UAE a success for Bibi, but COVID-19 still a problem

It’s been a tough week to judge, and to summarize.The key event occurred Thursday, with the announcement of a formal agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. It came on condition that Israel shelve the plan to annex territories within the West Bank. Also, the UAE indicated that its Embassy would not be in Jerusalem, at least until there was some arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians. [Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D]

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

Lebanese memories prompted by Beirut explosion

George Salameh, owner of the Alforon Restaurant on El Cajon Boulevard near 59th Street, remembers living within the area near the port of  Beirut that was leveled by the terrible blast on August 4  that killed at least 177 people and wounded or injured 6,000 more, leaving as many as 150,000 people homeless, and causing property damage estimated between $10 billion and $15 billion. [Our Shtetl San Diego County by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Obituaries & memorials, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA

San Diego Jewish World endorses Sara Jacobs for Congress

With only nuance separating them on Middle East issues, and practically no discernible differences on domestic issues, I’ve been watching the tenor of their two campaigns to help me in my deliberations. There, I have to say, Sara Jacobs has been far more positive in her approach to the voters than Georgette Gomez. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Middle East, San Diego County, USA

Many benefits to Israel-UAE agreement

It’s “early days,” but the surprise “Abraham Accord” announced by Washington has been a stunner. Against all odds, nothing leaked from any of the governments involved: Israel, the United Arab Emirates (Emirates or UAE), or the US. The Emirates-Israel peace agreement is the first one in which a non-contiguous Arab country has reconciled with Israel and which can be characterized as “peace for peace.” [Steve Kramer]

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Middle East, Steve Kramer, USA

The Use of ‘Two’ in the Joseph Drama

Many people who read or even carefully study the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, fail to pay attention to details and as a result they miss much that is in the Bible, the brilliant way that it is written, its poetry, its references to other incidences, its use of metaphor, and much more. The drama of Joseph and the number two is an example. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion

The ‘Jewishness’ of Kamala Harris

– It is probably normal, as “normal” as things can be these days, for voters to be curious about how they relate to or identify with political figures; what values they share; what they have in common as human beings in addition to policy, politics or party affiliation. In the “what they have in common” category would fall ethnicity, race, national origin, gender, religion, etc. In other words, what many would call “Identity Politics.” [Dorian de Wind]

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Dorian de Wind, USA

Some of the websites I like to read

In today’s column, I would like to share with you current editions of websites that I routinely visit as I familiarize myself with Jewish news from around the world.  If you have the time and inclination, I’m certain that the hard-working staffs who publish these websites would very much welcome your readership and support, as, of course, do I. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Chris Jennewein, Donald H. Harrison, Joe Gandelman, Ken Stone, Michael Ordman, Miriam Raftery

Keep our kids safe

Debates and arguments to open or not open schools in September are in full swing, both for secular schools, colleges, and of course, our Jewish day schools. It is obvious that during the present terrible situation opening schools (and, for the same reasons, colleges) is dangerous. It seems that proponents of school openings know the dangers and are still suggesting it, mostly for political reasons. The following are some considerations about the dangers of opening schools this fall, and some alternatives to doing so. [Arkady Mamaysky]

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Arkady Mamaysky, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Leading Italian fascists and their Jewish lovers

Columbia University historian Victoria de Grazia, who has written extensively about women in Fascist Italy (How Fascism Ruled Women), and America’s imperial drive to spread consumer capitalism abroad (Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe), has written a book where its title and subtitle are telling two different, but overlapping, stories. [Mitchell J. Freedman]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History

Call me Father Ginsberg

I know “Father” and “Ginsberg” don’t seem to fit together, but the nuns at All Saints Elementary School in Buffalo, NY, assigned me that title, and you don’t say no to nuns, even if you’re Jewish. Besides, their warm smiles and insistence that I take time off for Jewish holidays made it impossible to argue with them. I taught sixth grade at All Saints for the 1969-70 school year. Since then, I’ve spent 30 of the past 51 years as a teacher, but that year is still my favorite. Go figure. [Michael Ginsberg]

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Michael Ginsberg, Science, Medicine, & Education

Israel has Iran to ‘thank’ for UAE’s friendship

The recent much-heralded decision by the Emirates to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel is a manifestation of the principle that my enemy’s enemy should be my friend. The threat that Iran is posing to Muslim states in the region has forced many of them to seek out Israel as the power that can contain Iranian aggression. Iran may hire stooges like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza to be a nuisance – though not a real threat – to the existence of Israel, but it knows very well that a direct attack would spell suicide for Iran. [Rabbi Dow Marmur]

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Middle East, USA

Learning about farming and sex in the Catskills

Across the road from the colony was “Louis Cohen’s dairy farm.” The only way to tell he was Jewish was the name. He didn’t look Jewish! Louis had a raw bone, muscular body, honed by years of hard farm work. His voice didn’t sound Jewish. He was quiet and soft spoken, a rarity in my heritage, Jewish farmers in America were as rare then as underpaid professional athletes are today. Louie had a fine herd of milking cows grazing in a flat pasture that became my playground. It was great adventure to overturn hard, white granite rocks speckled with black syinite specks and find one or more garter snakes wiggling angrily at being discovered. The rock homes sheltered the reptiles from the hot sun’s rays. I always searched with my head down, carefully avoiding the innumerable “cow paddies.” [Ira Spector]

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Jewish History, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USA