An American Jewish - German Information & Opinion Newsletter

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AN AMERICAN JEWISH – GERMAN INFORMATION &
OPINION NEWSLETTER
dubowdigest@optonline.net
GERMANY EDITION
October 2014
IN THIS EDITION
JEWS & THE ELECTION – Nov. 4th is the day of or national mid-term election. See
what’s to be decided and the impact on Jews.
JEWS AS DEMOCRATS - No secret! Jews vote overwhelming Democrat. An author
ponders the question – Why?
“OUT OF THE BOX” THINKING #2 – Some more “new” thinking about what can be
done to bring about peace between Israelis & Palestinians.
ARAB CULTURE – A noted Arab journalist shares his thoughts.
TODAY’S ANTI-SEMITISM – A noted French intellectual gives his opinion on the
development of this vicious virus.
PEOPLEHOOD - What is it that links Jews together?
A NEW JEWISH PUBLICATION – It debuts in Germany – in German!
Dear Friends:
The Jewish New Year holiday season has ended and the Jewish world is launched into
a new, and hopefully better year.
Frankly, the last year was awful. A new war in Gaza which took the lives of both Israelis
and Palestinians plus the start of a wave of anti-Semitism throughout Europe marked it
in a very dire way. While both major horrors have abated for the moment, their impact, I
fear, will not fade away so quickly. The announcement by Hamas that they are already

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starting on new tunnels from Gaza to Israel certainly shrouds any possible peace in a
very dark cloud of distrust.
I have thought a lot about the poor people of Gaza. Haven’t they had enough? Isn’t it
time to try another track? After losing this last conflict and having lost not only many
loved ones but so many of their homes and the things that go into the normal quality of
life, one would think that they are ready for a change. Rockets and armed conflict are
not working for them. Would disarmament be so dreadful? Their armaments are only
getting them further into the hole of despair. Isn’t it time to stop digging and to try
something else?
Back to the situation in the U.S., in a little over a week we will be having our mid-term
elections. .Some Senate races seem very close so it’s not 100% clear that the
Republicans will take over and then run both legislative Houses. Some possible
changes are described below. .
In any case, let’s hope the New Year turns out better than the last one and with that,
let’s get on with the news…
Best wishes,
Eugene
JEWS & THE ELECTION
When you receive this edition the United States will be on the cusp of its national mid-term
election day (Nov. 4th).According to Wikipedia,” During this midterm election year,
all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 seats in
the United States Senate will be contested; along with 38 state and territorial
governorships, 46 state legislatures (except Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey and
Virginia), four territorial legislatures and numerous state and local races.
The political pundits think the Republican Party has a good chance to take over the
Senate and complete its control of the legislative branch of the Congress as they
already control the House of Representatives. If the Senate is won by the Republicans,
the chances of policy change is greater than if the status quo remains. Some of those
changes (or the failure to change) have important implications for the Jewish
community.
JTA opines, “Should Republicans win the Senate and maintain control of the House of
Representatives on Nov. 4 — as many observers expect them to do — the political
gridlock that has characterized much of President Obama’s term is poised to intensify.
Jewish strategies, however, will remain the same: focus on areas, however marginal,
where successes are within reach. Among the areas: funding for elderly care and
resettling refugees; working at the state levels on issues such as poverty relief and

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advancing gay rights; and keeping the major issues suffering from legislative neglect,
like immigration, alive in the public eye.
An exception is foreign policy, where a GOP win could mean movement on some
issues, including Iran sanctions.
Republican majorities in both houses may mean more stasis on domestic issues but
could advance a number of foreign policy issues. Chief among them is the effort by
some pro-Israel groups, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to pass
new sanctions on Iran that would kick in should nuclear talks between Iran and the
major powers collapse.
The Democratic leadership in the Senate, at Obama’s behest, has stymied new
sanctions, although enough Democratic senators back the legislation that it would likely
have a majority should it come to a vote. Obtaining Democratic support even under a
Republican majority would be key for a lobby that is keen to show that its initiatives
have the backing of both parties.
“It’s likely that an emboldened Republican presence in Congress will want to pursue that
vigorously,” said Eric Fusfield, the director of legislative affairs at B’nai B’rith
International, a group that has backed the new sanctions.
That does not necessarily mean a confrontation with the White House, Fusfield said.
Instead, the majority could spur Obama to reach an agreement with Congress on
sanctions.
“There will still need to be a bipartisan consensus,” he said.
Much depends on whether Iran and the major powers meet a Nov. 24 deadline for a
deal, Fusfield said.
Dylan Williams, the director of government affairs for J Street, which opposes new
sanctions, agreed that Republicans would find it tougher to pass sanctions that may
sabotage a deal with Iran.
“If an agreement is reached, it will survive both the current Senate and the next Senate,
whatever its constitution,” he said. “I think senators from both parties will understand
that if a deal is reached that does provide assurance that Iran will not acquire a nuclear
weapon that it is that or something far worse.”
Obama’s recent pivot toward greater intervention in Syria and Iraq would find a more
sympathetic ear in a Republican-majority Congress, said Daniel Runde, the director of
the Project on Prosperity and Development at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies.
“You would definitely see the willingness to use the full spectrum of American power,”
said Runde, a top foreign aid official under President George W. Bush.

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Runde noted that much of the reluctance to support the enhanced Middle East
involvement that Obama has favored comes from Senate Democrats, as well as some
anti-interventionist Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Of course there may be changes in domestic policy and health care as well. If you are
interested in those you should read the entire article which you can do by clicking here.
http://www.jta.org/2014/10/06/news-opinion/politics/what-a-gop-senate-would-mean-for-the-
jewish-communal-agenda
I myself do not think there will be any major changes because of the fact that the
President has veto power and the next election, the one for the presidency (the big one)
is only two years away. The nation is already in its presidency year mode with large
amounts’ of money being raised for the campaigns of potential presidential candidates.
In addition, the entire House is up for election once again and the Democrats seem to
have a real chance to win back the Senate if, indeed, they lose it this year.
As far as American Jews are concerned they are spread across the political spectrum
supporting candidates of both parties (but mostly the Democrats). Israel is, of course, a
major item of concern. Almost all candidates of both parties are supportive. The only
question is – who is more supportive? We’ll be reporting on results in next month’s DD
edition.
JEWS AS DEMOCRATS
It is well known that the vast majority of American Jews vote Democratic though there
have been some changes in recent years. More of the Orthodox seem to have become
somewhat enamored of the more conservative positions of the Republican Party and its
candidates. However, in the 2014 election, I believe the old pattern will prevail.
It’s legitimate to ask – Why? Over the years I’ve heard many “experts” give many
reasons, some backed up by scientific data, etc. Most answers have left me unfulfilled. I
recently came across a piece by Anne Roiphe, a well-known writer but not a social
scientist, who tries to answer the “Why?” question. Somehow I feel that she has come
closer to the truth than most others who’ve tried their hand at this knotty question.
Ms. Roiphe’s article is entitled “Why Jews Will Vote Democrat Again”. She writes,
“Milton Himmelfarb, essayist and thinker, once famously quipped that “Jews earn like
Episcopalians, and vote like Puerto Ricans.” There is some truth to this, and that’s why
it prompts a laugh even from liberals. But what is this about? As the midterm elections
approach, it’s worth contemplating why a resounding majori ty of us vote Democrat,
almost reflexively.
Jewish memory is responsible for the Jewish vote. Jews know what it is to be outsiders,
and we know what it means when the town you live in turns on you and would deprive
your children of food or life because of your difference from the majority. We identify not
with the overseers but with the slaves, not only because we were once slaves in Egypt,
but also because we are, and will remain, a small, vulnerable minority.

5. The explanation for our unseemly voting for the Democratic candidate lies not in our
shopping habits or ZIP codes, but rather deep in our culture. We are not convinced that
the poor deserve their fate. Our tradition teaches us to forgive debts in a scheduled
manner and to leave enough at the margins of our fields so those without a harvest of
their own can survive. So it is hard for Jews to vote for a political party that suggests
that if you don’t have medical care its your own fault and if you don’t have retirement
funds you have been guilty of sloth or stupidity and other sins that will do you in just as
you deserve.
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So many Jews traveled to the South in the early days of the civil rights movement not
because they themselves were being lynched or restricted from lunch counters, but
because Jews knew about restriction, prejudice and the calumny of the poisoned well,
the blood libels of Easter massacres. When the second or third generation of Jews
learned that America had accepted them but rejected others they understood in their
deepest selves the insult and the pain it brings. It was an old insult echoing the
pogroms, yellow stars, dunce hats of another place, and as old as the Vienna ghetto
and as recent as the “No Jews Need Apply” sign on the factory door, or the “No Jews ”
sign on the hotel lawn.
But what is it about Jewish memory that seems so long lived, so unshakable? Our
memory is our survival tool. It is our parachute that lands us safely on one continent or
another. It is built into all the forms of Judaism, and survives even in secular Jews, vivid,
demanding, insisting on connections that go back centuries. You can avoid synagogue
all you like, but you still know the reason for the Seder, you still know that David was
King and the crusaders murdered the Jews along their route to the holy land. Jews
know that exile, whether from Jerusalem to Babylon, from Madrid to Amsterdam, or
England to Vienna, was their fate, and all those stories, mystical or factual, painful or
shameful, were told generation to generation and in each telling these memories carried
a message to the future.
This message places each Jewish child at some risk of life and limb, but also gives
each Jewish child a collective story to carry into his or her own place in the world. That
story leads to gratitude for the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, for the (not so sincere)
pluralism of the founding fathers, whom Jews adopted as their own. Jewish political
morals are about community, and protection of the vulnerable and the hardship of being
a minority among a majority of others.
The differences between Democrats and Republicans lie in their basic assumptions
about people. Democrats look at social and economic circumstances and want to
improve schools and opportunity and offer child care or food stamps to those in need.
Republicans look at those same circumstances and place blame on the poor and want
to guard the rewards of society for those deemed worthy because they already have
these goods. There is an old Protestants ethic that sees proof of God’s love in one’s
wealth — damning those who don’t manage to make it in the same way.
The Jewish neoconservatives are as American as hot dogs on the Fourth of July, but
they wear shoes that will always pinch like Cinderella’s slipper on the foot of the wicked
stepsister. Republicans think of military solutions whenever threatened. Democrats, at

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least some of them, think of allies and negotiations and solutions that might end threats
to all. The Democratic idea is not to grab your gun, but to sit down and talk. (Yes, yes,
Vietnam alas). Jews are good at talking. In the great rabbinic battle Shammai did not
take a knife and pierce Hillel’s aorta. If he had we might be more eager to rush to the
ramparts and release our drones.
Republicans are for manning our borders with militias and for protecting our country
from those wandering across deserts, in search of a better life. Jews are on the side of
the wanderers.
So of course most Jews still vote as Democrats and will for the foreseeable future. It’s
not about our private bank accounts or our children who now have legacy admission
advantages in the best universities across the land: It’s about the core of the
community, the memory of the community, about the deep identification with those
without power, those hungry and at the hard edge of American l ife.
We may play golf and drive Mercedes-Benzes, or at least some of us may, but we all
know how easy it is for the Jewish family to become the prey in a nasty Hobbesian
world where compassion is in short supply.
And then there are the social issues. Jews — and we are not all the same — are not
necessarily more tolerant of private sexual behaviors than others, but we have a vested
interest in protecting the private from government intervention. That doesn’t mean all
Jews are especially pleased with same-sex marriage or abortion rights or the right to die
when ill, or to smoke pot, or to have sex outside marriage, but when it comes to private
behavior they understand that government, with its majority voice, needs to be very
cautious when dealing with people’s personal choices — sexual, financial, religious.
There is a levee here that has to hold if Jews can be comfortable in a pluralistic
America, and the Democrats are ready to pile on the sandbags whereas the
Republicans are the river itself coming to drown us in their own vision of the moral life.
So Jews will vote blue again this November and for the foreseeable future. The official
mascot of the Democratic Party is the donkey, but Jewish Democrats are more like
elephants: We don’t forget.
Ms. Roiphe may have come down a little hard on Jewish Republican voters and
Republicans in general. However, if you mentally delete what she has to say about
them, I think she’s hit the target right in the bulls-eye.
In the November issue of DuBow Digest I’ll give you a report and we’ll see whether the
Jewish-Democratic connection still holds.
“OUT OF THE BOX” THINKING #2
In the last edition I included an article on new thinking and possible initiatives that might
be tried in solving the Israel – Palestinian very long term dispute. It seems that the
frustration brought about by the latest Gaza War has triggered some observers to begin

7. examining new alternatives. The old “Two-State Solution” appears to have practically hit
a stone wall with many thinking that it just has no chance to work.
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David Zucker, a Meretz member of the Israeli parliament tried his hand in a recent
Haaretz article. Keep in mind that Meretz is a very liberal political party that one would
expect to maintain its “two-state” stance.
Zucker wrote, “The diagnosis that Israel’s future is linked to its relations with the
Palestinians is completely valid even today. But the medication we are taking –
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians – is no more than a placebo. Anyone
who still believes that the two-state solution is possible has to come up with real,
effective medication.
What was the basis of the strategy the left bequeathed to Israel? The approach that the
process of finding a solution would begin from below (i.e., involving the PLO and Israel)
and move upward – that is, “from the bottom up.” That a solution to the Palestinian
question would enable normalization of Israel’s relations with the Arab world, from the
specific to the general. This is a dangerous mistake that we can already admit to
making. The theory of “Ramallah first” does not hold water. Israel is unwilling and the
PLO is unable, or perhaps it's vice versa. It makes no difference. The result is the same.
The pathetic hope that the PLO and the Palestinian Authority will play a central role in
mediating between Israel and Hamas will also prove to be a disappointment. And we
will once again open our eyes wide in astonishment and think that there’s something
wrong with us. The only thing that’s wrong with us is out adherence to a sterile mode of
conduct.
In the past two decades the regional picture has changed drastically: The tension
between Israel and the Arab world is gradually lessening, and is far more moderate than
the level of tension between Israel and the Palestinians. This constitutes a deep-seated
trend with strategic implications for ways of solving the conflict. For the past 12 years
Israel has had at its doorstep a strategy that would enable a U-turn: One that goes from
the general (the Arab world) to the specific (the Palestinians).
The 2002 Arab League proposal is the alternative route offered by the strategy of “from
the top down”: first, a comprehensive agreement with the outer Arab circle, and only
afterward an agreement between Jerusalem and Ramallah, or between West Jerusalem
and East Jerusalem. An accord with the Palestinians would be derived from an
agreement with the Arab world rather than vice versa.
We can assume that the Arab world is also tired and despairing of the meager
achievements produced by the direct contacts between Israel and the Palestinians, and
that the Arab League countries no longer believe in U.S. mediation. Is it any wonder? If
the left is interested in an agreement and in saving Israel, it must offer an alternative
strategy – without giving up its vision. And "along the way,” the left can once again earn
its place in determining the national agenda.

8. Israel’s difficulty – clearly manifested the left – is the difficulty of the pilot who is
suffering from vertigo. The instruments are telling him one thing with scientific certainty,
but some accursed habit tells him to behave in a way that will cause him to crash. The
diplomatic flight instruments are telling us that there is a path that is likely to prevent the
crash, but our bad habits, and the endlessly repeated words, and the thousands of
contacts, and the ties that have been formed, and our inner convictions – all our
maneuvering us toward a crash only because we have become addicted to a placebo.
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There is certainly some genuine common sense in what Mr. Zucker has to say. Will the
rest of the left listen to him? Who knows but stay tuned to see how his idea turns out.
ARAB CULTURE:
While I usually reserve my reading time for delving into the twists and turns of German,
Israeli and American political culture, I, at times, check out what is going on in the Arab
world because of the impact it has on the other three. One of the best sources is Al
Arabiya and the writings of Hisham Melhem who is the bureau chief of Al Arabiya News
Channel in Washington, DC. At times he makes a lot of sense.
Recently, he penned an article in which he said, “Who brought the Arabs to this nadir?
In it he notes, “In recent weeks and months I tried in this space to critique an Arab
political culture that continues to reproduce the values of patriarchy, mythmaking,
conspiracy theories, sectarianism, autocracy and a political/cultural discourse that
denies human agency and tolerates the persistence of the old order. The article in
which I said that the ailing Arab body politic had created the ISIS cancer, and a
subsequent article published in Politico Magazine generated a huge response and
sparked debates on Twitter and the blogosphere.
The overwhelming response was positive, even though my analysis of Arab reality was
bleak and my prognosis of the immediate future was negative. Yet, these articles were
not a call for despair, far from it; they are a cris de Coeur for Arabs, particularly
intellectuals, activists and opinion makers, to first recognize that they are in the main
responsible for their tragic conditions, that they have to own their problems before they
rely on their human agency to make the painful decisions needed to transcend their
predicament. These articles should be viewed through the motto of the Italian Marxian
philosopher Antonio Gramsci: “Pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will.” Pessimism
of the will, means that you see and analyze the world as it is not as you wish it to be, but
for this pessimism not to be fatal, it should be underpinned by the optimism of the will, to
face challenges, and overcome adversity by relying on human agency .
In my articles I said that no one paradigm could explain the state disintegration, social
fragmentation and the civil wars ranging in a number of Arab societies, nor one can
reduce the failure of various political ideologies that dominated the Arab world in the last
century to one overarching reason be it economic, political, social or cultural. That was
my way of criticizing the tendency of many scholars to always look for one paradigm, or
a certain model, or one encompassing theory to explain very complex problems that

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cannot be reduced to one neat interpretation.
Those majority of Arab societies currently going through violent convulsions or
wrenching “transitions” : Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain and Lebanon have
reached their nadir because of multiplicity of reasons ranging from repressive
autocracy, alliances between predatory political elites, corrupt mercantile classes, and
economic monopolies, reactionary interpretations of Islam, as reflected in the visions
and practices of Islamists movements (in varying degrees) chauvinistic or hyper
nationalisms and yes a cultural inheritance, rooted in religious conservatism that
produces values of ignorance, fatalism, dependency and fear of authority.
During the heyday of Arab Nationalism, many Arab intellectuals entered into a Faustian
deal with the custodians of power in their world. They accepted a deal in which they will
not agitate for freedom and democracy, until the Nationalist fought their supposedly
historic battles with the forces of Arab reaction, Israeli usurpation and Western
imperialism. All the battles were lost, and with them the hopes of freedom and
democracy.
Today, the world of millions of Arabs is collapsing; whole societies are consumed by the
flames of sectarianism, political fragmentation and economic disenfranchisement. The
indefatigable Sadik Al-Azm is still at it, always probing and always deconstructing. He is
now part of a smaller minority of such intellectuals, living and writing and publishing
mostly in the west. And unless Arab intellectuals and activists engage in a no holds
barred debates similar to what happened in Beirut after 1967, in which all their political,
cultural and religious inheritance is put to critical inquiry, the Arabs will continue to roam
endlessly in a political wilderness of their own making. But if you are looking now for a
vibrant debate, about what ails the Arab world today, and if you are searching for a
liberal open Arab city for Intellectuals to engage in critical introspection, you will be
searching in vain.
There is quite a bit more to Mr. Melhem’s article and you should read it all which you
can do by clicking here - http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2014/09/27/Who-brought-the-
Arabs-to-this-nadir-.html
The reason I am including it is that it, without question, goes a long way in
understanding why much of Arab society acts the way it does and why Israel is up
against a society that does not work the way its own does. When two nations or groups
with similar cultures are in opposition to each other it is easier to eventually, after the
hostilities, to come to some understanding. When the cultures are very different it is that
much harder.
TODAY’S ANTI-SEMITISM
The noted French journalist and intellectual, Bernard-Henri Levy wrote a most
interesting in-depth look at the “New Anti-Semitism”. It details the “morphing” and
development of this vicious prejudice through the ages. Written in French, it was
translated and printed in The New Republic here in the U.S. I have tried to excerpt it

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below; however, you should read the entire piece which you can do by clicking here.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119758/anti-semitism-21st-century-ticking-time-bomb
One of the trickiest but most critical questions of the present day is that of the new
guises of anti-Semitism. Though we have been slow to realize it, anti-Semitism has
morphed at each step in its history, completely changing its shape, its face, and even its
software.
Anti-Semitism was pagan when, during the Roman Empire, the Jews were resented for
having a religion that took the magic out of the world.
It was Christian during the centuries of the crusades, the Inquisition, the Medieval
pogroms, and beyond—when the Jews were blamed for the suffering and death of
Jesus Christ.
It was anti-Christian after people—following d’Holbach, Voltaire, the Enlightenment, and
Voltaire’s slogan, “Let’s crush the infamous (by which he meant the intolerance of
organized religion)—began to reproach the Jews not for having killed the son of God but
for having invented the One God, and thus, in a way, the son.
It was socialist, anticapitalist, and pro-worker at the time of the Dreyfus Affair in Paris
and of the anti-bourgeois socialism of the founding fathers of French socialism. The
deviation laid at the door of the Jews then became their supposed conspiracy,
orchestrated from the heights of “Jewish finance,” to oppress those whom anti-Semitic
propagandist Édouard Drumont described as the small and humble.
It became racist as soon as modern biology took its place in the circle of the sciences,
bringing with it the fad of categorizing human beings by their physiological
characteristics
In short, it looks as if the world’s longest-running form of hate has never stopped
searching for the right formula.
And the truth is that, in today’s world, none of those earlier languages really works
anymore because, as Georges Bernanos put it so horribly but accurately, they have all
been delegitimized by the apotheosis of horror to which they brought the 20th century.
What this means is that anti-Semitism will be able to get back to work, to resume
drawing crowds and firing them up, to be practiced not just without embarrassment but
with a relatively clear conscience, only by hitching itself to a new system of justification.
That system will hinge on three main tenets:
1. Jews are detestable because they are inseparable from a detestable state. This is the
anti-Zionist tenet.

11. 2. Jews are all the more detestable because the cement that holds that state together is
the belief in a persecution that may well be imaginary or, at the very least, exaggerated.
This is the negationist tenet, the tenet of Holocaust denial.
3. By operating thus and cornering the market on the world’s available reserves of
compassion, the Jews heap on top of that twin injury the insult of rendering humanity
deaf to the sufferings of other peoples, beginning, of course, with the Palestinians. This
is the tenet of competitive victimhood.
Never mind that every one of these tenets is vile and deranged. Never mind that each is
complete and demonstrable idiocy, and that its idiocy has been demonstrated many
times over. And never mind the evidence—with respect to the third formulation, in
particular—that it is specifically when the Holocaust is borne in mind and taken to heart
that we recognize massacres for what they are and take up arms against them—in
Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda, and elsewhere.
These tenets serve only one purpose, which is to permit anti-Semitism once again to be
heard and thus, once again, to be spoken.
To forestall their assembly, to prevent the combination of the three toxic tenets, to
silence or marginalize those who are on the threshold of the bomb must be the task of
those who bear the heavy burden of blocking, by law or by their words, the coming anti -
Semitism.
What Levy leaves unsaid is that anti-Semitism is also destructive of the individuals and
societies who harbor it. Fighting this awful bias is self-protective and should be engaged
in by all.
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PEOPLEHOOD
W’hat is it that links all Jews with one another? One might think it is “tribal” but, Jews
come from different parts of the world and very different backgrounds. Of course there
is the sameness in its religious rituals but many secular Jews do not participate in them
and, indeed, some are even agnostic and even atheist – yet they are Jews.
Of course, over the centuries some believed that the connection was “blood”. Six million
Jews (some complaining bitterly that they were not Jews at all) perished in Europe in
the last century. I think that piece of philosophy has been debunked and hopefully
discarded forever. Yet Jews do have some sort of connection. What is it?
Dr. Jeffrey R. Solomon, a noted professional in the American Jewish community wrote
an interesting piece in Jewish Philanthropy entitled, What is Peoplehood? In it he writes,
“During my eleven year tenure at UJA-Federation of New York in the 80’s and 90’s, I’ve
had many compelling moments regarding the topic at hand, What is Peoplehood? One
of them was when I was visiting and soliciting a major donor who was an investment
banker with Goldman Sachs. We knew each other reasonably well and he was

12. forcefully blunt, in saying to me, “You’ve got 25 seconds, make your case.” I responded:
“Kol Yisrael arevim zeh b’zeh (Hebrew). All Jews are responsible one for another, and
you owe me 15 seconds.” He reached into his drawer and wrote out a check for
$175,000. Peoplehood suggests to me a concept of a global family, a family that
celebrates together and is in pain together when circumstances occur regarding any
part of that family. We share responsibility. If we are to all reenact the exodus from
Egypt, the moments in Mount Sinai, and understand that we have a shared heritage, we
should also understand that we have a shared destiny. This is important especially as
we in the American Jewish community focus on the blessings and challenges of
freedom and acceptance. With every Jew being a Jew by choice, we need to better
explore why one should make the choice to become active participants in this global
community. I believe that the compelling reason comes from the universal search for
three things that express our humanity: identity, meaning and community. Mutual
responsibility will not do it for Generations X and Y.
While we better understand the complex multiple identities that individuals stream in
and out of, when one combines that quest with the quest for meaning and community,
Jewish Peoplehood offers an extraordinary opportunity. In my practice, I have been
blessed to have been among the architects of a number of programs that focus in this
arena, including Birthright Israel, Reboot, Slingshot, 21/64, and other initiatives. Among
the principles built into these programs was exposure to the best that Judaism (and
Israel) have to offer within the creation of guilt-free zones. The message is not “you
have to…,” but instead, you are bequeathed with this extraordinary inheritance. What
would you like to do with it? If Judaism is to survive with the challenges of assimilation it
has to survive as a free choice: a complex set of ideas that can compete freely in the
panoply of ideas that form one’s identity, sense of meaning and community. Our work
confirms that Jewish ideas and the Jewish people can fare well within that context and
that connectiveness to the Jewish people is a major component of its success. Too
many of the institutions responsible for creating the pathways for the next generations to
join the Jewish people are ill equipped to do so in the complex, highly competitive
nature of contemporary society. They continue to act as if Peoplehood connections are
a foregone conclusion. They are Shammai as millennials seek out Hillel. This global
family is but one of the powerful magnets that have the potential to transform this
generation into a Jewish renaissance; one driven from the authentic quest for meaning,
identity and community in a world bereft of these important influences.
I am not an expert on Generations X or Y. Frankly; I (down deep) do not understand Dr.
Solomon’s assertion about Jews having a choice of being Jewish or not. In my
generation, those of us who grew up in the l930’s and 1940’s there did not seem to be a
choice. Of course, you could convert or just plain deny your Jewishness but the fact that
you were born as part of the Jewish people was just that - a fact.
12
In any case I thought you, my readers, should know that this discussion is ongoing. It
continues!

13. 13
A NEW JEWISH PUBLICATION
An article in The Jerusalem Post by Ben Weinfeld announced a new German language
monthly magazine in Germany, Jüdische Rundschau.
Published by Dr. Rafael Korenzecher, it devotes many of its articles to Israel,
contemporary anti-Semitism and Jewish culture and music. The monthly, which
Korenzecher launched in July, has a sister Russian- language publication
The original Jüdische Rundschau was a weekly paper that appeared in Germany from
1902 to 1938. The paper’s last issue was printed one day before the infamous
Kristallnacht pogroms on November 9, 1938.
In a media era when publications are rapidly shifting from print to digital news,
Korenzecher has cut across the grain by churning out a thick, 40-page monthly
newspaper with a website platform.
Korenzecher says his investment in the monthly is to show that Western values must be
fought for: “We didn’t get what we wanted for free.”
He sees a dangerous alliance among political parties “from the Left to the Right” in
Europe against Israel, adding that “the danger is rightwing radicalization, like in France.”
I think the new publication may offer a countervailing point of view to some extreme
publications as well as some mainstream ones who have adopted an anti-Israel
position. However, I fear that those who will read it will not be those whose beliefs need
some challenging. Perhaps it will bolster those that already see things the way Dr.
Korenzecher does. That is not a bad thing. However, it is those people who are open to
reading a strong pro-Israel publication that might gain the most from it.
To read the entire Weinfeld piece click here. http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Pro-Israel-
German-language-Jewish-magazine-launches-379582
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See you again in November.
DuBow Digest is written and published by Eugene DuBow who can be reached at
dubowdigest@optonline.net
Both the American and Germany editions are posted at www.dubowdigest.typepad.com