A17 year old Orthodox Jewish boy was ‘wrapping tefillin’ on a flight from New York to Louisville. The plane made an emergency landing in Philadelphia because the pilot was concerned about some strange boxes that a passenger was strapping to his arm and his head. Read the news story here.

Tefillin are also known as phylacteries and are ritual prayer objects. The origin  is ancient from Deuteronomy, “”And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a frontlet between your eyes.”

The text inside the two boxes of Tefillin is hand-written by a scribe, and consists of the four sets of biblical verses in which Tefillin are commanded (Exodus 13:1-10, 11-16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21). The text inside the Tefillin is hand-written and hand-crafted. A set of Tefillin is relatively expensive, and a well-made pair costs several hundred dollars.  (Info from Jewish Virtual Library)

The boxes are held in place on the arm and on the forehead with leather straps wrapped in a specific ritual manner. It must look strange to a non Jew, especially on a domestic flight.

This is a ritual that only the more observant and orthodox Jews regularly observe, and most of them either ‘wrap tefillin in private or in the synagogue or temple. This is not such a common custom that even an educated non Jew would expect to see on a plane.  It is certainly understandable that one unfamiliar with this unique ritual would have seen this as unusual and been alarmed.

The passenger meant no harm and was released.  On my first trip to Israel on El Al there were a handful of orthodox Jews in the back of the plane with tefillin and prayer books praying at sun up, when the ritual prayers wearing the tefillin are said. This young Jew was doing the same.

The funniest line to me in the play The Annual Putnam County  Spelling Bee was when the word ‘phylacteries’ was given. When asked to use the word in a sentence the word caller said, “Michael, put down those phylacteries, we’re Episcopalians.”

Now you have one less fear when you fly.  Perhaps my fellow Yids should consider how their practice can affect other flyers in the paranoid age we live in. I would encourage participants to inform the attendant in advance.

In a footnote in his new book “Saving Israel” author Daniel Gordis notes why he uses the word “Shoah” as opposed to the more common “Holocaust.”

In Hebrew “Shoah” means “calamity”. “Holocaust” is an English word that means “burnt offering” or “sacrifice of God”. The Jews of Europe were not sacrificed, they were murdered; there is big difference.

It seems Jews take their words seriously.

The local federation hosted Micah Halpern this evening at the Cox Theatre.  He is an authority on Iran and their nuclear effort.

A few random yet relevant points.

There are 3,000 FBI agents. None of them have passed the test to speak or understand Persian, the language of Iran.  Only a few dozen can speak Arabic. Translation is jobbed off to Israel.  We must job to a third party to translate the language of our biggest security threat.

The Iranians know us far far better than we know them. See above. They are much better at playing the international chess game than we are.

The Iranians have more Phd’s per capita that any country besides the US, Israel and maybe India.  Most are educated in European universities.

Natan Sharansky is a world class champion chess player, and keeps a continuous game with Kasperov.

Unlike Iraq in 1981 with a single nuclear plant above ground, Iran has at least 38 sites and many below ground.

Iran has a space program and has developed rockets to propel satellites into space. This same rocket technology can carry nuclear warheads and their satellites are critical to guide their rockets to assure accuracy. Their space program is not subject to inspection by the nuclear verification agencies.  Other components of their program sucha as triggers are also exempt.

We have no power over Iran. If we are to have any influence it must come though a third party, most likely China, which has a $100 billion dollar oil deal with them. Unfortunately we have been and are bungling our Chinese diplomatic realtionship.  We need a strong relationship with China to have any influence over Iran.

Iran’s diplomatic relationship with Venezuela is based totally on a common hatred of the U.S.

Iran will likely succeed in developing their nuclear weapons.

Read Micah  Halpern at The Micah Report . (now on recommended sites)

Daniel Gordis writes in “Saving Israel - How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May Never End” that Israel faces two threats besides the obvious physical threats from the enemies that call for its annihilation.

The first is from the Jews who are so obsessed with peace that they will pursue it even at the threat to Israel’s existence.  Centuries of oppression in Europe and Russia made the Jews into a people of Talmudic hairsplitters.  But Israel changed the character of the Jewish people into a nation of proud if not reluctant warriors.  Gordis noted “there is something “un-Jewish” about being a warrior only if there is something “un-Jewish” about surviving.”

Yet there are those among the Israelis and Jews throughout the world who still detest what the Israelis must do to fight for their own survival. He faces the reality that Israel may never win the wars it faces and must accept that reality. The must also face the reality that the nations of the world seem relatively unsympathetic.

The 1967 Six Day War restored a sense of pride to the Jews of the world that they were no longer victims. Given their own nation they were able to defend themselves. To give up their Zionist dream would be to return to the days when Jews were vulnerable guests in the house of other nations. The image of the Jewish warrior replaced the image of the Jewish victim.

Like the American warrior the Israeli warrior fights not to gain power but to protect it.  To fight for ones nation one must believe in the moral imperative for its existence. The second threat the Israelis face in Gordis’s judgment is the lapse in the Israeli culture of those rituals and history of the Israeli nation.

Jerusalem is a city of orthodox Jews with rituals embedded in the daily life. The Sabbath is strictly adhered to.  Even in the hotels there are shabbes elevators that stop either on every floor or on every other floor to avoid the act of pushing a button to select a floor on the Sabbath.  The rooms are equipped with dimmer switches to avoid turning a light on or off.  To a secular Jew like me this seems ridiculous, but it shows how serious the observant are.

But most Israelis are far more secular like many of the American cousins.  Tel Aviv is a secular city with a young affluent very chic night life. Many Israelis have learned very little about the founding fathers of Israel like Weizman and Hertzl; they participate in few Jewish rituals.  It would be like Americans that know very little of the early American history and the founding fathers, and the principles that guided them.  When asked to defend their country; do they really know what they are defending?

Gordis points out that it is not enough to have gained the courage and ability to defend themselves with an  army; the Israelis must retain the visionary dream that the founding fathers like Ben Gurion and others felt so strongly when they built the Jewish nation against such overwhelming odds. Such an accomplishment took far more than military might.

Our trip to Cuba was sponsored by the United Jewish Communities as an outreach to the Jewish community there. We visited three congregations in Havana and a small community in Santa Clara, about a four hour ride from Havana.

There are about 1500 Jews in Cuba. Before the Revolution there were closer to 15,000. Many left when the getting was good between 1959 and 1965. Because of Castro’s compression of incomes many professionals departed until the brain drain caused such a problem that Castro called a halt to emigration. Many more Jews were assimilated into the ultimate of western egalitarian societies.

The first Jews probably landed in Cuba during the initial European explorations. Some moved to Cuba during our colonial phase to manage sugar cane fields and other enterprises. But the majority of the Jews ended up in Cuba leaving Europe and Russia before World War II.

There were restrictions on Jews coming into the United States, and the British kept immigration to Palestine very low to appease Arab terrorists in their mandate. Havana became an immigrant hotel for those hoping to get to America later. Havana, before the revolution, was a spectacular city, the Paris of the Caribbean. Only Buenos Aires compared. It was nice enough to stay.

The underbelly of Cuba before Castro was that while industrious it was also corrupt and many of the poor in the countryside were terribly neglected for the lucrative franchises in Havana. Organized crime was welcomed as were large corporations as long as they stuffed the dictator’s coffers. You may recall the scenes in the Godfather II as Michael Corleone struggled with his indecision to invest in Havana with fellow gangster Hyman Rothstein (the character was modeled after Meyer Lansky, a Polish born Jew). Corleone left just ahead of the advancing coup with his money intact. The overthrown dictator Batista, escaped with all the cash he could carry, one estimate was $300 million, and lived the rest of his life off the coast of Spain
But liberation is far from synonymous with liberty and Cuba merely exchanged one dictator for another, even if it was one with a drastically different social and political view.

We saw no signs of anti-Semitism and this was emphasized by several community leaders including one who spoke of Castro’s visit to their congregation with pride. During the rise of the Cuban Utopian Revolution the Communist Party frowned on all religion, and it was hard to rise far if in the party if you openly expressed your faith of any sort. But the Cuban revolution lasted initially only because of the Russian largess and support in search of a base so close to their number one enemy.
During the early 1990’s, Russia pulled their financial support from the Cubans and it caused tremendous hardship on the island. Maybe coincidentally (maybe not) Castro and the party at that time relaxed their stance on religious affiliation and even created a ministry of religious affairs. Perhaps since he could not give them prosperity, he elected to give them religion, the “opiate of the masses”. Religious observance started a rebirth.

With help from the American Jews and others, the Jews in Cuba starting searching for those who had Jewish connections and synagogues started to attract observers. We went to small Jewish cemeteries in Havana and Santa Clara and they both had Holocaust memorials which were small (like a monument) but beautiful and shown with a great sense of pride. The cemeteries were being repaired and were carefully manicured.

An Israeli entrepreneur has partnered with the government to develop orange groves, and it furnishes much of the orange juice served on the island, for tourists like us and a few others than can afford it.

The Jews in Cuba face the same problems as anyone else on the large island. The Communist utopia turned the Paris of the Caribbean to a third world country. Average income is $15 a month, but the state provides health care, education, housing and transportation for free to everyone. The magnificent buildings are commonly in terrible decay, except for public buildings like government offices and museums.
Cuba is a common tourist spot for Canadians and Europeans and sports beaches on the north part of the island. It seems foreign to us because of the embargo, yet it is only 90 miles away. They do not have a free press and there are few news outlets, but there are art galleries- Castro is a big supporter of the arts and art school is also free. I can only assume that most of their knowledge of Americans and world affairs comes from interaction with the tourists and government propaganda.

Yet what strikes any Jew visiting a synagogue in a foreign country is the nearly identical Hebrew prayers and even the melodies to chant them. It’s the same in Mexico, Australia, China, Europe, Africa and … Cuba as it is in Israel. There have been changes but the services would likely be recognizable with prayers in Israel over a thousand years ago. Conversations are peppered with Yiddish expressions that could be heard in any Jewish family gathering.

The Roman enforced Diaspora scattered Jews all over the world to squelch repeated attempts at revolution against the Roman Empire. It is an historical oddity that for 2,000 years the Diaspora would so still define the homeland that Moses led them to after he came down from Mt. Sinai and….

… started a revolution.

The Tehran Times complains that Israel has too many friends on the internet. Read the story here.

It is hard to make this stuff up.

It is apparently perfectly acceptable to require that Palestinian lands be Judenrein, free of Jews.  We (our administration) are even pressuring Jews NOT to build within the borders of  Jerusalem.

It would be unconscionable to allow the Jews in Israel to make any of Israel free of Palestinians? There are 1.5 million Palestinians living in Israel as citizens.

Yet Jordon is revoking the citizenship of  thousands of  Palestinians ” to avoid a situation in which they would be “resettled” permanently in the kingdom   “  Jordan is probably the most tolerant of any of the Arab  countries toward the Palestinians: at least they are allowed to become citizens. (James Taranto WSJ)

But  wait;  King Abdullah’s Queen Rania is of  Palestinian descent.  Will she be stripped of her citizenship?

Is this not a parallel  of the story of Purim where Persian (Iranian)  King Ahasuerus is lobbied  by the evil Haman to kill the Jews but they are saved by the Jewish Queen Esther and Mordecai?

Jordon was created in the 1920’s from a significant portion of Palestine that the British set aside for the Jewish Homeland.  One could reasonably argue that the Palestinian homeland was established then.  But tribal differences have kept Jordon from being recognized as such.

Years ago during my first trip to Israel I woke up and had breakfast in the Crown Plaza in Jerusalem. As I ate I noticed that the guy making the omelet was Jewish. Then I noticed a few other guys serving juice and coffee were Jewish.

And then it hit me- everyone here was Jewish. I put my fork down and got a bit choked up because I had never been in a city or a state where I was not in a minority. (OK New York City is close). I also realized that there is no other country in the world where this is the case.

While the United States is the most tolerant and free country, there are still constant reminders that non Christians are a minority. Those who are “tolerated” are seemingly somehow a little less free than those doing the tolerating. There is a big difference between being free and being tolerated.

Americans are largely “ethno centric” especially outside of the major metropolitan areas where ethnic subcultures thrive. We have a hard time seeing beyond our religious and cultural lens. This often includes our political preference as well. Few American Christians imagine living as a minority, even when our media and culture sometimes seems hostile to Christian values (Christaphobic).

Yet I also believe that America is more understanding of much of the rest of the world than they are of us. It is rare in history for one nation to fight to free another nation without seeking material gain as a result.

America is a very special place. We just need to understand that it is not the only special place.