The Scribbler

I can see that quite a big deal is being made of the fact that Israel's Education Minister has decided to finally act in a responsible manner! OK, that's a little unfair. As you might have heard, Gidon Sa'ar has decided that Israeli Arab school kids should not be using textbooks that refer to the birth of Israel as a Nakba or "catastrophe". My question is why this term was ever used in the first place, granted that we are talking about the Israeli school system, not the shameful excuse for education as practiced by our lovely cousins in Gaza and its environs. Sa'ar says that the majority of Israeli Arabs do not consider the events to be "catastrophic" in nature. That might be a moot point, although not as far from reality as one would imagine, granted that they have lived a better life in Israel than they could ever hope to under Arab sovereignty. Is Israel finally starting to wake up to the fact that we have to push the Jewish angle here? If Arab s...

by HERB KEINON Israel finally won one last week in an international human rights court. On Thursday, the Council of Europe's European Court of Human Rights upheld a French ruling that it was illegal and discriminatory to boycott Israeli goods, and that making it illegal to call for a boycott of Israeli goods did not constitute a violation of one's freedom of expression. The Council of Europe is based in Strasbourg, has some 47 member states and is independent of the European Union. The court is made up of one judge from each member state, and the rulings of the court carry moral weight throughout Europe. On Thursday the court ruled by a vote of 6-1 that the French court did not violate the freedom of expression of the Communist mayor of the small French town of Seclin, Jean-Claude Fernand Willem, who in October 2002 announced at a town hall meeting that he intended to call on the municipality to boycott Israeli products. Jews in the region filed a complaint with the public pros...

I was emailed this... "If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have shrugged it off? Had George W. Bush given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, in exchange for a thoughtful and historic gift from Mr. Brown, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had gifted the Queen of England with an iPod containing videos of his own speeches, would you not have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have been incensed? Were George W. Bush to have visited Austria and made an inane reference to the non-existent "Austrian language", would you have brushed it off as an insignificant slip? If George W. Bush had staffed his cabinet and circle of top advisers with persons who cannot or do not keep current on their income taxes, would you have been OK with that? If George W. Bush had been so unbelievably ignorant of...

It looks like an ordinary bouquet of flowers, but it is anything but. "M" was a student for whom I had high hopes. She came to the school in the middle of Year 10 and had a lot of work to catch up with. She toiled away solidly and pretty soon, demonstrated an ability to produce work of high quality, the type that stood out from the rest of the pack. Fast forward a year and she was slacking somewhat. With deadlines approaching, she wasn't making the mark and I was concerned, as were others in the school that she wouldn't make it (it should however be noted that she told me she had spent the last week battling the flu, so I can't be too harsh in my judgement of her). With the final external moderation imminent (it took place yesterday), I spent the better part of the last week bombarding her with emails, voice messages and suchlike, cajoling her into her getting herself into school to finish off the work ASAP. To my immense relief, she manged to fight off the bug an...

Last week, my multi-talented eldest daughter, Hadassah performed magnificently in the school production of Fiddler On The Roof . She stole every scene that she was in, playing Yenta as though the part had been written for her. You don't need to take only my word for it. Just ask anyone else who witnessed her extraordinary performance. She was simply - and I don't care if I'm biased - magnificent. She had the voice, the moves, the whole caboodle down to a tee. We laughed and sang along with the familiar music. It was a lovely evening. Then tonight, we had the Siyum, otherwise known as the Primary School prom. This was her leaving ceremony and the last time she will appear on stage, in front of parents, with the children she has spent her life with since the age of four. It was a very special and prestigious moment for all concerned. And yes, I was emotional and sad. It was as though, through my daughter, another part of my life was coming to a close. It makes no sense reall...

Oral Testimony of Noam Shalit, Father of Kidnapped Israeli Soldier Gilad Shalit Delivered to UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, Geneva, 6 July 2009 My name is Noam Schalit and I am the father of the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. Honorable members of the Mission – I thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you today. I thank you, also, for allowing me to make my testimony public. I know that this Mission is determined to give the victims of the recent conflict in Gaza an opportunity to make their voice heard. So - with your kind permission - I would like to use this distinguished forum – the United Nations – first to address you and then to address the people of Gaza and, in particular, the people holding my son Gilad. Honorable Members of the Mission, a few weeks ago you were in Gaza. You met the Hamas hierarchy. According to the Ma’an news agency – Mr. Ismail Haniyya welcomed your mission deploring what he viewed as Israel’s grave violat...

"On a more serious front, I sincerely hope that when the President goes in for his annual check-up, the doctors at Bethesda will do a brain scan. Surely something must be terribly wrong with a man who seems to be far more concerned with a Jew building a house in Israel than with Muslims building a nuclear bomb in Iran ." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

I was sitting in Synagogue ( Shul ) yesterday morning listening to the weekly recital from the Torah. On this occasion, as on many others, we read about the continuing wanderings (and indeed " wonderings ") of our forefathers as they trundled their way around the desert for four long decades. As you may or may not be aware, at one point, they came across a rather nasty character called Bilaam (or Balaam as he is strangely referred to) who despite his best efforts to curse the nation, ended up blessing them and in the process, realising that he'd bitten more than he could chew by not exactly making himself a mate of the good Lord above. One of the utterances he mouthed gave me food for thought. Looking over the encamped tribes, he stated majestically : "I see them as mountain peaks, and I behold them as hills; it is a nation that will dwell alone, and is not reckoned (or counted) with the other nations" (Hebrew- Hen Am levadad yishkon uva - goyim lo yitcha...