In celebration of Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish New Year for trees, Jewish National Fund (JNF) has partnered with EL AL Israel Airlines for an exciting raffle. Everyone who plants a tree with JNF between January 24 and February 8, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST will be entered to win two round-trip tickets to Israel on EL AL.

While in Israel, the winner will have the opportunity to plant a tree with his own hands with a complimentary trip to the JNF-Harvey Hertz Ceremonial Tree Planting Center at Neot Kedumim.

Some restrictions apply. Trees may be planted by visiting jnf.org or call 800-542-TREE for details and to enter.

Jewish National Fund (JNF) began in 1901 collecting coins in blue boxes to purchase land and return the Jewish people to their homeland. In over 110 years, JNF has evolved into a global environmental leader and become the central address for partnering with the land and people of Israel. JNF has planted 250 million trees; built over 1,000 parks and recreational areas; constructed security roads; educated students around the world about Israel; created new communities so that Jews from around the world would have a place to call home; discovered new means of growing plants under arid conditions, bringing green to the desert; and built nearly 220 reservoirs and water recycling centers, increasing Israel’s water supply by 12%. Today, JNF is supporting Israel’s newest generation of pioneers by bringing life to the Negev Desert, Israel’s last frontier.

A United Nations NGO, JNF sponsors international conferences on desertification, shares afforestation techniques, and funds research on arid land management. JNF is a registered 501(c)(3) organization and continuously earns top ratings from charity overseers. For more information on JNF, call 888-JNF-0099 or visit www.jnf.org.

Young Judea:  Young Judea, recently spun off from Hadassah, run really solid programs in Israel.

Israeli Scouts (haTzofim):  The Scouts’ (Tzofim) trips also have a great reputation and have an added advantage of having 30% of participants being Israeli teens.

The evening program is scheduled on February 15th at 6:30 pm at Bnai Havurah, 6445 East Ohio Ave, Denver 80224 303-388-4441.

Please RSVP by January30 to indicate interest in attending and get any last minute information. Contact me with questions via e-mail: IsraelSummer2012@yahoo.com.

b’Shalom-

Shmuel Deitel

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.

Author Stephanie Schneider with friends

My internship in India is slowly coming to an end. I will be presenting my final project the last two days in January. It has been an amazing adventure getting to this point and yet I wonder to myself, “Have I even scratched the surface of what needs to be done?”

I am creating a committee of volunteers in the organization I am in who will carry on performing essential functions for their growth. The volunteers are a committed group of professionals who have come together with different skills and experiences for the cause of fighting to keep children in school.

In my final weeks here, I wonder if I have done as much as I could have. I suppose that is the great question of everyone who goes abroad to serve. Living and working in India gives me a new appreciation for all the privileges I have had through my life, one being the education I was able to have. Growing up, the only place I had to work was in my studies, I never had to experience what it is like to have to do labor at the age of ten or what it is like to be hungry or want to study but not being informed of my options or that it is even a possibility. I am so blessed to have been able to have this experience and to have met so many wonderful people. The culture, the people, and every experience I have had here will forever impact my life for the better.

Nadav Weinberg shared his experience in the IDF with 75 people who attended his presentation at the new CU Chabad House on the Hill on November 30. Sponsored by Stand By Israel, the talk centered on ethics and the IDF, focusing on the special training all Israeli soldiers undergo and the challenging environment in which they are forced to operate.

Sergeant Weinberg was trained in the Orev special forces, an elite special forces unit of the IDF tasked with counter-terrorism in the West Bank. He now goes around the country giving interactive talks on college campuses, for high school students, and Jewish and Christian organizations about the high ethical standards of the IDF.

His insights into the IDF’s emphasis on ethical codes of conduct framed the conversation. But the heart of the evening was his role-playing with the audience. Using videos of combat situations, he asked the audience, almost half CU students, to make split-second decisions just as a real Israeli soldier would have to make in the moment.

In one video clip, an armed Palestinian combatant is fleeing during a deadly confrontation. You are a sharp-shooter and your commander has given you the command to shoot. As the Palestinian runs toward a crowd, the man grabs a young boy by his backpack, using him as a human shield as he flees. Do you take the shot? Why? Why not?

In another video taken during combat, a group of armed Palestinians flee by getting into a waiting UN ambulance, in complete violation of international law. Do you shoot to stop the ambulance or let the men in your sights get away? One person says they would shoot. “Oh my God,” Nadav says. “You just shot a UN ambulance!” “I would shoot the tires,” says another. “Oh my God,” Nadav says again. “You just shot a UN ambulance!”

In these and other real-life scenarios, the point was not about determining what the right decision might be. Rather, Weinberg was demonstrating how difficult it is for the IDF soldier faced with ethical dilemmas to make these decisions. Weinberg asked the audience to raise their hand if they could identify an American soldier. All hands went up. An Israeli soldier? All hands go up again. A Palestinian soldier? No hands.

Since there is no Palestinian army, no uniform and no code of military conduct, Israel must abide by international law when engaging with their enemy. That means when a person takes up arms against you, he is a combatant. The minute he puts the weapon down, he’s a civilian.

How do you fight a war like that? It’s a rhetorical question Weinberg asked often. When a combatant uses children, women, clerics and even “peace activists” as human shields, how do you fight that enemy? When a mentally disabled Palestinian child attempts to cross a checkpoint with explosives strapped to his chest, what do you do to ensure you and your men’s own safety, as well as the safety of the Palestinian crowd within the potential radius of the blast, and save the child’s life?

There are no easy answers. Israel does its best. It trains its soldiers to prepare for all eventualities. Each debrief from every operation includes copious discussion of what went wrong, and of what might have gone wrong, so that the next operation is better.

Sergeant Weinberg is the first to admit that Israel is not perfect, and has made mistakes. But Israel faces an enemy sworn to its destruction that does not abide by the same code of ethics. By putting the audience in the shoes of the soldiers on the ground, Weinberg made his point. What would you do?

Rebecca Caspi & Aluf Benn

You’re more likely than most Israelis to remember Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “Churchillian” speech to the U.S. Congress. While Bibi was Bam-Baming Obama in D.C., Masterchef barbequed Bibi in the home TV ratings, 46 to 29. Don’t be surprised, suggested Rebecca Caspi and Aluf Benn, during the What Do Israelis Really Care About Anyway? panel at last month’s Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) General Assembly.

Boulder Jewish News editor David Fellows wrote about the panelists’ opening premise  that although Israeli Jews and American Jews may scratch themselves the same, they do not share the same itch. (Or maybe it’s the other way around.) Caspi, Director General of JFNA Israel, and Benn, Editor-in-chief of Haaretz, believe that difference oft-causes our off-target diagnoses of the cause of Israeli anxiety. Go ahead. If you haven’t hocked your brain’s back-of-a-napkin for an iNod, jot down your answers to these questions recently put to Israelis by media outlets Yediot Achronot, Maariv, and the Jerusalem Post:

1. What was the most significant event of the past year? [Note: poll taken prior to the Shalit release.]
2. What do you consider to be the greatest threat to the State of Israel?
3. What are the most important topics for the coming year?
4. What do you view as the most or second-most acute tension in Israel?

Time’s up. The rest of you may now verify here  that the correct guesses are:

1. The Carmel Fire.  2. Social divides.   3. Education  4. Tension between secular and ultra-orthodox.

Somewhat surprised? Not to worry. Media-marketers easily mold our beliefs into reality-to-suit. While Haaretz’ Hebrew readers get social protests, science, culture, education et al, editors skew articles for English readers toward all ” ‘Hamas & Abbas’ Netanyahu, Iran”, et al the time. To explain, Benn digs deeper into American Jewish psyches:

“The Right vs Left debate in the U.S. misses the point. That debate is not about real life Israel, but about an ideal. Israel, a projection on Israel. The Israeli quest is to be a normal developed country, to live an American-like suburban life. For the American Jewish Right, that quest sometimes hurts the image of Israel as an island of struggle against Islam and Iran, and for the Left, it’s inconsistent with the image of an Israel in struggle to be an ideal of justice. ” [author’s sidetrack: for an odious illustration of the latter in the extreme, watch the Occupy Birthright YouTube video.]

Read the poll results for lots of fascinating stuff. Did you know that 1% of the 30% who are at times “embarrassed to be Israeli”, are blushing over “lousy TV”? Apparently, not everyone likes Masterchef.

Although the Palestinians spread the lie to the world media that Israel committed a massacre against the Palestinian civilian population (the UN subsequently verified that no such massacre occurred), and the level of destruction was limited rather than widespread as also depicted in the media, an important and telling incident during that battle showed the difference in the mentality between the warring sides.

An IDF unit chose to do an on-the-ground house-by-house search for terrorist combatants rather than call for F-16 strikes which might kill innocent civilians as collateral damage. One should understand that Palestinian civilians often offered themselves as human shields, knowing that Israelis will avoid harming them while in pursuit of their compatriots, and that the Palestinian side booby-trapped the houses and streets with explosives. Knowing this, the IDF still decided to choose “boots on the ground” rather than air power.

A Palestinian commander during the battle, Tabaat Mardawi, told CNN from prison in Israel, that after learning the IDF was going to use troops, and not planes, “It was like hunting … like being given a prize… The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed… I’ve been waiting for a moment like that for years”. [CNN.com, August 23, 2003, "Palestinian fighter describes 'hard fight' in Jenin"]

The result of this “boots on the ground” decision was the deaths of thirteen Israeli soldiers in one incident, all killed by the explosion of a booby-trapped home and the subsequent ambush by Palestinian militias in what became known as “the bathtub.”

Such decisions are not unique and the IDF soldiers are constantly and in numerous incidents called on to choose life over death. In fact, the entire Israeli operation in Jenin was deliberately slowed down just in consideration of possible civilian casualties.

Why? And does the answer matter?

The answer demonstrates the difference in mentality between the warring sides. The Palestinian side makes it honorable to lie, to encourage death, to slaughter its enemies. Let me be clear, I am not saying this is the mentality of the Palestinian population; I am saying this is the attitude of the Palestinian militants and a large segment of the Palestinian population. This is different with the Israelis. Armies kill and wars are brutal, but the difference in attitudes is none the less telling and distinctive.

It is not that Israeli soldiers harbor no hate or desire to kill, it is that they are educated differently in handling their response and the rules under which they can engage Palestinians.

And one can see this by observing the difference in their training from the primary, secondary and university educational institutions in distinction to the culture of radical Islamism. All that even before we get to that which comes from soldiering.

But soldiering, the training of a soldier, is telling too.

For that reason four local, pro-Israel organizations (Stand By Israel, Stand With Us, Americans Against Terrorism and Action Israel) are sponsoring a visit to the Denver-Boulder area of Sergeant (Res.) Nadav Weinberg, who served in the Special Forces Counter-Terrorism Unit of the IDF.  Having recently finished his service in the IDF, Weinberg is touring outside Israel and addressing the whole issue by describing the training of the Israeli soldier in his and her ethical duties.

The title of his talk is,“Ethics and Israel: Gilad Shalit and the Israel Defense Forces.” Weinberg will be speaking on successive days in Boulder on November 30th and at Colorado Christian University on December 1st . The Boulder event begins at 7:00 pm at the CU Boulder  Chabad House, 909 14th St.; CCU talk begins at 6:30 pm at the CCU School of Music, 9200 West Ellsworth Ave., Lakewood.

IDF Sergeant (Res.) Nadav Weinberg  will speak on “Ethics and Israel: Gilad Shalit and the Israel Defense Forces” in Boulder on November 30 and in Lakewood on December 1.

Weinberg was born in Israel, moved to the United States as a child, and joined the Israel Defense Forces after his graduation from Case Western Reserve University in 2008. He was trained in the Orev Special Forces in the Nachal Brigade. His unit’s primary job was to prevent terrorist attacks throughout Israel.

While sitting in an ethics seminar during Special Forces training, he realized that the information he was learning was not common knowledge. Since that moment, Weinberg has been determined to share what he has learned with people across the U.S., especially students.

Weinberg now travels to college campuses, as well as other destinations, to educate people about the ethical codes of the Israel Defense Forces through interactive scenarios, video clips and most importantly, sharing the facts.

Weinberg will speak at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, November 30, at CU Chabad, located at 909 14th Street in Boulder, and at 6:30 pm on Thursday, December 1, at the School of Music at Colorado Christian University, located at 9200 West Ellsworth Avenue in Lakewood. His talks will explain the high ethical standards practiced by the IDF and will also explore the ethics of the captors of recently returned IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and of the Israeli government in bringing about Shalit’s release.

An article about Weinberg’s appearances on college campuses across the United States recently appeared in the Jerusalem Post.

Weinberg’s appearances in the Boulder-Denver area are sponsored by Stand By Israel, in conjunction with Action Israel, Americans Against Terrorism, and Stand With Us. CU Chabad is co-sponsoring the Boulder appearance.

Both events are open to the public at no charge. For more information: mail@standbyisrael.com