Archive for December, 2008

As the New York Times began their reports on the situation in Gaza, the reporters spun the situation against the Israelis, as usual, blaming the Israeli Air Force for civilian deaths. Only in the second or third to last paragraph did they actually reveal the true reason for the attacks: “On Wednesday, some 70 rockets hit Israel over 24 hours, in a distinct increase in intensity.”

If Mexico decided to slam California with 70 rockets in the span of one day, would the United States sit back and do nothing? If Luxembourg decided to fire 70 rockets into Paris, would France sit back and do nothing? (well, maybe France would, but that’s besides the point).

I think not.

A day-two  Times follow-up, written by Robert Pear, did a much better job encapsulating what was really going on and detailed the US government’s view that Hamas’s rocket fire was directly responsible for the air strikes – they had brought it on themselves.  And as Pear points out, it’s not just Bush making these statements. President-elect Barack Obama agrees.

“If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that,” Mr. Obama said in July. “And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”

Israelis are not trying to target civilians when they strike Gaza, but they sometimes have no choice, and the public needs to understand what is actually going on. As the Jerusalem Post points out in an article today, Hamas strategically places most of its rocket launch pads in Palestinian civilian neighborhoods – so when Israel bombs them, it looks like we’re aiming for civilians.

Before criticizing Israeli Defense Force actions, Americans and people all over the world need to step back and imagine how they would feel if deadly explosives were randomly falling in their backyards. Certainly, you wouldn’t want your children to go out and play under these conditions – and surely, you’d want your government to take action and do something about it.

**Addendum: I was just talking to my friend who lives in Israel, and while she supports Israel of course, she feels that they should have gone about combatting Hamas in a different, less-politically-oriented way. Unfortunately, now that they waited so long, this is not really possible. She presented the following analogy: there’s the kid that cleans up his room methodically when asked and then there’s the other kid who waits till the last minute and stuffs all of his toys in the closet — in this case, Israel is being that second kid, and should’ve been the first. But unfortunately, once you’ve waited this long, you have to be the second and not the first.

I’d be interested to hear what people think about that.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

A day after an SUV smashed into a glass-plated storefront and plowed through the Chabad Chanukah Wonderland celebration in Woodmere, L.I., members of the Chabad-Lubavitch community were picking up the pieces from the shattering mess that ruined holiday festivities.

Reached in the early hours of Friday morning, CrownHeights.Info editor Ben Lifshitz described the scene Thursday afternoon as one of utter “chaos.”
Frantic parents searched everywhere for their children who had been playing together during the time of the collision, thankful that there were no
fatalities, Lifshitz said. Fourteen people ranging in age from 18 months to 40 were injured in the crash.

Theodore Saretsky, 76, from Atlantic Beach, was heading northbound on Broadway when he lost control of his blue BMW X3. The car rammed a parked
vehicle onto the sidewalk and then continued into the store, where 150 people had gathered for the annual Chanukah celebration, according to reports from the Nassau County Police Department. Continue reading…

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

A dozen clown-cloaked cyclists reeled through the heart of chasidic Williamsburg one morning last week, boasting cone-shaped orange hats and marking their territory in a citywide battle to reclaim their lanes. Though a group of Satmar chasids stood by snapping photos of the clowns, there was an underlying current of frustration about the bike lanes within the close-knit Orthodox community. 

But it’s not just about the clowns.

Brooklyn is actively jumping aboard New York City’s ever-growing campaign to make the five boroughs a more environmentally friendly place. The 14-mile bike path — part of the New York State Environmental Protection Fund’s Brooklyn Greenway Initiative — begins at the northern tip of Greenpoint and then heads southeast through Williamsburg and Brooklyn Heights, extending down around Red Hook and ending up in Sunset Park. Like members of many other neighborhoods that have suddenly acquired bike lanes, residents of Williamsburg complain about their sweeping loss of parking spaces and charge that the city slapped down the paths without community consultation.

“You put a ‘no stopping’ in front of that building, schools cannot pick up or discharge children,” said Rabbi David Niederman, the president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg. “Residents and the neighbors can’t find parking.” 

On that drizzly Wednesday morning, the bikers in neon-colored circus garb barreled southbound down the newly designated bike lanes along Kent Avenue, representing the environmental activist group Time’s Up! Bicycle Clowns, who are engaging in a “Love Your Bike Lane” Campaign. As the bikers came across parked vehicles in their path, the scantily-helmeted entourage would orchestrate a slow-motion smash into the car’s rear, then collapse into a scraggly and dramatic mess on the pavement. Unable to budge an 18-wheeler, however, they looped yellow tape all over the truck’s backside, while a boom box strapped to one of the bikes blasted oldies hits. 

“We need to have something flamboyant,” said Time-Up volunteer Ben Shepard, eager to show motorists that they can’t block a biker’s rightful path. “So we use theater.”

But the local populace isn’t necessarily enjoying the show. Continue reading…

‘First Responders In The Interfaith Community’

Beneath a rusting copper dome that dominates the intersection of 96th Street and Third Avenue, Jumu’ah prayers drew to a close last Friday at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York. Congregants straightened their prostrate bodies and walked across the turquoise carpeting toward their piles of shoes.

But the men and women stopped in their tracks when their soft-spoken imam, Mohammed Shamsi Ali, introduced Rabbi Marc Schneier and Rev. Dr. Arthur Caliandro to the crowd of over 900 men downstairs. The three religious leaders had come together on the Upper East Side to deliver an interfaith memorial address for the victims of terror in Mumbai, and they stood side by side on the mosque’s mihrab, the central altar that faces the holy city of Mecca.

“They are here in solidarity with us,” Imam Ali announced.

“Our religion has been hijacked,” he had said earlier in his sermon. “Terrorism once again is godless — doesn’t have any God, doesn’t have any religion.”

Both Rabbi Schneier and Rev. Caliandro stressed the importance of religious moderation, which must quell the voice of the religious fanatic, rather than standing by in silence.

“I am among friends — I am among the good people who are doing something,” Rabbi Schneier said to the Muslim congregants, who responded with applause. The men reconvened the next day for a similar endeavor at The New York Synagogue, where Rabbi Schneier serves as spiritual leader.

In the wake of the Mumbai tragedy two weeks ago, this collaboration was but one among many interfaith memorial events that have sprung up all across the New York area… Continue reading…

Undoubtedly the best salesmen and women in the world, whether it’s Dead Sea soaps, hair straighteners or Christmas ornaments. And when the going gets tough, Zohan’s tactics work too.

Israelis’ Soft Sell At Bryant Park?

by Sharon Udasin

Just outside Bryant Park’s wintertime ice skating rink, a young Israeli named Oz clutches a basketful of purple and green squares of soap, distributing samples to eager passersby. Meanwhile, a muffled version of Bing Crosby’s “Happy Holiday” echoes through the park’s loudspeakers, reminding visitors that all their wishes should come true “while the merry bells keep ringing.”

From waxen Christmas ornaments to exfoliating Dead Sea slush, Israeli vendors at the Holiday Shops in Bryant Park find themselves as busy as ever, economic downturn or not. And unlike Israelis who manage Christmastime mall kiosks, these merchants claim that they are by no means “pushy” and they prefer gentler tactics when luring New Yorkers and tourists into their shops. Continue reading…

Please read my two Jewish Week articles this week, which I have worked very on since the tragic events occurred. Both are written in memory of Rivkah and Gavriel Holtzberg, two exceptional people whom I have never met. Thank you to everyone who helped me with or contributed to these articles.

‘This Was Their Lives’

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Half asleep from his late-night travels to Mumbai, Chaim Zaklos trailed groggily behind an energetic Gavriel Holtzberg and suddenly found himself aboard a wooden motorboat, on an early spring morning of 2006. Filled with 150 ferry passengers and zero life jackets, the vessel rumbled away from the Gateway of India and chugged through a predawn Mumbai Harbor for about an hour, as the sun rose over their destination — the town of Alibag. Continue reading…

Dark Clouds Where The Sun Never Sets

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Freezing rain pattered against the dusty windowpanes of 770 Eastern Parkway last Sunday afternoon as frenzied staffers hurried up and down the twisted stairwell that leads to the Chabad.org office in Crown Heights. Inside, writers and editors of the movement’s popular Web site looked for new information on the unfolding tragedy in Mumbai, India. Their reddened eyelids were peeled back in exhaustion and their wrinkled tzitzit dangled from untucked white button-downs, as they munched on stale scrambled eggs and drank flat bottled soda to stay awake. Continue reading…

In the wake of the tragedy in Mumbai, I’ve thrust myself once again into the world of Crown Heights and Chabad. While doing so, I’ve been paying extra attention to my daily Google Alerts for “Lubavitch, Brooklyn.” Most of the news stories I’ve received have been very informative and helpful, as I try to cover one of the biggest tragedies in the past few years. But one link was particularly disturbing, and I couldn’t fathom why this would come up as one of the top results in a Google search of these terms.

Please take a look: http://top-secret-at.blogspot.com/2008/11/nariman-house-hostages-or-attackers.html

This blog, entitled “The Axis of Evil” and allegedly crafted by “Semitics against Zionism” uses quotes from Adolf Hitler, the Bible and the CIA to strengthen their agenda of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and even goes so far as to blame the Jews for 9/11. In their post yesterday, the writers twist the news to suggest that the Holtzbergs and other Jewish hostages were actually the perpetrators of the terrorism that went on at the Nariman House in Mumbai. 

Hopefully, any educated person will disregard blogs such as these as ludicrous when they show up in their daily search results. Then again, look at all the Holocaust deniers today and all those who stood by as Hitler began his mass annihilations in 1939. As Jews and as Zionists, we are never safe from our enemies, who, unfortunately, are not few and far between.

A search result like this one is not really Google’s fault – I mean, the search is automated by some computerized algorithm that I could never hope to understand. Yet I think their staff needs to work harder, to quickly categorize posts like these in their Offensive Search Results section, where Google claims to place results that it finds disturbing.

We shouldn’t be censoring free speech and that certainly includes the Internet. But when it comes to terrorism and dangerous hate messages, I think our search engines need to be just a little more careful.

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