his position that the two state solution is “dead and buried.” His co-conversationalist, Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, can be expected to defend the idea of two states.  Professor James Gelvin of UCLA’s history department will moderate.

Two weeks later, the Jewish panel, whose positions are a bit more difficult to predict and could be harder to differentiate, will take the stage.

Director of the Nazarian Center for Israel Studies Dr. Arieh Saposnik, who in 2010 revoked the invitation of a speaker who tried to speak about the failure of the two-state solution (he said it was because the speech was not “academic”), last year addressed a breakfast hosted jointly by Americans for Peace Now and Meretz USA on “Arab Recognition of Israel’s Right to Exist.” Seems pretty safe to assume that he’s a supporter of the two-state solution, at least in principle.

UCLA Hillel Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, back in 2003, taught a class designed to “give the students a perspective on the necessity of compromise and the need to reject violence as an option; in concrete terms, the pursuit of a two-state solution.” Has his position changed 180 degrees vis-a-vis a two-state solution in nine years? That seems unlikely, though it would be understandable if he’s become more pessimistic in the years since then. 

And Jewish Journal President David Suissa, who might be expected to take the most right-leaning stance in this conversation, has shown that he, too, supports the idea of a two-state solution. At a debate last year, he seemed to agree with J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami when it comes to what a Palestinian state should look like.

If all of these speakers believe that a two-state solution is a desirable ideal, how strongly will any of them argue that a single, binational democratic state is the only practicable resolution that could happen, given the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian problem?

I’ve seen Aslan take on challenging audiences before (including a prickly crowd at Sinai Temple last year), and I’d wager that he makes a strong push for the “one-state” solution at UCLA tomorrow night. Whether Suissa—who has said that he “isn’t holding his breath” waiting for a two-state solution to actually be achieved—will end up playing a similar role on the Jewish panel is something that will be interesting to watch for.

I’ll also be listening to see where the participants in these two dialogues stand in the broader context of the Israeli-Palestinian debate. And because Jews and Muslims won’t be sharing the same stage, doing that will involve assessing just how much disagreement there is at each event.

Voices on the anti-Muslim right, who believe that a two-state solution is just a temporary step on the way to a one-state solution that would mean the destruction of Israel, have said there’s no difference between Ibish and Aslan, dismissing both as “Jew-hating terror apologists.”

But what of the Jewish panel? If OTI had been looking for a professed Jewish one-stater, they could’ve asked someone from, for instance, the Zionist Organization of America to speak. Will there be a perceivable difference between the positions of Saposnik, Saidler-Feller and Suissa? Or will they simply be dismissed as “apologists” of another type?

Complete event details can be found here.

April 6, 2012 | 12:57 pm

Leftist Israelis, Beinart’s boycott and the limits of negative messaging

Posted by Jonah Lowenfeld

When Peter Beinart proposed of a boycott of goods coming from the occupied territories, the most widely read responses came from American Jews—among them Sinai Temple’s Rabbi David Wolpe, Gary Rosenblatt of the New York Jewish Week and Barry Shrage of Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies.

I wrote about the response of the American Jewish establishment to Beinart, which has been a combination of, “Jews don’t boycott other Jews,” and “A boycott would only reinforce the settlers’ idea that they’re under attack, and therefore wouldn’t work.”

That last response came from J Street’s Founder and President Jeremy Ben-Ami, among others. But Israelis on the left have, for at least the last year, been promoting a boycott of goods from the areas beyond the pre-1967 borders of Israel without taking a hostile position vis-à-vis the settlers who live there, and even if American Jews can’t do the same, it’s instructive to see how they’ve managed to pull it off.

The Israeli left-leaning NGO Peace Now, which has been opposing Israel’s settlement of the West Bank since at least the 1980s, recently instituted its own boycott of settlement goods. When I asked Hagit Ofran, who has been tracking construction in the West Bank as director of the group’s Settlement Watch project since 2006, about their boycott, she pointed out that the group only started the campaign (which, like Beinart’s, doesn’t extend to the Golan Heights) in 2011, when the Knesset passed a law against such boycotts.

“If that’s the law,” Ofran said, recalling the group’s thinking at the time, “then we will dafka [specifically] call to boycott settlements.”

Even the slogan the group uses to promote their boycott—“Sue me, I boycott settlement products”—emphasizes the anti-boycott law’s role as an inspiration. The law, which would allow Israeli settlers to sue other Israelis who promote such boycotts, has not been invoked since its passage, Ofran said.

Beinart’s position—that the continued occupation of the West Bank threatens Israel’s future as a Jewish democratic state—is widely accepted among left-leaning Zionists in the United States and Israel. But it’s clear that despite holding this position, Israelis in the peace camp feel a connection to the settlers whose actions they so vehemently oppose.

“Ironically we have the same obsession about houses and construction,” Ofran said, talking about the settlers whose activities she tracks. “They and I think it’s crucial for the future of the state of Israel.”

But this position—simultaneously supporting an anti-settlement boycott while also expressing a kind of kinship and fellowship with the settlers—hasn’t been available to American Jews who support Beinart’s boycott.

Consider the JTA op-ed published in late March by Lara Friedman, the director of policy and government relations for Americans for Peace Now, a US-based group that supports the activities of the Israeli NGO.

“If American Jews want to save Israel as a Jewish state and a democracy, they need to act. And that means, for a start, showing at least as much courage as Israelis by differentiating between Israel and the territories,” Friedman wrote. “Publicly declaring an intention to ‘buy Israel but boycott settlements’ sends a powerful message to Israelis living in both.”

While Ofran’s position about the occupied territories and the settlers is something akin to, “Don’t hate the players, hate the game,” Friedman’s full-throated endorsement of Beinart’s boycott sends a different, less nuanced message.

Ofran isn’t the only dovish Israeli to profess this kind of peculiar fellowship with the settlers.

Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Israeli Navy and its secret service Shin Bet, as well as a former member of Knesset for the Labor party, has long been an advocate of the Geneva Initiative, a peace plan drawn up in 2003 by former Israeli and Palestinian negotiators that would see two states created roughly following the pre-1967 borders of Israel.

And in an appearance with J-Street’s Ben-Ami in November 2011, Ayalon made clear that an essential ingredient of the plan is for Israel to bring those settlers living beyond the security fence erected by Israel in the last decade back into pre-1967 Israel. And in addition to the assistance and subsidies that such a policy will require, Ayalon said Israel needs to offer those Israelis official recognition that they settled where they did in the service of the country.

“We sent them,” Ayalon told the audience at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. “They are our pioneers. And suddenly they realize that they are fighting for nothing. That it [the areas of the West Bank beyond the fence] will not be the state of Israel, and they tell us, ‘Bring us back.’ And we owe them, morally.”

In his speech last year, Ayalon didn’t talk about boycotting settlement goods—it wasn’t part of the conversation at the time. And it’s entirely possible that Beinart’s support for a boycott signals a broader shift in the position of left-leaning Zionists in Israel and the United States vis-à-vis the settlers.

But it’s also possible that this dual message—a strong opposition to the occupation of the West Bank coupled with a policy of supporting the settlers when they return to the areas that would remain in Israeli hands under a Geneva-like two-state agreement—could be very useful for American Jews uncomfortable with the continued occupation of the West Bank.

Beinart, in defending his boycott, has repeatedly said that Jews boycott other Jews all the time. Perhaps he should have followed the lead of Israelis who haven’t focused on the boycott’s impact on people and instead have pointed to the support they are prepared to offer those very same settlers upon their return.

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April 4, 2012 | 11:14 am

Seitan, hametz and the vegan Passover ‘veder’

Posted by Jonah Lowenfeld

The Veder Plate, with a tofu slab in the shape of a bone instead of a lamb shank-bone and a small amount of Ener-G brand egg replacer instead of a cooked egg. Photo courtesy Gene Blalock

“How do vegans do Passover?”

That was the subject line of an email I got in my inbox last week, and I couldn’t ignore it.

I once tried to cut animals from my diet—it was just before Passover—and the effort ended on the holiday’s first night. As an Eastern European Jew who doesn’t eat lentils, beans or rice during Passover—the very same good, protein-rich legumes that can sustain non-meat-eaters for the rest of the year—going vegetarian during this holiday felt like a strange kind of cleanse.

So it was with some measure of anticipation that I asked Gary Smith, who runs Evolotus Public Relations with his wife, what he, a committed vegan and advocate against all types of animal cruelty, did last Passover:

Last year, my wife and I decided to start a new Passover tradition for our friends: a “veder,” or vegan seder. All of the traditional dishes were served - matzoh brie, brisket, gefilte fish, potato latkes, matzoh ball soup, kugel and macaroons - in veganized versions without meat, dairy or eggs,” Smith wrote in an email. “This included discussing the slavery of farmed animals such as egg-laying hens, cows, and pigs as part of the Passover story.

As Smith broke down what went into the meal, it quickly became apparent that the veder menu was rather unorthodox. Vegan matzah balls and matzah brei depend on using egg substitutes, like Ener-G Brand egg replacer, which doesn’t appear to be kosher for Passover. The same goes for macaroons and other baked goods.

Gefilte fish made of faux lump crab is simple enough, and vegetable soup (sans matzah balls) could work, but Smith’s “seitan ‘roast’ made of wheat gluten, mushroom and onion and vegan beef broth,” which looked rather appetizing in the picture he sent me, is about as forbidden for Passover consumption as any food item can be.

Hametz, the very stuff forbidden to Jews on Passover, is any mixture of water and either wheat, barley, spelt, rye and oats that is allowed to stand for 18 minutes or longer. Seitan is made of vital wheat gluten flour mixed with vegetable broth, shaped and then baked for at least 20 minutes. The recipe might as well be called “How to make hametz.”

But if the veder is a bit more vegan than it is kosher for Passover, it made me wonder if there’s anything particularly wrong with that.

Jews go to great lengths in their urge to purge their houses, cars and other possessions of hametz before Passover, and the reason given is usually quite simple. The punishment for eating hametz on Passover is karet, or God-driven excision of a person from the Jewish people.

Imagine being banished from your people—for all time—because of something that you ate: You can see why some Jews vacuum every pocket of every jacket they own.

But it turns out that to actually earn that severe punishment takes some work.

In a lengthy rumination laden with the kind of terminology that only rabbis and true scholars understand, Rabbi Aaron Alexander explained that karet only applies in certain very specific cases:

“To receive the punishment of karet one has to:
a) Eat a significant amount (olive’s worth) of full fledged hametz (not a mixture).
b) do it with intention to sin, be-meizid. (See MT, Laws of Hametz, 1:1-7)”

Alexander is associate dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinics at American Jewish University and he’s not telling people not to clean their houses with care and exactitude. He doesn’t even want people to stop talking about the severe punishment of karet—only to address it to the situations where it actually applies.

Here’s his final concluding thought:

I find the spiritual and physical transformation from slavery to freedom to be quite compelling and religiously powerful.  Consciously moving from human-enacted slavery to God-enacted freedom service (slavery) is essential to this holiday. The fact that the Torah itself has so many ritual laws (not counting sacrifices… more than any other, I think?) concerning the journey to, and life in, freedom service - it exclaims something quite profound. Transforming our homes and what we eat elevate this idea with limitless potential. Freedom isn’t anarchy. Religious freedom is a conscious, intentional, and free-will submission to something greater than ourselves. But it has to be reasonable, grounded, attainable, and as potentially inclusive as our hearts demand it to be.

Which brings us back to the veder.

I am certain that Alexander, as a member of the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, won’t have any seitan on his seder table. But in our modern age, when you can find a haggadah for every flavor of Jew or non-Jew in the world, is the idea of having a consciously vegan Seder such a bad one? If Smith’s idea of slavery extends to the animals we put to our service laying eggs and making milk, isn’t his elimination of food products from his diet and his table, on this night (and all others) an equally “conscious, intentional, and free-will submission to something greater than ourselves?”

I’ll sign off with the traditional greeting for this time of year:

Chag Kasher v’sameach.

May your Passover be liberating, happy, and—in some sense or another—Kosher.

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March 20, 2012 | 10:37 pm

Safran Foer’s New American Haggadah out of stock across web [UPDATED]

Posted by Jonah Lowenfeld

Update: An editor at Little, Brown, the publisher of The New American Haggadah, emailed me today to say that, although the first print run “quickly” sold out, the haggadah should (thanks to “two large reprints”) be back on virtual and actual shelves in time for Passover. So fret not.

In recent days, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble’s online arm and other web-based booksellers have experienced shortages of The New American Haggadah, a new version of the text used by Jews at Passover published at the beginning of this month.

The new volume, edited by Jewish American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, was on backorder until March 24 at Amazon.com at the time of this post. BarnesandNoble.com, which had been sold out of the Haggadah a day ago, had it listed as available for shipping “within 24 hours.”

Other web-based retailers—including BooksAMillion.com and the online store of the Jewish Museum’s in New York City—were also out of copies.

Book Soup, a brick-and-mortar bookseller on Sunset Boulevard, had the haggadah listed as the ninth-best-selling nonfiction hardcover title during the week of March 12-18.

The book’s brisk sales could perhaps have been predicted. Safran Foer seemed to be featured on every media, occasionally accompanied by fellow novelist Nathan Englander, who contributed a new translation of the Hebrew text to the new volume. Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for the Atlantic, managed to get a copy into the hands of President Obama (even if POTUS wouldn’t agree to use it at the White House seder.

But the single-most important reason the New American Haggadah appears to be selling rapidly could be the one identified by comedian and TV host Stephen Colbert earlier this month.

When Foer appeared on The Colbert Report, he told Colbert that customarily, every person around a Seder table will have his or her own copy of the haggadah text.

“Cha-ching,” Colbert said.

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March 20, 2012 | 12:28 pm

Jewish nose-job doctor courts controversy with “Jewcan Sam” music video [VIDEO]

Posted by Jonah Lowenfeld

A still from the "Jewcan Sam" music video, posted on youTube by Yeoville Productions.

You know what’s better than a dentist who converts to Judaism just for the jokes?

An Orthodox Jewish plastic surgeon who hires a Jewish punk rock band to write a song promoting nose jobs that trucks in Jewish stereotypes, then hires a Jewish director to direct the music video that features a boy in a kippah, and then hires a PR firm to promote him as the “Controversial Jewish Doctor” behind the song and video for “Jewcan Sam.”

Did you follow all that?

The media savvy plastic surgeon, Dr. Michael Salzhauer, hired The Groggers, a Queens-based punk band, to write a song about nose jobs, then flew them down to Miami to shoot a video for it. The video was directed by Farrell Goldsmith. According to the Huffington Post, the doctor, band and video director are Orthodox Jews.

The good doctor himself appears in the slickly produced video –which stars The Groggers’ lead singer, Doug (L.E.) Staiman, who got a free nose job in addition to the $2,000 fee paid to the band. It has been viewed over 100,000 times in the last month.

That’s according to the doctor’s Massachusetts-based publicists, CWR Partners, who Salzahauer hired to help promote the video.

Nothing like a little controversy to sell a few nose jobs, right?

The post continues after the jump.

But what controversy there is doesn’t focus on anti-Semitism. When Good Morning America reported on this last week, the ADL didn’t return requests for comment.

The only group up in arms about the video (which features more than a few boys in kippahs) seems to be the one representing the nip-and-tuck crowd. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) is investigating whether Dr. Salzhauer violated its code of ethics.

“This is just disturbing that a doctor would play into the frailties of the human condition,” said Dr. Malcolm Roth, president of the ASPS.

Salzhauer could face decertification as a result of the video, ABC News reported.

Salzhauer does have a knack for getting his message out in unusual ways. In 2008, he wrote a children’s book called “My Beautiful Mommy” to help patients explain their transformation to their children.

And while that book made frequent use of the “caterpillar-to-butterfly” metaphor, the “Jewcan Sam” draws more widely, with references to Pinocchio and to wishing he “looked more like tom Cruise and less like Adrien Brody.” The chorus ends with the line, “I will love you till forever / if you get your nose circumcised.”

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March 18, 2012 | 1:42 am

A journalism masterclass from Ira Glass (thanks to Mike Daisey’s fabrications)

Posted by Jonah Lowenfeld

Ira Glass of This American Life giving a lecture at Carnegie Mellon University in 2006. Photo by Wikipedia/Tom Murphy VII

For anyone who hasn’t already heard about this weeks’ episode of This American Life (“Retraction”) that retracts and debunks many of the details presented in an earlier TAL episode (“Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory”), I won’t rehash too much of it here.

In addition to learning that Mike Daisey, whose monologue performance piece, The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, was excerpted to create that first TAL episode, is a big fat liar, what we saw today was a major distinction between journalism and theater.

But it’s not the one that Daisey wants to focus on. For him, the main difference is that journalists aren’t allowed to make stuff up for the sake of a good story, while folks in the theater can.

I think the most interesting difference is to be found in the reactions of those in the journalistic profession to the radio show’s screw-up as compared to the reactions of the theater world to the revelations of Daisey’s fabulism.

For journalists, this week’s TAL episode was a pitch-perfect illustration of what to do when you mess up. In one hour of radio, TAL host Ira Glass owned up to his mistake, gave a platform to one good and resourceful journalist (Rob Schmitz) to show how he sniffed out a fake story, interviewed Daisey—with an amazingly deft touch but without pulling punches—to allow him to try to explain why he lied about having witnessed things he did not witness and why he still thinks what he does is okay in theater but not in journalistic outlets, and then brought a New York Times reporter into the conversation in order to hammer home the point that, despite Daisey’s fabrications, most of what he said about the factories that make Apple products in China is true.

That’s the—nuanced, multifaceted—journalistic response to the revelation of fabrication.

But the theatrical response? Daisey’s response appears to be winning the day—which is effectively a shrug of the shoulders, a statement that says, “This is how we do it here,” and a turning inward, away from the rest of the world. The previously scheduled shows of Daisey’s show at the Public are going on, and he will reportedly be performing at theaters across the country, too.

Indeed, by saying saying that his one mistake was taking his monologue onto This American Life, Daisey is effectively saying that the stage, where he reaches hundreds of people in a night, is the only place that can support his brand of performance. The platform through which he reached tens (if not hundreds) of times more listeners, meanwhile, is somehow too strict in its definition of what is or is not true to support a performer like Daisey. 

I’m a fan of This American Life—and a journalist myself—so I’m curious what the theater folks have to say about this. Specifically, I wonder what the effect on other theater professionals is if Daisey’s vision—that theater is allowed to lie in order to tell a greater truth—is allowed to stand.

Doesn’t he risk making himself and all those who employ similar methods—artists like Anna Deveare Smith, David Hare, Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank, to name some of the better known ones—less able to participate in a conversation about real events going on in the real world? Did a guy who few had ever heard of before this January just ensure that most won’t ever hear from him again?

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March 14, 2012 | 6:08 pm

L.A. reactions to Peres’ visit

Posted by Jonah Lowenfeld

Israeli President Shimon Peres and actress Eva Longoria at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on March 11. Photo by Michael Kovac/WireImage

Israeli President Shimon Peres won friends and fans on his recent visit to Los Angeles, as this week’s cover story makes pretty clear. Most Angelenos couldn’t stop praising the man.

Below, a collection of a few of the more memorable reactions to and observations about Peres and his recent trip to Los Angeles:

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, on Peres fulfilling his new role:

“As a politician, you have failures and triumphs. Personally, when he was a political leader, I didn’t agree with many of his political positions. But today, as president of Israel, he has fulfilled that role in an amazing manner.”

Rabbi Ed Feinstein, Valley Beth Shalom, on Peres’s life:

“Peres is a wise man. He’s lived a great deal of our history, and he’s reflected deeply on what history has taught us. His refusal to succumb to pessimism and cynicism is remarkable. That’s the prophet in him – the ability to continue to hope, to envision peace, to demand better of us.”

Israeli Ambassador to the United States and historian Michael Oren, on Peres’s counterpart in American History:

“He’s the [James] Monroe. He is the youngest of the founding fathers, and Monroe was the last of the founding fathers to still be in a position as [the Fifth] American President.”

UCLA professor of Jewish History David N. Myers on Peres’s more recent counterparts in American political history:

“His liberal disposition in politics, his endurance, his know-how—savoir-faire—in matters parliamentary and political, all remind me of Teddy Kennedy.
Myers also likened Peres to the long-serving Cold War-era American diplomat and adviser George Kennan, whom he described as “the ultimate insider, who performed a wide variety of functions in government, who was, in that respect an arch realist – which he [Peres] is. I don’t think he could’ve survived for that long if he wasn’t.”

Sagi Balasha, CEO of the Israeli Leadership Council, on why Israelis are relieved to have Peres as president:

“After what happened with the last president of Israel, Moshe Katzav [who is serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of rape and sexual harassment], the citizens of Israel feel that having Shimon Peres as the President of Israel gives Israel and the citizens a lot of respect. Because he is not just one of the best-known Israeli figures; he is one of the best-known leaders of the world. And to have one of the best-known and most respected leaders of the world as head of the State of Israel is something that every Israeli feels honored to have. People are very proud to have Shimon Peres as president, it doesn’t matter if they are left wing or right wing.”

Gary Dalin, executive director of the Israel Christian Nexus, on why the Beverly Hilton wasn’t the right place for Peres to speak on March 8:

“We could’ve had it at West Angeles Church, which seats 5,000 people instead of 1,200 and it would’ve been full. ... From my perspective, [the organizers] missed a much greater event. We could’ve had 15,000 people if they had chosen a venue that would’ve allowed Christians to participate.”

Shmuel Rosner, senior political editor at the Jewish Journal, and keeper of Rosner’s Domain at Jewishjournal.com, on Peres’s present-day popularity in Israel:

“[Peres] was very smart about gaining the confidence and support of Israelis, [and] didn’t go into areas where there’s a lot of political debate.”

StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein, on Peres’s optimism:

“Henry Kissinger has said about [Peres] that he is sometimes too optimistic. I think that’s a very interesting point. But then, when he does this video where he says, “Be my friend, for peace,” it’s a call for a partner, and I think he understands, and has always understood, that there are people who are bad, who want to get rid of the Jewish state, and through it all he has been able to maintain his optimism. It’s extraordinary. He’s different that way.”

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, on why the 88-year-old Peres reminds him of UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who died in 2010 at 99 years old:

“Unlike a lot of politicians who don’t live that long, [Peres] has lived that long, and the longer somebody of his repute lives, the larger the legend grows. If John Wooden had died when he was 68 years old, I don’t think he would have been the legend he is today. He actually penetrated the consciousness of people for 35 more years after he retired from coaching. ... I’m 63 years old. At the age of 63, he [Peres] still had at least a quarter-century of public service ahead of him.”

Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Gruel, on what Peres’s visit means for L.A.:

“For Los Angeles, it’s a great opportunity to have a world leader here, to engage us to challenge us to help lead us as we go forward.”

Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti, via twitter (@ericgarcetti), March 8:

Shimon Peres is more coherent at 89 than most are at 60. He speaks in Twitter-worthy phrases and has a new hip-hop video. #whoknew #daiyanu

Actress Eva Longoria, via twitter (@EvaLongoria), March 10:

I can’t wait to meet President Peres from Israel tomorrow. Looking forward to learning more about the situation in Israel. #peace

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March 14, 2012 | 5:35 pm

The quotable Peres on history, women, Zuckerberg, Ben-Gurion and more

Posted by Jonah Lowenfeld

Israeli President Shimon Peres in Los Angeles on March 8. Photo by Michael Kovac/WireImage

When Shimon Peres arrived in Los Angeles, many were looking for comments on Iran, and on the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. But what most people really responded to were the thoughts Peres offered on other subjects. Here are a few of the more quotable parts of his speeches. Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments.

About Science:

“Science does not have borders. Science cannot be measured, cannot be predicted, you cannot conquer it by armies, you cannot govern it by governments. And if the economy is global science is individual. A single man can change the world by the introduction of science.”

About the Arab World:

“What’s happening in the Arab world, like all other places, is that a new generation was born and they opened their eyes. With the communication of modern technology, they can see what’s happening outside their country, and other places, they compare notes and they say, How come? We don’t have jobs, we don’t have freedom, we don’t have enough food, we don’t have education. It has to change. The problem of the Middle East is poverty more than politics.”

About young people and history:

“Most people prefer to remember, rather than to dream. It’s the greatest mistake. What’s there to remember? About what? Your children wouldn’t like to continue your heritage or my heritage. They say to their parents, ‘Thank you very much, that you gave birth to us and gave us the chance to be alive, but please, don’t impose upon us your past. It’s not so great as you are telling it.’ What is the past? Wounded by wars…”

About old people and the new world:

“The world advanced more than our minds. There’s a new world with many old minds. Since we cannot change the world, we have to change our minds.”

About Mark Zuckerberg:

“I don’t know any theoretician who forecast that one day will come and a boy of 27 years by the name Zuckerberg, who doesn’t have a party, who doesn’t have an army, who doesn’t have a fortune, who has nothing – all of a sudden, changes the world.”

About the need to educate women:

“Egypt was, in 1952, a nation of 18 million. Today, they are 87 million. Nothing grew in Egypt five times—neither the Nile, nor the fields, nor the industry—but poverty. And you can’t save it just by money. The countries have to reform themselves. For example, I believe that if the Arabs don’t liberate their women, they don’t have a future.”

About what makes Israel great:

“My answer is, the moment we discovered that we have nothing in our land, the nothingness made us great, because we have had to turn to the greatest resource of human life, which is the human being. You know, Israel is a very small piece of land, not a very friendly land, a very stingy land. We don’t have water, we have a famous river, the Jordan river, but the Jordan river is richer in history than in water…We have two lakes; one is dead. The other is dying. We don’t have any natural resources. We are surrounded by hostility. I remember the early days, Israel was a doubt, not a country, with many question marks.”

About California:

“One of the things about California I like is that special twist, or extension, of democracy. Democracy is not only the right to be equal, but the equal right to be different. It’s a meeting of differences.”

About what it means to be Jewish:

“I say jokingly, what is the greatest contribution of the Jewish people to the rest of the world? My answer is: Dissatisfaction. A good Jew can never be satisfied. The minute he begins to be satisfied he stops being Jewish.”

About the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process:

“I think the process goes on. Like all processes it has problems and [we] make mistakes. It’s not simple. But that’s not a reason to give up the hope. And my hope is that we shall have with the Palestinians a real peace, based on a new reality, and have two states an Arab state of Palestine, a Jewish state of Israel, living side by side, democratically, friendly, science-based.”

About Fidel Castro:

“I think his intentions were fair but the conclusions were disappointing.”

About American Jews:

“Half of the Jewish People live in the United States. The smaller half.”

A message for would-be future leaders:

“Don’t be a leader. Don’t try to be on the top; try to be ahead. Don’t try to rule; try to serve. The people are not short of rulers; the people are short of servants. And if you serve the people, you will have their trust,”

About David Ben-Gurion:

“Ben-Gurion was one thing that I never saw in another leader: He was innocent. Wise, knowledgeable, intellectual – and yet, he didn’t become a cynic. It was like every day remarrying a new idea. And it impressed me very much.”

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