Israel Film Festival in Hollywood honors Martin Landau, Sherry Lansing

The stars came out for the opening of the 27th annual Israel Film Festival which runs in Beverly Hills and Woodland Hills, California from April 18 through May 2nd.   The Festival, directed by reuniting Kaveret drummer Meir Fenigstein, presented achievement awards to film industry executive and producer, Sherry Lansing and actor Martin Landau. Pictured: Steven Dorff, Lanie Kazan, Martin Landau, Stacy Keach, Sherry Lansing, Meir Fenigstein, Avi Lerner 

Sherry Lansing on Judaism in Hollywood and Israeli cinema.



Actor Martin Landau



Actress Lainie Kazan 

Israel 65th anniversary muted in empathy with ally, America, coping with terror at Boston Marathon

Israel's 65th Independence Day Celebration at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles was muted by Israelis' empathy with Americans' shock at the Boston Marathon terror casualties earlier that day.

Consul General to Southwestern U.S. David Siegel reveals Israel's unique juxtaposing its annual (war and terror-victims') Memorial Day in the 24-hours leading up to its Independence Day- and what lessons Israel has to share with Americans in coping with political terrorism. Consul Siegel relates, 'Our freedom comes thanks to the sacrifices of our fallen.'


Mike Burstyn: On her 65th Independence Day, what Israel can teach America about Jihad Israeli-American performing artist, Mike Burstyn, explores the lessons between Israel and America on the coinciding occasion of Israel's 65th Independence Day at the Boston Marathon massacre.
"Israel empathizes with America in having to overcome terror"- Consul to US Southwest David Siegel

As Moses did to Egypt, Jews deserve leaders to better defeat our theo-political oppressors

Orthodox Rabbi Gerald Meister, a leader in Jewish-Christian relations, challenged Jewish leadership on their ineffectiveness in confronting the Jew-hatred in Muslim culture and politics, which underlies anti-Zionism.  (JooTube recorded this interview with Rabbi Meister in Nashville, February, 2012. He passed away erev Pesach, 2013).

"This Passover, Free Us From A Failed Jewish Leadership" Stella Paul in American Thinker, April 23, 2011.
This week is Passover, the season of deliverance, and I'm praying for deliverance from America's failed Jewish leadership.  As Jews confront the most dangerous era since World War II, whom are we stuck with for leaders?  A clueless bunch of mini-Pharaohs, strutting around proclaiming their moral superiority, blissfully unaware the Jewish people's mortal enemies are pulling down their pants and laughing at them.

Cataloguing their collective acts of evasion, cowardice, appeasement, and surrender is not for the faint of heart, but, luckily, I'm fortified by matzo balls and ready to rock.  At the Passover Seder, Jews recite Dayenu, a prayer listing the many blessings bestowed by the Almighty, each of which would have sufficed (Dayenu) in its own right.  Here, alas, is a woeful Dayenu of the failures of the American Jewish establishment.  Can anyone tell me why these preening big shots haven't been forced to resign in shame?  Why, in God's name, are our purported "leaders" still collecting cushy paychecks when their credibility is bankrupt?

If they only had allowed a storm of anti-Semitism to rise in the West, and hate crimes against American Jews to skyrocket to unprecedented heights, while they declined to muster even a listless response -- Dayenu -- they would have failed.

If they only had stood aside, shrugging, while America's college campuses became battlegrounds in the war against Israel, where anti-Semitic lies were force-fed to America's next generation of leaders, and Jewish students were intimidated and taught self-hatred and alienation from their own identities -- Dayenu -- they would have failed.

If they only had refused to educate the Jewish people about the growing threat from radical Islam, and remained silent about the long, tragic history of Jews forced to live as oppressed dhimmis under Muslim rule, as mandated by Koranic law -- Dayenu -- they would have failed.

Huckabee to Obama on Mid-East mission: Heed the lesson of Palestinians after Israel's Gaza withdrawal

Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick posits the hidden agenda in Obama's snubbing the Israeli Knesset on his "charm offensive" trip to Israel, speaking, instead, before a liberal audience of American college students:

It is possible that in addressing the unelected radical Left in Jerusalem, Obama seeks to undermine the legitimacy of the Israeli government. But if that is the plan, then it would bespeak an extraordinary contempt and underestimation of Israeli democracy. Such a plan would not play out the same way his Egyptian speech did.

There are two possible policies Obama would want to empower Israel’s radical, unelectable Left in order to advance.  First, he could be strengthening these forces to help them pressure the government to make concessions to the Palestinians in order to convince the Palestinian Authority to renew negotiations and accept an Israeli peace offer.

While Obama indicated in his interview with Channel 2 that this is his goal, it is absurd to believe it. Obama knows there is no chance that the Palestinians will accept a deal from Israel. PA chief Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat both rejected Israeli peace offers made by far more radical Israeli governments than the new Netanyahu government. Moreover, the Palestinians refused to meet with Israeli negotiators while Mubarak was still in power. With the Muslim Brotherhood now in charge in Cairo, there is absolutely no way they will agree to negotiate – let alone accept a deal.

This leaves another glaring possibility. Through the radical Left, Obama may intend to foment a pressure campaign to force the government to withdraw unilaterally from all or parts of Judea and Samaria, as Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee advised Pres. Obama to learn the lessons of Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gush Katif in 2005.  At a dinner held in Brooklyn on behalf of the Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem,  Gov. Huckabee advised President Obama who intends to ask Israelis to make sacrifices for peace, “If that is the case, I would love to escort Mr. Obama personally to the Gush Katif Museum and say, ‘Mr. President, the Israelis have made many sacrifices for peace. Can you show me one sacrifice that the Palestinians have made for peace?’”


 
Mr. Huckabee declared that instead of asking the Israelis to stop building bedrooms for their children in the land that is theirs, the President should “demand that the Iranians stop building bombs” pointed at Israel and the rest of the free-world.

Mr. Huckabee said, “It is time we recognize that you don’t negotiate with people who do not believe you have the right to even exist, much less live next to you.”


The Palestinian example at Gush Katif was remembered by Sephardic Rabbi David Algaze of Havurat Yisrael in Queens, Rabbi Shalom DovWolpe, Executive Director of the Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem, and Helen Friedman, Executive Director of Americans for a Safe Israel.  (Playlist controls on bottom center of window).

On first anniversary of French Jewish family murder by a French Muslim in Toulouse, French Pres. Hollande Pays Tribute

French President pays tribute to the seven victims of terrorist Mohamed Merah, says he remains committed to the fight against terrorism  By Elad Benari in Israel National News

French President Francois Hollande during a
memorial ceremony for the Toulouse victims

French President Francois Hollande on Sunday paid tribute to the seven people who last year fell victim to terrorist Mohamed Merah, saying he remains committed to the fight against terrorism 

"The fight against terrorism is global... and allows for no easing off, no weakness and no negligence," Hollande told a crowd of around 1,500 people that had gathered in the southwestern city of Toulouse for the service, AFP reported.

"Democracy is always more powerful than fanaticism," Hollande said.

A self-described Al-Qaeda sympathizer, 23-year-old Merah murdered Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his sons Aryeh and Gavriel and Miriam Monsonego at the Otzar HaTorah school in Toulouse. Before that, he murdered three Muslim paratroopers of North African heritage. Merah was ultimately killed when he tried to flee a raid on his apartment.

Merah, a French citizen with Algerian roots and who in 2011 received military training in Pakistan, said he wanted to avenge the deaths of Palestinian Authority Arab children and punish France for sending troops to Afghanistan.

French police doubt that Merah could have acted alone, but the only person charged with helping him so far is his brother Abdelkader who has denied the charges, AFP reported.

Last month, however, police arrested two men in connection with Merah's killing spree, and in early December a 38-year-old man and his girlfriend were arrested on suspicion of links to the attacks but both were later released without charge.

France has seen a surge of 45% in the number of anti-Semitic incidents over the past year, since the Toulouse attacks.

Last week President Shimon Peres attended memorial events for the victims of the Otzar HaTorah massacre. He also met with the heads of the Jewish community of France and with a delegation of Imams including the heads of the Egyptian, African, Moroccan and Senegalese communities and heads of central mosques.

AIPAC Policy Conference addresses U.S. foreign policy and its effect on freedom and safety

Franco Frattini, Italy's former Foreign Minister joined Canada's Foreign Minister John Baird on the AIPAC Policy Conference mainstage with Robert Satloff (Center for Defense of Democracies) to explain the threat Iran and Islamist terror pose beyond Israel. 

Consecutive video clips from the AIPAC main stage:  Elliot Abrams and Dennis Ross with Frank Sesno;

Amb. Michael Oren with Frank Sesno 

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) on the main stage; 

US Medal of Honor recipient veteran Sgt. Major Ken Stumpf relates perceptions visiting I.D.F. 

US Medal of Honor, Lt. Col. Hon. Alfred Rascon shares his experience from Israel 

 

Breakout session:  Analyzing American power in the Mid-East under Obama administration's policies and actions in the wake of the post-Arab Spring. 

Former AIPAC president, David Victor moderates panel presentations by: Robert Satloff, Executive Director of Center for Defense of Democracies; Wall St. Journal's Bret Stephens; Ha'aretz military analyst Amos Harel, conveying his country's view of the Middle East in view of the upheaval in Syria and Egypt. 



Far-leftist, anti-Israel demonstrators were again present. The notorious Code:Pink's Medea Benjamin antagonized AIPAC attendees shouting agitprop through a loud P.A. system.  We inquired what information were they shaping their criticisms by.  Only a few AIPAC attendees challenged them.  We followed one young man who did, and then engaged them directly.  Their answers (in this playlist) may surprise you.

What makes one "a good Jew?" Faith, ritual, behavior, conversion, divorce, & marriage- addressed by Rabbi Joel Tessler (of the I.R.F.) and Rabbi Shmuel Goldin (of the R.J.C.)

How to live as a good Jew? Some leading orthodox rabbis affiliated with the Orthodox Union convened in Los Angeles to participate in the annual, Orthodox Union's West Coast Torah Convention in the final days of 2012. Following their public lessons, Rabbi Joel Tessler of Beth Shalom Cong and Talmud Torah in Potomac, Maryland, and Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, of Cong Ahavas Torah in Englewood, New Jersey kindly shared their perspectives on some of the persistent questions that the Jewish community wrestle with. (Five video segments - advance through the center-right button).

1) Secular humanism alone does not make one a "good Jew"- Rabbis Joel Tessler and Shmuel Goldin Is living as a "good, ethical person" enough to qualify a Jew's obligation to be "a good Jew?" 

Rabbi Joel Tessler, senior Rabbi of Beth Shalom Congregation in Potomac, MD presenting at the Orthodox Union's annual West Coast Annual Torah Convention in Los Angeles provides an Orthodox perspective. 

2) Faith without deeds- can you be "a good Jew"? Orthodox Rabbi Shmuel Goldin of N.J. 

Is living as a "good, ethical person" enough to fulfill the obligation to be "a good Jew?" Rabbi Shmuel Goldin of Congregation Ahavas Torah in Englewood, NJ provides an Orthodox interpretation. 

3) Observant or secular: "Conduct unbecoming" a Jewish person? 
Rabbis on Jews' behavioral obligations Orthodox Union Convention Rabbis Shmuel Goldin and Joel Tessler comment on Jewish conduct vs. keeping of ritual observances. Also, obligations to emulate G-d in thought and behavior. 

Documentary as Propaganda: The Gatekeepers and Dishonesty

Israeli filmmaker, Dror Moreh's look into ethical issues Israel faces in coping with irridentist Palestinian terrorism is a nominee for Best Documentary Feature in Sunday's 2013 Academy Awards.  Mr. Moreh participated in post-screening question and answers with audiences in Los Angeles on Feb 2nd and 3rd.  Roberta Seid and Roz Rothstein reviewed the film in Documentary as Propaganda: The Gatekeepers and Dishonesty in the American The Algemeiner, reprinted from the Jerusalem Post.

Dror Moreh’s documentary, The Gatekeepers, could have been a profound film. Instead, Moreh uses his interviews with six former directors of Israel’s top security services to send a simplistic and deeply partisan political message: If Israel withdraws from the West Bank, terrorism will subside and peace will break out.
To promote this message, the documentary engages in intellectual dishonesty and omits critical context. While most Israelis know the wider context, the average viewer probably does not, and therefore is vulnerable to the filmmaker’s biased version of the facts.

Though the film tries to portray Israel’s antiterrorism policies as counterproductive and cruel, the interviews inadvertently tell a different story. The six directors are well-spoken, deeply thoughtful, and genuinely self-critical.  However, the film repeatedly ignores history and context. It blames Israel for the Palestinian hostility and violence that occurred after 1967, when Israel began administering the West Bank.

The Gatekeepers' Dror Moreh responds to audience questions after a recent screening in Hollywood, demonstrating the partisan, anti-religious agenda of his film.

The viewer never learns from the film that terrorism against Jews and Israelis was not a result of Israel’s administration but rather has been a regular feature of life since pre-state days.

Palestinian Arabs murdered over 1,000 Jews between 1920 and 1967, and they ethnically cleansed all Jewish communities from the areas they captured during the 1948 war, including the West Bank, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem. The pattern of terrorism simply continued after Israel’s victory in its 1967 defensive war. Yasser Arafat organized 61 Fatah military operations from the West Bank in the few months after the war, and 162 Israelis were killed by terrorists between 1968 and 1970.

Prof. Abe Sion, visiting L.A. from Ariel University's Center for Law and Mass-Media, attended one of the screenings and confronted "The Gatekeepers" director Dror Moreh for mischaracterizing the situation (consistent with Roberta Seid's criticism) as Israel's ethical failings - for his personal aggrandizement.

Nor does the film depict the nature of the enemy Israel faces. Hamas’ genocidal ideology never comes up in the interviews. Yet the goals of Hamas, clearly expressed in its charter and its leaders’ statements, call for the murder of Jews and the “obliteration” of Israel, and are suffused with anti-Semitism. The film ignores the relentless incitement to hate and kill Jews that pervades Palestinian society officially and unofficially.

More disturbingly, the viewer never learns that Israel has repeatedly tried to do precisely what Moreh advocates. The film never mentions Israel’s offers to trade land for peace in 1967, 1979, 2000 and 2008, or that Palestinian leaders systematically rejected these offers.

Moreh wants audiences to share his wishful thinking, that Israel can end the conflict simply by withdrawing from the West Bank. But recent history, omitted from the film, contradicts this expectation. Israel pulled out of its security zone in Lebanon in 2000 and removed every settlement and over 8,000 Israelis from Gaza in 2005. The results were escalating threats and terrorism from Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon and from Iranian client Hamas in Gaza, which fired over 13,000 rockets and mortars into Israel’s southern communities between 2005 and 2012.

Ariel University's Prof Abe Sion explains why he feels "The Gatekeepers" is inaccurate, unbalanced, and unpatriotic to the Jewish nation.

Dror Moreh’s effort to blame Israel and the Shin Bet’s actions for the ongoing hostility to the Jewish state is like blaming the victim who is defending himself instead of blaming the perpetrator.

The Gatekeepers‘ material could have produced a profound film if it had not been sacrificed for a political message and if the film had been more intellectually honest and included the historical pattern of genocidal ideology, the ongoing violence, and the existential strategic challenges that Israel faces every day. It is these hard realities and that make the Shin Bet’s work so crucial and so heroic.

Read the original quoted article 

Chuck Hagel nomination- Obama's latest volley to vilify Israel-supporters

Is the Obama Administration working to marginalize  Zionistic Americans as "unpatriotic" or "unreasonable?" 

Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post explores Was Chuck Hagel nominated out of spite?  2/15/13

... What is unprecedented is to appoint a high national security official because the president is peeved about someone else.

Politico reports: The president feels personally invested in the nomination of Hagel. The Nebraska Republican is one of the few politicians he’s truly friendly with, and Obama plans to see the fight through, barring some major unforeseen development.

Democrats close to the White House say the typically cool-headed Obama has expressed flashes of real anger at what he sees as a politically motivated GOP fishing expedition that already netted his first choice for secretary of state — U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice. Obama — ticked off by Rice’s treatment and still emboldened by his convincing victory over Mitt Romney — courted confrontation when he tapped Hagel.  If true, this is outlandish. The president would imperil national security out of spite? 

Mike Lumish's message, "American Jews need to Stand Up" in the Times of Israel's Ops & Blogs Section today augments Ms. Rubin's points:

"Jonathan Tobin has a piece, "Jewish Groups Must End Silence on Hagel" up at Commentary that concludes as follows:

Lee Rosenberg AIPAC chair, congratulates Pres. Obama,
w/ ex- Chair Howard Friedman &  Rep. Howard Berman

The great irony, of course, is that while Hagel complains about the malicious power of the “Jewish lobby” Jewish organizations, with the notable exception of the Zionist Organization of America, have been almost entirely quiet regarding this toxic nomination of an unqualified bigot for the post of Secretary of Defense.  The western progressive-left tends to think that the “Jewish lobby” or the “Israel lobby” or AIPAC, or perhaps just the Jews as a whole, have a strangle-hold over the United States government.

We don’t.

It is a lie - and when influential people such as former Senator Chuck Hagel promote that lie they are spreading an ideological cancer of the sort that can have exceedingly dangerous consequences.  This is precisely the kind of thing that most American Jewish organizations were created to oppose and, yet, they are silent.  Jewish Democrats today, in the various pro-Israel / pro-Jewish non-profit organizations, seem incapable of mustering the fortitude to stand up to president Barack Obama.  By failing to do so they offer cover to Jewish congressional politicians, such as Chuck Schumer or Dianne Feinstein, who themselves remain supine before this president.

By refusing to accept the Hagel nomination without some further inquiry, the Republican Party has offered Jewish groups a golden opportunity to stand up for the best interests of the Jewish people, not to mention the best interests of the American people, through loudly and strongly and insistently opposing this nomination.

If the state of Israel means anything, it means Jewish people standing up for themselves in their own defense.  It means the resurrection not just of Jewish autonomy on traditionally Jewish land, but the resurrection of the Hebrew language and the creating and nurturing of Jewish culture in the arts and cinema and literature.  What the Israelis have created is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle because they have done something never before seen in the history of the planet.  They resurrected the national life of a people that wandered the earth, lost and desolate for two thousand years.

If Israeli Jews can do that, why cannot American Jews grow a spine and stand up for themselves?  AIPAC knows that Hagel is a potential nightmare, so why must they remain silent?  What good are they if they will not fight the very fights that they were created for to begin with?  I understand that it is counterproductive to fight battles that one is doomed to lose, but we are not doomed to lose this one if we would kindly show a little muscle and a little self-respect.

(Robert Kunst of Shalom Int'l outside the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC)

Hagel is bad news and the world-wide Jewish community knows it, but the world-wide Jewish community has no say in who Congress affirms as the Secretary of Defense of the United States.  But Jewish Americans do have a say and if we fail to make our voices heard in opposition to a clear and present danger than we let down the Jewish people as a whole.

Something like 80 percent of American Jews, including me, voted for Barack Obama during his first election for the presidency in 2008.  Something like 69 percent, without me, voted for Barack Obama during his second election for the presidency last year.  Immediately upon securing his second term in office president Obama turned around and thanked his Jewish supporters with a nice smack in the head with this Hagel nomination.

I say that it is time to stand up… long past time, actually."

Pres. Obama has again turned down Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's offer to meet during his visit to Washington during the first week of March. Obama opts instead to meet with Netanyahu in Jerusalem. LatmaTV parodies Obama's intentions in planning his March trip to the Mid-East.

Israel Matzav: Is Chuck roast? Hagel refuses to disclose foreign funding sources

Israel Matzav: Is Chuck roast? Hagel refuses to disclose foreign funding sources

"Hagel is refusing to answer any of the questions or make any effort to get them the answers," the aide said. "He is basically telling Senators they have no right to know if he has been unduly influenced by foreign governments or foreign agents over the last five years. What is he hiding? I'm told several Senators, including McCain, who have previously expressed opposition to a filibuster said privately yesterday that failure to disclose foreign funding information would change their thinking."

"Committee members have specific concerns with regard to foreign contributions to the Atlantic Council by Saad Hariri (or the Hariri family), Dinu Patriciu, Kazakhstan, Bidzina Ivanishvili (his supporters/network) – and the nexus between Chevron's investments in Kazakhstan and their involvement with Hagel at the Atlantic Council," the aide added. All of those groups have paid chairs or programs at the foundation.

The committee also requested the transcripts or recordings of any paid speeches delivered by Hagel since he left the Senate — a request Hagel also said he could not accomodate. In his letter to lawmakers, Hagel said his contracts stipulated the speeches were off the record and not to be recorded. He added that he never prepared written remarks before his speeches

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Islamists ride anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian wave to ascension over liberal democracies

Dr. Mordechai Kedar poses with Dalia of Chabad of SoLa venue
and speaking tour organizer Nurit Greenger

Dr. Mordechai Kedar, who spoiled al-Jazeera's challenge of Israel's overseeing Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, gives a background of the Islamist view and objectives for dominating Jews, Israel, and non-Muslim societies.  He professes that the liberal-faciliated, Islamic cultural juggernaut which plagues Western European cities today is by design being implemented in the United States and internationally- with particular challenges to Jews as proxy supporters for the Islamist target of Israel- via the establishment of an Islamist Palestine state- which must not, for Jews' sake, be contiguous with Gaza.




Dr. Mordechai Kedar, who teaches Arabic-studies in Israel, addressed the roots of the Islamist problem facing the world today at Jews' expense.

(In 3 parts, advance via the buttons on the left and center)

Israel's election results reflect a loss of leftist, not rightist, societal influence

 Analyst, Arlene Kushner from Israel, casts Israel's election results differently than the mainstream (liberal) media journalists:  

On at least one occasion, following the pattern of the media, I alluded to the "Center-Left" bloc of parties as versus the Right-Religious bloc of parties.  But, in fact, this is a misleading way of conceptualizing the situation. 

More accurately, there is the Left. And there is the Right.  Both of which are likely to be ideological.  And then there are parties that are centrist: neither left nor right ideologically but drawing a bit from each on various issues and more likely pragmatic.  

The way the media had it, the Center-Left and the Right were about equal in number of mandates acquired (excluding the fact that the Arab parties were factored in on the Left).  This leads to the conclusion that the Right has gotten weaker -- or, conversely, that the Left has gotten stronger.  Which impression the left-leaning media are quite content to convey.  ...  Where is the shift from right to left that is being discussed?

Please read it all