AN AMERICAN JEWISH GERMAN INFORMATION & OPINION NEWSLETTER

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GERMANY EDITION January 16, 2013 JEWISH ISSUES OF 2012 When December rolls around The Jerusalem Post, as do many newspapers, begins to look back through the year that is coming to an end to write about the most important issues of the past year. The JP seeks a public vote on what they call, Most Influential Jewish Story of 2012. I was surprised that the Israel based JP would list the circumcision in Germany issue as #1. They wrote, Earlier this summer a heated debate regarding ritual circumcision in Germany began, due to post-procedure complications during the circumcision of a young Muslim boy. This led to the ruling that the doctor who had performed the circumcision had caused unnecessary and intentional harm to the child. As ritual circumcision is central to Judaism this led to protest and fear of antiSemitism further infringing on the basic religious freedoms afforded to those living in Germany. After six months of back and forth a law was finally passed a law in mid December that will protect the right to perform religious circumcision in Germany. As I have written previously, the upheaval caused by the circumcision issue did harm to Germanys standing in the American Jewish community. Obviously, in Israel that damage was greater. Somewhat down the list a more positive story made the list. It noted, In 1952 West Germany was pledged, under the Luxembourg agreements, to provide payments to Jewish Holocaust survivors that met a certain criteria. The intention of the Luxembourg agreements was to give recognition to those that had helped the Jews survive the Holocaust and to those Jews that had survived and to assist them financially. This year marks the 60th anniversary and a renewed commitment of the German government and the Claims Conference to aid these survivors in their last years of life.

As we say in baseball, You cant win em all. So it goes! AJC IN THE 21st CENTURY Though DuBow Digest is independent of any organization, it is no secret that I have been associated with AJC (The American Jewish Committee) for the last 46 years including, in 1998, being the Founding Director of the AJC Berlin Office. When I started with the organization in 1966 it was largely dedicated to participating in Americas civil rights struggle. Now in its 107th year it is a very different agency than the one I first signed up to be a director of one of its smaller offices in Westchester County, NY. The major reason it has prospered for more than a century is that it has altered its program regularly in order to fit the needs of what it sees as the primary interests (and problems) of the American Jewish community. Rarely has the American Jewish press devoted an in-depth story to changes in an organization. However, as this time honored group has in the last few years begun a considerable re-programming, The Forward decided to write about it in an article entitled, AJC Turns Toward Israel, Global Advocacy. It explains, The century-old American Jewish Committee is cutting back on its domestic political agenda and on its research functions in favor of a focus on international advocacy. That shift follows a strategic plan that the AJC approved in 2009. Though the changes at the AJC have been broadly noted, the content of the blueprint itself which the AJC shared with and described to the Forward was previously unreported. Once known for its civil rights work, its scholarly conferences and its original research, the AJC has consolidated and reorganized its activities, trimming old programs in favor of global advocacy efforts, often in support of Israel. Old areas of interest, such as the church-state divide, are being set aside. David Harris, the AJCs executive director, has shaped and led the group since he took his post, in 1990. Writing and speaking publicly, he is undoubtedly the face of the AJC. His influence and interests have been broadly felt throughout the organization. The roadmap, however, was not Harriss alone. That process was led by [Victoria] Schonfeld, who was hired explicitly to head up the effort. When Schonfeld arrived, the AJC was facing some disarray. Schonfeld said that the AJC lacked information technology capabilities and key staff positions, such as a head of human resources. The AJC had grown very quickly and hasnt had time to focus on its infrastructure, Schonfeld said.

When she first arrived, Schonfeld said, the question was, Where do we expand? The AJCs board adopted the new plan in 2009. The plan identifies two core focus areas for the group: advocating with governments, and intergroup relations. Intergroup relations refers to coalition building with other religious groups and other ethnic groups, according to Schonfeld, who referenced recent AJC outreach to Latinos as an example of this work. But its the government advocacy, and particularly advocacy with foreign governments, thats now clearly at the forefront of the AJCs activities. Schonfeld said that the staff dedicated to global advocacy in the AJCs national office is far bigger than the staff dedicated to intergroup relations. Its what we do more uniquely than anyone else, Schonfeld said. We have what we think is a unique style, which isnt just marching in and pounding the table and saying you must listen to us; rather, our advocacy is building on long-standing relationships of trust. The global advocacy effort has become the organizations trademark. The AJCs tagline, which appears at the top of the groups website and on official materials, reads Global Jewish Advocacy. The group has staff in nine foreign countries, including Brazil and India. Its a different model than groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which focuses on outreach to American legislators, and The Israel Project, which focuses on outreach to the media. The AJC has the added benefit of shoulder rubbing, which some outsiders suggest has proved a fundraising boon to Harris. David Harris had spent many, many years abroad, and many of the leaders of AJC took great excitement from the opportunity to meet world leaders, and thats the direction they moved, said Jonathan Sarna, a Brandeis University professor of American Jewish history. Sarna said that he regretted what he saw as the AJC moving away from its role as a convener of a broad spectrum of Jewish thinkers. As the AJC has pulled back on certain domestic issues, the public face of the organization has turned more and more toward Israel. The AJC chose four priorities to focus on at the beginning of this year; three of them Irans nuclear ambitions, Israeli security and energy security relate directly or indirectly to Israel. AJC is the only major American Jewish organization that maintains a full time staffed office in Germany. That in itself makes it a prime address in Berlin as the only resident representative the American Jewish community. It sees as its major role being a bridge between Germany and the 6 million Jews in the U.S. While advocating for its chosen program directions on issues directly important to it, it also has become a major player in Germany itself on such matters as tolerance building and support for strengthening democracy.

There is more to the Forward article. You can read it in its entirety by clicking here. http://forward.com/articles/167730/ajc-turns-towards-israel-global-advocacy/? p=all#ixzz2G4oGM6WU HARMFUL DEVELOPMENTS Maybe its all talk and maybe some will blame Israel for the radicalization of the Palestinians, but no matter the cause, the facts on the ground show that youth on the West Bank seem to be opting more and more toward militant radicalization. I doubt if it will get them very far and whether its cause or effect the Israeli population seems to be moving toward the right wing in its election. According to The Times of Israel, A new group of young Palestinians from divergent political streams has formed in the West Bank with the stated goal of bringing about a third Intifada. The impetus for the group developed against the background of the recent flare-ups between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces, which have become commonplace throughout the West Bank since a UN General Assembly decision in November that granted non-member observer state status to Palestine. Youngsters who identify themselves with the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organizations have joined forced with supporters of Fatah, according to a video uploaded to the Internet Friday, in order to fight against Israel. This is the beginning of the third Palestinian Intifada, which erupts from the heart of Hebron and spreads to all of Palestine, they said. representatives say they agreed with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbass bid for upgraded status at the UN, but they vow not to give up one inch of Palestine, from the sea to the river. The Tikes of Israel also reported, For the first time since 2006, more West Bank Palestinians support the political approach of Hamas as opposed to that of Fatah and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, a new poll shows. And an overwhelming majority of Palestinians believe the results of the latest Hamas-Israel escalation that included Operation Pillar of Defense Israels eight-day operation against terror targets in Gaza last month prove that the armed struggle represents the best path to Palestinian independence. The poll, conducted earlier this month by the Arab World Research and Development (AWRAD), a Ramallah-based research center, sampled 1,200 Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank. It set out to examine political

opinions among Palestinians following Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza and Mahmoud Abbass successful UN nonmember statehood bid. While both events are overwhelmingly viewed as positive by Palestinians, adding popularity to both Palestinian factions, 42% of West Bank respondents said they preferred the approach of Hamas to that of Fatah, as opposed to only 28% who preferred Fatahs approach. Interestingly, more Gazans, 40%, said they preferred Fatahs approach to that of Hamas, which rules over them. Thirty-seven percent of Gazans said Hamass approach was better. While Abbas tends to favor a two-state solution reached by negotiations, Hamas recognized internationally as a terrorist group refuses to recognize Israel and vows eternal Jihad against the Jewish infidels who reside here. An overwhelming 88% of the entire sample believed that the result of Operation Pillar of Defense proved that armed struggle is the best means of achieving Palestinian independence. Another trend revealed by the poll is a sharp decline in support for negotiations with Israel among West Bank residents. To add a little icing on the cake, The Forward reported, A senior Hamas leader has called for a third intifada, including suicide bus bombings in Israel. Hamas Jerusalem bureau chief Ahmed Halabiyeh on Tuesday called for new, violent action against Israel on Tuesday, saying that that we must renew the resistance to occupation in any possible way, above all through armed resistance. He called for a third intifada to save the Aksa Mosque and Jerusalem. The call came in response to the approval for construction of thousands of apartments in eastern Jerusalem and the A 1[Ed. Note: Should be E-1] area of Maaleh Adumim. As I mentioned above, one can blame Israel but to be fair this upgraded hostility started out with Hamas rocketing Israel indiscriminately. Since then the Palestinian UN statehood maneuver took place which, for all intents and purposes, killed off any possibility of peace talks in the near future. These taken together have added to support for more rightist feeling in Israel. And so the situation continues to be more volatile. I wish I could see the possibility of some movement toward some sort of negotiations. However, unhappily, I dont! HOW MANY?

I am asked sometimes, How many Jews are there in the world? I usually guess about 13 million. Well, as it turns out Im off by about 1 million. A recent article in Y-Net News indicates, An extensive survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has found that the worldwide Jewish community numbers some 14 million, which equates to 0.2% of the overall global population, a figure dwarfed by the Muslim community of 1.6 billion. Fifty-nine percent of Jewish people in the world also live in countries where they are a minority group, compared to just 3% of Hindus, 13% of Christians and 27% of adherents to Islam. Judaism faces the additional pressure of its followers having the highest average age at 36 years old which is eight years higher than the global average and 13 above the figure for Islam, meaning that the Jewish population is likely to have the lowest growth forecasts for the years to come. According to the Pew Forum, of the 2010 world population of 6.9 billion, some 5.8 billion hold some form of association to a recognized religion, while 16% state that they are not affiliated with any faith. The article does not spell out how many live in the U.S. There have been several studies that have varying answers. My unpracticed scientific sense tells me there are somewhat over 6 million and that Israel has surpassed the U.S. with something close to 6 to 7 million. The point of my bringing all this up is to give you some idea of how small the worldwide Jewish community really is and, given the fact that there is only one Jewish nation, why we are so connected to it. If you are interested in pursuing the question of how many members of each and every religious group in the world, you can do so by going into the Pew Forums website. You can do so by clicking here. http://www.pewforum.org/global-religious-landscape.aspx THE ISRAELI ELECTION Shortly after you receive this edition of DD the Israelis will be going to the polls to elect a new government. I want to clearly state for the record that I am not an expert on Israeli politics and barely understand the positions of the many parties that have put forth candidates. To help me (and you?) I turned to an article in Foreign Policy by Noah Efron (He might be a long lost relative as my mother was an Efron). He writes, For the impatient reader, we can begin at the end. On Jan. 22, Benjamin Netanyahu will win the Israeli election and become prime minister for the third time. This much we know

already. He will likely form a government of parties that have opposing views about most of the issues that matter to most Israelis -- the occupation, the economy, the role of religion, and more -- just as he did in 2009. Foreign pundits will lament the country's rightward drift and the growing influence of settlers and the ultra-Orthodox. Where all this will lead in the long run is worth pondering. In the short run, though, it will lead us to nowhere new. This is in part because in Israel voting patterns are a lagging indicator of political change. The massive immigration of Mizrahi Jews to Israel came to an end in 1964, but did not receive full expression in the ballot box until the 1977 elections, when Likud won for the first time, ending three decades of left-wing rule dating back to the country's founding. A similarly profound political shift seems to be happening today, but while most of the new, established parties have scrambled to exploit the changing landscape of Israeli politics, no one (myself included) has yet come to understand the changes and what they mean. Over time, the blurring of ideological definition and the demographic reshuffling that one sees in this election may or may not change Israeli policy in fundamental ways. The new focus on issues like housing, education, tax equity, and so forth could give rise to political coalitions that were unthinkable in the past: say, between the secular social democrats of the Labor Party and the Halakhocrats of the ultra-Orthodox parties whose constituents benefit most from government aid. The focus on economics may, in time, even launch sustained public discussion of the practical costs of the occupation, which may in turn diminish the electorate's patience for the status quo. Or it may not. And this is the point. Surveying with satisfaction the American financial system in 2005, Alan Greenspan praised "the remarkable resilience of the banking system," which would carry on much as it is for years to come. The lesson many will learn from this election is that nothing changes in Israeli politics, which will slouch and shuffle on much as it is for years to come. This lesson is wrong, though it will take time until this is obvious to all. I think you should read the entire article which you can by clicking here. Perhaps you will get a more definitive picture than I did. Its quite apparent that P.M. Netanyahu will win with a substantial vote. However, like in Germany, he has to put together a workable majority in the Knesset. One way or the other it is likely to be a very conservative one. Thats the short term. If Mr. Efron is correct, we will have to wait, perhaps for a long time, to see the kind of changes that new political coalitions will develop. However, for the time being not much change. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/03/unholy_alliances?page=0,1 EXAGERATED RHETORIC Since Im on the subject of Israeli policy, The Washington Post Editorial Board published a piece on the inflamed rhetoric that has emerged especially since P.M.

Netanyahu announced new construction in the E-1 area which both the Israelis and the Palestinians claim as their land link to Jerusalem. They note, Facing an election in which his most dangerous competition is from the far right, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has adopted a familiar tactic: a flurry of announcements of new construction in Jewish settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The predictable result has been a storm of denunciations by the United States and every other member of the U.N. Security Council, along with dire predictions that the new building would make a negotiated two-state solution ... very difficult to achieve, as British Foreign Secretary William Hague put it. The criticism is appropriate, in the sense that such unilateral action by Israel, like the unilateral Palestinian initiative to seek statehood recognition in November from the U.N. General Assembly, serves to complicate the negotiations that are the only realistic route to a Middle East peace. But the reaction is also counterproductive because it reinforces two mistaken but widely held notions: that the settlements are the principal obstacle to a deal and that further construction will make a Palestinian state impossible. Twenty-five years ago, Israels government openly aimed at building West Bank settlements that would block a Palestinian state. But that policy changed following the 1993 Oslo accords. Mr. Netanyahus government, like several before it, has limited building almost entirely to areas that both sides expect Israel to annex through territorial swaps in an eventual settlement. For example, the Jerusalem neighborhoods where new construction was announced last month were conceded to Israel by Palestinian negotiators in 2008. Overall, the vast majority of the nearly 500,000 settlers in Jerusalem and the West Bank live in areas close to Israels 1967 borders. Data compiled by the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace show that more than 80 percent of them could be included in Israel if the country annexed just more than 4 percent of the West Bank less than the 5 percent proposed by President Bill Clinton 12 years ago. Diplomats were most concerned by Mr. Netanyahus decision to allow planning and zoning but not yet construction in a four-mile strip of territory known as E-1 that lies between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, a settlement with a population of more than 40,000. Palestinians claim that Israeli annexation of the land would cut off their would-be capital in East Jerusalem from the West Bank and block a key northsouth route between West Bank towns. Israel wants the land for similar reasons, to prevent Maale Adumim which will almost certainly be annexed to Israel in any peace deal from being isolated. Both sides insist that the other can make do with a road corridor. This is a difficult issue that should be settled at the negotiating table, not by fiat. But

Mr. Netanyahus zoning approval is hardly the almost fatal blow to a two-state solution that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described. The exaggerated rhetoric is offensive at a time when the Security Council is refusing to take action to stop the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians including many Palestinians by the Syrian regime. But it is also harmful, because it puts pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to make a freeze on the construction a condition for beginning peace talks. Mr. Abbas had hinted that he would finally drop that demand, which has prevented negotiations for most of the past four years, after the General Assemblys statehood vote. If Security Council members are really interested in progress toward Palestinian statehood, they will press Mr. Abbas to stop using settlements as an excuse for intransigence and cool their own overheated rhetoric. I think the WP analysis is quite evenhanded and I think they are to be congratulated on pointing out the difficulties made worse by the use of heated language by nations pushing their own agendas. The word settlement is not a dirty word. Enlarging the geographic midsection of Israel which was only 9 miles wide prior to 1967 is a matter of national security. No matter what, they are not about to change their policy of expanding it. An Israel that could easily be cut in half in a ground war should not be an expectation of any sensible observer nation. And as the WP article states, If Security Council members are really interested in progress toward Palestinian statehood, they will press Mr. Abbas to stop using settlements as an excuse for intransigence and cool their own overheated rhetoric.