EZ Reads 2/16/11

A surprising number of y'all actually seem to like these, which is a nice bonus. Thanks for reading!

• A great, inspiring piece on RSA/Chofetz Chaim alumnus and Ottowa Rabbi Yehuda Simes, who was nearly killed in a car crash last year, in the Ottowa Citizen called Accident of Faith.
  
• Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic properly enjoys Nir Rosen's forced resignation and loss of fellowship at NYU after tweeting gleefully about reporter Lara Logan's rape while covering the happenings in Egypt. Rosen was virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic, and Goldberg wonders why it took this long for NYU to cut ties.
• An excerpt from this week's Mishpacha magazine, "Pressing Reset on the Recession":

  Since the current recession took hold in December 2007, the employment landscape has changed dramatically across much of America. According to a June 2010 Pew Research survey, roughly a third of adults in the labor force have been unemployed for a period of time during the recession. Furthermore, 55 percent of adults in the labor force who were surveyed reported that they had suffered financially during the recession, be it a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours, or an involuntary spell in a part-time job.
  
  “Young adults have taken the biggest losses on the job front,” the Pew staff concluded. “Middle-aged adults have gotten the worst of the downturn in house values, household finances, and retirement accounts. Men have lost many more jobs than women. And across most indicators, those with a high school diploma or less education have been hit harder than those with a college degree or more.”
  
  Among the frum community, these trends have spelled disaster for all too many families. The basics costs of running a Torah-observant home are challenging even for gainfully employed householders. Pay cuts or spells of unemployment can transform that challenge into an unattainable feat. Family after family has been crushed and demoralized by the ongoing recession, which the Pew team described as having presented the most “punishing combination of length, breadth, and depth” of the thirteen recessions experienced by America since the Great Depression of 1929. Despite talk of recovery, this recession stubbornly refuses to cede ground to optimism and rebounds.

  To subscribe to Mishpacha, click here.

Yellow Card for Yarmulke

Interesting story via Deadspin:



During a game against Austrian club FC Red Bull Salzburg, Hapoel Tel Aviv's Itay Shechter scored after a very nice run, proceeded to pull a yarmulke out of his sock, (apparently) said a prayer—and was immediately given a yellow card.
Update: Per commenter OutKukoced:

According to this article in the Israeli newspaper Maariv (in Hebrew), people were chanting "Go to the gas chambers" in the first half (as heard by one of the team owners). [www.nrg.co.il]
According to this interview (sorry, it's in Hebrew) with Schechter [www.haaretz.co.il] the celebration was, however, not a reaction to anti-Semitic chants, as he did not hear any by that point in the game. He says, however, that afterward (unclear if he means after the game or celebration), he was made aware of the anti-Semitic insults from the stands. According to him, he was given the kipa by a fan for good luck at the airport, and decided right before the game started to keep it in his sock and take it out if he scored.
So, yes, there were anti-Semitic chants going on (par for the course at European soccer games), but no, the celebration was not a reaction to the fans.
And thus ends Kipa-gate.

The Triatholon Conspiracy

A great post by Lulei Demistafina on crying antisemitism

Tisha B'av next year is on a Tuesday. The NYC Tri is the Sunday prior. Again.

I checked the dates for previous triathlons, and to my surprise and dismay, in four of the past five years, the NYC Tri always fell out the Sunday before Tisha B'av. The English dates were in a broad range; but on the Hebrew Calendar the dates were eerily consistent. What could account for that? Even I, a red-white-and-blue blooded American Jew, was beginning to wonder: Was it actually possible that the organizers of this event were discouraging Orthodox Jews from participating? What else could it possibly be?

So I emailed one of the organizers of the event. Why were the dates of the Tri so varied?, I asked. Her answer surprised me. The currents, she wrote back, have to be favorable between 6 and 9 in the morning. And you know this so far in advance? I asked. Years in advance, she responded.

It turns out that calculating the currents has a lot to do with the lunar cycle, the same lunar cycle that sets the Jewish calendar. So the organizers can not create the event around a certain date on the Gregorian calendar—as they do for the New York City Marathon and the U.S. Open tennis tournament; they have to take into account the moon’s position. Nothing to do with Jews.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

There is a tendency among some Jews to suspect anti-Semitism at the first whiff of anything that remotely interferes with, or even inconveniences, the Jewish community, a feeling that anything that can be chalked up to anti-Semitism should be chalked up to anti-Semitism. This mistrust is misguided—and potentially dangerous.

Read the full article here.

Charges in AIPAC case dropped

While the situation itself is interesting, I'm actually more interested in the charge that was used. Via Yourish:

The case stank to high heaven from the get-go, and now the charges have been dropped.

The Justice Department has informed two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that it will be dropping charges against them for mishandling classified information.

What exactly were they charged with? Well, nothing.

The indictment indicates the FBI asked for and received a special warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to monitor the AIPAC lobbyists. While they were charged under the 1917 Espionage Act, the counts against them specifically did not allege they were agents of a foreign power.

These were bogus charges to begin with, and the suspicion is that there is someone in the FBI who has a serious problem with Jews. The two AIPAC reps were charged under a WWI-era law that no one really uses anymore:

Despite the suggestive tenor of the indictment, prosecutors have not accused either man of spying. Rather, the government has charged them under an old and vaguely worded law that prohibits people in possession of such information from disclosing it further.

The reach of this law, which dates from the World War I era, has never been clear. By its terms, it would seem to require every person to protect the government’s secrets — a principle hardly in keeping with the American system of robust public debate. While it is reasonable for the government to demand that its employees and contractors protect the information it entrusts to them, it’s not okay to criminalize discussions among people who do not work, directly or indirectly, for the government. Traditionally, the government has treaded carefully with this law, using it sparingly even against government employees.

And this is how the law was used:

Prosecutors also would make it a crime for private citizens to receive improper leaks — though their brief denies it. In one count, the government charges the AIPAC officials with conspiring with their source, former Pentagon official Lawrence A. Franklin, to have him disclose information to them — and then to disclose it further. In a separate count, Mr. Rosen is charged with aiding and abetting Mr. Franklin’s leak to him by providing a fax number to which to send the material. If this is a crime, then journalists and congressional staffers could be as vulnerable as people who wrongly provide information to a foreign power.

All seriousness, if the law allowed for this, one could easily arrest the NYTimes editorial board for their disclosure of information last year, or other journalists for numerous other things. My personal opinion is that while journalists should be more careful about what they disclose in general by being more responsible (and less about 'breaking stories' or scoring political shots), this would be horrible - and the government typically agrees by not enforcing this law. But for the government to suddenly enforce it here smacks of either anti-Semitism or anti-Israel sentiment.

Swastikas on YI of Hillcrest, Hatzoloh Ambulance

Oy:

The rabbi of a Queens synagogue found a symbol of hate painted on his synagogue Thursday morning, police said.

A swastika was painted on the door of The Young Israel Synagogue, located at 169-07 Jewel Ave.

While police were investigating this incident, they said they found another swastika painted on a Hatzolah ambulance parked nearby.

Police are also investigating symbols of hate found at a school in Lower Manhattan.

Twenty-two swastikas were found scrawled in green chalk at the Murry Bergtraum High School, police said. A librarian and a school secretary found the swastikas and called 911. The words "Hitler Is Back" were also found nearby, authorities said.

The high school is located next door to One Police Plaza.

Police are investigating each as bias incidents.

That's the YI of Hillcrest, which has a Hatzoloh zone right next door to it.