August 10, 2001
Hi and Shabbat Shalom!
Mazal Tov News!!
Karin Newman (Dana's sister) on her marriage!
Bret Scher is engaged!! (I think Molly and Andrew Goldstone's dad introduced them...)
Pleeeeeeze let me know more stuff so I can share with you all.....or....tell me if it's not share-able!
I'm sending you some articles from Lenie Greenspan and the Gendelmans....
Hope all is well with you all!
Love,
Eemah
I Just Got Back From the Bombing at the Pizza Place
By Matthew Leader
/Jewsweek.com
Jewsweek.com | I just got back from the bombing of a restaurant in downtown Jerusalem.
My family is here on vacation, and my sister had gone downtown with some friends to get something to eat. Then, a little while ago, I heard on TV that a bomb had torn apart a popular pizza parlour downtown filled with kids. In Israel, it is the known obligation of every child to call their parents if they were expected to be in an area where a bomb goes off, but as tourists, my sister and her friends did not have a cell phone. 20 minutes after the explosion they had not yet called in. I assured my mom that she would be fine, that there were a hundred places to eat down there and that she just hadn't called because the phone lines get overwhelmed after every attack. But I was also scared, so as the fear built into a heavy sickness in my stomach, I ran the few blocks from my apartment to the area of the bombing.
When I arrived, the emergency services had closed every avenue off leading to the site. All I could do was go from group to group huddled behind the security tape and peek into the deserted shops looking for Eliana. She was nowhere to be found. Everywhere, people were on their mobile phones.
" Finally I had searched everywhere I could think of, and my sister was still not to be found ..."
Others, closer to the scene of the bomb, were crying, huddled on the ground in the burning sun, some being sick. From one vantage point I could see the utter destruction of the restaurant -- blackened pillars askew, fragments of chairs piled up, shattered glass covering everything. Finally I had searched everywhere I could think of, and she was still not to be found. I waited in line to call my mother and grandparents and see if they had received any word yet. In front of me were a line of people trying to deal with the disruption to their lives on the phone -- one reassuring his grandparents that he was safe, one discussing the impossibility of getting home with her shopping, one foreign worker quickly describing the bomb scene to her loved ones back in Thailand, perhaps just for posterity. Finally, I was able to get to the phone and reach my mother. Eliana and her friends were safe, having gotten into a cab a block down from the restaurant to go home a few minutes before the bombing. My mother thanked me profusely and then began to weep with relief over the phone.
Now that I knew my sister was safe, I was able to sit down, shaking, and have a drink. I looked at the crying people and wondered how many of them were not blessed with the sense of relief, maybe even euphoria, that was now flooding my system. I could imagine how the bile that had been in my stomach had been in theirs, and sunk to the depths of their soul as they realized that the worst was true, that their brother, mother, child, lover was never, ever coming back.
Then, as I calmed down some more, I thought about the people who had no personal interest in the situation, the reporters and foreign politicians who viewed the same scene not as a human tragedy but as one chapter of a large and intricate play being acted out on the international stage. I thought about how the newspapers would describe me and the torn, bloodstained children in the ambulances behind the tap! e.
It seemed impossible now, looking at them, but I knew that those children and parents who were having a pizza lunch would become the aggressors in tomorrow's rationalizations of the murder by papers like Britain's Guardian and Independent. The man who walked into the shop, stopped and looked at the kids eating around him for a moment before detonating his bomb will not be called a terrorist but a "militant". Perhaps even an "extremist". The people who recruited this person for this specific act, who told him it will guarantee his entrance into heaven, who lovingly and carefully prepared the bomb on the killer's body, who ensured that it contained just the right amount of nails and bolts and ball-bearings to tear through the families' faces, will be called "activists" by these newspapers. "Activists" -- bringing to mind positive connotations of concerned people who take action, just like the people who save the whales or hand out Aids information on the street. This while the ink is still dry on the Independent's searingly self-righteous editorial claim that it will continue to label Israel's preemptive moves to avoid suicide attacks as "assassinations" rather than "targeted killings" because, and I quote: "we see no reason not to call things by their proper name."
And the justifications? People like Robert Fisk and Suzanne Goldenberg and Phil Reeves and Ewan McAskill of the aforementioned media outlets will do their best to explain that what I witnessed was not mass murder or, God forbid, terrorism, but "resistance to occupation." They will go on to discuss the underlying phenomenology of this "resistance," and how it is not caused by Arab hatred of Israel, but by the election of Ariel Sharon and existence of Israeli settlements over the Green Line. They will make the bomber understandable as a person, detailing his frustrations at Israeli roadblocks and the corruption of the Palestinian Authority, his efforts to find work in his chosen profession, his anger over pr! eemptive Israeli attacks on his explosive brethren. They will add him to the official number of "Palestinian dead" in the intifada so that his death, even as a statistic, will help his cause. They will remind readers, in each article, that there are settlers who abuse Arabs. They will surely take at face value the Palestinian spokespeople's vague declarations against civilian casualties, and go to great pains to excuse the Palestinian Authority of any responsibility by stating as fact that Yasser Arafat has no control over these "activists" or their "activities".
Just as importantly, there is a long, long list of things of things that they will not say, now or ever - about Arab terror before the settlements or Sharon government ever existed, about Palestinian schoolbooks and summer camps exhorting little children to grow up to be big martyrs, about the moral difference between people killed blowing up civilians and those killed as their victims.
Faced with this presentation of the facts, readers will, no doubt, throw up their hands at that point and say "well, what do those Jews expect?"
But it was difficult for me to remember all these things as I sat in the sun drinking my drink of relief and looking at the blood and glass that outlined the life's anguish of hundreds of others. It was difficult to remember that it was, in fact, all my fault. My fault as a Zionist, because Zionism, alone among all national aspirations on earth, is racism, as the UN has notarized and the rest of the world are about to reaffirm in Durban. My fault because I am living in a neighborhood that the Arabs fled after their failed attempt at exterminating the Jews of Palestine. My fault because I would have preferred that the Israeli Army take out this indescribable thing before it reached its target and blew up those children.
So I came home to write this article, and to watch the rest of the world discuss how I am at fault. Maybe they will have sorted it out by the time I cause the next restaurant to explode. Thank God my sister made it out of my clutches this time at least.
***
{ Matthew Leader is a contributing writer to Jewsweek.com. }
(c) 2001 Jewsweek.com
Don't often forward things, but thought this one worthwhile sending, particularly the portion about CNN, if you have time check out their "coverage"
>From: Honest Reporting
>Reply-To:
>To: "Max Gendelman"
>Subject: Terror in Jerusalem
>Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 00:11:22 +0200
>
>HonestReporting Communique
>09 August 2001
>
>"TERROR IN JERUSALEM"
>
>* * *
>
>Dear HonestReporting Member,
>
>As we go to press, the victims of the Jerusalem bombing today are still
>being identified and prepared for burial.
>
>HonestReporting shares shock, rage, and profound sadness with the
>families of the bombing victims, and with all the people of Israel.
>
>In the first hours of reporting after the attack, we could not find any
>reference to "terrorism," "terrorist," or "terror," except for direct quotes from
>Israeli leaders. Not CNN, nor BBC, MSNBC, CBS News, Fox News, ABC
>News, Reuters or Associated Press could bring themselves to use the "T"
>word. If the act of blowing up innocent civilians at a pizza shop -- mostly
>women and children -- is not terrorism, then what is?
>
>Of all the major media outlets, one particular report was so biased that it
>borders on immoral:
>http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/08/09/mideast/index.html
>
>CNN's main Mideast article on Thursday, posted 8 hours after the
>Jerusalem bombing, devotes the main body of the article to the back-and-
>forth rhetoric of the "peace process," including all the background to the
>Mitchell Report, and Arafat's hot air about calling for a cease-fire.
>
>CNN has the reader wade through 16 paragraphs and 550 words, before
>beginning to report any details of today's Jerusalem bombing victims and
>massive carnage. CNN editors surely know that by that point, 90 percent of
>its readers will have clicked on to another web page.
>
>Furthermore, this same CNN web page features a section (on the right
>side) labeled "video." Rather than lead with the major story of the bombing,
>CNN gives top billing to a run-of-the-mill report by Mike Hanna on
>"settlements." The breaking news video of the Jerusalem bombing is
>consigned to the bottom spot.
>
>Under the "audio" section as well, CNN gives the top spot to Palestinian
>cabinet member Hanan Ashrawi's criticism of Israeli government policy.
>The breaking news audio of the Jerusalem bombing is given second billing.
>(Further, on its international cable TV broadcast, CNN interspersed
>coverage of the Jerusalem bombing with photos of Hamas funerals.)
>
>Meanwhile, CNN's online report proclaims that "Israeli and Palestinian
>officials each blamed the other for the attack" -- an obscenely warped
>equivalence.
>
>CNN also presents a Palestinian assertion that the junction of Jaffa Street
>and King George is in "occupied Jerusalem." As CNN surely knows, this
>section of land was the center of Jerusalem even before the 1967 war, and
>was never part of what Palestinians call "occupied east Jerusalem." But
>CNN allows this outright Palestinian lie to go completely unchallenged.
>
>If you believe this CNN report demonstrates bias, complain to:
>
>tom.johnson@turner.com
>mike.hanna@turner.com
>rick.davis@turner.com
>eason.jordan@turner.com
>allfeedback@cnn.com
>community@cnn.com
>gerald.levin@twi.com
>stevecase@aol.com
>
>* * *
>
>HonestReporting calls on all members to scrutinize your local press as
>well as the major networks. If you believe the coverage is biased, we
>encourage you to express your concern. You may wish to use some of the
>points below.
>
>You can find e-mail contacts for most major media outlets online at
>HonestReporting: http://honestreporting.com/a/contact.asp
>
>Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
>And join us in expressing great sorrow over today's tragedy.
>
>HonestReporting.com
>
>======= Points for Responding to the Media =======
>
>1. Thursday's bombing of a Jerusalem restaurant was a blatant act of
>mass murder committed by a terrorist. Your failure to label the act as
>"terrorism" serves to mitigate the Palestinians' heinous bombing of
>innocent civilians, mostly women and children.
>
>2. In the Tenet ceasefire agreement of June 13, Yasser Arafat pledged to
>arrest Palestinian bombers and masterminds. His refusal to stop these
>activities makes him an accomplice to the bombing. According to the
>Tenet agreement, Arafat committed that: "The PA will move immediately to
>apprehend, question, and incarcerate terrorists in the West Bank and
>Gaza... In keeping with its unilateral cease-fire declaration, the PA will stop
>any Palestinian security officials from inciting, aiding, abetting, or
>conducting attacks against Israeli targets, including settlers."
>
>3. Any attempt to compare the Palestinian terrorist bombings to Israel's
>policy of attacking terrorist bases is a gross distortion. Palestinian
>bombers are committed to killing the maximum number of innocent
>civilians; Israel is merely trying to protect its citizens by stopping those
>same bombers.
>
>======================================
>
>Encourage as many people as you can to join the growing movement of
>HonestReporting. It's easy to tell your friends by sending a message from
>http://www.honestreporting.com/a/friend.asp
>
>HonestReporting involves considerable research and manpower costs.
>Your tax-deductible donations would be much appreciated and will help
>Israel win the media battle. Please send contributions to:
>
>Media Watch International
>156 West 56th Street, Suite 1201
>New York, NY 10019 USA
>
>======================================
>
>HonestReporting was founded by a group of individuals that affiliates
>neither to the right nor to the left. We are only interested in ensuring that
>Israel receives fair coverage in the media. We scrutinize the media for
>examples of blatant bias, and then
>inform our subscribers of any offending articles, asking to complain directly to the
>news organization concerned.
>
>HonestReporting has nearly 20,000 members worldwide, and is growing daily. Now in
>Spanish, too! http://www.prensaveraz.com
>
>(C) 2001 HonestReporting - All rights reserved.
>E-mail: action@honestreporting.com
>
>======================================
>
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>
August 17, 2001
Shabbat Shalom....sure wish it was!
The following article came via the Pintos..
Love,
Eemah
A War And Then A Wall
by George F. Will
Among reasonable people, who are now impervious to the diplomats' anesthetizing imbecilities about "preserving" the Middle East "peace process," there is a crystallizing consensus: Israel needs a short war and a high wall. To understand the context of such thinking, consider what USA Today's Jack Kelley saw at the Aug. 9 terrorist bombing that killed 15 at the Jerusalem pizza restaurant. Kelley was 30 yards away when the terrorist detonated a bomb packed with nails:
"The blast . . . sent flesh flying onto second-story balconies a block away. Three men were blown 30 feet; their heads, separated from their bodies by the blast, rolled down the glass-strewn street. . . . One woman had at least six nails embedded in her neck. Another had a nail in her left eye. Two men, one with a six-inch piece of glass in his right temple . . . tried to walk away. . . . A man groaned. . . . His legs were blown off. Blood poured from his torso. . . . A 3-year old girl, her face covered with glass, walked among the bodies calling her mother's name. . . . The mother . . . was dead. . . . One rabbi found a small hand against a white Subaru parked outside the restaurant."
As with the June bombing that killed 21 at a Tel Aviv disco, children were not collateral victims -- they were the targets. Abdallah al-Shami, a senior official of Islamic Jihad, celebrated "this successful operation" against "pigs and monkeys." That is a familiar rhetorical trope among those whom the calamitous Oslo "peace process" cast in the role of Israel's "partners for peace." In yet another of the constant violations of the Oslo requirement to stop anti-Jewish incitements, this was a recent broadcast from the moral cesspool that is the official television station of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority: "All weapons must be aimed at the Jews . . . whom the Koran describes as monkeys and pigs. . . . We will enter Jerusalem as conquerors. . . . Blessings to he who shot a bullet into the head of a Jew."
Al-Shami boasts that "no border restriction will stop" suicide bombings. It is time to test that proposition, which surely depends on where the border is and what precedes the establishment of it. Arafat's Palestinian Authority, in brazen violation of the Oslo undertaking to abandon violence, has chosen to wage a kind of urban guerrilla warfare against Israel. But Israel is skilled at combating such warfare. And now Israel should show that it, not Arafat, will dictate the intensity of the conflict.
A short war -- a few days; over before European and American diplomats' appeasement reflexes kick in -- should have four objectives. First, to kill or capture those terrorists (and those who direct them) whom Arafat has permitted to remain at large, in violation of his Oslo undertaking and of his promise to CIA Director George Tenet after the disco bombing. Second, to destroy the Palestinian Authority's military infrastructure built up in violation of detailed Oslo restrictions. Third, to destroy other physical infrastructure useful to the Palestinian Authority, including all newspaper and broadcasting facilities.
Fourth, and most important, to define, with finality, Israel's borders, around which a wall should be built. All of Jerusalem should be within the wall. Israel's seizure of the Palestinian Authority's East Jerusalem headquarters, Orient House, which has been constantly used for political activities forbidden by Oslo, should signal the end of all talk about the indivisibility of Jerusalem.
The State Department, that brackish and bottomless lagoon of obtuseness, where Secretary of State Colin Powell has gone native with disgusting speed, will respond with the rhetoric of moral equivalence -- "both sides" must stop "the cycle of violence" -- to whatever Israel does in self-defense. On Tuesday the department sank to self-caricature when it denounced as "provocative" Israel's brief incursion into the West Bank in pursuit of the perpetrators of suicide bombings.
It is instructive that the assault against Israel was not slowed by the intervention there of former senator George Mitchell, whose achievements in Northern Ireland are just now proving similarly illusory. Under his promptings, the IRA -- like the Palestinian Authority, a terrorist organization masquerading as a normal political entity -- made various false promises about "decommissioning" arms, abandoning violence, etc. Like Arafat, IRA leaders say the continuing violence is committed by entities beyond their control.
Mitchell cannot be blamed for failing to reconcile irreconcilables. But blame, and complicity in murder, attaches to all those who willfully refuse to recognize the limits of diplomacy and the duty of active self-defense.
August 31, 2001
Hi and Shabbat Shalom and Happy Labor Day!
I guess this means that summer is almost over...
The ocean is still warm....the waves are great..
but the air is cooling off a bit....
Tonight is Shabbat at the shores.....we're meeting Anne Goldberg Nagorner and her family for a picnic and services....Her son Evan and I are serious boogie board partners!! We're planning to hit the waves before dinner....
Our whole gang was here to spend time with my aunt Ethel who was visiting from Detroit!
She is an adorable 83 year old who has energy enough for the rest of us!!
School will start soon....We are beginning classes in the "old" building and plan to move to the new facility in October.....bittersweet...huh?
Lotsa' new babies....Marissa Schwartz, Ellen Pappelbaum, Dan Schlafman,Joanie Barsky...
Keep those bios coming! Notice that there are some new Madrichim on our list....Lemme know if you are in touch with anyone not on the mailing list....
Enjoy the bios! Have a wonderful Shabbat!
Love,
Eemah
What I've been up to....
Lived in Washington DC and worked on Capitol Hill after college graduation.
Went to Graduate School at William and Mary in VA (MBA)
Moved to Arizona to work for AirTouch Cellular
Moved back to CA to work for AirTouch Cellular - now Verizon Wireless....still live in CA (Dana Point).
Is that what you are looking for?
Single and fabulous (just kidding)
Carin Resnick
For those of you who may be interested, Jeff has sent this info. Hope that
some of you will join us in DC for this exciting event.
TAM
>Status: U
>Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 17:49:44 -0600
Dear Friends and Family:
>
It's finally official: More than 20 years after I began working on concepts
for a scale model solar system, and 14 years after we opened the Colorado
Scale Model Solar System (at CU Boulder) and I sent a letter to the
Smithsonian suggesting a similar project for the National Mall... barring a
major crisis (always a possibility in the political world of Washington
DC), VOYAGE, the scale model solar system for the National Mall, will open
on
> Wednesday, October 17, at 9:30 am
> The opening ceremony will last about an hour, and will feature the
>Secretary of the Smithsonian Administration, the head of NASA, the CEO of
>Challenger Center, and probably an astronaut.
> The attached Word file contains the official press release, but here's a
>shorter synopsis: Voyage will consist of a set of 8-foot tall pedestals
>marking the locations of the Sun and each of the planets on a scale of 1
>to 10 billion. (For a more detailed description of the scale, see Mystery
>#6 in On the Cosmic Horizon.) Each pedestal will contain pictures and
>information, along with a physical model of the planet (or Sun). The
>pedestals will be arranged along the Jefferson Drive sidewalk that runs
>adjacent to the National Mall, just outside the National Air and Space
>Museum and the Smithsonian Castle. The attached jpeg file shows an
>artists' rendition of the inner solar system in the model (the pedestals
>shown do not quite reflect the final design, but should give you the
>idea).
> As you might imagine, getting a project like this put in DC was an
>enormous effort involving many people. Over the past 10 years, this effort
>was spearheaded by Jeff Goldstein of the Challenger Center for Space
>Science Education, who methodically led the Voyage team through numerous
>obstacles and successfully made this the first science education exhibit
>ever to become a fixture outside the Smithsonian museums. Jeff G.
>assembled Voyage as a joint effort by three institutions: the Challenger
>Center, the Smithsonian Institution, and NASA. Among the others who
>devoted years of the lives to making this project happen are Jodi Schoemer
>(now at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science), Carolynne Harris Knox
>(Smithsonian), and Marty Sewall (Smithsonian). Quite frankly, while I've
>remained peripherally involved in the project over the past few years,
>I've had very little to do with it's success --- all the credit goes to
>Jeff G, Jodi, Carolynne, and Marty... but of course I'm ecstatic to see it
>coming to fruition.
> If you are interested in attending the opening of the Voyage exhibit in
>DC, please let me know; perhaps we can arrange a block of rooms
>somewhere...
> Best to all,
> Jeff (Bennett)
> --
Hi Eemah,
It was great to hear from you!! Apologies for the long respond time. Things here in Atlanta are good. My kids are growing before my eyes. Josh just turned 10, is in the 4th grade at Davis and is 5'1". Jessica is 8 and in the 3rd grade.
She went to services at temple with my parents this summer, met Rabbi Gullaboy(?) and found out they have a common friend.
Carol Stovin Jacobs
