All the historical forces that exist today in the Arab-Israeli conflict are just rebirths of old forces we tend to think of as new. What is new is simply each generation’s discovery of these forces. It proves the old maxim that history does not repeat, but it certainly rhymes.

And so it is with Mitchell Bard’s new book, “The Arab Lobby.” You may think AIPAC is devising the Mideast policies of the US government. You might think that Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s 2007 book, “The Israel Lobby,” accurately portrays the new state of the US-Israeli relationship whereby the Israeli tail wags the US dog; that the US State Dept. and our military bend to Israeli concerns over American self-interest; that Arabs and Arab states have become more reasonable and Palestinians are now the underdogs; and that Israel is an imperialist and even apartheid state. And finally, you might believe that it is new to say that it is in Israel’s self-interest for the USA to take a more aggressive approach to some presumed Israeli intransigence, for their own good (tough love?).

Bard makes the case that there exists an Arab Lobby, that this Lobby has existed formally since the 1948 Israeli War of Independence and informally through various Arab political formations after the fall of the Ottoman Empire near the end of World War I. The House of Saud, for instance, is one example. More importantly, the same political forces pulling on the US government, the White House, the Arabs, the Palestinians, the Islamists, the Pentagon, and all the parallel institutions of the Israelis has not fundamentally changed over all these years. The one thing that has changed though is that the Arabs are better at lobbying in the USA and have more influence than ever. But not near enough to change their relative strength in our political arena.

One important thing that is true now and was true way back when is that the Arab Lobby does not have a popular base among the US people while the Israel Lobby does.

The Arabs do not seek to call attention to or debate Israel head on because their attempts to do so have always been failures, as Bard points out. They’ve tried this. Their heavy-handed narratives only alienate them from the American people. So they prefer to insinuate themselves in more subdued ways, such as funding and therefore biasing Middle East scholarship departments at important American universities by endowing chairs. Or influencing the placement of their insufficiently critical narratives in our grade school and high school textbooks. Or establishing their extremist Wahhabi schools and mosques in urban and suburban America.

The fact that American support for Israel has not changed since the formation of Israel in 1948 drives the Arabs just plain crazy. But it drives the Arab’s American supporters even crazier. These Americans are an important contingent of so-called Arabists who populate and dominate our own Departments of State and even the Pentagon, some Christian denominations, the old oil industry, universities and intelligentsia, media and philo-Arabists who for various reasons (up to and including hatred of Jews) think Israel’s formation was an historical tragedy. Bard thinks this combination of forces is larger and more powerful than the Israel Lobby, but less politically agile because it fundamentally has to go against American sympathy for Israel and the Jews.

Moreover, Bard says, the Arabists have been consistently wrong in their arguments against Israel and in favor of the Arabs. These historic arguments include that Israel’s formation would be a danger to the Jews, that arming Israel would lead to Israeli over-reaction and war, that Israel would go communist, that the Arab nations would break with the United States and deny us oil, etc. Still, the Arabists manage to continuously dredge up these same arguments in new forms.

From this understanding Bard then makes a new and interesting point: The Arab Lobby morphed from its nascent Jew-hatred, oil-based threats and denial of Israel’s self-determination to support for a narrative of an underdog, oppressed and repressed Palestinian nationhood. Bard makes a case that this new narrative never really accorded with the reality of Israeli-Palestinian politics. In 2002 NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman reported to much excitement that Saudi ruler Crown Prince Abdullah announced at a dinner to which he was invited in Riyadh that the Arabs would bury the hatchet (normalize relations) with Israel if Israel made a complete withdrawal from the disputed territories. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Ohlmert famously made the requisite Israeli-side offer to negotiate on this basis, but the Saudis never responded positively to his entreaties, even changing the terms. Meanwhile, Friedman’s hechsher helped them garner much undeserved goodwill just after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

To continue, the Arabs also succeeded in turning the struggle of narratives from one of an embattled David (Israel) against the Arab Goliath to a religious war in which the Arab and Muslim diaspora could pit a Jewish/Nazi/imperialist state against Islam. Otherwise, why would Muslims in Asia care about the Palestinian problem when they have many others closer to their home? Yet none of this has empirically increased their support among the American people.

Yet the Arabs and Muslims have built many American-based Islamic and Arab organizations precisely to push the religious line: devout and peaceful Muslims against Islamophobia. These organizations get ample funding and backing from Arab sources. The Congress of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is one of these. It bills itself as a Muslim version of the NAACP. But it was founded by elements of the Muslim Brotherhood, it refuses to back Israel against Hamas, and it’s leaders have been put on record in closed meetings as calling itself pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah. They have lost support from a high of 29,000 members after the 9/11 attack to around 1,700 in 2006, according to a report in the Washington Times. Meanwhile, they have been feted by high-level administration operatives and used as counsel on such things as police training against a supposed Islamophobia.

Bard details the more contemporaneous cast of characters: Christian anti-Zionists such as the Presbyterian Church, diplomatic alumni seeking careers as Arab and Muslim favorites, academics who couch the Arab and Muslim narrative in biased terms in the classrooms of our youth and in our universities.

None of these new initiatives has paid off so far in turning America against Israel. Meanwhile the Israeli narrative has grown stronger in America. But can this working relationship be undone? The Arab Lobby would like to do just that.

Come and learn more about this important work by Mitchell Bard and deepen your understanding of this subject. Mitchell Bard will make an appearance at the Boulder Jewish Community Center on Sunday, February 12 at 7:00 pm to talk about his new book, “The Arab Lobby.”

Mitchell Bard

The allegation that a powerful Israel lobby exerts undue influence over US policy has been front page news for years. Left largely unexamined until now is the existence of an Arab lobby that not only wields great influence but poses a threat to US interests.

Mitchell Bard will be at the Boulder JCC on Sunday, February 12 at 7 pm to discuss his provocative and eagerly anticipated new book, “The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East.”

Mitchell Bard makes the historic argument that an Arab lobby composed of big oil companies, weapons firms, and Middle Eastern despots is secretly conspiring to undermine decision making in the U.S. capital.  A foreign policy analyst who lectures frequently on U.S.-Middle East policy, Bard boldly asserts that while the lobby has a legitimate role in the debate, most people have no idea that the lobby exists, how it operates or the implications for American interests of its efforts.

After spending more than 20 years researching and writing about the influences on U.S. Middle East policy, Bard was motivated to write the first comprehensive examination of the Arab lobby because of an obsessive mischaracterization of the Israeli lobby which has helped those seeking to delegitimize Israel. At the same time, he realized that few people acknowledge that an Arab lobby exists and that it seeks to exert its own influence on U.S. policy, often working against American values and interests.

“The point of this study is to highlight how the debate may be distorted because of the vast financial resources of the Arab lobby, and to expose some of its efforts to manipulate public opinion and foreign policy, often beyond public view, in ways that have gone largely unnoticed and demand greater scrutiny.”

According to Bard, the Arab lobby has two main components. The first focuses on oil and its goal is to do whatever is necessary to guarantee that Saudi oil continues to flow, which sometimes means ignoring or subverting other U.S. interests. The other part of the lobby is the domestic Arab lobby comprised of Arab and Muslim Americans, academics, non-evangelical Christians and Arabists, whose goal is to promote the Palestinian agenda, though, he notes, they lobby primarily against Israel rather than for any positive pro-Palestinian or pro-Arab agenda.

One of the nation’s leading authorities on U.S.-Israel relations, Mitchell Bard is currently the head of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) and director of the Jewish Virtual Library, the world’s most comprehensive online encyclopedia of Jewish history and culture. He is the author of 18 books, including “Will Israel Survive?” and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Middle East Conflict.” For three years he was the editor of the Near East Report, the AIPAC  weekly newsletter on U.S. Middle East policy.

Bard, who holds a Ph.D. in political science from UCLA and a master’s degree in public policy from Berkeley, has appeared on Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, CBC, the Jenny Jones Show, al-Jazeera and other local and national television and radio outlets. His work has been published in academic journals, magazines and major newspapers.

Tickets are $10 at the door; free to students with ID. Reservations may be made online at https://boulderjcc.wufoo.com/forms/menorah-the-arab-lobby/. For more information, contact Kathryn Bernheimer at 303-998-1021; Kathryn@boulderjcc.org.

Menorah hosts its first community-wide book club event on Sunday, January 29, at 4 pm. This program is also a commemoration of the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War and includes a book discussion, a meal and a film.

DU Professor Adam Rovner returns to the Boulder JCC to discuss the work of award-winning author Dara Horn and lead a book-club style discussion of her third acclaimed novel, “All Other Nights,” a page-turner set against the backdrop of the Civil War. “All Other Nights,” published in 2009, was selected as New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice.

Following a light dinner break featuring Civil War era cuisine (vegetarian), audiences can sit back (or recline) to watch the new documentary, “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray.” Professor Ronnie Grinberg from CU’s Program in Jewish Studies will lead a discussion about Jewish life during the Civil War after the screening.

Did you know there were 150,00 Jews living in America at the time of the Civil War? And that more Jews lived in Charleston and New Orleans than New York and Philadelphia? Did you know that 10,000 Jews fought in the Civil War? Ever heard of Judah Benjamin, a lawyer and US Senator who was the most prominent and highest ranking Jewish figure in Civil War history, fighting for the Confederacy?

Copies of “All Other Nights” are available at the Boulder JCC Library, HaSifria. But reading Horn’s suspenseful work of historical fiction is not required for participation. The program is for anyone interested in learning more about the role played by Jews as they defended both the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War, when allegiances split the Jewish community as deeply as the country at large. Some prominent Jewish voices cited the Torah to justify slavery, while others led the abolitionist movement.

Come celebrate Passover in 1862. Join the African-American spy network. Watch the destruction of Richmond. Next week at One JCC Reads.

Tickets are $18. Click here to reserve your spot.

CU’s 2012 Holocaust Awareness Week will also adopt the UN’s theme this year which will focus on the “Children and the Holocaust.” Some children managed to survive in hiding, others fled to safe havens before it was too late, while many others suffered medical experiments or were sent to the gas chambers immediately upon arriving at the death camps. Highlighting the impact of mass violence on children, this theme has important implications for the 21st century. CU’s keynote lecture, “Hidden Children of the Holocaust” on Thursday, January 26 at 7:00 pm in the University Memorial Center room 235 features University of California Davis professor and author Diane Wolf.

Anne Frank has largely shaped the image of the Jewish child hiding from the Nazis, yet her experience was not the norm. Wolf’s keynote lecture is based on her book “Beyond Anne Frank: Hidden Children and Postwar Families in Holland” in which she draws on interviews with seventy Jewish men and women who, as children, were placed in non-Jewish families during the Nazi occupation of Holland. Wolf analyzes the experiences of these Holocaust survivors, which were diametrically opposed to those who suffered in concentration camps. Although the war years were tolerable for most of these children, it was the end of the war that marked the beginning of a traumatic time, especially if parents survived, leading many of those interviewed to remark, “My war began after the war.”

Diane Wolf, professor of Sociology and director of Jewish Studies at UC Davis

Diane Wolf is professor of Sociology and director of Jewish Studies at the University of California, Davis. She has authored “Beyond Anne Frank: Hidden Children and Postwar Families in Holland,” “From Auschwitz to Ithaca: The Transnational Journey of Jake Geldwert” and “Factory Daughters“. She edited “Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork” and co-edited “Sociology Confronts the Holocaust: Memories and Identities in Jewish Diasporas“. Her current research focuses on American cultural memory of the Holocaust, children of Holocaust survivors, and comparing the religious practices of secular Jews in both Israel and the U.S.

CU’s 28th Annual Holocaust Awareness Week includes film screenings, presentations  and testimonies from survivors. The schedule of events begins Tuesday, January 24:

Tuesday, January 24 at 7:00 pm
Film screening of “Mephisto”
Boulder JCC, 3800 Kalmia Avenue
$10 at the door**
This Oscar-winning political drama is based on Klaus Mann’s 1936 novel of the same name. In early 1930s Germany, ambitious actor Hendrik Hofgen cares little for politics and lives only for his art. But when the Nazis rise to power, Hofgen seizes the opportunity to perform propaganda plays for the Reich, gaining popularity and fame. But can he survive in a world where the ideology of evil is the ultimate drama?
**Presented by Menorah: Arts, Culture and Education at the Boulder Jewish Community Center. Visit www.boulderjcc.org for details.

The House on August Street by Aylelet Bargur

Wednesday, January 25 at 7:00 pm
“The House on August Street” with post-film discussion by Diane Wolf, professor of Sociology and director of Jewish Studies at UC Davis
University of Colorado Boulder, Atlas Building Room 100
**Free and open to the public, RSVPs are required as space is limited, email Nicholas.Underwood@colorado.edu or call 303.492.7143
From award-winning director Aylelet Bargur, “The House on August Street” tells the remarkable, unknown story of Beate Berger, a German Jew who single-handedly and with great resolve and vision rescued over 100 children during the Holocaust, smuggling them from Berlin to Palestine in the 1930s. Berger, founder of the House of Love Children’s Home (Beith Ahawah Kinderheim), Berlin’s first home for poor Jewish children, was quick to recognize the Nazi threat and resolved to protect the 120 children under her care. Raising the funds and making all the clandestine arrangements, Berger brought groups of children into Palestine from Germany from 1934 to 1939. The Beit Ahava orphanage in Haifa remains open today.

Thursday, January 26 at 7:00 pm
Keynote lecture “Hidden Children of the Holocaust” with Diane Wolf, author and professor of Sociology and director of Jewish Studies at UC Davis
University of Colorado Boulder, University Memorial Center room 235
Anne Frank largely shaped the image of the Jewish child hiding from the Nazis, yet her experience was not the norm. Drawing on interviews with seventy Jewish men and women who, as children, were placed in non-Jewish families during the Nazi occupation of Holland, Wolf analyzes the experiences of these Holocaust survivors which were diametrically opposed to the those who suffered in concentration camps. Although the war years were tolerable for most of these children, it was the end of the war that marked the beginning of a traumatic time, especially if parents survived, leading many of those interviewed here to remark, “My war began after the war.”

Friday, January 27 at 10:30 am and 1:30 pm
Reading of the names and survivor testimonies
University of Colorado Boulder
University Memorial Center room 235
CU’s Holocaust Awareness Week concludes with the reading of Holocaust victims’ names called the Litany of the Martyrs which will begin at 10:00 am in the UMC. Testimonies from local Holocaust survivors will be at 10:30 am and 1:30 pm.

A complete schedule of events can be found at www.hillelcolorado.org and http://jewishstudies.colorado.edu.

Holocaust Awareness Week is presented by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Hillel and co-sponsored by the Program in Jewish Studies at CU, Menorah: Arts, Culture and Education at the Boulder JCC, the Cultural Events Board at CU, and Movers: Art and Conscience community collaborative series.

Diane Wolf’s visit has been made possible by generous donors to CU’s Hillel, the Program in Jewish Studies and the Legacy Heritage Jewish Studies Project, directed by the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS). Support for the Legacy Heritage Jewish Studies Project is generously provided by Legacy Heritage Fund Limited.

Boulder Book Store

Clementine Art Studio will also offer a Bookmark Project Station where kids can make their own, or create a bookmark for kids in Guatemala. And attendees will have an opportunity to win a fabulous door prize, containing lots of goodies (and a BBS gift card)!

Schedule of Readings:

• 10:00 am—David Dadone (Executive Director, BMoCA) – Reading in Spanish
• 10:30 am—Guillermo Medina (Principal of Columbine Elementary) – Reading in Spanish
• 11:00 am—Mark Megibow (Beat-boxer for vocal band Face)
• 11:30 am—Jeff Kagan & Paige Doughty (Environmental musicians and performers)
• 12:00 pm—Sonny Zinn (Principal of Horizons K-8)
• 12:30 pm—Beth Osnes (Professor of Theater, founder of the Striking the Match Initiative)
• 1:00 pm—Linda Smith (Founder of Reading Village)
• 1:30 pm—Laura Resau (Author, The Queen of Water, The Ruby Notebook)
• 2:00 pm—Lee Shainis (Intercambio) & Shawn Camden (Founder and President of The Spanish Institute and 100% Mexicano) – Reading in Spanish
• 2:30 pm—Lisa Holub (Director of Education, Clementine Studio / OpenArts)
• 3:00 pm—Kerry MacLean (Author, Pigs Over Colorado, Peaceful Piggy Meditation)
• 3:30 pm—Nicole de Boom (Triathlete, Founder of Skirts Sports)
• 4:00 pm—Xiuhtezcatl Martinez (Earth Guardians)
• 4:30 pm—Melanie Borski-Howard (Youth Services Specialist at Boulder Public Library)

This is a FREE Storytime event, open to all, whether you only have time to stop by for a few stories or plan to stick around all day! Donations to Reading Village are encouraged.

Reading Village provides leadership development training and scholarships for Guatemalan teenagers to finish high school. In return, these teens lead story-time activities for young children, teaching them to read, imparting a love of books and the chance to dream.

Location: Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl St, Boulder

Professor David Shneer, Singer Chair in Jewish History at CU. (Photo by Glenn Asakawa/University of Colorado)

Congratulations to David Shneer, Professor of History and Director of the Program in Jewish Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder as his recent book, “Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War and the Holocaust” was selected as a finalist for the 2011 National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category.

As the longest-running North American awards program of its kind in the field of Jewish literature, the National Jewish Book Awards is designed to recognize outstanding books of Jewish interest. Awards were given out for 2011 in fourteen categories. A complete list of the 2011 National Jewish Book Award winners and finalists is available at www.JewishBookCouncil.org.

There are a few remaining copies of “Through Soviet Jewish Eyes” in hardback for sale through the CU Art Museum. Signed copies are $45 plus shipping and handling. Proceeds benefit the exhibit and collection that has been established at CU as a result of Professor Shneer’s research. To purchase a book, contact Jennifer Conrad at 303.492.3008 or via email at jennifer.conrad@colorado.edu.

For the 2011 awards, entries were received from 162 countries. The winning entries will be celebrated at an Awards Gala Event to be held at Theatre Folies Bergere, Paris, on March 6, 2012 and all finalists will have their books exhibited at the Paris Cookbook Fair, March 7-11, 2012.

Eleven years in the making, “One Egg Is A Fortune” is a cookbook with contributions from 50 well-known Jewish people from around the world who have shared recipes and stories. See the Boulder Jewish News review here, including a link to purchase the book.  The book was created to raise much-needed funds for Jewish elder care. For more information, email info@oneeggisafortune.com or visit  www.oneeggisafortune.com.

Rabbi Debra Rappaport's Tallit and Tallit Bag

When Rabbi Debra Rappaport became the spiritual leader of B’nai Vail Congregation in Vail, her proud mother, Susan H. Rappaport, made her a stunning cashmere tallit, along with a matching tallit bag out of silk. The meaningful pieces brought the rabbi to tears, and she cherishes both of them to this day.

Now others will be able to share the joy the rabbi experienced when she first received her personalized tallit and tallit bag because both are showcased in a new book exploring the world of Jewish fabric crafts and the inspiration behind this imaginative work.

Called “Jewish Threads: A Hands-On Guide to Stitching Spiritual Intention into Jewish Fabric Crafts” (Jewish Lights Publishing, 288 pp.), the book presents 30 fabric craft projects, created by talented artisans from throughout the United States and Israel.

Compiled and written by Diana Drew with Robert Grayson, “Jewish Threads” delves into the backstory of each of the pieces spotlighted in the book–how and why they were made and what sparked the idea for each one. The artisans whose work is presented in the book freely share the influences in their lives that prompted them to create the pieces contained in this treasure trove of Jewish fabric crafts.

For Susan Rappaport, who lives in Minnesota, making the tallit showcased in “Jewish Threads” was a family affair. In choosing the materials for the tallit, Susan used white cashmere from sweaters worn by her husband, Gary; her daughter, Debra, the intended recipient; her other daughter, Lissie Schifman; and by the artist herself to ground the tallit in a sense of family heritage. Susan sewed everything by hand, making the tzitzit (ritual fringes) from directions she found on the Web.

The directions were very specific about keeping focused on your intention and not being distracted by the things around you,” she points out. “It was a very profound process for me.”

And this magnificent tallit holds extraordinary meaning for Debra, who notes: “Though my mom invited quite a bit of collaboration on this project, I was moved to tears when I received this tallit. The thoughtfulness and love that went into it were profound. I feel deeply blessed, held, and joyful every time I put it on.”

Author Diana Drew spent a year and a half sifting through a myriad of projects from throughout the United States and Israel, choosing those that reflected deep-rooted connections to Jewish heritage and contemporary Jewish life. Each project had to have a compelling story behind its creation, and fit in with the overall concept of the book as both a volume of stories about artisans’ spiritual intention in making these crafts and a how-to book for novices as well as more experienced needlecrafters.

“Jewish Threads” is designed to motivate readers to fashion some of the traditional ritual items as well as more contemporary pieces included in the book–individually or in groups–by offering easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions at the end of each of the stories about the fabric artists and their spiritual intention. Most of the projects are relatively simple, and make wonderful gifts.

Readers are encouraged to draw on their own life experiences to give the pieces they make a distinctly individual flair, a one-of-a-kind feel. So the book can serve as a springboard for readers’ own imagination and creativity.

“Jewish Threads” craft projects range from wall hangings for the home to shulchan (lectern) covers for the synagogue, whimsical pieces for celebrating holidays (a ChanuCats quilt for Chanukah and Dancing Hamantaschen costumes for Purim, for example), and meaningful craft projects to honor milestones in the Jewish life cycle, such as healing and memorial quilts. Some of the crafts presented in “Jewish Threads,” such as challah covers, have roots in Jewish tradition, while others, including Purim puppets and a knit seder plate for Passover, play off centuries of tradition, while incorporating a contemporary spin.

Among the fabric craft techniques represented in “Jewish Threads” are quilting, needlepoint, knitting, crochet, felting, embroidery, appliqué, needle felting, and counted cross-stitch.

Ellen Premack, executive director of the Mizel Museum in Denver, says of “Jewish Threads“:

Bravo for getting us back to our needles, threads, and sewing machines to create beautiful Judaic objects! With this book, author Diana Drew has reminded me of growing up in a small Jewish community and learning our traditions, history, and Hebrew through making artifacts. This book is a wonderful guide for every artsy-craftsy Jewish education-through-the-arts type of person, whether it be for your home, your synagogue, your Hebrew school, or your community Jewish museum!”

Says Drew, an award-winning former daily newspaper reporter and a longtime book editor:

‘Jewish Threads‘ brings together the disparate threads of my own life–Judaism and Jewish observance, sewing and knitting, writing and editing–while stitching together the inspiring stories of fabric artists from throughout the United States and Israel. Collectively, these personal stories, and the projects that spring from them, form a patchwork of modern-day Jewish life. The part openings, written by Robert Grayson, place these crafts in historical perspective, with tales from the Jewish tradition that give these fabric crafts added resonance today.”

“Jewish Threads” is available at major bookstores and online.