Murray Aronson http://www.jta.org/user/profile/59849 en-us zsilberman@washingtonjewishweek.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Hawaii is Jewish after all these words are similar: Kahuna meaning priest is like kohain. Heiau meaning temple is like heychal. And the clincher is Auwe (pronounced Ow vay) meaning something like Oy vay! There's got to be a connection. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Well it's stupid and not classy. So it's tasteless. If the makers and sub- ject were not Jews, then I'm sure because of the talleitim we'd hear cries of anti-Semitism. The video is a far cry from the lachrymose concept of Judaism. While not my thing, the video wasn't dull. A bi gezunt! 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I agree with Carole Clarke that the cat can take care of itself. I'm assuming that the cat takes care of any resident mice and rats, otherwise I hope someone (Jewish, Polish, otherwise) puts out food and water for the puss. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 It is to be hoped that Pius XII did more to save Jewish lives than is commonly believed. However, there is one thing he could have done, but for whatever reason, and according to the agenda of the Vatican and the Catholic Church possibly good and necessary, but did not. On the morning of October 16, 1943, the Germans then in occupation of Rome, did a raid primarily in the old Ghetto, rounding up whatever Jews they could lay their hands on. I believe some 1000 Jews were gathered up in one of the Ghetto piazzas before being brought to one of the Roman train stations, and then deported East where most of them were murdered. These Jews were largely the Pope's Jews, some of them may have been born papal subjects. (Rome was taken by the new Kingdom of Italy only in 1870.) Pius XII could have practically seen the ongoing raid and deportation from his window. The Ghetto is walking distance from the Vatican. Why didn't the Pope go immediately to the Ghetto and try to prevent these innocent people being taken from the Holy and Eternal City of Rome? Earlier that year, in July 1943, there was an Allied bombing raid in the San Lorenzo district of Rome. As soon as Pius XII was informed of the attack, he ordered his limousine to take to San Lorenzo and he was there within minutes to comfort and aid his people. There is a well-known photograph of Pius XII in the midst of his flock of the San Lorenzo district. He was after all the Bishop of Rome. If Pius XII could have gone to San Lorenzo in July, he could have gone to the Ghetto in October. The Ghetto may be a little closer to the Vatican. Whatever else Pope Pius XII did or didn't do regarding the Nazis, the Jews and their fate, this inaction on October 16, 1943 is just unforgivable. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 This all looks bad, but even without permission, is harvesting organs comparable to the actions of the Holocaust? At least these various organs went to sustain or improve life. Did the parties responsible for this ever realize how it would look? Like it or not, perception counts in the struggle for hearts and minds. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 But at the time the Locarno Pact seemed that it might contribute to European peace. No one then expected Hitler to come to power. So in retrospect and hindsight Austen Chamberlain did do what Nobel's will asked for. A goodly number of the Peace laureates were men and women of courage and idealism who worked to make the World a better place. To name a few: Bertha von Suttner; Fridtjof Nansen; Jane Addams; Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann (who died much too prematurely); Carl von Ossietzky (a brave German); John Boyd Orr; Ralph Bunche; Linus Pauling; and the recently deceased Norman Borlaug. Cordell Hull probably deserved his prize. Barack Obama is in good company. Mazel Tov Mr. President! As for Herta Mueller, I never heard of her. But then there are a lot of writers that I've never heard of. But so what. I wish the English literary critic Martin Seymour-Smith were still alive and writing. He would have known about Herta Mueller and most likely would have read some works by her. Relatively foreign literature is translated and published in the United States. And we all know the star names. Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Cynthia Ozick are fine writers and maybe their Nobel will eventually come their way. But it doesn't, they're in good company. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 This is being pedantic, but describing Italian Jews as Sephardic is ridiculous. There are some Sephardim in Italy, however, the largest community in Italy, that of Rome, is sui generis Italian. Just remember Sephardi means Spanish. There are other Jewish ethnicities beside the two major ones, Ashkenazi and Sephardi. The Italki being one of them. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 When I visited West Germany for afew days in 1971, some Jews in Cologne (Orthodox observant and of German background, not Eastern European) told me that as a matter of course the majority of the then much Jewish community do not vote for any of the Christian parties, eg the Christian Democrats, the Bavarian affiliate Christian Social Union. I have no idea if that reluctance still exists. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I believe Benjamin Cardozo was a Columbia Law School graduate. I hope I'm not being too obvious, but there haven't been as yet any Muslim justices on the US Supreme Court. Until recently the Muslim population in the United States has been rather small. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I think it would be appropriate for the Pope to visit the Main Synagogue during Sukkot. That holiday called the Time of our Rejoicing was to be open to Gentiles. During Sukkot in Temple times sacrifices were offered on behalf of the World's Seventy Nations. Sukkot is supposed to have universalist connotations. I hope Chief Rabbi di Segni invites the Pope to share a meal in the sukkah. L'Shanah Tovah Tikatevu everyone. May you all be inscribed in the Book of Life. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 What is a New Wonder of the World? The Dead Sea has been around for quite a while, at least since the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah! Seriously the Dead Sea is disappearing little by little as more and more water is diverted. Remember the Jordan River empties into the Dead Sea or it's supposed to. I'd like to know about plans to protect and preserve the Dead Sea ecosystem. And I don't give a hoot about some vapid tourist industry PR stunt, only inasmuch it helps the above. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 This may be pedantic, but I hope they use real Italian spellings like Sciabbat, kascer, Scema, T'esciuba, etc. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 For the record, plenty of non-Orthodox Jews were. captured, deported, and murdered. Goodly numbers of Jews of Liberal, Neolog, and Reform streams from Germany, Austria, Hungary, etc, died in the Shoah. German Jews had a greater warning period, 1933, and weren't stuck in the same numbers as say Polish Jewry who found themselves suddenly in grave danger from the German invasion of 1939. But hardly any Reformers, unfortunately that just isn't true. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I believe Rita Levi-Montalcini is the first Nobel Prize winner to reach 100. And Claude Levi-Strauss is the first member of the French Academy to reach 100. And hopefully there'll be another similar milestone come this coming January. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Signora la Professoressa: Tanti auguri di compleanno! Anche Mazal tov. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Zol der Aybershteh uphitten! 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Some other well-known gay Jews would include Wilfrid Israel, one of the founders of Youth Aliyah. Magnus Hirschfeld in pre-Hitler Germany and Harvey Milk, both pioneers of the Gay Rights movement, were Jews. There are many GLBT synagogues throughout the United States and Canada, almost every major city has at least one. There are some in Europe too. Look and you shall find us. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 The Poles DID not allow the extermination camps to be built on their land. Poland was conquered by the Germans at the beginning of World War II. And the Poles fought valiantly. Poland did not exist as a political entity from late 1939 until liberation in 1945. The Germans did whatever they wanted in Poland. The German occupation was a miserable time for everyone in Poland, except for maybe the ethnic Germans. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I read Roger Cohen's article in today's NY Times and thought "What a ****!" Please remember the NY Times has never really been pro-Israel. The owning family headed by Arthur Hays Sulzberger who was a member of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism has been at best lukewarm on the existence of Israel. Also the NY Times doesn't have such a good track record on some major issues. The paper's Moscow correspondent during the 1930s (the Great Purge and other events) Walter Duranty wrote that life in the Soviet Union was just hunky-dory and Joseph Stalin was a benevolent and progressive leader. I was thinking of Duranty when I read Roger Cohen's screed. And by the way, what in tarnation are phylacteries? The word tefillin (alternate spelling tephillin) appear in many dictionaries. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 When I was a child my Mother would ask upon hearing of an accident or a disaster, if there were any Jews among the victims. I usually would say or feel so what. They were all human beings. I'm sorry that possibly three fellow tribesmen are among the casualties of the Buffalo airplane crash. But I feel no less saddened that forty seven other fellow human beings suddenly realized that they were not written in the Book of Life last Rosh HaShanah. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Today Feb 3, 2009 just happens to be Felix Mendelssohn's 200th birthday, Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is a descendant. I would not describe Mendelssohn-Bartholdy as a German-Jewish scholar, but certainly he is of some Jewish ancestry and the Nazis would have considered him to be a non-Aryan. The composer's father had his family baptized and his wife Cecile Jeanrenaud was the daughter of a Swiss Protestant minister. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00