‘Shalom’ and ‘Salaam’: Day Schools Embrace Arabic
By Rebecca Dube
Outside their classroom window a beautiful spring afternoon is blooming, but a few students at Ramaz, a Modern Orthodox academy in Manhattan, have stayed after school for a foreign-language club.
After teacher Orit Nawrocki drills them on their siblings’ ages and on various vegetables, all in an unfamiliar language, she bids them farewell.
“See you again,” she says.
Smiling, they respond, “Insha’Allah,” the Arabic phrase for “God willing.”
Ramaz is one of a small but growing number of Jewish day schools across the United States — including Modern Orthodox, Conservative and community schools — that have started to teach Arabic. Students are enthusiastically embracing the opportunity, despite some opposition from peers who don’t understand why they want to learn the “enemy” language.
Worldwide, an estimated 280 million people speak Arabic, with most residing in the Middle East and Northern Africa. In Israel, both Hebrew and Arabic are official languages, but Arabic is the first language of Palestinians and of many Mizrahic Jewish citizens.
“My mother’s family is North African and Moroccan, and they all speak Arabic, so it’s sort of connecting to my roots,” explained Ramaz sophomore Jonathan Asherman, 16.
His classmate Jonathan Baumgarten, also 16, says he hopes to speak Arabic in Israel one day — but he’s not shy about practicing on New York taxi drivers in the meantime. “In a diverse city like New York, all languages are practical,” he said.
Jewish students’ motivations for learning Arabic range from the pragmatic to the idealistic. Some, like Asherman, have grandparents and other relatives who grew up speaking Arabic. Many see Arabic as a great résumé-booster, especially if they’re interested in politics or foreign affairs. A few harbor super-spy fantasies of joining the Mossad one day. Many say that learning Arabic gives them hope that they may, in some small way, contribute to the peace process.
“I know how naïve this sounds, but I always thought that I would go to Israel and speak Arabic with an Arab,” 16-year-old Becca Siegel wrote to the Forward in an e-mail. “One day I want an Arab to feel like a random American Jewish girl cares about him and his culture. I know that nothing I could possibly do could change the situation in the Middle East, but maybe if one Arab could meet a Jewish girl that cares, that could do something to tip the scale.”
Siegel studies Arabic at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Md., where about 60 students a year enroll in various levels of Arabic courses.
“The reaction from the students has been unbelievably exciting,” says teacher Dodie Goldstein. “The language can open their eyes to new experiences and new ways of communicating.”
Each year, Goldstein says, she gets an increasing number of inquiries from other Jewish schools interested in starting their own Arabic programs.
Arabic is a hot language on high school and college campuses across the United States these days. After the September 11 attacks, interest in learning Arabic soared, according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, and the federal government recently increased funding for public high school instruction in foreign languages deemed important to national security.
But at Jewish schools, learning Arabic takes on a special resonance.
“It would be good for more Jewish kids to know Arabic better, and maybe understand Islam better by understanding the language of Islam,” says Steven Brown, head of the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in Bryn Mawr, Pa., explaining why next year Arabic will go from club status to a full-credit course offering.
Other Jewish schools that offer Arabic as a class or an extracurricular club include Shalhevet High School for Girls in Cedarhurst, N.Y.; American Hebrew Academy in Greensboro, N.C.; and SAR High School in Riverdale, N.Y.
At Ramaz, about six students generally take part in the high school club and Nawrocki, the teacher, leads two middle school clubs as well.
At the American Hebrew Academy, a boarding school that opened in 2001, the administration has struggled to interest students in traditional Spanish and French classes, Dean of Academics Tammy Williams said. But enrollment in Arabic classes has been steadily increasing.
“Our students spend a term studying in Israel, and many are interested in international studies and maybe making aliyah,” Williams said, “so that probably tugs at them when they are making choices about what to study.”
Jewish schools that want to offer Arabic face unique challenges. Brown and others said it takes work to find textbooks that are both age-appropriate and free of political minefields. For instance, Goldstein said some Arabic language-instruction textbooks she examined, even from reputable publishers, omitted Israel from their maps of the Middle East.
Parental opposition hasn’t been a problem. Parents seem thrilled that their children have the opportunity to learn such an in-demand language.
“Twenty or 25 years ago, people would say, ‘Why?’ But now people are aware the Arabic language is good for people to learn,” says David Rabeeya, who teaches Hebrew and Arabic at Barrack.
Students occasionally face a backlash from their peers. Some of Siegel’s friends made terrorist jokes when she mentioned she was taking Arabic. Ezra Jake, who graduated from Barrack last year and is studying in Israel before heading to the University of Maryland next fall, said some people told him Arabic was a “dirty” language. His response: On the contrary, Arabic is a beautiful language with many similarities to Hebrew.
Derision the students face for studying Arabic seems to strengthen their commitment to learning the language.
“There are people that always ask, ‘Why would you want to talk to them?’ and I just respond, ‘That’s why.’ This general feeling of fear/hatred…” says Joey Goldstein, 19, another recent Barrack graduate who is spending a pre-college year in Israel. “The more people you can talk to in their own language, the more a chance of peace.”
Already, he’s living out Siegel’s dream of building a few Jewish-Arab bridges with his grasp of Arabic. He’s living in Ramat Beit Shemesh, where construction is booming and most of the construction workers speak Arabic. Goldstein makes a point to say good morning in Arabic and ask them about their families. “It’s really nice,” he says in an e-mail. “Sometimes I play guitar, and they will come and make a request.”
Friendly greetings and a few songs — perhaps a small step in improving Arab-Jewish relations, but insha’Allah or, in Hebrew, bezrat Hashem — it’s a start.
Contact Rebecca Dube at dube@forward.com.
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One correction, please: "inshallah" (actually, it's three words - "in shaa allah") means "if God wanted". All Arabic sentences that begin with "if" take on a verb in the past tense. The parallel Hebrew expression would be "im yirtzeh ha-shem" (if God shall want). Be-'ezrat ha-Shem means "with the help of God".
Actually, Be-ezrat Hashem means "with the help of Hashem". Hashem doesnt mean god, Hashem IS G-d. As much as I dont agree with teaching arabic in a Jewish school, I can live with it. But it's straight up Avodah Zara to teach the kids to go around praising allah, which is exactly what they are doing when they go around saying "insha'allah". If arabs thought "allah" just translated into "god", then Jews wouldnt be blasphemers for not believing in "allah". But ask any arab and they'll tell you that allah doesnt mean god, but that allah is god. insha'allah is a phrase that denotes supreme power to a being other than Hashem. Lets make sure the Jewish youth is learning torah values before we start offering them the opportunity to convert to Islam.
Max- "If arabs thought "allah" just translated into "god", then Jews wouldnt be blasphemers for not believing in "allah". "
you are wrong about this, Allah=G-d=Hashem it is all the same being. it is just another language.
I am a Christian Palestinian and when I go to Church back home the Mass is in Arabic and they address G-d as Allah, because it is Arabic for G-d.
Actually, Hash-shem literally means "the name" -- a reference to the Tetragrammaton.
Al-laah in Arabic means "the God" and is an elided version of al-ilaah. The Arabic word ilaah ("god") is cognate to the singular form of the Hebrew word "eloh-im" (which means "God", but is grammatically plural).
ilaah -> eloh due to the Canaanite vowel shift, which turned proto-semitic "aa" into "o" for Canaanite languages such as Hebrew, Phoenician, Ugaritic, Moabite, etc.
Actually, Hash-shem literally means "the name" -- a reference to the Tetragrammaton.
Al-laah in Arabic means "the God" and is an elided version of al-ilaah. The Arabic word ilaah ("god") is cognate to the singular form of the Hebrew word "eloh-im" (which means "God", but is grammatically plural).
ilaah -> eloh due to the Canaanite vowel shift, which turned proto-semitic "aa" into "o" for Canaanite languages such as Hebrew, Phoenician, Ugaritic, Moabite, etc.
Anyone who would be opposed to Jewish kids learning Arabic would be portraying a profound ignorance of Jewish history, a short-sightedness regarding security issues, and a stunning lack of intellectual curiousity.
During the middle ages, Jews usually lived peacefully in Arab cities, and many great men of Torah were among them. Rambam alone proves the point, though there was also ibn Ezra ("ibn" means "son of" in Arabic) and Rav Saadia Gaon. These cities were often sanctuaries from the persecution of Christian Europe, and after the Jews were expelled from Spain, many headed to Arab north Africa.
During the early 1980's, a substantial number of midshipmen at the Naval Academy were taking Russian. This alarmed a visiting dignitary, who accusingly asked them why. "Because we want to know our adversary," came the obvious answer. (As a Russian scholar, I often got the same question.) This country is engaged in both a military struggle, as well as one for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world, in which Arabic is the key language. It is a struggle we cannot win unless we can listen and speak to both our enemies and friends in their own language.
The study of any language is vital to a proper education. I know some of the kids at JDS in Rockville, MD. Their Hebrew is great. That they wish to study Arabic should be a point of nacchus for our community, not concern.
Kol Hakavod on the article. I just want to make the correction that Joe Goldstein and Ezra Jake Weisel were students of the class of 2008 at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville,MD.
Anyone who has an objection to teaching arabic is silly. Arabic is mandatory in Israeli public schools. If it's okay for them how sanctimonious of Americans to think it's no good here. Better to remain ignorant I guess.
I'd be more impressed if some Arabic school not to menton some Arab country offered Hebrew in its curriculum.
The article as written manages to both tell us that Hebrew schools are offering Arabic and to attack Jews because some students don't won't to study the language.
Would the writer have written a similar article about Jews studying German in the 30's? I doubt it.
Go ahead teach Arabic. Let them learn what Arab speakers say about Jews:
" Anyhow, reading the CiF piece, I was struck by the words with which Moazzam Begg opened his article:
“”From Allah we come and to Him shall we return.” Thus begin hundreds of comments on leading Arabic language news sites today, in response to the death of Ali al-Fakhiri – better known to the world as Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi.”
Yet I couldn’t find anything like that on the Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya, websites that day. They are acknowledged as the leading news sites of the Arab world. So I asked Begg if he would provide some references, as I was very interested in reading them.
He kindly provided me with these 3 links
Asharq Alawsat, BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera
Asharq Alawsat and BBC Arabic had no comments facility, and Al Jazeera far from containing hundreds, actually only had 29.
The first was from Abd AlMun’aam Abo Dahis Sa’iid, from Shabwah in Yemen, who wrote:
الله يلعن اليهود
Meaning “Allah curse the Jew” (which also can be translated as “God damn the Jew”).* It’s also worth noting that the Jazeera piece is dated 10th May whereas Begg’s piece is dated 13th"
Read the whole article here:
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/05/16/comment-is-curtailed/
Why did you delete my comment?
It is an historical fact that European Communists especially in Russia hated Yiddish.
The Bolsheviks persecuted Yiddish writers and artists.
Why do you deny that fact?
Allah= G-d= Hashem. I am descended from 4 Iraqi rabbis, and I assure you, when they weren't speaking Hebrew, they referred to G-d as Allah.
Toby,
Judging from your post, and from those of others on this and similar forums, the attitudes of many Jews toward Arabs are no better than those toward Jews expressed in the Arab sources you site.
Lee, judging by your comment your attitude towards Jews is no better than the antisemitic Arabs you defend.
Go ahead learn Arabic and then listen and read the Arab media and see what they say about Jews.
Here is a sample:
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ArabCartoons.htm
"I am descended from 4 Iraqi rabbis, and I assure you, when they weren't speaking Hebrew, they referred to G-d as Allah."
My Jewish Egyptian in laws refer to God as, among other locutions, Adonai. Never as Allah.
Linguistically Allah may equal G-d or HaShem. Theologically, the two competing ideas of who HaShem is are total opposites. Let us not forget this in the debate on language.
Toby,
First of all, I myself am Jewish. Secondly, I am certainly not "defending" antisemitic Arabs. Where you got that idea from I don't know. Thirdly, if the shoe fits, wear it. Someone has to be pretty bigoted to suggest that Jewish schools shouldn't teach Arabic until Hebrew is taught in Arab countries, or to interpret this article as being an "attack" on Jews who don't want to learn it.
"Would the writer have written a similar article about Jews studying German in the 30's? I doubt it."
Toby, I think you're making inappropriate historical comparisons. I don't think the Germans hated the Jews for the same reasons some Arabs hate Jews; there were no Jewish settlements on stolen German land, no occupying army manning checkpoints and killing German kids and there was certainly no mass killings of Germans by like Gaza.
It's 2009, not 1939 and Israel is not a ghetto vulnerable to persecution, oppression and genocide. If Israelis are victims, they're victims of their own design.
I am an American Jew who studied in Amman for six months last year. I am fluent in Modern Standard Arabic and think these iniatives at schools are very healthy, intellectually stimulating opportunities for young Jews. The Arabic language is very beautiful, with its rich literature, varied pronunciation and exquisite grammar, and its classical poetry enough to cheer one up on a rainy day. It is the vehicle of several legacy-bearing civilizations, in all of which Jews of the Arabic-speaking lands contributed to the flow of ideas and construction of culture. Jews should get to learn the language of their neighbors, to learn about the good and bad among the Arabic discourse in the contemporary Middle East.
However, as far as some of the kids' visions of transforming the region and their neighbors, I'd have to say "been there done that". The modern conversers of this glorious tongue don't live up to the heritage of their ancestors. I came to Amman with very lofty ambitions in "dialogue". I hoped that just by being a humble American Jew with no political or ideological agenda and befriending Jordanian, conversing in Arabic about their lives and dreams, that I could set a positive example of a well-meaning Semitic cousin seeking to objectively understand the people involved in a conflcit with his.
Instead I received unbridled hostility, even as an American. Jews were continuously bashed as a religion and ethnicity, sometimes more in demonic and conspiratorial terms, pervasively in popular culture and the media. The few Jordanians I got to know well enough and felt comfortable sharing my religion with cautioned me not to tell any other locals. Swatiskas are somewhat common, Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf are prominently displayed at many downtown kiosks, Israel is blamed for a variety of plots against Muslims and to a lesser extent Arabs. Occasionally, I'd give saying I'm Jewish a chance and get a cold reception from people I thought I could trust to judge me individually. Among the majority, mainstream thinking in Jordan, "Jew" seems to have been essentialized as a negative force antitheical to Muslims, incapable of ever doing anything with good intentions.
Or maybe some detractors on this board think I didn't try hard enough?
While it is important to be able to communicate with the Arabic speaking world and to know what they are really saying to each other, it is simplistic to think that knowing the language leads to elimination of falsehood and hatred. American blacks in the south spoke English a hundred years ago but that in itself didn't lead to equality.
Moreover communication must be based on truth. Most Israelis themselves don't tell it like it is. If war, such as World War I, changes no boudaries the whole middle east belongs to Turkey (Ottoman Empire). There are no "stolen lands". I never hear of reparations for the Jews thrown out of Arab countries. We were forced to buy the Golan and paid a terrible price in blood and agony of soldiers cremated alive in their tanks. Let Stria know that next tinme, if they force one, they won't get back Damascus, either.
A world the can ignore the holocaust in Darfur reminds us that we can only depend upon ourselves.
Vontrelle Muhammad Jackson - There were no checkpoints or occupied lands or refugees in the 1920's or the 1930's. The animosity of Arabs towards the Jews then was exactly the same as it is today. It's very convenient to spread propaganda that the animosity is of Israel's own making, pretending that everything began with roadblocks or with the war in Gaza. However, all your "grievances" are the result of the conflict - not the cause of the conflict. It's interesting to note that the anti-Israel position is always presented without any context. The roadblocks simply happened without any rhyme or reason. An attack on Israel, on the other hand, will always have context and will always be understandable.
This doesn't change the fact that studying Arabic is a positive idea. Kol ha-kavod / mabruk.
Lee "First of all, I myself am Jewish."
This isn't relevant.
"Secondly, I am certainly not "defending" antisemitic Arabs. Where you got that idea from I don't know."
You are not? Suggesting that Arab antisemitism should be ignored is a defense.
Even the Forward had a story which said that:
"Jerusalem — Some 40 percent of Israeli Arabs believe the Holocaust never happened, according to a new survey."
http://forward.com/articles/106208/
and this is only in Israel. The percenatge of denial is much higher in most Arab countries.
"Thirdly, if the shoe fits, wear it."
yes, Lee, if the antisemitic shoe fits wear it.
"Someone has to be pretty bigoted to suggest that Jewish schools shouldn't teach Arabic until Hebrew is taught in Arab countries,"
Why so? Hebrew is the official language of a country and refusing to teach it is the way they deny its existence.
Someone would have to be pretty antiJewish not to see it.
"or to interpret this article as being an "attack" on Jews who don't want to learn it."
The tone of the article was certainly critical of people who don't want to learn it at this time.
Toby,
People like you aren't even worth talking to. Believe what you want to believe. I have very little respect for people like you.
Toby,
One more thing. One of the main things I have learned from reading this and similar websites is that there are just as many bigots among Jews as among any other group of people.
Yehuda:
"There were no checkpoints or occupied lands or refugees in the 1920's or the 1930's. The animosity of Arabs towards the Jews then was exactly the same as it is today."
Well, why wouldn't there be Arab animosity? The Zionists were trying to establish a state in their midst that would be officially for another group of people. How many groups who were in the Arabs' shoes would have been happy with that?
Toby,
What's your deal?
First, it makes more sense for Jews to learn Arabic then for Arabs (outside Israelis and mabye Arabs nations in the vicinity) to learn Hebrew. It's pure numbers.
Second, the German arguement I don't believe works. For instance, the Jews of Germany and in many surrounding nations - spoke German. Plus, Germany was just one nation, as opposed to the many Arab speaking nations in the world. Not to mention Israel's neighbors and Israel being in the Arab dominant Middle (Near) East. Israeli Jews (and through that, Jews in HaGalut) makes much more sense. Whether it is knowing what our "enemies" are saying or for - hopefully - when/if relations are normalized and true peace is established.
Third, what are you Memri? Yes, there are anti-Jewish Arabs. But to think that all Arabs are Judeophobic and that's is ALL these young Jewish kids are going to get out of this says more about you then it does the (supposedly) bigoted Arabs. The same can be said for a Jewish person learning ANY language. There are anti-Semites and bigots against Jews (and basically every group for that matter) that speak all sorts of languages.
Fourth, your response to Lee is confusing. Did Forward delete a comment by Lee, because your response just seems out of pure ignorance. So stating that all Arabs are not bigoted against Jews is anti-Semitic against Jews?!? What kind of logic is that?
Yehuda, I would have to respectfully disagree. From everything I've read, while there was animosity towards Jews (and the British) prior to the establishment, it was NO WHERE like it is today or has been the past few decades. Not to mention, but it's not like all the Arabs have blind animosity, much of it is Israel's fault (this goes both ways of course).
Lee,
Re:" How many groups who were in the Arabs' shoes would have been happy with that? "
No one ethno-religious group would be happy with a rival nationalist movement claiming the territory on which they share (Palestine was not an exclusively Arab Islamic land even prior to political Zionism). However, nearly all other conflicting peoples have come to accept painful compromises as a means for ending their dispute, at least in terms of giving up a perpetual violent countering of the other side and complete nonrejection.
For example,
The Turkish republic was established at the expense of millenia-old indigenous Armenian and Greek communities rooted throughout the Antatolian peninsula, through forced migration, mass murder, and other coercive and elimination measures. You don't see their descendants rejecting Turkey's existence and seeking through armed struggle to liberate Constantinople and reclaim their ancestor's homes and property.
South Asian Muslims' demands for a Muslim dominated state in parts of the Indian subcontinent led to the displacement of millions of Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, and other minorities from Pakistan and later Bangladesh (Pakistan couldn't even handle one united Muslim country and split into two in 1971). These religious minorities found new homes in multiconfessional, tolerant India or elsewhere and did not seek to reclaim the very homes they were driven from in present-day Pakistan. They did not form armd liberation movement and use terrorist smurder innocent Pakistanis abroad or within their national borders, but rather built new productive lives in adopted countries.
Same goes for 12 million German-speaking speaking Sudentens Czechs absorbed by Germany after WWII and Iberian Moorish Muslims driven from Spain and Portugal in 1492, and Greek minorities driven from Nasser's Egypt.
BTW, Jews were also driven from Old City of Jerusalem in 1948 and lands that would later become part of the West Bank and Gaza (Kfar Etzion and Kfar Gaza). In the 19 years of Jordanian control of those territories, these expellees did not seek to reclaim their stolen properties through violence, or through any means in fact. Rather, they relocated within the new Israeli state and created livelihoods for themselves and their children.
And Lee, try living in MY SHOES: a Jew enthusiastic for dialogue and mutual respect living for six months in an Arab country officially at peace with Israel yet unable to reveal this simple fact for fear of being PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED- being warned by the few Jordanians I trusted and told them my religion that should tell not another Jordanian because the hatred for ALL JEWS is real and widespread. I was pretty pissed, but would I consider simply harassing any Muslim or Arab I met anywhere in the world because I am upset?
Lee - The Arab animosity towards the Jews was in fact their opposition to the aspirations of the Yishuv (the Hebrew speaking community in this land). I understand that you agree with the Arabs that these aspirations were illegitimate, whereas I would claim that the right of self-determination is universal for all peoples ("universal" includes the Hebrew yishuv, obviously). Despite this disagreement, it seems that we agree on something much more important: It is not a conflict about roadblocks or borders. My comments were a reaction to Vontrelle Muhammad Jackson who seems to claim that Arabs hate Jews because of "settlements and checkpoints". It's more than obvious that the removal of settlements and checkpoints won't lessen the hostilities. The conflict, as you admit so honestly, was in existence in the 1920's. Hence, all the "grievances" that we hear every day on the news are not the essence of conflict. They are the results of conflict. In short, complaining of "roadblocks" or "blockade" or "refugees" is in truth a means of waging a propaganda struggle. It's very successful in gaining sympathy for the Palestinians, but it is very dishonest. It's nice to hear at least once from an anti-Israel person that the conflict is about opposition to our aspirations (self-determination). Obviously, if the Palestinian position would be expressed honestly, clearly stating that they oppose the idea of Jewish statehood period - well, they would lose much of their sympathy. They prefer focusing on the results of conflict, the results of their failed war. People are willing to sympathize with the seemingly weaker side of the conflict, while ignoring its extreme motives and intentions.
Czarkazem13,
No, Forward didn't delete any comment of mine.
Yehuda,
"I understand that you agree with the Arabs that these aspirations were illegitimate..."
I didn't say that. I said that it's easy to understand why the Arabs were opposed to it. That doesn't necessarily mean it (Zionism) was illegitimate.
"In short, complaining of "roadblocks" or "blockade" or "refugees" is in truth a means of waging a propaganda struggle. It's very successful in gaining sympathy for the Palestinians, but it is very dishonest."
So by your logic, Israel has a right to treat the Palestinians however it pleases, and can dismiss all criticism as a red herring, since the Palestinians will dislike it no matter what it does. That's pretty convenient, isn't it?
And yes, most Palestinians believe that a Jewish state shouldn't have come into being. But remember that the Zionists (at least many of them) originally wanted all of Palestine for themselves, not a Jewish and an Arab state. They only reluctantly accepted partition later. In view of this, one cannot automatically rule out the Palestinians eventually doing the same thing.
Czarkazem13 - The intensity of hostility towards the Jews has not increased since the establishment of the State of Israel. Already in the UN debate about partition in November 1947, the Arab delegates spoke in the clearest terms that the Jews would be wiped out if the Partition Plan would be passed. This was a clear threat of genocide, which obviously is the very climax of hostility. Even in 1937, the mufti of Jerusalem told the Peel Commission that he "would deal with the Jews" when Arab independence would be achieved over the entire land. The Peel Commission delegates understood the message: genocide. Actually, if one reads the statements made in the Mandate era and compares them with what one hears today in a TV broacast of Hamas - one finds out that it's the exact terminology. Indeed, it's the very same conflict and the very same hostility. The passage of time doesn't seem to heal any pain, but neither does it intensify the pain of conflict.
And one more thing - it is a very low-intensity conflict. Perhaps, there is no solution in sight, but life goes on rather normally for both sides. Traffic accidents are a much bigger danger for both Jews and Arabs. The danger of crime in any large American city is much more dramatic than every day life in our conflict.
No, Lee, no one wants to "dismiss all criticism as a red herring". Israel is in the midst of an armed conflict. It is, admittedly, a very low-intensity conflict - but the conflict is nevertheless violent. So, the roadblocks or fences (or whatever) are means of coping with a type of warfare. One didn't set up a roadblock out of spite or because of a desire to provoke someone. So, one can criticize Israel in her choice of "weapons". It's fine. However, that's not how it is presented in the propaganda war against us. It is generally presented without any context (like Vontrelle Muhammad Jackson's opinion) - as if out of the blue, we wish to be mean. We are acting against real threats and real hostilities. I think that we are very reasonable people, and I am convinced that no one else in the world would handle this hostility in a milder way. One doesn't have to agree to the method that we choose to conduct this conflict (so criticism is okay) - but it should be criticism that recognizes that we are facing real dangers.
Lee "Toby,
People like you aren't even worth talking to. Believe what you want to believe. I have very little respect for people like you."
This is also what I think about you.
It's typical of bigots like Lee to snub somebody and then to talk about them anyway:
"Lee Toby,
One more thing. One of the main things I have learned from reading this and similar websites is that there are just as many bigots among Jews as among any other group of people."
If it took a blog for you to make such a discovery then you are not very birght, are you Lee.
Bigotry is omnipresent. It also present in people like you who pretend to follow the rule of universality. In fact antisemitism is today being spread by people who believe in universal values. Maybe it was always true as the Communists demonstrated when they killed so many Jews in Russia and sent so many others to Siberia.
Lee says: "Well, why wouldn't there be Arab animosity? The Zionists were trying to establish a state in their midst that would be officially for another group of people. How many groups who were in the Arabs' shoes would have been happy with that?"
Well, how the Jew hater reveals his or her true colors.
Sorry Lee your knowledge of Arab history is spotty at best. Either that or you are lying.
There has been ant-Jewish hatred among Muslims for over a thousand years.
Read this if you there:
"Une si longue presence: comment le monde arabe a perdu ses juifs 1947-1967" by Nathan Weinstock Plon, 2008, 358. pp.
By Lyn Julius
"The picture on the front cover of Nathan Weinstock's book Une si longue presence shows two barred windows. Through the window on the left, the sultan's lions peer out. In the adjoining cage, the Jews of Fez.
When the photograph was taken in 1912, the Jews were sheltering in the sultan's menagerie from a murderous riot on the eve of the establishment of the French protectorate of Morocco.
The implication is clear: the Jews' place is with the sultan's beasts. It was the Jews' job to feed the lions. In times of trouble, what place of refuge could be more natural than the sultan's menagerie?
The lions have long gone, and so have the Jews. Almost all the Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa have been driven to extinction: most went to Israel, where half the Jews or their descendants come from Muslim lands. A lethal cocktail of state-sanctioned persecution and mob violence, modulated to the peaks of Arab-Israeli tension, has caused the Jewish population to dwindle from one million in 1948 to 4,500 in one generation. It was an ethnic cleansing, says Weinstock, not even rivalled by Nazi Germany in 1939.
Such a calamity cannot be explained by the Jews' failure to integrate. They were indigenous, having for the most part settled in the Middle East and North Africa over 2,000 years ago – one thousand years before the advent of Islam. Weinstock's conclusion is simple: the ethnic cleansing of the Jews is a consequence of religious and cultural contempt ('the opposite of tolerance') viewing the Jews as subjugated dhimmis....."
Read the rest:
http://www.democratiya.com/review.asp?reviews_id=219
Czarkazem13 " Toby,
What's your deal?
First, it makes more sense for Jews to learn Arabic then for Arabs (outside Israelis and mabye Arabs nations in the vicinity) to learn Hebrew. It's pure numbers."
it's not a question of numbers. If Arab States forbid the teaching of Hebrew as many of them do then they are denying the very humanity of the Jewish people. Why would I want to learn a language of a people who want to destory my very existence?
"Second, the German arguement I don't believe works. For instance, the Jews of Germany and in many surrounding nations - spoke German."
Germany was one nation which produced a rich literature and philosophy. What have the Arabs produced?
Still many German Jews like Kurt Julian Weill who wrote with Brecht the Three Penny Opera and escaped from Germnay and lived in NY where he refused to speak German for the rest of his life.
I am not saying that Jews should never study Arabic (some should for strategic reasons) but now while the Arab world is so rife with Nazi like antisemitism is not the time.
Study German instead if you already know Hebrew and want to learn another language.
Jeremy Noam Makover, you are wasting your time arguing with Lee, who is a rabid antisemitic Israel hater.
Toby,
"Germany was one nation which produced a rich literature and philosophy. What have the Arabs produced?"
Well, at least if you go back to the Middle Ages, quite a lot in science, medicine, architecture, and mathematics--the very word "algebra" comes from Arabic.
"Jeremy Noam Makover, you are wasting your time arguing with Lee, who is a rabid antisemitic Israel hater."
You are certifiable, Toby.
I see is Lee is policing this board.
"Well, at least if you go back to the Middle Ages, quite a lot in science, medicine, architecture, and mathematics--the very word "algebra" comes from Arabic."
A lot? What is a lot?
Everybody knows that algebra is an arabic word, so what?
The concept goes back to the ancient Babylonians and the debate is about whether it was developed by a Persian mathematician or a an ancient Hellenist one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra#History
So what have the Arabs produced in the last couple hundred years which stand out in science or mathematics?
How many books are translated into Arabic.
"The Arab Press on Arab Human Development
Rima Khalaf Drops a Bomb
Fahed al-Fanek, Al-Ra’i (partially state-owned, pro-government), Amman, Jordan, July 4, 2002
"When Dr. Rima Khalaf Hunaidi was Jordanian minister of planning, she wanted to issue a report about human development in Jordan along the lines of the report published annually by the United Nations Development Program on human development in developing countries. The political aim of the minister was to show that the social and development situation in Jordan is better than many critics think and at the same time to provide the Planning Ministry with an instrument with which to pressure other ministries and organizations to improve by way of comparing their performance.
Now that Rima Khalaf has moved to the United Nations as director of the Arab regional office in the U.N. Development Program, she has taken the same idea and expanded it to cover 22 Arab countries in order to make clear the region’s faults and give encouragement to those in a position to instigate reform.
The team she chose and led was 100-percent Arab in order to avoid accusations of bias against the Arabs or of focusing on negative points in an attempt to distort the image of the Arabs in the world, according to the conspiracy theory.
But, despite that, the report was a bombshell nonetheless, though the only thing that would surprise those who are familiar with the situation in the Arab world is its nondiplomatic language and criticism, and naming of the faults. Arab societies are paralyzed because of the absence of political freedoms, the persecution of women, and isolation from the world and new ideas......"
read the rest here:
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/663.cfm
"You are certifiable, Toby."
Coming from Lee this is a compliment.
So Lee is not an Israel hater. Yet Lee says:
"And yes, most Palestinians believe that a Jewish state shouldn't have come into being. But remember that the Zionists (at least many of them) originally wanted all of Palestine for themselves, not a Jewish and an Arab state. They only reluctantly accepted partition later. In view of this, one cannot automatically rule out the Palestinians eventually doing the same thing."
So the Arabs who hate the idea of a Jewish State in any part of what was Palestine are confirmed in their hatred because Jews wanted a State in "all of Palestine."
Lee is bigot who excuses Arab Jew hatred.
btw: not all Zionists wanted the same thing. Some of them wanted to compromise with the Arabs but talks which went back to the early 20th c. came to nothing because for Muslims the idea of Jews not living as Dhimmis is anathema.
"btw: not all Zionists wanted the same thing"
Well, Toby, not all Palestinians want the same thing either. And many right-wing Israelis today are determined to have all of the West Bank and Gaza so that there can't be any Palestinian state.
It’s total waste of time talking to a moronic pro Islamicist like Lee.
Nothing Lee says is either logical or factual. Whenever I or someone else posts evidence that contradicts Lee’s emotive nonsense he or she instead of answering the evidence repeats the assertion he or she made.
The same is true here:
Lee “‘btw: not all Zionists wanted the same thing’
Well, Toby, not all Palestinians want the same thing either. And many right-wing Israelis today are determined to have all of the West Bank and Gaza so that there can't be any Palestinian state.”
Well Lee there is a real difference between what individuals or some groups want and what the legitimate authority of that community wants.
Since the 1920’s at least the Jewish Yishuv was willing to compromise. This wasn’t the case with the Arab community which launched pogroms and attacks on Jews from Haifa to the one pogrom in Hebron (1929).
By 1948 the Jewish leadership accepted a UN compromise agreement to partition the land while the Arabs responded with attacks and then with an invasion of the Jewish enclaves.
This is an old story excellently told by the Israeli historian Benny Morris in his latest book:
“1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War”
http://www.amazon.com/1948-History-First-Arab-Israeli-War/dp/0300126964
People, like lee, will never accept the legitimacy of Israel and will blame Jews for whatever self defense measures they take. The idea that you are not an antisemite is absurd and is your claim to be “Jewish” is laughable.
Toby,
"It’s total waste of time talking to a moronic pro Islamicist like Lee."
Then why do you keep talking to me?
"Nothing Lee says is either logical or factual."
If that's not the pot calling the kettle black! This coming from someone who believes that Jews should not learn Arabic because there is so much Arab anti-Semitism?!?! How logical is that? Isn't it a good thing to know the language of your enemy?
Me: "It’s total waste of time talking to a moronic pro Islamicist like Lee."
Lee : “Then why do you keep talking to me?”
I am not talking to Lee directly since I don’t believe that Lee is capable of changing his or her mind according to the evidence presented.
I am writing to other forum participants about issues that Lee presents as factual which are anything, but.
Me: "Nothing Lee says is either logical or factual."
Lee: “If that's not the pot calling the kettle black!”
It would be except that I have backed up my assertions with evidence and with links to articles which offer more details. Lee has obviously not read and absorbed the evidence.
“This coming from someone who believes that Jews should not learn Arabic because there is so much Arab anti-Semitism?!?!”
This is to any rational human being a logical consequence. Why would anyone want to learn a language in which the Yahoody is said to be evil by definition? Again, it is like learning German at the time of Hitler even though there were are many more worthy reasons to learn German: from the fact that German was and is an important language in the study of the sciences, philosophy, literature as well as the social sciences. However, the most important reason for Jews to learn German is that many of the great modern writers and poets in German were themselves Jewish who wrote about the Jewish experience in that language.
None of this applies to Arabic whose only great Jewish writer to have written in that language (at least his Guide to the Perplexed is thought to have been written in that language) was Maimonides and that was back in the 10th or 11th century. Maimonides of course wrote many more studies in Hebrew.
Lee: “Isn't it a good thing to know the language of your enemy?”
Yes, for strategic reasons those involved in fighting Arab antisemitism should know Arabic. People like Daniel Pipes have done an excellent job making us aware of the extent of antisemitism in the Arab media.
See:
http://www.memri.org/
Toby,
"This is to any rational human being a logical consequence."
Who needs lunatics when we have logical people like you?
I see that calling poeple who disagree with Lee lunatics is the only way he knows how to deal with counter arguments.
He must be writing in Arabic and something gets lost in translation.
Toby and Lee:
At first, your dialogue was interesting. Now it is boring. Please, please stop. We get the point: you hate each other. You disagree with each other. You each think the other is nuts. Now, step away from the keyboard and go have a snack.
Very nice site!
Hello! ckekkda interesting ckekkda site!
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