Sephardic Heritage Update 580
David Shasha
Friends,
Before we get underway, a reminder for our New York area readers:
Our dear friend Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber will be lecturing on the Yemenite Babies scandal this Tuesday evening at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. For more information on the event and on her important book Israeli Media and the Framing of Internal Conflict: The Yemenite Babies Affair:
https://groups.google.com/group/Davidshasha/browse_thread/thread/51e4af6c8826cab8#
We begin this week’s newsletter with Matti Friedman’s article on the Arab Jewish spy Isaac Shushan. The story is strongly indicative of the way in which some Arab Jews were used by the Israel secret services in order to infiltrate the Arab-Muslim world. The article shows us the contempt in which Arab Jews were held in Israel – being marked as primitive and ignorant – while their knowledge of the Arabic language and the regional culture was deemed highly beneficial to Israeli military interests.
Carmen Weinstein was the leader of a severely depleted Egyptian Jewish community and her tragic passing is here marked in obituaries from The New York Times and The Jerusalem Post. Her advocacy on behalf’s of Egypt’s Jews represents a rare moment of continuity for Jews in the Arab world. Her aggressive voice on behalf of Arab Jews will be sorely missed.
Arutz Sheva’s Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu promotes the view that Palestinian Arab history is a myth. His article looks at a new Palestinian museum and repeats the common canard among Zionists that there is no such thing as Palestinian history.
An interesting piece by William Kolbrener of Bar-Ilan University examines the tension between Israel as a fulfillment of millennial Jewish aspirations and the continued religious reality of Diaspora.
Gil Troy discusses the three new commemorations instituted by Zionism that serve to transform traditional Jewish perceptions of memory and redemption.
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo presents the modern state of Israel as a religious mystery thereby undermining the Zionist demand that the state act as a normalizing influence. In ascribing religious meaning to the state Rabbi Cardozo opens up a contentious can of worms that continues to plague the meaning of Jewish identity among Israelis.
Sefi Rachlevsky looks at the transformational figure of Ruth Calderon in light of Religious Zionist ideology and Settler radicalism.
Liel Leibovitz discusses a recent flap over a street-naming in honor of the great Israeli iconoclast Yeshayahu Leibowitz. The matter has since been resolved in a positive manner:
http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Jlem-City-Council-passes-street-naming-for-Leibowitz-311161
Rabbi Elie Kaunfer of Mechon Hadar – a rising star in the world of institutional Jewish education – gives us a very important analysis of how the institutional Jewish world works: more important than substantive ideas, the most critical value is networking and making partnerships in the effort to assure success. This, of course, affirms the echo-chamber aspect of Jewish institutional life and reinforces already-existing ideas and values as it negates out-of-the-box and innovative initiatives. The article is proof positive that change is difficult if not impossible in Jewish institutions as bucking the status quo is deemed inadvisable.
Michael Kaminer discusses a new book by Danny Bar-Moshe that looks at the role of Jews in the Indian-Bollywood film industry.
David Shasha
Our Man in Beirut: The Remarkable Story of Isaac Shushan
By: Matti Friedman
Carmen Weinstein, who led Jews of Egypt, Dies at 82
By: David D. Kirkpatrick
Carmen Weinstein, President of Egyptian Jewish Community, Dies at 82
By: Ariel ben Solomon and Fay Greer Cashman
PA Museum Invents a 200-Year-Old Palestinian History
By: Tzvi ben Gedalyahu
Why Israelis Should Feel like Strangers, even when They’re at Home
By: William Kolbrener
Appreciating the ‘Yom Has’ in an Age of Delegitimization
By: Gil Troy
Yom Ha’atzmaut: The Mystery of Israel
By: Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Ruth Calderon in the Wonderland of Mutilated Israeli Ideology
By: Sefi Rachlevsky
Stop Yeshayahu Leibowitz!
By: Liel Leibovitz
The Partnership Model as a Pathway to Second Stage Growth
By: Elie Kaunfer
Jewish Stars of Bollywood
By: Michael Kaminer