Aaron HowardJewish Harold Voice
Jewish community newspaper serving the Houston and Texas Gulf Coast area since 1908

A bill before the Israeli Knesset that would give full authority for conversions to the Chief Rabbinate is causing a huge controversy in Israel and in the United States.The Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved 5-4, on first reading to plenum on July 12, a bill that would give the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate a monopoly on conversions to Judaism. The bill must go before second and third readings before being brought to a vote in the Knesset and can be revised during the process.

Under current practice, Israel recognizes only conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis inside Israel. But, under the Law of Return, people converted by non-Orthodox rabbis outside the country are automatically eligible for Israeli citizenship like other Jews. The proposed legislation would give Israel’s chief rabbinate the legal power to decide whether any conversion outside Israel is legitimate.

The groups most likely to be affected would be about a half-million immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union and those who converted to Judaism abroad and could now be denied Israeli citizenship.

The bill, supported by various religious and right-wing parties, essentially would give the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate the power to decide who is Jewish and who is not. At the same time, it would delegitimize non-Orthodox rabbis outside Israel. Opponents of the bill say that passage of the bill would defeat efforts to promote a more flexible and Halakhic conversion process and would marginalize the non-Orthodox Jewish movements.

The bill has set off a storm in and outside Israel.

“I understand the concern of the Conservative and Reform movement,” said Rabbi Barry Gelman. “From the perspective of Israel, it is already a fact that the rabbinate controls conversions in Israel. They also have retroactively nullified conversions. They have already been notoriously well-known for deciding which conversions are good and which are not good – that is, not acceptable according to Halakha.

”Rabbi Gelman is senior rabbi of United Orthodox Synagogues and president of the International Rabbinic Fellowship, a worldwide organization of rabbis founded to promote Modern Orthodoxy and serious study of Torah and Halakha and to advocate policies and implement actions on behalf of World Jewry and humankind.

“The key here, which is why I’m not so concerned yet, is what this bill does is turn into law what, in fact, is already being done,” said Rabbi Gelman. “So, how much is really being lost in that part of the negotiations? That remains to be seen, which is why I’m not ready to stand squarely behind the bill.

“On the plus side, the bill would allow city rabbis in Israel to perform conversions without the need to work with the Chief Rabbinate’s rabbinical courts. That could help in two ways. One, which is significant, is it could help liberalize the conversion standards so that the close to half-million Russian immigrants who are of Jewish stock – if not Halakhicly Jewish – can convert. The new bill is taking an approach to conversion that would not necessarily require complete mitzvah observance.

“Second, the bill will generally offer a more realistic and, in many cases, a user-friendly process for everybody.

So, there is a lot of plus side.

“The American movements are looking at the bill from the American perspective. There are very few Reform or Conservative conversions done in Israel. This bill could be the answer to the problem that many people in Israel have been complaining about. But, because it may call into question some conversions done in Israel, it has caused an uproar.

”Because of the possible upsides to the legislation, Rabbi Gelman explained that he was not ready to condemn the bill. He was hopeful that Conservative and Reform movement leaders, who have arrived in Israel on Sunday to lobby the bill’s chief sponsor, Israeli Beiteinu MK David Rotem, will find a way to alter the language in a way that is more acceptable to American critics.

One important question raised by Religious Zionists: Does the Chief Rabbinate understand their responsibility toward making conversion a realistic possibility for these half-million Russian Jews?

And, a second question raised by the Conservative and Reform movements in the United States: Does this bill disenfranchise the majority of American Jews?Rabbi Gelman argues there are well-established Halakhic ways to make the conversion process doable for these Russian Jews.

“These are not necessarily methods we would use for individual converts,” he cautioned. “But because the issue of these Russian Jews and the future of their children as well as the future of the state is affected, the rabbinate should be exercising nationalist or Religious Zionist Halakhic thinking. They should realize their decision would affect the entire country.

“We have handed the keys to the kingdom to anti-Zionists.

“But, there are city rabbis who are Zionist. There are city rabbis who understand what needs to be done in regards to converting these Russian Jews. So, that’s why I think the bill has an upside for the state. I understand it has a downside for Reform and Conservative Jews.

”Danny Horwitz, rabbi of the Greenfield Chapel at Beth Yeshurun, has been a Conservative pulpit rabbi for 30 years. He views the conversion bill as a move fraught with political peril.

“Sometimes, power politics takes precedence over what’s best for the citizens – in this case, members of the Jewish people,” said Rabbi Horwitz. “The bill is designed to place total control over the definition of Jewish identity in the hands of the Chief Rabbinate, probably the most extreme ultra-Orthodox element in Israel with any power. Not only will this be a problem in terms of recognizing conversions, but in its current form, it could affect the status of people who want to make aliyah. The rabbinate has the desire to maintain control over conversions. But, they have also retroactively annulled conversions.

“The bill maintains a certain amount of power and employment within the ultra-Orthodox community. But, as we know, the current situation of the ultra-Orthodox community is not sustainable. A majority from the ultra-Orthodox community does not work. So, where does their money come from? It must come from the government. They currently have a certain amount of votes in the Knesset. But, I also foresee a situation in 10 to 20 years where you may reach a point where 50 percent of the people who are 18 years old won’t serve in the army.

”For Conservative and Reform Jews throughout the world, the bill makes no sense, argues Rabbi Horwitz.

“Given Israel’s need to deal with much more existential problems, it doesn’t make sense that Israel would create this kind of slap in the face to the communities of Jews who have stood behind Israel. That’s part of the reason why [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu came out on Sunday against the bill.

“However, I don’t take it for granted just because he came out against the bill that it may fail.

”Rabbi Horwitz also views the conversion bill as harmful to Modern Orthodox interests. “In general, modern Orthodox have allowed the status quo in Israel to continue,” he said. “They have hoped they would remain legitimized – that their conversions would remain legitimized by the Chief Rabbinate. Now, many of them are having their conversions rejected by the Israeli rabbinate. In my judgment, if they don’t stand up for the rights of those who are being undermined, they will also be squeezed out of the business of conversions.

”What should American Jews do? Rabbi Horwitz suggests that U.S. Jews must make a separation between those existential issues and the conversion bill.

“We have to stand with Israel,” he said. “But, we also have to be willing to say to Israel: This is not the kind of Israel we want to see. You can’t expect young American Jews to support a people whose thinking is the same ilk as the folks in Tehran. When you have women attacked for carrying a sefer Torah at the Western Wall, that’s not going to warm the hearts of American Jews. It’s not realistic for Israel to expect that every Jew will give them a pass for this behavior and allow Judaism to be defined by its most extreme elements.

“Ben-Gurion said in 1939, when the British created the White Paper: ‘We will fight the Nazis as if there was no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there were no Nazis.’

“I think we ought to fight the enemies of Israel as if we didn’t have this internal problem in Israel. And, we ought to deal with the internal problem of freedom of religion in Israel as if she did not have external enemies.”

By NORMA DAVIDOFF SHULMAN
12/08/2010

Jerusalem Post

This storied city known as Vilna, Wilno, Vilne – however you spell it and say it – was a place of spirituality and learning for Jews. Amost intriguing aspect of Vilnius, Lithuania, is that it’s “first you don’t see it, then you do.” You can walk along the winding streets and past small inviting houses in its Old Town, without realizing you are in what was the Jewish ghetto. Yes, it is memorialized by a sign here and there, but unless you know what to look for, you will see nothing. And if you know what to look for, a world awaits.

Vilnius is not what it seems – even its name. This storied city known as Vilna, Wilno, Vilne – however you spell it and say it – was a place of spirituality and learning for Jews. Scholars and religious leaders were so profoundly important to Jewish life here that Vilna was known as the “Jerusalem of the North.” Taken with the city’s charm and vibrant religious life, Napoleon supposedly was the first to pay it that tribute.

Visiting Vilnius can be delightful.

Compact and stylish, it has a medieval castle, intriguing Old World architecture, high-quality concerts and ballet, a variety of restaurants and accommodations in every price range.

It earned its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and 2009 European Capital of Culture. But, as on TV’s Betipul, Vilnius has secrets. Peel back the layers, peer into the past and become inspired.

There are fascinating traces beyond the faint Yiddish letters on ghetto buildings. Starting with the Middle Ages, Jews arrived here. By the 1700s, their numbers and influence became significant. Before World War II, Jews made up more than a third of the city.

Then the whole country seemed to disappear for 50 years behind the Iron Curtain; it was the first to break away from the USSR, in 1990. By that time most of its Jews were already gone.

Some had made Aliya, like the Litvak families of Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. Shimon Peres lived 100 kilometers from Vilnius.

Before the war, there were a hundred synagogues and study houses.

Fifteen years ago Chabad opened its doors in an apartment house. The city has but one synagogue building: the Choral Synagogue in the heart of the ghetto. This Moorish-style edifice, with its blue letters in Hebrew, had a congregation with a progressive outlook when it was built in 1894. It allowed music, thus the name “choral.”

WHEN I WENT there to Shabbat services, there were initially so few people that services were to be held in a small side chapel. It seemed difficult to get a minyan. But Rabbi Chaim Burnshtein, who commutes between Vilna and Israel, told me they always have a minyan and hold services three times a day. “Vilna’s Jews don’t have strong roots,” he said, “but they have a strong sense of Jewish identity.”

Just minutes before we were to begin, the situation changed. Local tour guide Yulik Gurewich brought in a raft of young Russians to tell them about this beautiful synagogue with its domed ceiling painted with clouds.

The visitors wanted to stay for services, so the congregants switched to the main sanctuary.

As a woman, I was seated behind a lace curtain on the first floor off to the side. The young Russian women sat upstairs in the ornate balcony, also reserved for females. The Russian men prayed along with the locals on the first floor facing the ark and then turning around to face Jerusalem. Again things are not what they seem. The synagogue was used as a warehouse during the war, its contents stolen by both Germans and Lithuanians.

Today it is sparingly furnished.

Finances are a constant problem for this synagogue, as they are for the whole fragile Jewish community, which is subsidized by the Joint Distribution Committee and several other Jewish organizations. As Simonas Gurevicius, executive director of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, explained, “From more than 50 families before the [economic] crisis, now we have got more than 150 young Jewish families who are in need.”

After services, I made my way through the ghetto area. It is charm central! Cobblestone streets, smallscale buildings with folkloric motifs painted on window shutters. Store windows are full of tempting designer pastries, amber and luxury linens, mostly for visitors. Antiques and art galleries make up the rest of the shops.

Vilna’s one kosher restaurant, the Kinneret, sports white tablecloths.

Vilna’s past glories overshadow today’s luxuries. Old Town once was truly Jewish. In fact, one street is named Jew Street (Zydu Street). Another is named for the revered Vilna Gaon who lived here from 1720-1797. The Gaon’s house on Zydu Street was destroyed, along with others. Close by was the Strashun Library, renowned for Jewish scholarship. The Great Synagogue, built in 1572, was nearby. All gone, except for a few plaques! But it is what the plaques don’t say that is most important. During World War II, Jews not from this part of the city, were forced into the ghetto. People lived too many to a room, struggling to get by. The Jewish community was basically in prison, one in which contagion spread easily. These people were cut off from the rest of the city – its schools and culture. What did they do? The Jewish community started its own schools, set up medical clinics, created its own orchestra – even an active lending library. Songs of defiance, songs of hope were composed. (You can hear them once again at the city’s Holocaust museum.) The community held strong.

It kept its humanity and its desire to live. This besieged Jewish community created, lived, studied, taught, and survived– up to a point.

Statues of significant Jewish citizens erected in the last few years can be found throughout the area. One statue is of Dr. Tzemah Shabad, the community leader who, among other contributions, created TOZ, providing much-needed medical services for the poor. Another sculpture honors novelist Romain Gary, who lived here before moving to France. (Strangely enough, there is a statue of rock star Frank Zappa, who has no connection to the city. Citizens liked him so much they honored him.) At the Little Green House in town, more comes into perspective. This unassuming place is a Holocaust museum with a profound impact. Photos on the wall remind us of the talented and famous of Vilna: violinist Jascha Heifetz, painter Chaim Soutine and sculptor Jacques Lifschitz. Prominent artist Samuel Bak was just a boy in the ghetto.

This is where YIVO, the repository of East European Jewish culture and history, now based in New York, started.

Documents present straightforward facts. They are staggering. A German report lists the number of Jews killed in each country: 220,000 Jews were in Lithuania before the war, 3,500 after.

Today, according to the Jewish Community, there are 5,000 in the whole country – 3,500 in Vilnius.

Equally meaningful in the ghetto area is the Tolerance Museum, also known as the Museum of the Vilna Gaon. This building survived from the 1800s. Its incarnations reflect some history of Jewish life here. Early on, it was a soup kitchen for the poor – as the Jewish community always looked after its own. Then it became a small exquisite concert hall – concerts can still be held here. It has been beautifully restored in the last 20 years.

Today its glass and its gleaming floors help create an aesthetic setting for a museum of Jewish culture. You can’t help feeling proud to see what Jews created for their spiritual and daily life.

Strikingly crafted are sterling Torah pointers, colorful painted wooden plaques, memorabilia of the great Romm publishing family – numerous reminders of the rich center of Jewish learning and spirituality that typified Vilna for 600 years. Not just artifacts, but people and ideas, of course, made Vilna great.

SADLY, THE many deaths in this ghetto area was only phase one. One of Vilnius’s beautiful aspects became its ugliest.

Pine forests surround much of the city, peaceful, quiet, lush – so attractive that feature film producers use them for location shoots. But it was to one of these forests, Panaerai, also called Ponar, that the Jews were transported by the Nazis. Some were killed immediately and thrown into death pits. Others were forced to clear the bodies. More than 70,000 Jews were murdered. Large marble monuments attest to those atrocities.

Right by the monuments is a small museum. The exhibits are both edifying and horrific; victims’ shoes, photos, clothing, tefillin, remnants of papers and identification are on display. One story about forced laborers tells how they dug a tunnel to escape from their German captors. Chilling, remarkable accounts, like this one, known as the escape of the burner’s brigade, are still being researched and revealed.

The history of Vilna is sobering, heartbreaking and heartening all at the same time. Although much has been lost, if you go to the “Jerusalem of the North,” there is still much to be found.

Beyond Eyruv

(2006)
Film Written and Directed by John Mounier

Best Documentary 2006 Woodstock Film Festival

I’ve read the reviews about the documentary “Beyond Eyruv,” and I can’t wait to see it.

I can only imagine how difficult it would be, to go from Hassidic to secular life. How do you learn to live amongst what you’ve never known?

Imagine knowing there was no way back to the Hassidic community (because they turned their backs on you too)?

-David Mirand

Russian Jewish Institute

Beyond Eyruv

Link to IMDb  film database

Plot Summary:

“Beyond Eyruv” is a feature-length documentary that examines the life of a young Hasidic man-20 year old Moshe Galan- who’s chosen to leave behind the only world he’s known, the ultra-orthodox community, out of curiosity for the ‘world out there’ and an urgent need to relieve himself of the limitations inherent in such a closed community. This documentary is, at its heart, about transformation and the challenges that Moshe faces as he departs from his familiar community and enters into an unknown world and culture, a secular society. This new life that Moshe undertakes is filled with struggles as he works toward earning a High School diploma, negotiates his relationship with his grandparents who have encouraged his departure, tries to support himself, all the while, lacking the basic skills to survive in our world. Ultimately, Moshe’s biggest struggle is one of faith and his relationship with God and his family who live in Israel. As the story unfolds, we see that Moshe is living in between these two worlds, not finding comfort in either. While he desperately wants to find recognition and acceptance in his new life, he’s unable to leave the past behind him, making his future unclear and questionable

New York Times

By Dennis Overbye

The reclusive Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman, aka Grisha, gained worldwide fame by claiming to have solved one of the world’s most intractable mathematical problems, the Poincaré conjecture, and then disappearing in St. Petersburg. On Thursday he said he had rejected a $1 million prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass., for the feat.

“I have refused,” Interfax, a Russian news agency, quoted him as saying. “You know, I had quite a lot of reasons both for and against. That is why I took so long to make up my mind.”

James Carlson, president of the Clay institute, said he had spoken with Dr. Perelman by phone. “He was, as usual, quite pleasant, though quite firm in his decision,” Dr. Carlson said.

The problem, named after the great French polymath Henri Poincaré, has led mathematicians on a frustrating chase for a century. It hypothesizes that any three-dimensional space without holes is essentially a sphere.

In 2003, Dr. Perelman posted a series of papers on the Internet claiming to have proved the conjecture, and a deeper problem by the Cornell mathematician William Thurston, building on work by Richard Hamilton, a Columbia University mathematician.

After a brief barnstorming tour in the United States, during which he refused interviews, Dr. Perelman returned to Russia, leaving the world’s mathematicians to pick up the pieces and decide whether he had really done it.

A worldwide race to retrace, explicate and check Dr. Perelman’s proof ensued. In the meantime, Dr. Perelman quit his post at the Steklov Mathematical Institute, moved in with his mother and ceased communicating with the outside world.

By 2006, as learned papers totaling more than a thousand pages of dense mathematics slouched toward publication, it was becoming apparent that Dr. Perelman had indeed solved the conjecture, and he was awarded a Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid.

Dr. Perelman, who already had a history of declining awards, did not show.

So when the Clay institute announced in March that he had won the big prize, many doubted that he would accept. In June, a three-day symposium in Paris celebrating the proof of the conjecture went on without him.

Dr. Perelman said Dr. Hamilton deserved as much credit as he did, Interfax reported. “To put it short,” he said, “the main reason is my disagreement with the organized mathematical community. I don’t like their decisions; I consider them unjust.”

The Clay institute said it would announce this fall how it would spend the award money.

There may be no way to overlook the thriving, insular community of 50,000 Bukharian Jews from Central Asia now settled in Forest Hills and Rego Park, but there is a way to look in. Last Tuesday, journalist Sergey Kadinsky of Forest Hills presented an eyeful in his lecture on Bukharian history and culture at the Central Queens YM & YWCA.

In a neighborhood of smaller houses, the architecture of Bukharian buildings, including the walled, brick mansions on 110th and 112th Streets, has provoked antipathy among locals.

Kadinsky — who first began investigating the Bukharians’ past when Rego Park resident and retired urologist Robert Pinkhasov asked the Latvian native to translate his Bukharian encyclopedia from Russian to English — said the community’s intentions have been misunderstood. While many Bukharians are employed as white-collar workers, they build large houses to accomodate their multi-generational families, rather than showcase their salaries.

Most emigrated here from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where it is believed their ancestors, possibly one of the Lost Tribes, first settled under the Persian Empire in the 6th century BCE. Their unique dialect, influenced by Farsi and Hebrew, became known as Bukhori. In cities like Bukhara, from which the Jews took their name, and Samarkand near the Silk Road, their merchants prospered and their communities flourished undisturbed.

Before Muslim Arabs conquered the region, Central Asia was a melting pot of different faiths: Buddhism, Zoroastrism, Christianity and Judaism. Bukharian Jews still celebrate what was originally a Zoroastrian festival, Persian New Year or Nowruz, on March 21; they are, in their everyday lives, more secular than Conservative Jews, but, in observance of traditional holidays, just as devout as the Orthodox.

When the Muslims came, the Jews were the only religious minority to evade forced conversion. Essentially cut off from the rest of the Jewish world for more than 2,000 years, they managed to survive and preserve their Jewish identity and unique heritage despite waves of Muslim, Uzbeki and Russian invaders. With a knowledge of the Bukharian’s past, it’s not surprising their community should be so tightly knit.

Of Pinkhasov’s apartment, which revealed itself as a metaphor for the Bukharian community itself, Kadinsky said, “On the outside, it looks like a catalogue,” assimilated just enough. “On the inside” of the residence, the walls of which are covered in carpets and portraits, “it takes you back in time.”

Kadinsky conveyed a message of tolerance for one’s neighbors, Bukharian or otherwise. “We have way too many differences, on religion, on the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Let’s start with the easier things, like music,” he suggested to his elderly, non-Bukaharian audience, illuminating the geneology of Jewish court singers. “When it comes to music, we all play the same tune.”

Lilianna Zulunova, a Bukharian Jew born in Uzbekistan who teaches English as a Second Language at LaGuardia Community College, believed Kadinsky “did a fabulous job presenting [her people’s history and culture] to the non-Bukharian audience. I think that the young Bukharian generation would definitely benfit from this because I think they are forgetting the core of their history.” Zulunova, now 27, wasn’t interested in her heritage, besides the music and food, until her early 20s.

This past spring, Queens College offered a course on the history of Bukharian Jews taught by Imanuel Rybakov, a member of the Bukharian Jewish Congress. Pinkhasov’s self-published book was the text for the class.

Clearly, it’s not just Kadinsky who’s curious.

A traditional Bukharian teacher instructs students. Photo courtesy of Central Queens YM & YWHA

YourNabe.com

By Anna Gustafson
Monday, June 28, 2010 1:13 PM

Forest Hills and Rego Park are home to one of the largest populations of Bukharian Jews in the world, but not many of their neighbors know much about the religious group that hails mainly from Central Asia — something Forest Hills resident Sergey Kadinsky said he hopes to change.

Kadinsky will speak about the history and culture of the Bukharian Jewish community at the Central Queens YM & YWHA in Forest Hills at 1:30 p.m. June 29.

“I’ve noticed many don’t know much about Bukharians besides the fact they have big fences and houses,” said Kadinsky, 25. “I want them to see the culture that resides in these homes.”

Tensions have surfaced between Bukharians and non-Bukharians in recent years, predominantly because Forest Hills residents have said they were resentful that some Bukharians would tear down smaller homes in the neighborhood and build larger ones.

In response to complaints about over-development in the Cord Meyer area of Forest Hills, the City Council passed a rezoning plan last year that limits a house’s height.

“By learning about their history and culture, you’ll appreciate their ideas,” Kadinsky said. “For example, why do they like to build large homes? Because they like to have grandparents and grandchildren in the same home.”

Kadinsky, a Latvian native, is not Bukharian but has spent years researching Bukharian culture after Robert Pinkhasov, a retired urologist from Rego Park, asked Kadinsky, who speaks fluent Russian, to help translate a book he was writing about Bukharians.

Bukharian Jews, who primarily come from Central Asia, faced economic decline and civil unrest following the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Many of the world’s 250,000 Bukharian Jews left Central Asia for places like Israel and the United States, with some 50,000 now living in Forest Hills and Rego Park, according to the United Jewish Appeal Federation of New York.

Pinkhasov’s book, “Bukharian Jews: An Encyclopaedic Reference,” was published by the author and may be used in a recently launched Queens College course on Bukharian Jews taught by Rego Park resident Imanuel Rybakov.

The Bukharian community has become increasingly involved in area politics, and Kew Gardens resident Albert Cohen was the first Bukharian Jew to run for citywide office last year. Cohen, originally from Tajikistan who became known to some as the “Bukharian Barack Obama,” ultimately lost the Democratic primary for the 29th Council District to present Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills), but many Bukharians saw it as an important first political step for their community.

The Central Queens Y is at 67-09 108 St. in Forest Hills. The June 29 event is open to the public and a $5 donation is suggested. For more information, call 718-268-5011, Ext. 151 or visit cqyjcc.org.

Reach reporter Anna Gustafson by e-mail at agustafson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.

NEW YORK (JTA) — Jews from more than 15 countries will compete in a “Jewish World Cup” in New York on June 27. 

The soccer tournament, hosted by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, will take place on Randall’s Island, between Manhattan and the Bronx. The tournament is for adults; soccer clinics are planned for children.

The tournament is part of JCRC’s effort to reach out to overseas Jews living in New York and integrate them into the American Jewish community.

“There are many different groups of international Jews in New York who are not connected to each other as a community, nor are they connected to the broader community of New York Jews,” said Hindy Poupko, director of Israel and international affairs at the JCRC. “Our goal is to bring these groups together as international Jews and as a part of the broader Jewish community.”

Kyrgyzstan interim leader Roza Otunbayeva has arrived in Osh in the south of the country after the worst ethnic violence in two decades.

BBC NEWS

At least 191 people were killed in fighting between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks around Osh and Jalalabad.

About 400,000 people have been displaced by the unrest, with many Uzbeks fleeing into Uzbekistan.

The Red Cross (ICRC) has described the situation as an “immense crisis” with shortages of basic necessities.

Ms Otunbayeva said in the main square of Osh: “I came here to see, to speak with the people and hear first hand what happened here. We will do everything to rebuild this city.”

Ms Otunbayeva is scheduled to meet local leaders and visit hospitals during the trip.

The unrest comes two months after the country’s former president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was forced out of office in April.

Ms Otunbayeva’s government has blamed the former leader for stoking the conflict.

Makeshift camps

About 300,000 people have fled their homes, while another 75,000-100,000 people - not counting children - are thought to have taken refuge in Uzbekistan.

Some aid has begun to arrive in the region, but the ICRC says refugees are running short of basic supplies. At least 40,000 refugees are without shelter.

Some observers have said the death toll could be higher.

Over the border in Uzbekistan, many of the displaced - mostly women and children - are in makeshift camps.

Many report instances of rape and severe beatings.

“We need clothes and medical supplies, especially for the children, because when we fled our homes we just ran away and couldn’t take anything with us,” said Halima Otajonova, a 41-year-old mother of two, at a refugee centre at a stadium in the Uzbek town of Khanabad.

“Some of us even ran away in bare feet, without shoes,” she told the AFP news agency.

Eyewitnesses say Kyrgyz mobs began attacking people in Uzbek areas of Osh and another southern city, Jalalabad, in the early hours of Friday last week.

The city of Osh, which saw most of the violence, is being patrolled by Kyrgyz troops, amid an uneasy calm.

However, there have been reports of soldiers taking part in looting, and refugees allege that troops had supported mobs during the fighting.

Washington’s top Central Asia diplomat, Robert Blake, is to tour refugee camps in the Uzbek border city of Andizhan on Friday before talks with Uzbek officials in Bishkek.

‘Bloodcurdling’

The ICRC says its workers have reached refugees in the areas around Osh.

“We’ve seen for ourselves and also heard about pockets of displaced people ranging from several hundred to several thousand in number,” said the ICRC’s Severine Chappaz.

The organisation said insecurity and fear, combined with shortages of basic necessities like food, water, shelter and medicine, were putting a tremendous strain on communities, hospitals and families.

Paul Quinn-Judge, Central Asia project director at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based security think tank, said the situation was likely to get worse.

“We’re going to have an increasingly serious humanitarian problem which is going to affect both the Kyrgyz and the Uzbek communities in southern Kyrgyzstan,” he told the BBC from the capital, Bishkek.The BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.

“The reports from the Uzbek communities in Osh and in Jalalabad are so bloodcurdling that I doubt whether anybody will want to go back in the near future.”

In an Uzbek district of Osh, a baker who had fled to the border with his wife and five children on Sunday said his family had lost hope after supplies on the border ran out, and returned out of desperation.

“Is there any difference where to die? There is no food, no water, no humanitarian aid,” Melis Kamilov told the Associated Press news agency.

Referendum

Kyrgyzstan’s interim leaders have been struggling to impose their authority since coming to power after President Bakiyev was overthrown in April.

The government believes allies of Mr Bakiyev, who now lives in exile in Belarus, want to derail a national referendum on constitutional reform scheduled for 27 June.

But the government has said it will go ahead with the referendum despite the clashes.

Ethnic Uzbeks have largely supported the interim government, but Mr Bakiyev remains popular with many Kyrgyz in the south.

A Kyrgyz government appeal for Russia to send in peacekeeping troops was rejected by Moscow.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has now said his country will provide technical assistance to Kyrgyzstan to help it track down those behind the clashes.

The clashes are the worst ethnic violence to hit southern Kyrgyzstan since 1990, when deadly clashes were suppressed by the Soviet authorities.

AFP

JERUSALEM — An Israeli man arrested in Poland who is believed to be a Mossad agent linked to the January killing of a Hamas chief in Dubai must be brought home and not extradited to Germany, ministers said on Sunday.

According to German weekly Der Spiegel, which broke the story on its website on Saturday, Uri Brodsky was arrested at Warsaw airport on June 4 on suspicion of obtaining a German passport by fraudulent means — a passport used by one of the killers involved in the assassination of a top Hamas official.

Germany issued an international arrest warrant for Brodsky several weeks ago and prosecutors are pushing for Warsaw to extradite him.

But it was unclear whether Poland — one of Israel’s closest allies — would agree to a German request to extradite Brodsky.

“Poland needs to tell Germany that it is sending an Israeli citizen to Israel and if there is some complaint against him, we have legal procedures (that) have great credibility with the international legal system,” Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov told reporters in Jerusalem.

“First they have to prove that he has done what he is accused of,” he said. “(But) for the time being, we are talking about an Israeli citizen. We are obliged to bring him home and this is what we shall do.”

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz also voiced opposition to any attempt to extradite Brodsky to Germany for prosecution.

“Israel should oppose the extradition of any Israeli citizen to another country and act to bring him back to this country,” he said.

The Dubai hit has sparked a diplomatic crisis for Israel after the team of assassins — widely believed to be from the Israeli spy agency Mossad — was found to have used 26 forged passports from Britain, France, Germany, Ireland and Australia.

Der Spiegel was on Monday to publish a fuller article on the incident, which reportedly ties Brodsky to the team involved in the January 20 killing of Mahmud al-Mabhuh, a founder of Hamas’ military wing, at a luxury Dubai hotel.

Dubai police have released extensive surveillance footage which they say shows suspects from the hit squad who drugged and then suffocated Mabhuh.

Twelve British, six Irish, four French, one German and three Australian passports were used by 26 people who are believed to be linked to the murder, according to Dubai police.

In many cases, the travel documents appeared either to have been faked or obtained illegally.

The issue caused a huge diplomatic row, with London and Canberra both expelling an Israeli diplomat over the passport scandal.

By Associated Press
Sunday, June 6, 2010 - Added 3h ago

JERUSALEM - Israel’s prime minister claimed yesterday that the Turkish activists who battled Israeli naval commandos in a deadly clash last week prepared for the fight ahead of time, before boarding the ship in a different city from the other passengers.

Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet “dozens of thugs” from “an extremist, terrorism-supporting” group were waiting for the Isaeli commandos.

“This group boarded separately in a different city, organized separately, equipped itself separately and went on deck under different procedures,” he said. “The clear intent of this hostile group was to initiate a violent clash.”

Huwaida Arraf of the Free Gaza Movement, which organized the flotilla, called Netanyahu’s claims “another pack of lies.”

Meanwhile, Israel has rejected the idea of a having an international commission look into the raid, Israel’s ambassador to the United States said yesterday. Michael Oren said Israel has the ability and the right to investigate its own military, adding that Israel will not apologize for the incident, but is talking with the Obama administration about ways to deal with it.

“We are open to any ideas on how to somehow deal with the Gaza situation,” Oren said on “Fox News Sunday.” He added, however, that “there is no simple idea.”

Last Monday’s operation, in which nine activists were killed on a ship running the Gaza blockade, damaged Israel’s ties with Turkey - its main Muslim ally - and brought heavy international pressure on Israel to lift the 3-year closure of Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Videos released by the military have shown a crowd attacking several naval commandos as they landed on a ship from a helicopter, beating the soldiers with clubs and other objects and hurling one soldier overboard.

The military has displayed pictures of knives, slingshots and metal rods confiscated from the activists, and video from security cameras show men brandishing clubs and other weapons before the soldiers arrived.

Simon Kuznets was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on April 30, 1901; he moved to the United States with his father in 1922. He attended Columbia University and received his B.Sc. in 1923, M.A. in 1924, and Ph.D. in 1926. From 1925 to 1926, Kuznets spent time studying economic patterns in prices as the Research Fellow at the Social Science Research Council. It was this work that led to his book Secular Movements in Production and Prices, published in 1930.

From 1931 until 1936, Kuznets was a part-time professor at the University of Pennsylvania; becoming a full-time professor 1936 until 1954. In 1954, Kuznets moved to John Hopkins University, where he was Professor of Political Economy until 1960. From 1961 until his retirement in 1970, Kuznets taught at Harvard.

Kuznets is credited with revolutionising econometrics, and this work is credited with fueling the Keynesian Revolution. His most important book is National Income and Its Composition, 1919–1938. Published in 1941, it is one of the most historically significant works on Gross National Product. Much of Kuznets’ research and experience with domestic economics came from his working for the National Bureau of Economic Research, from 1927 to the 1960s. His work on the business cycle and disequilibrium aspects of economic growth helped launch development economics. He also studied inequality over time, and his results formed the Kuznets Curve.

Simon Kuznets was elected president of the American Economics Association in 1954. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1971 for his experimental work on economic growth. He identified a new economic era, which he titled “modern economic growth,” which began in Europe and spread toward the east and south.

Simon Kuznets died on July 8, 1985, at the age of 84.

The rabbinical student/boxer will balance faith and fighting on June 5 in the Bronx

By Wallace Matthews
ESPNNewYork.com

NEW YORK — Yuri Foreman will spend all the daylight hours of June 5 in a state of quiet and restful contemplation.

There will be no telephone calls made or received in his midtown hotel room. The television will be unplugged, the computer will be shut down. The lights will be off. If he needs to go anywhere, it will be on foot — or, if necessary, on the Trek hybrid road bike he uses to get to and from work every day.

According to Talmudic law, this is how an observant Jew observes the Sabbath: “an island of tranquility in the maelstrom of work, anxiety, struggle and tribulation that characterizes our daily lives for the other six days of the week.”

Then, sometime after 9:13 p.m. — but not a moment earlier — Foreman will emerge from his hotel room, climb into a car and speed behind an NYPD escort up to Yankee Stadium, where he will try to beat the living hell out of Miguel Cotto.

“It’s gonna be quick, that’s for sure,” Foreman said, of the drive and of the turnaround, both in his day and in his demeanor.

That is because after sundown on June 5, Yuri Foreman — Orthodox Jew and rabbinical student — turns back into the “Lion of Zion,” the unbeaten WBA junior middleweight champion of the world. And beating up on the likes of Cotto, a once-formidable former welterweight and junior welterweight champion, is his night job, so to speak.

“We are not just physical beings, not just animals,” Foreman said on Tuesday following a workout at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn, where he is finishing up his preparation to headline the first-ever boxing show at the new Yankee Stadium and the first one at any Yankee Stadium in nearly 34 years. “There is also a godly side to us, and it’s important to balance it out. We can do something that looks barbaric, really like mayhem, you know? But it’s also a very intelligent sport and you need inner strength to do it well.”

If you think 34 years between title fights in the Bronx is a long time, consider that, according to the promotional materials for the fight, Foreman is said to be the first Orthodox Jew to hold a world title in 75 years, since Barney Ross. At the very least, he is a throwback to the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s, when fighters such as Ross, Benny Leonard, Al “Bummy” Davis, Jackie “Kid” Berg and Abe Attell gave the Jews as much prominence in the fight game as that enjoyed by the Irish and Italians back then, and the Hispanic and Russian communities of today.

“I’ve heard about the great Jewish champions, and it’s an honor to be a Jewish world champion,” Foreman said. “But I’m not trying to fill their shoes, you know? But we’re all related, you know, in some way.”

Back in the ’40s, even if a fighter wasn’t Jewish, it sometimes was good business to pretend he was — as former heavyweight champion Max Baer, who was half-Jewish, did, to the point of having a Star of David sewn onto the front of his boxing trunks.

And there is little doubt that this fight, like many of the biggest in boxing history, will draw much of its appeal along ethnic lines. Cotto — from Puerto Rico — and Foreman — born in Belarus, raised in Israel and currently residing in Carroll Gardens — represent two of boxing’s most loyal and vociferous fan bases. Promoter Bob Arum says more than 12,000 tickets have already been sold, and hopes for a crowd of 30,000 by fight night.

“For the Hispanic and Jewish communities, this is like their Super Bowl,” Arum said.

But unlike other world champions who have wrapped themselves in the cloak of religion mainly to sell tickets, Foreman’s devotion to his faith is not a PR stunt. It is a way of life.

“It affects every aspect of what he does,” said Joe Grier, Foreman’s trainer. “He’s disciplined and he doesn’t know how to cheat. It makes my job tremendously easier.”

That means no one has to shake Foreman in the morning to get him to do road work, or nag him to come to the gym, or exhort him to work harder once he gets there. Said Foreman: “If I don’t train, I don’t feel good about myself.”

Foreman’s religion, Grier acknowledged, may also adversely affect the way he fights. A tall, speedy, athletically mobile boxer who fights like a right-handed — and Jewish — Hector Camacho, Foreman has just eight knockouts included in his 28-0 record, and not one since 2006.

Incredible as it may seem, the name “Yuri” in Russian means “George” in English, although Russian George has nothing in common with Texas George, the former heavyweight champion who lived by the KO punch. Grier suspects that, sometimes, Foreman’s piousness may restrict him from inflicting real damage on an opponent.

“There’s times when he has a guy in trouble and tends to not really finish the job,” Grier said. “It could be something in the back of his mind that makes him do that. Maybe it might not be in his makeup.”

To which Grier added, “I guarantee you that if he hurts Cotto, he is going to take Cotto out.”

When Grier’s theory was run past Foreman, he did not disagree. “I’m still trying to figure out what my nature is, you know?” he said. “It’s a work in progress.”

As are his Talmudic studies — he is three years into earning his rabbinical degree — as well as his effort to become a household name in households that haven’t thought much about boxing, probably, in five decades.

That is why in the daylight hours of June 5, Yuri Foreman will rest, and reflect and read his daily psalms, one of which for that day contains the following passage: “For he will never falter, the righteous man … will not be afraid of a bad tiding, his heart is steadfast, secure in the Lord. He does not fear.”

He will read that passage over and over, think about it, absorb it, and know it by the time the darkness comes and he is delivereth unto Yankee Stadium and a boxing ring.

There, the Lion of Zion will once again perform his nightly duties, which require not only the application of the mind, but the swift and violent laying on of hands.

Wallace Matthews is a writer for ESPNNewYork.com.

Jewish Agency chairman institutes $1 million prize for distinguished achievement to be granted to Jew for ‘contributing to humanity.’ Prize money funded by Genesis fund, led by Jewish oligarch Mikhail Friedman

Itamar Eichner

Published: 05.16.10, 15:14 / Israel Jewish Scene 

Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky is promoting a program that will grant a Nobel-style prize, worth $1 million, to be granted once a year to a Jew from Israel or the Diaspora for making a significant contribution to all of humanity.

Sharansky asked President Shimon Peres to endorse the prize. However, the legal advisor to the president’s residence ruled that the president’s residence will not be able to endorse the prize on a permanent basis, but that there is nothing preventing the president from granting the prize from year to year.

Sharansky also contacted Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin to ask him to head the prize’s panel of judges. It was also agreed that the first prize would be granted in the Knesset. The Jewish Agency chairman declined to comment on the matter. The president’s residence, however, confirmed that they were contacted by Sharansky.

We found an event guide online made for Russians living in NYC (mostly Jews). We’ve posted some of the events they have below.

RUSSIAN MIX

For more featured Russian culture events in NYC visit Russian Mix