Israeli preschool lesson: Who wants to kill us?

It’s nice to think Israel’s hard-won self-determination ensured Jewish children can grow up without fear and xenophobia.

Yeah, right.

Here is a photo taken this week at a preschool in the Tel-Aviv satellite city of Holon:

Translation, from the top:

“Who wants to kill us?

Pharaoh | Greeks | Haman | Nazis | Arabs

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

What do we need?

WE NEED A STATE

Do note that all Arabs (national group) and Greeks (in reference to assimilationist policies of the Seleucid empire) are equated to Nazis (murderous ideology). And of course, Pharaoh and Haman, the semi-mythological baddies of yore, to drive home to children under six years of age that persecution of us Jews is eternal.

Happy Independence Day.

Hat tip to +972 and journalist Dimi Reider for this guest post. Indoctrination for the nation through introductory xenophobia!

Holocaust survivor Epstein disses AIPAC

The unsinkable Hedy Epstein, pictured above on an aid flotilla to Gaza, is a survivor.

I fear AIPAC’s ability to move US policy in dangerous directions. AIPAC does a disservice to the Palestinians, the Israelis and the American people. It helps to keep the Middle East in a perpetual state of war and this year will be no different from last year as it keeps up a steady drumbeat calling for war against Iran, writes Hedy Epstein

AIPAC pretends to speak for all Jews, but it certainly does not speak for me or other members of the Jewish community in this country who are committed to equal rights for all and are aware that American interventionism is likely to bring further disaster and chaos to the Middle East.

Israel, of course, would not be able to carry out its war crimes against civilians in Lebanon and Gaza without the United States — and our $3 billion in military aid — permitting it to do so. At 86 years old, I use every ounce of my energy to educate the American public about the need to stop supporting the abuses committed by the Israeli government and military against the Palestinian people. Sometimes there are people who try to shout me down and scream that I am a self-hating Jew, but most of the time the audience is receptive to hear from someone who survived the Holocaust and now works to free the Palestinians from Israeli oppression.

The vicious discrimination brought to bear against Palestinians in the occupied territories deserves no applause from members of Congress attending the AIPAC conference. Instead, they should raise basic questions with Israeli officials about decades of inferior rights endured by Palestinians both inside Israel and the occupied territories.

Hedy Epstein is a Holocaust survivor, who writes and travels extensively to speak about social justice causes and Middle Eastern affairs. She will be participating in Move Over AIPAC, a gathering in Washington, DC from 21-24 May 2011, to expose AIPAC and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East (www.MoveOverAIPAC.org).

Fur flies over threat to Hasidic headwear

Tip of the shtreimel to photographer Gali Tibbon for this hairy tale about a possible ban on animal pelts from Asia, and how it could impact the ultra-Orthodox community inside Israel. Note that there also are fake fur hats for the rain - a better look perhaps than an elasticated shower cap fastened on for protection

For Jason Koutsoukis' original article,filed from Jerusalem, click here

At dusk on the Sabbath, few things are more spectacular in Jerusalem than the passing parade of fur hats moving inexorably towards the Western Wall.
There are great furry crowns of all shades of brown, lined with velvet and leather. Some are so wide and flat they look like a sombrero made of sable; others so high you might think they were top hats made of mink.
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They are shtreimels, the traditional headwear of some Hasidic Jews worn on the Sabbath and on holidays, but not to be confused with spodiks or kolpiks, other varieties of hairy hat reserved for more revered rabbinical sages.
Once symbols of persecution, they were first imposed by 18th-century Polish kings who decreed that Jews must wear the tail of an animal on the Sabbath to show they were not working.
The tradition spread through eastern Europe, with each Jewish sect adapting the shtreimel to its own taste, and instead of being a mark of persecution it became a symbol of pride.
Standing at the Damascus Gate to Jerusalem's Old City before sunset on Friday, watching the stream of shtreimels make their way to the holiest site in Judaism, the practised eye can tell a lot about each person just from the cut of their hat — the name of the sect each Hasid comes from, and which part of Europe their ancestors hailed from.
The shtreimel is also a dead giveaway for things such as the income of the wearer, what religious texts and customs they adhere to, and even whether or not they are Zionists.
Sitting in his office at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, dressed in a black tailcoat, black vest and white shirt, Rabbi Moses had just returned from heated debate in the Knesset chamber.
"People want to ban furs imported from Asia because of the way the animal is killed there," he says. "But what does this mean for the shtreimel?"
With the proposed law carrying a punishment of a year in prison, Rabbi Moses asks who will pay for the prisons to house all the law-breaking Jews who import the wrong kind of fur.
"Today, as I told the history of the shtreimel, what it means to Jewish history and custom, I left them all wide-eyed in the Knesset. Jaws open," he said.
Rabbi Moses said that the opposition leader, Tzipi Livni, was among those who approached him after his speech, offering her congratulations. End result? The bill has been deferred to committee.
To make one shtreimel can take up to 400 tails of various breeds of mink, sable and fox — the scrap of the fur industry.
Customers are fussy... The hardest part is measuring their heads to get an exact size.
With only 10,000 shtreimels produced around the world each year, it's definitely what you would call a niche market. But at a cost of up to $4000 each, it can be a profitable one.

Happy Passover, folks

And, on a pleasant Passover note, Goliath Grouper are no longer called Jewfish.
(Tip of the sombrero to Nathan Thornborgh for this timely tidbit. Goliath Grouper is pictured above, with quite a group! "Pesach same'ach" (פסח שמח); "Chag Pesach Same'ach" (חג פסח שמח)

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_say_happy_Passover_in_Hebrew#ixzz1JwQoebS4

Also breaking news from the Holy Land: Maundy Thursday might have actually been on a Wednesday. Whatev'. Big kerfuffle over this"pre-poning" of the Last Supper in the mainstream media

Why Bedouins are pining for their old lands beneath new evergreen saplings

'Unrecognized' Bedouin are staking land claims in Israel.

The Jewish National Fund aims to plant a forest over the lands of al-Araqib. Co-sponsored by evangelical Christian organization God-TV, this forest would involve forcibly displacing the 300 Bedouin residents of the village, who are all Israeli citizens, from their homes. A non-profit organization in charge of forestation and Jewish settlement throughout Israel, the JNF controls approximately 13 percent of the land in Israel today. This land falls under the management of the Israeli Lands Administration (ILA), and can only be leased to Jews, or for Jewish settlement purposes.

According to Israeli activist Haia Noach, while the JNF initially denied any involvement in the destruction of al-Araqib, residents and local activists saw JNF bulldozers destroying property in the village during a demolition in early February:

“We connect them with this; they are directly responsible for what is going on there, for the fact that people lost their houses, lost their herds, their orchards,” said Noach, the Director of the Negev Co-Existence Forum, a joint Jewish-Arab organization working for Bedouin land rights in the Negev.

The destruction of al-Araqib is part of a larger Jewish National Fund project called ‘Blueprint Negev.’ Launched in 2005 at the cost of $600 million, the project aims to increase the population in the Negev area by 250,000 Jewish residents by 2013.

“Since the foundation of Israel, JNF was actually planting forests on Arab villages’ remains. And you see it all over Israel, in the North and even in the South. There will be more and more Arab villages in the Negev that are threatened by the forestation of the JNF,” Noach predicted.

Hat tip to OpenDemocracy and Jillian Kestler-D'Amours,filmmaker, for this important news. Residents were evicted by more than 1,000 riot police officers, who destroyed homes and animal pens, uprooted thousands of olive and other trees and confiscated personal property.

Hammering Cruci-fiction? Simcha nails it

That Orthodox chap who calls himself the Naked Archaeologist is at it again, timing another dubious documentary to coincide with Easter. The garrulous and guileless Simcha Jacobovici claims to have dug up a couple of 2000 year old nails used to crucify Jesus, and the discovery is making serious archaeologists and Biblical scholars rather cross. It definitely is intended to spike the interest of Christendom, and Simcha called a press conference in Jerusalem to launch the publicity for his new film. Reuters reports on the controversy stirred up by the Sabra/Canuk director's latest release: "The Nails of the Cross":

"What we are bringing to the world is the best archaeological argument ever made that two of the nails from the crucifixion of Jesus have been found," he said in an interview with Reuters.

"Do I know 100 percent yes, these are them? I don't."

The film begins by revisiting an ancient Jerusalem grave discovered in 1990 which was hailed by many at the time as the burial place of the Jewish high priest Caiaphas, who in the New Testament presides over the trial of Jesus.

The grave, along with a number of ossuaries, or bone boxes, was uncovered during construction work on a hillside a few kilometers south of the Old City. It has since been resealed.

Caiaphas is a major figure in the Gospels, having sent Jesus to the Romans and on to his death, and one of Jacobovici's assertions is that the high priest was not such a bad guy.

Two iron nails were found in the tomb, one on the ground and one actually inside an ossuary, and, according to the film, mysteriously disappeared shortly after. Jacobovici says he tracked them down to a laboratory in Tel Aviv of an anthropologist who is an expert on ancient bones.

And if they are indeed the same nails -- eaten away by rust and bent at the end, almost purposefully -- was their disappearance a conspiracy or a logistical slip-up?

No definite answer is offered.

Either way, Jacobovici shows why those nails could have been used in a crucifixion, which was a common practice two thousand years ago. He then offers his theory about why they may have been used in the most famous crucifixion in history.

"If you look at the whole story, historical, textual, archaeological, they all seem to point at these two nails being involved in a crucifixion," he said. "And since Caiaphas is only associated with Jesus's crucifixion, you put two and two together and they seem to imply that these are the nails."

The Israel Antiquities Authority, which oversaw the Jerusalem excavation, said in reaction to the film's release that it had never been proven beyond doubt that the tomb was the burial place of Caiaphas. It also said that nails are commonly found in tombs.

"There is no doubt that the talented director Simcha Jacobovici created an interesting film with a real archaeological find at its center, but the interpretation presented in it has no basis in archaeological findings or research," it said.

Avigdor Lieberman pans Hamas in toilet interview

Avigdorable! Israel's outspoken foreign minister has chosen a novel way of making a point in a radio interview - apparently flushing his toilet live on the air. The guy knows how to put the 'Ew' in interview....and there was no indication that he bothered to wash his hands afterwards.

Avigdor Lieberman was referring to the Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas, at the time.

Lieberman, who leads the right-wing Israel Our Home Party, is no stranger to controversy. He frequently upsets Israel's Arab minority and liberal groups with his blunt manner of speaking.

Now his critics say the former nightclub bouncer has sunk to new depths, by apparently flushing his toilet in a live radio interview.

Mr Lieberman's distinctly undiplomatic intervention came during a discussion about the Islamist group Hamas.

It may have been an odd way for the foreign minister to get his point across, but his methods aren't harming him in the opinion polls.

Although he is facing allegations of corruption, support for Mr Lieberman's ultra-nationalist party is growing and he is unlikely to care what his opponents think about his antics on the toilet.

Hear an excerpt of the Avigdor Lieberman interview, in Hebrew, courtesy Reshet Bet radio. Hat tip to Wyre Davies of BBC News, Jerusalem, for this guest post.