Last year, the Boulder JCC debuted a new event during Boulder Startup Week. Aptly named Jews, Brews, and Startup Gurus, over 85 community members attended this happy hour.  Jonathan Lev, Executive Director of the Boulder JCC remembered, “It brought together the best elements of the Boulder Jewish Community has to offer:  Innovation, entrepreneurship, ideas, and community.” Here are pictures from last year’s event.

This month’s third Thursday is May 17th, which means that Flatiron Tribe’s happy hour will once again take place during Boulder Startup Week.  Flatiron Tribe is pleased to announce the return of Jews, Brews, and Startup Gurus, this Thursday, from 4:30 to 6:00 pm at Tahona Bistro at 1035 Pearl Street.  The earlier time slot enables participants of Boulder Startup Week to enjoy this networking event in between other scheduled programs.

Whether you are looking to network with the startup community, meet other local young adult Jews, or are just looking for a good after-work hangout Jews, Brews, and Startup Gurus is for you.  Bring your business card for a chance to win an exciting prize! You must be 21 to attend.  There is no need to register in advance however, if you have any questions, please contact Michael at Michael@boulderjcc.org or 720-583-5522. Let us know you are coming on Facebook and Plancast!

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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.”

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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.

Film maker Amitai Gross, son of Reb Victor and Reb Nadya Gross of Pardes Levavot.

I attended an excellent movie the other night. It was filmed and produced by Amitai Gross, son of Reb Victor and Reb Nadya Gross, and a friend of mine from BBYO back in the day. It was funny seeing him again after a few years, and not just because I barely recognized him with the short hair and beard. It was because somehow I knew he’d find a way to blend music and Tikkun Olam.

His documentary “Music in the Key of Peace”, though rough around the edges, was an excellent film. In it Amitai captures four neutral organizations geared towards coexistence in Israel, all of them using music as their medium for bringing Jews and Arabs together.

Most of the time, when you hear about Middle East peace groups, their orientation is pretty clear: for Israel or for Palestine. They want to end the conflict but favor one side over the other. (That seems a bit pointless, don’t you think?)

Of course, there are also neutral groups, both here and abroad: groups whose aim is not for either side to win, but for both of them to just get along; an antidote to incitement on both sides. However, even in neutral groups there is a looming hurdle, and that hurdle is language. How can the two sides ever hope to coexist if there’s limited understanding between them?

This is where the ideas of people like Amitai are important. Music is the perfect bridge because it is something that is universally understood. For instance, I listen to a lot of Japanese music–while I don’t understand half the words, I can still connect to the feeling behind the music. That’s what makes Music in the Key of Peace and other similar projects so powerful. If the feeling is peace, then music is the best way to communicate that feeling because it can go outside of words and language to connect people on both sides of the divide.

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l-r: Morah Yehudis Fishman, Reb Zalman Shalomi-Shecter, Rabbi Marc Soloway, Reb Victor Gross, Rabbi Ori Har DeGenaro, Reb Nadya Gross, Amitai Gross, Rabbi Josh Rose.

Kudos, Amitai. I hope that someday your documentary has a wide audience and spreads the word that coexistence in the Middle East is possible.

More pictures of the event:

Related articles:

4 Questions for Filmmaker Amitai Gross

Music in the Key of Peace

The creators of “13: The Musical” understand the dilemma well. Evan is about to embark on this rite of passage into adulthood, but all he can think about is how to get kids to come to his party. Much to his indignation, Evan has been swept out of his cool New York City life and plopped down in the middle of nowhere, also known as Indiana.

But Evan is about to learn a lesson in maturity. He will grow up a little in the space of two acts and over the course of 18 (chai!) songs. What does it mean to become a man, he wonders? It means doing the right thing, he discovers, not to anyone’s surprise. He also finds out that tsuris is just part of growing up. It’s painful but there’s no other way to get there.

Under the direction of Angela Gaylor and David Ayers, “13” is a high-spirited romp through puberty, with all its clichés and truisms. There’s nothing remarkably novel about the musical’s well-worn plot, but the lively staging and terrific performances make for a very enjoyable theatrical experience.

The best thing about “13” is that the actors are all very close to the age of the characters they play. There are no grown-ups in the play – and no kids with wigs and fake pot-bellies playing them. The actors are free to let loose as they express the qualities of the early teen years:  exuberance and flirtatiousness, sarcasm and scorn, and a lot of insecurity that is behind it all.

The second best thing about “13” is the talent of the teens in the production, who do equally well singing and acting – and have fun with the lively choreography. These young actors are obviously benefiting from being part of Parlando’s Broadway in Boulder Studio. The professionalism of the production is quite astounding, especially considering the age of the performers.

The shows are double cast, so there’s not much point singling out actors since I have not seen their counterparts. But Zach Litner, a sophomore at Fairview, did an excellent job capturing the gawky teenage angst of Evan. Jimmy Bruenger, who is 12 and attends Denver School of the Arts, was also terrific as the sad-sack kid on crutches. (The joke is that Evan becomes part of a three-some of outcasts: “a geek, a crip and Jew.”)

“13” may not be a “10” but it gets high marks for sheer audacity. Or should I say chutzpah?

The final performances of “13” are November 12-14 at Boulder High School. Tickets to “13 the Musical” are available on line at http://www.parlando.com. A portion of each ticket sale will be donated to There With Care, a Colorado-based philanthropic organization, which is committed to helping families with critically ill children.

As part of the Festival of Books and Culture, author Thanassis Cambanis will be at the Boulder JCC this Thursday, November 4 at 7:00 pm to discuss his book “

A Review of Thanassis Cambanis’ “A Privilege To Die: Inside Hezbollah’s Legions And Their Endless War Against Israel“

It is a well-worn but worthwhile cliche that journalists write the first draft of history. Thanassis Cambanis is a journalist rather than a scholar who sortied into the heart of Hezbollah and sought to reflect on the politics, philosophy and religious impulse of this Islamist organization.

A journalist could have interviewed only Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the titular head of it, and some have, but then Nasrallah would certainly control the flow of information and therefore the image projected.  Cambanis, interviewing an assortment of personages inside the organization would go this at least one plane higher. It would create an image that is not so controlled and therefore more real. Thus, Cambanis’ book, “A Privilege To Die,” is not scholarship and it is not strictly journalism–it is somewhere in between. And that is a good place to be because scholars will inevitably use such books to write the academics’ version later.

In short, as the publishers like to point out, Cambanis tries to accomplish in his book what Thomas Friedman was able to do in his seminal book in the 1980s, “From Beirut to Jerusalem;” i.e., explicate the dynamic forces of directly competing politics (Israel, Iran and Hezbollah) in an understandable, rigorous and reasonable way. Whereas other journalists are busy agitating, he is merely reflecting. For those who want to be reasonable and not overly alarmist, to be realistic about properly responding effectively to the Islamist challenge, such a book points us in the right direction.

But there are contentions to question as well, as we shall see.

In summary, Cambanis makes the case that Hezbollah is different from Al Qaeda. It is seen as successful and as long as the West cannot destroy it, then it continues to be successful. (p. 12) Thus it wins more support and greater images of success which breeds still more support. This is a vicious cycle for us, but a virtuous cycle for them. We in the West want to see a moderation of Muslims as a practical and principled matter of diversification and democracy. Many Muslims want to see Islam dominate, but not necessarily as a result of death and destruction, just as a matter of practice of shariah law for example. Hezbollah largely accomplishes this without suicide bombings, even if with its nasty tone, so it is still a role model for many “moderate” Muslims. Thus, unlike Al Qaeda, Hezbollah’s populist basis is reason enough to earn it ever more support.

But, Cambanis argues, the secret to its popularity is not its social safety net, it is its ideology. In the context of Lebanese self-serving politics, “…with sectarian loyalty dominating everyone’s identity, Hezbollah’s comparatively simple and ecumenical message propelled its dizzying rise.” (p. 38) It was a resistance movement. “Their enemies, they said, were those who hated justice and loved material comfort.” (p. 54) They were Shia, but they were inclusive of all other sectarian groupings such as the Christian Maronites, at least on the surface. But not Israel at all.

Cambanis observes that Nasrallah could suspend the harsh Islamism for the Lebanese, allowing gambling, smoking, skimpy clothing in public beaches, but he would remain an implacable foe of Israel. Though the Lebanese opposition to Nasrallah and Hezbollah could mount bigger public rallies against them, a large number of Lebanese supported Nasrallah because of his stance against Israel. The Lebanese opposition wanted Hezbollah to disarm and become a strictly political party in the Lebanese government, but Hezbollah always found ways to keep its army. Neither did it shirk using terror against the Lebanese population to keep people in line with its goals and methods.

But not all is well and good because certain important mistakes are made. Cambanis, for instance, makes the claim that Hezbollah won the two wars in 1995 and 2006, and that the IDF killing of 28 civilians in a Qana residential building during the 2006 Second Lebanon War is unjustifiable (“proving its desperation…and that the Jewish State wasn’t as strong and moral as it purported to be.” p. 82) and that the schooling of Israeli children to hate “Arab terrorists” was equivalent to the schooling of the Islamist children to hate “Jewish terrorist aggressors.” (p. 83)

Cambanis fails to note that numerous authorities on the question of defense and war would dispute his assertion that Israel lost and Hezbollah won the wars. On the Qana bombing, he fails to provide the IDF side of the story, namely that the target at Qana was a rocket launcher placed next to an apartment building and the IDF regretted the misdirected outcome. It should also be pointed out that Israel, under international law, has the right to strike at military targets even when near civilians if they must do so to stop rocket launches. Israeli regret is moral, but so is the attempt to stop rocket launchers from targeting Israeli civilians. And it is just plain WRONG to make as equivalent the fiendish use of propaganda against Jews and Israel by Hezbollah with any government inspired and encouraged anti-Arab programs of the Israeli government. As far as I know such programs do not exist and certainly do not encourage Jewish children to become Jewish martyrs. However, Hezbollah’s youth organization, the Mahdi Scouts, does precisely this. (pp. 212-217)

On another plane of thought on the matter, Cambanis is sometimes didactic, rather than reflective. For instance, he writes, “the logic of total warfare rarely works as intended.” (p. 83) This is meant as a reminder that the world will not allow Israel to use its military muscle even if the Islamists such as Hezbollah can. Maybe yes and maybe no, but it is the assertion of a journalist and not a military expert.

Still, there is much to learn from his experience. Cambanis was in the thick of the fighting in Lebanon during the 2006 battles between Hezbollah and Israel, on the Hezbollah side of the fight. His description of that experience is enlightening and worthwhile as it illuminates just what Israeli forces faced. He confirms, for instance, that “carloads of bearded Hezbollah operatives,” crisscrossed “the South in beat-up Volvos similarly (as he) marked ‘TV.’” (p.94) In other words, Hezbollah was using TV crews as human shields against attack by Israel.

The saying goes, nothing succeeds like success. And Cambanis would argue that Hezbollah is unique because it has been, so far, glaringly successful in comparison to the political failures of other groups in the Middle East. Firstly, it has survived two wars against Israel. Second, it commands loyalty from a large swath of Lebanon. Third, it has built a structure that largely keeps the loyalty of that swath of Lebanese humanity. Thus, it provides a successful model of armed resistance that can be copied.

At the same time, he notes its flaws. It is dependent on Iran. It has no long term economic foundation that stands on its own. It does not easily dovetail with the rest of Lebanon and depends on armed force. Even within its own ranks, it must ultimately utilize a heavy hand rather than allow an opposition to become independent.

To understand Hezbollah and its context in the Middle East, read this book.  At least come out to hear Cambanis at the Boulder JCC.

Besides inventing NLTD, ModernTribe is the exclusive retailer of Spinagogue, the official spinning stadium of Major League Dreidel (who knew?), and the site now stocks over 500 items of Judaica and gifts. “We are a new kind of Judaica store and Jewish gifts shop for people with progressive minds, spirits, & style.” As seen in the New York Times, two of their menorahs were chosen by Jonathan Adler to Light The Nights: the Sabra menorah and Woodland Linking menorah (great article and photos).

ModernTribe works with Israeli and Jewish designers to bring innovative products to market, and to supply style-conscious shoppers with design-forward Jewish ritual items, Israeli designer personal accessories, apparel, and more. It recently acquired PopJudaica.com.“With more novelty oriented items and an emphasis on funny Jewish gifts, Pop Judaica fills a merchandizing space we don’t already cover, “ explains Jennie Rivlin Roberts, founder of ModernTribe and inventor of No Limit Texas Dreidel. “Plus, Pop Judaica is a great brand! It was a pioneer in the online Jewish gifts space, one of the first to bring the world funny Jewish t-shirts and novelty Judaica.” “The two sites have always made a great pair,” says Sara Schwimmer Marcus, founder of Pop Judaica. “Jennie is the most qualified mamaleh to take on my baby and I know she’s going to take Pop Judaica to the next level.” Sara is now concentrating on her newest venture, JewishWeddingNetwork.com, an online resource for modern Jewish brides. ModernTribe and Jewish Wedding Network will continue to collaborate to bring the best wedding resources and products to Jewish brides. (from PRWeb)

Through Friday, December 18th, ModernTribe has FREE GROUND SHIPPING ON ORDERS $65+. $7.95 flat rate ground for orders under $65. Applies to Continental US addresses only. Hope you’ll click through and check them out!

*What’s machatunim?  There is no English equivalent. When two people are married, his parents’ machatunim are her parents and vise/versa. Used in reference to Bill and Hillary Clinton this week in Jewish Daily Forward (“For Chelsea Clinton, a Jewish Fiancé“):  “…Mezvinsky’s parents…appear to have plenty in common with their future machatunim.”