How many Jews in Alexandria?

Over sixty years ago, the number was hovering around 50,000. A story in today's Ha'aretz puts the number closer to 23. Not enough people for a minyan (quorum required to recite from the Torah), Jewish life in Alexandria remains on life-support.
But the Elijah Synagogue is as gorgeous as ever...

Oriana Fallaci, July 29 1929 - September 15, 2006

We'll miss your honesty, courage, and passion now more than ever.

At least the Egyptian government knows what's up

Following his meetings with top Egyptian officials, Jason Isaacson, the American Jewish Commitee's Director of International Affairs, came away thinking:

They are concerned that Iran, which already presents a threat to the region because it foments extremism and subsidizes terrorism, will only be a more potent threat if it gets nuclear capabilities.

Um... yeah. And Isaacson continued:

We heard a remarkable similarity between Egyptian and Israeli strategic concerns about Iran. We heard their concerns about Iran's political influence, its promotion of extremism and aggressiveness that I hadn't heard before. They laid out a case against Iran similar to what is heard in Jerusalem and Washington.

It should come to no surprise that Cairo, Jerusalem, and Washington are all threatened by a nuclear Iran. The challenge for Egypt, however, is that unlike Israel and the United States, it cannot articulate this opinion to its people. Appeasing Iran or upseting the Egyptian street -- neither option is attractive.

Unfortunately, the Arab Street has bought wily Ahmedinejad's bait. By stepping up the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American rhetoric, he has become their hero, thereby rendering Arab opposition impotent. And with the Europeans being blind to Iranian ambitions, the Russians and Chinese being in bed with the Iranians, the United States being tied down in Iraq, and the UN being the UN, the outlook does not look promising...

New film from Israel

According to IMDB, "The Bubble" (ha buah) is the story of a group of young people who live in Tel-Aviv. The movie follows the group's difficulties of living in Israel's reality. Their routine brakes when a young Palestinian man enters their life.
Should be interesting... (viewer discretion is advised)

Jewish Customs from ... Egypt?

According to Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg writing in the Jerusalem Post, the Jewish people have taken a number of customs from the Ancient Egyptians. One practice that might be familiar with most readers of this blog is that of wearing tefillin (phylacteries).

Compare the statue of Osiris (above) to this picture of a Yemeni Jew (below).



Rosenberg offers the following analysis:

The children of Israel during their sojourn in Egypt must have been familiar with such depictions, and with the concept of the ruling classes of the country wearing headgear symbolic of their physical and cultic functions. Whether we see these local customs in a positive or negative light, they were representative of the country from which the Israelites were being evacuated. Indeed, a reminder of such customs was to be one purpose of the tefillin, which were to be a "remembrance between your eyes... that with a strong hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt" (Exodus 13:9).

I'm certainly not qualified to judge the merits of this claim, but it certainly seems plausible. The remainder of the article points to other similarities. Whatever the case, I like his conclusion:

The intimate elationship of the Tabernacle and other items of our sacred artifacts to Egyptian models may, on the surface, be anathema to our Orthodox brethren. But it should not be so. On the contrary, it is evidence that our people did come out from an Egyptian culture, and so refutes Bible scholars who seek to discount the story of the Exodus.

And now my connection to Egypt has received further confirmation. I knew that it was more than a feeling...

Is Israel Good for The Jews?

Abdullah sent me an article by the intellectual Norman Birnbaum (an anti-Zionist grandson of Zionists) that was published in the Nation and has been circulated among circles of young Arab university students and alumni. And here is the response from an anti-intellectual, Zionist great-grandson of anti-Zionists (hint: it's me):

There are too many misrepresented and misguided claims to address in this blog, but the most significant problem with this article is that its author never offers any arguments or facts to support his thesis that:

American Jewry's identification with Israel is neither good for Israel nor for the United States (and its Jewish citizens). As the US empire crumbles, it is best to urge Israel away from brutal militancy.

Instead, much of the article focuses on the fact that American Jews support the Jewish state, and perhaps more cynically, shape American foreign policy to that end. But what he fails to mention is that American Jews are some of Israel's harshest critics, and have achieved worldwide fame and wealth as a result of it (ever heard of Noam Chomsky?). He then hypothesizes that in the event the United States' allegiance moved away from Israel, prior Jewish support for the Israel would unleash American anti-Semtism. Such a discussion though intellectualy quite interesting, is not persuasive.

With the exception of the deplorable treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the United States has NOT witnessed significant xenophobia towards ex-patriot citizens (or people to whom the claim of double loyalty could apply) from Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, or Iraq (though aberrations do obviously occur), countries with which we have been engaged in war. I use these examples only to demonstrate the extreme possibiliy -- the probability of the United States waging war on Israel or (vice versa) is infinitesimally small because both countries do in fact share common values and ends.

And yet, this statement, which remains at the very heart of the issues hand is casually dismissed by Birnbaum. He writes:

There is, the Jewish organizations tell us, no conflict of loyalties and responsibilities; the two nations have common values and common ends. The assertion is nonsensical (not common values and ends? Do tell…), but its repetition does negate one stereotype about Jews, our supposed intelligence.

In other words, he calls proponents of this argument "stupid," and throughout the rest of the article does not provide one piece of evidence to support this ad hominem attack. Why should we care so much about this? Because if the United States and Israel do not share comman values and ends, then the only explanation for the United States' support for Israel is the influence of the Israel Lobby.

The reason that Mr. Birnbaum does not explain why the United States and Israel share common values and ends is because either it needs no explanation to the Nation's readers or the claim does not reflect reality. Or maybe both...

I would ask Mr. Birnbaum, if not Israel, with which other country in the Middle East does the United States share more values? Saudi Arabia? The Hamas-led government in the West Bank and Gaza? Even the most virulent critics of Israel would admit both countries share democratic forms of government, market-based economies, civil rights and liberties, Judeo-Christian values, secular civil societies, and modern education systems.

Moreover, Islamic Fundamentalism and terrorism threaten both Israel and the United States, and thus the two countries are natural allies. Of course, that is not to say that other countries in the region do not face similar threats. They do. The difference is that both countries have suffered more greatly than the others from their attacks, and rather than appeasing Islamic Fundamentalism in their state-run newspapers or by supporting "anti-Western" Imams, they seek to eliminate the threat by waging a war on both ideological and militaristic fronts.

And does anyone actually believe that the United States would be embraced by the Muslim world should American support for Israel cease? After all, between Israel and the United States, which one has earned the label "Great Satan" from Iran? (Hint: Israel is "Little Satan.")