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WORLD HISTORY & THE JEWS: FROM YEMEN TO BUENOS AIRES, TO TEHERAN (AND THE DANUBE)

We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to:  Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station  H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 

 

Contents:

SEN. SCHUMER ANNOUNCES COSPONSORSHIP OF BILL REQUIRING CONGRESSIONAL REVIEW OF IRAN DEAL: As the March 31 deadlines approaches for a political framework agreement in the nuclear talks between the P5+1 powers (a group that includes America) and Iran, US Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday announced that he is adding his name to the list of cosponsors of legislation that would require Congressional review of a nuclear deal. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, sponsored by US Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), stipulates that President Barack Obama must submit the text of a nuclear pact to Congress within five days of a deal being reached. The legislation also prohibits the president from suspending, waiving, or reducing Congressional sanctions against Iran for 60 days. Schumer had already publicly supported the Corker-Menendez oversight bill before officially announcing his cosponsorship on Thursday. (Algemeiner, Mar. 26, 2015)

 

A Howling Success: James Taranto, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 26, 2015 — Barack Obama once cited Yemen as his administration’s great counterterrorism success story.

Buenos Aires and Tehran:  Jerusalem Post, Mar. 22, 2015— As the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) and Iran enter the final stretch of nuclear arms negotiations in Vienna, Tehran’s diabolical influence on the world was being commemorated in Buenos Aires.

'Those Who Hate Jews Hate Christians': A Closer Look at US Presidential Hopeful Ted Cruz: Ariel Cohen, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 22, 2015— President Barack Obama remains furious at Benjamin Netanyahu.

Tracing Jewish Heritage Along the Danube: Lisa Schwarzbaum, New York Times, Mar. 13, 2015 — The humiliating denouement to America’s involvement in Yemen came over the weekend…

 

On Topic Links

  

The Regional Arms Race Has Begun: Charles Bybelezer, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 24, 2015

Americans Battle the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Daniel Pipes, Middle East Quarterly, Spring, 2015

Christians Loving Jews: Frank Bruni, New York Times, Mar. 7, 2015

The Secret Jewish History of Pi: Seth Rogovoy, Forward, Mar. 13, 2015

 

                                     

A HOWLING SUCCESS                                                                                                       

James Taranto                                                                                                    

Wall Street Journal, Mar. 26, 2015

 

Barack Obama once cited Yemen as his administration’s great counterterrorism success story. Give him a break, you might say—that was more than six months ago. Surely he’s changed his view to take account of evolving circumstances, such as the country’s takeover by what are invariably called “Iranian-backed Houthi militants.” Oh no he hasn’t. Here’s an exchange that took place yesterday afternoon between Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, and Jonathan Karl, ABC News’s White House correspondent…

 

Karl: Josh, just a quick one first on Yemen. I know you’re asked this every time something terrible happens in Yemen. But now that we have essentially complete chaos in Yemen, does the White House still believe that Yemen is the model for a counterterrorism strategy?

 

Earnest: Jon, the White House does continue to believe that a successful counterterrorism strategy is one that will build up the capacity of the central government to have local fighters on the ground to take the fight to extremists in their own country, and the United States can serve both to diplomatically offer up some political support to central governments. We can offer very tangible support to local security forces in the form of training and equipping, and we can also support the operations of those security forces through whether it’s the deployment of ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] capability, or even in the case of Iraq, military airstrikes.

 

And that is a template that has succeeded in mitigating the threat that we face from extremists in places like Yemen and Somalia, and is a template that we believe can succeed in mitigating the threat emanating from Syria as well.

 

Karl: I mean, that’s astounding. You’re saying that you still see Yemen as the model? That building up the central government, which has now collapsed; a president who’s apparently fled the country; Saudi troops amassing on one border; the Iranians supporting the rebels—you consider this is a model for counterterrorism?

 

Earnest: Again, Jon, what the United States considers to be our strategy when confronting the effort to try to mitigate the threat that is posed by extremists is to prevent them from establishing a safe haven. And certainly, in a chaotic, dangerous situation like in Yemen, what the United States will do and has done is worked to try to support the central government, to build up the capacity of local fighters, and use our own technological and military capabilities to apply pressure on the extremists there.

 

Look, there’s no doubt that we would like to see a functioning central government in Yemen; we don’t see that right now. And that is why we’re supportive of the U.N.-led process to try to put an end to the violence and instability, to bring all sides together to the table to try to resolve their differences; to build up the capacity of the central government; to build up the capacity of local forces and to continue to apply pressure to extremists.

 

What I will say is that we have not seen that kind of progress in terms of strengthening the central government. I think you could make a pretty strong case that we’ve seen the opposite of that. But we do continue to enjoy the benefits of a sustained counterterrorism security relationship with the security infrastructure that remains in Yemen.

 

Karl: Do you think the security infrastructure still remains in Yemen?

 

Earnest: There are elements of the Yemeni government that we continue to be in touch with that continue to further our efforts to apply pressure to extremists that seek to operate in that country. And we continue to have the capability—again, because of the planning and because of the relationships that we have in the region, we do continue to have the capability to take out extremists if they’re posing a threat to the United States…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]

                                                           

                                                                                   

Contents                                                                                     

   

                                      

BUENOS AIRES AND TEHRAN                                                                                          

Jerusalem Post, Mar. 22, 2015

 

As the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) and Iran enter the final stretch of nuclear arms negotiations in Vienna, Tehran’s diabolical influence on the world was being commemorated in Buenos Aires. Last week, an Israeli delegation headed by outgoing Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir was in Argentina marking the 23rd anniversary of the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. The bombing, which killed 29 and injured hundreds, took place on March 17, 1992. Because elections were taking place on the same day, the commemoration ceremony, which was particularly large this year, was postponed.

 

More than two decades have passed since the bombing, which is believed to have been carried out by Iran and its proxy Hezbollah. No one has been brought to justice. However, former ambassador to Argentina Itzhak Aviran said last year that Israel had killed most of those responsible. “The large majority of those responsible are no longer of this world, and we did it ourselves,” Aviran told the Buenos Aires-based AJN Jewish news agency last March. Yet, the stories of the embassy bombing, and the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, also known as AMIA or Argentinean Israel Mutual Association, refuse to go away and continue to be relevant to understanding Iran’s pernicious influence, not just in the Middle East, but around the world.

 

On January 17, special prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who had been leading an investigation into Iran’s involvement in the AMIA bombing for over a decade, was found dead in his apartment. An independent forensic investigation commissioned by Nisman’s former wife, a senior Argentinean judge, has found that Nisman was murdered. Nisman was on the verge of giving testimony on an elaborate cover up scheme involving the governments of Argentina and Iran. Argentinean President Cristina de Fernandez Kirchner, her Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and other figures connected to the government had reportedly agreed to discontinue investigations into Iran’s involvement in the AMIA bombing as part of a massive trade deal.

Some have speculated that Iran was involved.

 

Meanwhile, just last week Doug Farah, director of IBI Consultants, presented testimony to a US Senate Foreign Affairs subcommittee headed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) in which, among other things, he outlined the strong ties between Argentina and Venezuela. First the Chavez government and now the Maduro regime in Caracas have been instrumental in fostering ties between Buenos Aires and Tehran, claimed Farah – including in the field of nuclear technology. Farah also noted that, in addition to Venezuela, countries like Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia have developed drug trafficking and terrorism ties with Iran and Russia as part of a rabidly anti-Western, anti-America sentiment that has led to an alignment of Iranian and Russian interests with those of several South and Central American countries.

 

And just last week, Veja, a Brazilian magazine, ran a story claiming that starting in 2007 Argentina – through Venezuela’s brokering – helped Iran develop its nuclear weapons program. A leading Argentinean journalist who spoke with The Jerusalem Post was skeptical and noted that there were many inaccuracies in the Veja story and that it was unclear what precisely were the direct ties between Buenos Aires and Tehran. It was nevertheless likely true, according to the journalist, that Venezuela had provided the former Kirchner government with large sums of cash and that Argentina had helped Venezuela develop its nuclear program. This might have enabled Venezuela to then provide Iran with the Argentinean technologies.

 

On the 23rd anniversary of the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, we should remember that Iran’s nefarious influence in South America and elsewhere is not a lesson of history. It remains a living reality.The P5+1 nations have a moral obligation to take this into account as they negotiate with the Islamic Republic the terms of a nuclear weapons deal. If an Iran devoid of nuclear weapons has succeeded so well in making its evil influence felt throughout the world, we dare not imagine what this influence will be when the mullahs have the benefit of a nuclear umbrella.

                                                                       

Contents                                                                                                

 

“THOSE WHO HATE JEWS HATE CHRISTIANS': A CLOSER LOOK AT US                              

PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL TED CRUZ                                                                                     

Ariel Cohen                                                                                                                            

Jerusalem Post, Mar. 24, 2015

 

A staunchly conservative, Christian and pro-Israel Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, became the first candidate from either party to announce his run for the American presidency in 2016 on Monday, and he is hoping that his religious constituencies will support him. Cruz is no stranger to letting his religion influence his politics, and he often goes as far as to embrace the crossroads between the two.

 

He made his campaign announcement while speaking at Liberty University, an Evangelical Christian school in Virginia. His traditional christian values appeal to many of his current Texas constituents, along with other Republicans and members of the Tea Party. He is the son of an evangelical Pastor, but Cruz now calls himself a Baptist, and is an ardent supporter of Israel. “Those who continue to hate Israel, hate America,” Cruz said in Washington DC in September at an event called, In Defense of Christians. “Those who hate Jews, hate Christians. If those in this room will not recognize that, then my heart weeps for them.” While these comments got him booed off the stage at the time, the senator has continued to vocally support Israel.

 

“Instead of a president who boycotts Prime Minister Netanyahu, imagine a president who stands unapologetically with Israel,” Cruz said during his announcement of candidacy on Monday at Liberty University. This time around, he received a long round of applause for the statement. While Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, he renounced his Canadian citizenship last year, according to reports. The son of an evangelical pastor, Cruz also invoked religion in his announcement, hoping to galvanize his Christian constituency.

 

The Texan senator has repeatedly stood with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his time in office. In November 2013, he called on Iran to recognize a Jewish State, and has repeatedly condemned Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, underscoring it’s danger to the State of Israel. “There is one threat on the face of the planet right now that poses a meaningful possibility of once again exterminating 6 million Jews, and that is a nuclear Iran,” Cruz said the Monday before Netanyahu gave his speech to Congress.

 

Evangelicals and devout Christian alike tend to stand with Israel, so Cruz’s pro-Israel stance helps him appeal to both the Jewish and Christian communities. Additionally, Cruz appeals to traditional Christian values; he’s against gay marriage and abortion and often mentions the "sacrament of marriage" and the "sanctity of human life" when speaking of hot-button social issues. About 40 percent of Republican primary voters consider themselves evangelical or born again, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. This may give Cruz a boost in early-voting states such as Iowa, where 57% of Republican caucus attendees identified as evangelical or born-again Christians in 2012.

 

He even invokes religion when speaking on foreign policy. During his speech on Monday, Cruz accused Obama of playing down the religious elements of Islamic State and fostering conflict with Israel, both crucial issues for evangelical Christians. Cruz even turns to religion when it comes to national politics, stating that America's rights and freedoms do not come from man, but rather  "come from God almighty."

 

Cruz markets himself as an alternative to centrist Republican candidates, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who will likely announce candidacy soon; yet it is unclear as to whether this strategy will win Cruz the Republican nomination. Cruz came in third in an informal poll of activists last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and Reuters/Ipsos tracking polls show him tied with five other potential candidates, though well behind both Bush and Walker.

                                                                       

Contents                                                                                      

                                         

TRACING JEWISH HERITAGE ALONG THE DANUBE                                                                                       

Lisa Schwarzbaum                                                                                                        

New York Times, Mar. 13, 2015

 

Like many who share my hair texture and fondness for rugelach, I am the descendant of Jewish forebears who boarded boats in the first half of the 20th century to escape bad times for our people in Central and Eastern Europe. These intrepid emigrants took to the water, settled in America and built a Jewish-American culture of creative assimilation. I owe them my life.

 

Like about a third of the 120 or so fellow travelers with whom I spent seven nights on the Danube River last November, I boarded a boat called the AmaPrima in Budapest to float back to some of the same places so many of those same emigrants were — history has confirmed — lucky to leave behind. I was bound on a Jewish heritage tour, combining two growing travel trends: roots and rivers.

 

 

In my case, the combination was a special-interest option laid over a popular Danube itinerary that AmaWaterways has been offering since the company entered the river-cruise market in 2002. On the water, we were all in the same boat as it powered from the Hungarian capital of Budapest to Bratislava, Slovakia; Vienna, Linz and Salzburg, all in Austria; and, finally, Regensburg and Nuremberg, in Bavaria, Germany.

 

Each day, we shared the same abundant (nonkosher) meals and modest smartphone- and tablet-photography skills. Each night we repaired to our similar small, sweet, meticulously plumped cabins. (Our vessel could hold a maximum of 164 passengers.)

 

And we all relaxed together each cocktail hour — mostly couples, mostly in their 50s to 70s, and mostly North Americans, along with some stray vacationers from England, Ireland, Australia and China — in the same pleasant lounge, with its big picture windows. Together, we admired the luxe bed linens, the Wi-Fi in every room, the bottomless free glasses of wine, the outdoor hot tub, the on-board gift shop, the minuscule hair salon and gym area, the all-inclusive pricing. But when we stepped onto dry land in a different city each day, with local guides and buses synchronized to meet us, each traveler could choose between a Jewish heritage tour or a more standard city tour. (Independent exploration was also an option.) And we who had booked our trips in honor of our roots would, for a few hours, explore paths haunted by ghosts.

 

We would step into cemeteries with tumbled headstones. We would admire the very few synagogues that remain — so beautiful in Budapest, so stately in Vienna! — and listen to tales of the hundreds more destroyed. We would peer at old photographs and study rescued personal objects confiscated from the disappeared and today reverently displayed in glass cases. Each day we walked the streets of a Jewish heritage now effectively devoid of Jews, and we listened as guides described to us what used to be and is no more, along with tempered reports of precarious Jewish life as it exists today. Then, as darkness set in, we returned to the boat to reunite with fellow passengers who had spent the day on the cruise line’s default tour of gentile European culture.

 

For a week, under the friendly efficiency of the cruise manager, Dragan Reljic, we clinked aperitif glasses of Hungarian, Austrian or German liqueur in friendly toasts to historic beauty, both original and rebuilt following war after war, century after century. Then we freshened up for another dinner banquet, warmed by the pleasurable, high-end comforts of our Danube holiday. This is the only way I can begin this story. The weight of your emotional baggage may vary.

 

Budapest is an eminently logical place to start the search. Draped on both sides of the Danube, the city is home, still, to one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe, shrunken as it is. Not insignificantly, the river is also wide enough — and the docking availability commodious enough — to handle the current explosion in river-cruise tourism. Not for nothing has AmaWaterways increased its fleet to 19 vessels in 2015, while the industry leader, Viking River Cruises, will run 60 river ships with 25 itineraries this year.

Along with a handful of others who would become my shipmates, I opted for an organized predeparture extension of two nights in Budapest before we embarked. That way, I could visit the imposing Moorish-style Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest active synagogue in Europe today. (It is, for that matter, the second largest in the world, after Temple Emanu-El in New York City.)

 

As substantial as Dohany Street Synagogue is, though, it paled in emotional resonance compared with the effect of Shoes on the Danube Bank, a memorial by the sculptor Gyula Pauer and the filmmaker Can Togay. This simple, quietly heartbreaking permanent installation of 60 pairs of empty shoes, cast in iron on the Pest side of the Danube embankment, is a memorial to thousands of victims of Hungary’s own fascist Arrow Cross, in 1944-45. Men, women and children were relieved of their footwear, lined up and shot dead so that their bodies would fall into the Danube and wash away. Art puts our feet where they once stood….

 

For emotional reprieve, a local guide also led us to the Raoul Wallenberg Monument, not far from the neighborhood of protected houses that were established by Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, and others to shelter thousands of Budapest Jews with false identity papers. For added uplift, she produced a photocopy of a so-called Wallenberg Passport that had saved one of her own relatives.

 

Then, as darkness fell and the lights of the city’s eight bridges arranged themselves in a glittering hieroglyphic script of farewell, we assembled in the open air on the top deck of the AmaPrima. We lifted flutes of Champagne. We sailed past the ornately gothic Hungarian Parliament Building, ablaze in illumination. And we moved on in the night toward Slovakia.

 

Waking in Bratislava, we were given tour choices that were mordantly jarring and uniquely mittel-European: After our typically sumptuous breakfast, would we care for the Jewish heritage tour, the medieval tour or perhaps the Communist tour? As befits a visitor who only recently learned that her grandfather’s brother — one among millions of victims of Europe’s influenza epidemic of 1918 — studied at the famed Bratislava Yeshiva, then known by its German name, Pressburg Yeshiva, I continued my ethnic studies.

 

The city’s mournful Jewish centerpiece is the underground mausoleum of the rabbi and sage Moshe Schreiber (1762 to 1839), known as Chatam Sofer. The cemetery in which he was buried — itself built atop a 17th-century Jewish graveyard — was upended during and after World War II. But the rabbi’s tomb survived, along with the graves of some 20 other rebbes, albeit shut away under a concrete tunnel. The site was reconstructed and rededicated in 2002, in all its gloomy, claustrophobic, end-of-the-line pathos. The old Jewish neighborhood, meanwhile, was smashed decades ago by Communist construction — ugly in intention and result. There are very few Jews and an army of shadows in this exhausted Slovakian city.

 

It was a pleasure, after such a day of gnawing sadness, to return to the low-keyed conviviality of the AmaPrima, where, as happens on any group excursion, alliances were quickly being formed, if only for purposes of amiable dinnertime companionship. I waved to a friendly all-women table of travel agents and their friends. I recognized the folks who liked to shop, and those who liked to drink, and those who liked to talk about other cruises past and future. I fell in with a nice mix of heritage seekers who became my extended family — my mishpucha. We often discussed health care…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]

 

CIJR Wishes All Our Friends and Supporters: Shabbat Shalom!

 

 

 

Contents

                                                                                     

 

On Topic

 

The Regional Arms Race Has Begun: Charles Bybelezer, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 24, 2015 —One of the primary concerns voiced over the deal-in-themaking with Iran has long been that leaving the Islamic Republic with its atomic infrastructure intact – thereby solidifying its nuclear threshold status – would trigger a dangerous arms race in the world’s most volatile region.

Americans Battle the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Daniel Pipes, Middle East Quarterly, Spring, 2015 —When, in the midst of the 2014 Hamas-Israel war, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration briefly banned American carriers from flying to Israel, Sen. Ted Cruz (Republican of Texas) accused Barack Obama of using a federal regulatory agency "to launch an economic boycott on Israel, in order to try to force our ally to comply with his foreign policy demands."  In so doing, Cruz made an accusation no Israeli leader would dare express.

Christians Loving Jews: Frank Bruni, New York Times, Mar. 7, 2015 —He was almost lost in the whirl of lawmakers, pundits, plutocrats and other boldface names who showed up for Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress last week.

The Secret Jewish History of Pi: Seth Rogovoy, Forward, Mar. 13, 2015—In an episode of the original “Star Trek,” Mr. Spock — played by the late, great Jewish actor Leonard Nimoy — commands an evil computer that has taken over the life support system of the Starship Enterprise to compute Pi to the last digit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                    

               

 

 

 

                      

                

                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Contents:         

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