And the Winner is.... "Ajami"!

BY CARMIA

Ajami movie poster up in Nazareth

The Israeli Film Academy has just wrapped up its annual awards ceremony. The Ophir Prize is often called the "Israeli Oscar" and this year, Haifa was awarded the honour and hosted the ceremony in the Auditorium (the same complex where the Cinematheque is located). This makes the city look really happening, especially as the decorations for the annual International Film Festival, which launches next week, are already up.

The film that came out as the big winner this year was none other than "Ajami," named after the Jaffa neighbourhood which it is based in. It took home the Ophir Prize for best film, best directing, best script, best editing, and best composition. Co-directed by the Jewish-Arab duo of Scandar Copti (resident of Ajami) and Yaron Shani, the film reflects the mixture of Jaffa. It's a gripping tale of all the balagan that goes on in Ajami: relations between Jewish and Arab neighbours, West Bankers and Israeli Arabs, Christians and Muslims, and everything in between. Most of the dialogue is in Arabic, but the local version of it, which is peppered with Hebrew.

I couldn't find an English trailer; for now it seems there's only Hebrew and Arabic.

ADDENDUM: It seems that the people at Global Voices really enjoyed my piece. Their post on Ajami, published a day after this one, is surprisingly similar to mine.

The Other Gilad?

BY CARMIA

$10,000,000 for any information which leads to the finding of the missing soldier Majdi Halabi

It's been almost four and half years since the disappearance of the Israeli soldier Majdi Halabi. The then 19-year old soldier from the Druze town of Daliyat-el-Carmel was on his way to his base, but never made it to his destination. He hasn't been heard from since, and the Israeli public hasn't heard much about him, either. While everyone knows the names Gilad Shalit or Ron Arad, hardly anyone could tell you who Majdi Halabi is.

The fact that for a while already there has been a $10,000,000 reward on any information that leads to his discovery hasn't brought about any results either. You might see a sign about him if you are the Horev Centre in Haifa or pass by the University of Haifa, or catch the huge billboard up at the entrance of Halabi's hometown. That's how I learned about Halabi a few years ago. Someone has opened a Facebook profile in his name to "support the family." The Hana Fitness Centre in Daliyat-el-Carmel held a "sports event," sponsored by Speedo and others, on the fourth year anniversary of his disappearance. These all seem to organized by family members and fellow townspeople. But that's all. It just doesn't seem to be enough for a state that prides itself on its high concern for its soldiers.

Burning Crosses in the Middle East

BY CARMIA


Cross burning in Haifa

If you were in Haifa last night, you may have seen the burning crosses. Although burning crosses has different connotations in the United States, here it is done by Christian Arabs to mark the eve of عيد الصليب (Eid el-Salib), or the Feast of the Cross. The sight is pretty similar to the Jewish holiday of Lag Ba-Omer, with lots of children out until late, making fires. Along with that, there is the non-stop sound of fireworks going off. Today, the actual day of the holiday, it is quieter and there are special ceremonies at the churches. Hebrew readers can find out more about the holiday and its local customs here, under "חג הצלב".



Cross burning in Sakhnin

Historic Development in Turkey-Armenia Relations

Turkey and Armenia announced today that they would establish diplomatic relations. If the protocols are formally ratified by the two countries before the deadline, it would spell the end of Turkey's sixteen-year blockade of Armenia. Turkey closed its border with its Caucasian neighbor in 1993, during the Armenian-Azerbaijani war over Nagorno-Karabakh. I do not know enough about domestic politics in Armenia at the moment to speculate on whether serious political obstacles exist in the country to prevent ratification. Many Armenians in Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the large Diaspora will certainly protest any change in relations with Turkey that does not address the issue of genocide recognition. In Turkey, there are also likely to be voices, especially among opponents of Erdogan, against opening the border with Armenia.

More interesting for watchers of the region will be the fallout among Turkey's and Armenia's neighbors: especially Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, and Iran. For Azerbaijan, the Turkish move is a serious a blow, as the blockade was one of Azerbaijan's major instruments in pressuring Armenia during negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh. For Georgia, the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border means increased competition and the end of profits from shipping Turkish goods to Armenia via Georgia. Both will likely become even more dependent on the U.S. for aid and protection.

For Russia, which has emerged as Armenia's main backer in recent years, the deal means both an improvement in relations with Turkey and new opportunities for energy development. Turkey perhaps stands to gain the most - on the ground and in international diplomacy.

Dolls and Wheelchairs

BY CARMIA

There is a prevalent belief in Israel that everything that happens "abroad" (which usually means North America and Europe) gets here ten later. Witness the relatively recent sushi craze. Or, to cite another example, recycling has made its inroads but is still limited to plastic bottles and paper, at least in Haifa. Yet, environmental awareness is practically non-existent. So, too, is the concept of wheelchair accessibility.

For just over a week and ending tonight, Beit Hecht in Haifa hosted an exhibit, called "Magic of the Dolls." The building of Beit Hecht itself is quite unique. Most people who have been to Haifa know that there is a German Colony downtown, where German Templars used to live. Few people, however, know that there are still Templar buildings in other neighbourhoods of Haifa: Neve Sha'anan and the Carmel Center. Beit Hecht is one of such buildings.

The dolls exhibit hosted works by many different artists, each unique in its material, theme, size, and style. Unfortunately, for anyone who has limited mobility, which included someone in my party, almost half of the exhibit was off-limits as the only way to access the second floor was by a long and steep stairway. There was an elevator, but it didn't work, and I'm not sure when the last time it ever worked was. Though the staff did express sympathy, apparently it hadn't occured to anyone to try to make the entire exhibit accessible, or at least to warn us before we purchased our tickets.

The dolls which we did manage to see were captivating. They ranged from the realistic to the fantastical and cartoonish.

The doll below, however, puzzled me. It was labeled, "The Druze Woman Who Bakes Pita with Za'atar." "The Druze woman" baking pita is indeed a familiar sight in Haifa and the surrounding area. But I've never seen a Druze woman wearing this kind of costume, which looks closer to the clothes worn by some Bedouin women.

Maybe in ten years, this lovely exhibit, in its entirety, will be accessible to all.

Talk of the Town

BY CARMIA

MadaTech: Israel's National Museum of Science

Ever since the "Body Worlds" exhibit arrived in Haifa a couple of months ago, it has been the talk of the town. Here, like elsewhere around the world, people are alternately fascinated and grossed out by the idea of plastinated human bodies, stripped of their skin, displayed in various poses.

The exhibit has already been hosted by major cities around the world such as Tokyo, Berlin, Los Angeles, and London. It's a bit surprising that little Haifa has been put on the map in this way. Though there have been various controversies surrounding this exhibit or other ones like it in the past, here "Body Worlds" had to contend with angry rabbis. Haifa's chief rabbi, She'ar-Yashuv Cohen, asked the public to boycott the exhibit. It seems, however, that the call to boycott had little success. People are advised to buy tickets in advance online, and even with that option, tickets are fully sold out on weekends. This is despite the fact that the exhibit is open until 22:00 on Thursdays-Saturdays - quite unusual hours for an Israeli museum - and the regular entry price of 85 NIS, which is far from cheap by Israeli standards. It's that popular.

The first time I had heard about this exhibit was when I was in Berlin in 2001. I read about it in the newspaper and my first reaction was disbelief and horror. Over these last eight years, I've become desensitized to the idea and therefore was ready to go when "Body Worlds" showed up in Haifa. Coming out of the exhibit, my feelings on it are that it is less about education (which it claims to be) and more about making money. I think that even though part of the exhibit includes listing lots of facts about the human body, unless one has a background in anatomy or biology, most of the information will be meaningless at the end of the day.

Let's face it: we've come to see "Real Human Bodies," not for a science lesson.

Jimmy Carter's Hamas Delusion

BY AMOS

Jimmy Carter is in Damascus today and had the following to say after his meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and before checking in with Hamas head Khalid Mishal:

"I don't believe there is any possibility to have peace between the Palestinians and Israel unless Hamas is involved directly in harmony with Fatah.

"My own preference is for the United States government to find a way at a very [early] date to have direct discussions with the Hamas leadership.

"The first step has to be reconciliation between the Palestinian leaders to have a stable foundation to negotiate effectively with the Israeli leaders.

"I will be discussing with [Hamas] if they are willing to make the commitments for peaceful relations with Israel in the future and accept the overall requirements for peace and accommodation."

This is all silliness. The only terms under which Hamas would agree to any sort of "harmony" with Fatah is if such an agreement were to extend the Islamists' power and legitimacy. If Fatah does agree to such a settlement, it will mean that its leadership has effectively surrendered. In any case, any Fatah-Hamas reunion is not in Israel's interest nor in that of the U.S. At least not as long as we are talking about the same Hamas that exists today.

Hamas today derives its power from Syrian and Iranian money, training and weapons, and from its security organization in Gaza. Its legitimacy in Palestinian society is based on its religious vision, social welfare organizations, electoral success, and its uncompromising stance against Israel, which it has demonstrated with its successful terrorist attacks. Neither its bases of legitimacy nor its sources of power make a rapprochement with Israel at all likely. Hamas is therefore irrelevant to a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It thus has very little to offer to the U.S. The U.S., like Israel, would do much better to focus on the West Bank, at least as long as Fatah maintains power there.

In the meantime, Israel will probably have to live with Gaza being ruled by Hamas. Unfortunately, the scenarios in which Hamas might be removed from power are limited to the following,

1. internal revolt
   
2. military defeat of Hamas as political and security force
   
3. end of sponsorship by Iran and Syria
   

none of which will take place any time soon.

UNIFIL Hunting Israeli Spies in Southern Lebanon?

BY AMOS

Relatively little has been reported in the Israeli media about the Israeli espionage network allegedly discovered in Lebanon over this past month. The Lebanese have announced several arrests of various figures, including some senior former officers. Now, in a strange episode, the Spanish commander of the UNIFIL forces in Lebanon seems to have inadvertently revealed that Spanish units participated in the hunt in southern Lebanon (Ha'aretz, ABC.es, Ha'aretz English). If this is true, Israel should take immediate measures. Helping the Lebanese security forces hunt down Israeli spies is not part of UNIFIL's mandate. The fallout could be very serious and it certainly undermines future UNIFIL missions. 

Obama's Moves

BY AMOS

Watching Obama maneuvering the treacherous terrain of Middle East policy has been a pleasure. History will show that those who regarded him as a naive idealist did so at their peril. Netanyahu is slowly waking up to reality; others might do so too late and find themselves under the White House steamroller. The Obama administration is as serious about its ideals and goals as it is cunning about achieving them. 

The decision to start off by challenging Netanyahu on settlement construction was nothing short of brilliant. Simply put, Obama and America had nothing to lose by pressuring Bibi on this. No serious person in American politics would today sacrifice their credibility by arguing that Israel should be allowed to expand settlements as it sees fit. In the U.S., there is a small number of (mostly religious) American Jews who still believe in the enterprise, but they were against Obama from the beginning, and the delusions in which they have been living are now colliding with the hard facts. The only remotely palatable argument, voiced by Netanyahu's propagandists such as Charles Krauthammer, that Israel should at least be allowed to expand settlements in order to accommodate "natural growth" in these communities, is itself a huge concession. Moreover, it too has been rejected by the Americans. 

As other commentators have observed, the more Netanyahu and the Israeli lunatic fringe (like it or not, this is how policy makers in Washington view everyone right of Netanyahu) fight with Obama, the more pathetic and/or racist clamoring emanates from their midst, the more U.S. diplomats stand to gain in their negotiations with the Middle East's other regional powers and domestically. 

 

The strategy followed by the Obama administration vis-à-vis the Israeli-Arab conflict and the region is best described as Machievallian liberalism. Right now, he is trying to make the Israelis understand the limits of their power and to force them to make policy choices in response to these constraints. These constraints have in fact always existed, but in the past Israel benefited from subsidies of good will (on the part of the U.S.)  to overcome them. But over time, subsidies of this nature cause inefficiencies and distortions that become unsustainable. 

Now, for the first time in a while, Israeli leaders are being forced to act as consumers (and producers) in a free market, where prices reflect the supply and demand of political, military, and economic power. Unfortunately, the subvention of lunacy has rendered some groups in Israeli society extremely uncompetitive in the marketplace of political ideas and in the practice of power. The settlers, for example, who think Israel can do just fine without America, are suffering from delusions of grandeur typical of corporations who have benefited from state largesse for years. 

The new calculus is very simple. You want to keep building settlements? Pay for it. You want to waffle on a two-state solution? It will cost you. You want to be able to shape responses to the Iranian problem? Quid pro quo. 

Rebbe Sightings

BY CARMIA

I've spotted pictures of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, aka The Rebbe, in several unusual places, such as in a barber shop in the Lower East Side (open on Saturday) in Manhattan and in falafel joints across Israel. However, I didn't expect to see the former Chabad leader at Art Tattoo, the Russian-staffed tattoo and piercing shop at Haifa's Grand Canyon Mall where this picture was taken. Thanks to Yolanda for noticing.

Halakha in the Zoo

BY CARMIA

Entrance to kohanim [Jewish priests] forbidden

I found this curious sign at the Haifa Educational Zoo, and I'm pretty sure that Israel is the only country in the world in whose zoos you will find warnings of this sort, aimed at preventing a violation of halakha, or Jewish law. Other than the usual caged animals, the Haifa Zoo also hosts little museums and exhibits (which look rather old-fashioned), at the entrance to one of which I stumbled upon this sign and observed an interesting scene.

A group of school children were invited into the room, but after reading the sign which forbids entrance to kohanim, i.e., descendants of priests in the Jewish Temple, some of the kids started shouting to the guide that their classmate wasn't allowed in since he was a kohen. The boy, who looked about 13, seemed confused. He didn't know whether to follow his classmates into the room or not, and kind of hung around the door. After having settled everyone else down, the guide looked at the poor kid who was the source of great disruption, and said, "You're either in or you're out!"

After darting in and out of the door a few more times, he finally decided to stay.

I think what confused him the most was that he wasn't really sure who was supposed to forbid him to enter the room: the zoo authorities (and hence the guide), he himself, G-d, or someone else.

When I peaked into the room, I understood why the sign had been posted. Most of the room's display consisted of stuffed, mounted animals such as birds and desert mammals. However, there was one old display case with human fetuses in formaldehyde, which obviously caused very strong reactions in the visitors.

Although the rules derived from the Torah are complex, in brief, dead bodies and body parts are considered ritually defiling and therefore kohanim are not allowed to be close to them.

Sad Comment on Israeli Archaeology

Construction in Maaleh Hazeitim (Photo: cnn.com)

BY NOAH K.

This may seem like utter trivia, pure kishkushim just one day after Bibi met Obama, but excuse me, this is important: a ceramic vessel with a Hebrew inscription was found in East Jerusalem. Excavations in the Ras al-Amud section of the city uncovered a "water pitcher" bearing the name "Menachem," according to Ha'aretz, "marking the first time such a handle bearing this name has been found in Jerusalem." Never mind that the Israeli Antiquities Authority people who put out this information to the press don't/can't date the vessel anymore precisely than "somewhere between the Canaanite era (2200 - 1900 B.C.E.) and the end of the first Temple period (the 7th - 8th centuries B.C.E.) [sic]," which I suppose means either that they haven't looked at it very closely in their haste, or that it's the kind of household ware that sometimes doesn't change significantly for centuries, even for a millenium. Never mind the gross hazards of trying to identify this particular Menachem, with, say, some pharaonic official in the region. The point is if course that the IAA found an Israelite in East J-lem.

So what's the big deal? As I have noted before on this blog, the legal status of excavations and of antiquities uncovered in East Jerusalem (and perhaps elsewhere in the territories), both under Israeli law and under international agreements on cultural heritage, is at best murky. What drives archaeology in East Jerusalem is settler money. And the IAA and other relevant authorities tend to look the other way when enforcement of the law conflicts with the objectives of organizations like the Ir David Foundation. Here, we have something slightly different -- a salvage excavation. Construction of a "girl's school" uncovered some ancient remains that, presumably, were then taken out scientifically. Just like nearby Siwan, another hotspot neighborhood, Ras al-Amud has attracted both controversial settlement building, at Maaleh Hazeitim, and archaeological interest. As Nadav Shragai wrote last year in Ha'aretz:

"Right-wing activists ascribe great significance to widening Jewish construction in Ras al-Amud, and to realizing ownership of lots and buildings that it has managed to acquire in recent years in that vicinity.

According to their thinking, Maaleh Hazeitim makes it harder to create a Palestinian territorial corridor, a sort of "safe passage" between the West Bank to the east, and the Temple Mount."

For me, this is very disconcerting; obviously a combustible situation . The best way to avoid another outbreak of violence like the one we saw surrounding the Dung Gate controversy is to depoliticize archaeology as much as possible in greater Jerusalem.

"Health Expo" Exposed: Undercover Missionaries

BY CARMIA

I picked up a flyer last week at the Haifa Cinematheque advertising a "Health Expo" at the Auditorium, to take place from May 3-8. The expo promised free medical checks such as blood pressure, body fat percentage, and best of all, free massages. Yesterday I finally had some free time to check it out, but the experience turned into something completely different from what I had expected. It's interesting to see how missionary groups operate in Israel.

I had the choice of doing registration in English, Russian, or Romanian, oddly enough. The young man who took my details told me he had moved to Israel two weeks ago with his wife. I was then ushered to the first "station," where I was measured and weighed. Each of the attendants manning the stations wore a white overcoat and was either Romanian or Russian, with limited Hebrew. All of the attendants were either from abroad or fairly new to Israel, and were exceptionally nice.

The next stations were blood pressure and the peak flow metre. After doing the lung capacity test, I was encouraged to leave my contact information on a form and tick off the "courses" in which I was interested (cardiovascular disease, stop smoking, new start, happy life seminar, etc.). The form was titled 'Folow Up Interest' [sic], and the logo included the slogan "Association promoting activities on education, health, and family." My registration form also included the following invitation:

IF YOU CARE FOR YOUR HEALTH AND HAPPINESS!

If you want to continue to learn more on how you can prevent and treat disease, learn practical solution for a healthier life, and share your experience with other people interested in same area:

YOU ARE INVITED TO THE HAIFA HEALTH CLUB!

I was also given an assortment of brochures with the following titles (translated from Hebrew): Rest, Moderation, (Fresh) Air, Physical Activity, Sunlight, Water, Proper Nutrition, and Faith.

I didn't have a chance to look at the brochures until the exercise pulse and pulse recovery rate station when I had to sit quietly for five minutes. I noticed that the pamphlet on faith, even though written in Hebrew, used a lot of the key words and phrases that I've come across in Christian literature. It stressed "a personal connection with G-d" and that in order to trust G-d, we must get to know Him, which can be done by reading Holy Scriptures. These pamphlets, by the way, were also available in Russian and Romanian (but not English). After the "biological age" station, the Swedish massage, and the cholesterol and glucose station, I sat down to wait my turn for the last station, a personal meeting with a doctor. While waiting, I told the young woman next to me that I thought this event may actually be a missionary Christian event. She expressed complete surprise and doubt, but said, in Russian-accented Hebrew, that now she would 'davka' go in order to see what this was all about. I afterwards saw her speaking with her (boy?)friend, who I understood worked at the event. When I asked him about his involvement, he said he only handed out flyers. I also saw her speak to another attendant, who then came straight over to me and told me that I had nothing to worry about. The doctor told me I should change my lifestyle.

I was becoming more and more curious if my theory was correct when I finally came across the sentence,

"המנוחה האולטימטיבית נמצאת בישוע. תנו לאלוהים את הקשיים והצרות שלכם ותקבלו את מחילתו ואת שלומו"

The ultimate respite lies in Jesus. Give G-d your difficulties and burdens and receive His absolution and peace.

almost at the very end of the Rest pamphlet.

On my way out, I saw the manager and one of the attendants who had told me my "biological age." I started asking a few questions, but found them to be extremely evasive. For example, I asked to know more about the "faith" which they were advocating in the Faith pamphlet. The manager told me it's just about belief in general - hoping and trusting. I asked to know what exactly that means, but the manager, who was from Romania and didn't know Hebrew, wouldn't really elaborate. He told me that this expo was only about health and feeling good. I asked some more questions, but again, he was very evasive. When I pointed out that a very specific faith, Christianity, was being advocated, the (boy)friend of the woman I spoke to earlier flatly denied it. When I showed them the brochure with the Jesus citation, the manager said he couldn't read Hebrew and didn't know what it said. After the attendant translated for him, the manager told me that this was a (mis?)translation from America. Then the manager went on to tell me that he keeps the Sabbath, eats "kosher vegetarian" food, and reads the Torah.

The attendant, who actually spoke (accented) Hebrew told me that it's about helping people and making them feel good. When I asked him who was finacing the expo, he told me "we're a charity organization," but wouldn't tell me which organization that was. The money apparently comes from donation. Okay, but who would donate money to this? He said many of the donations were from abroad from people who want others to "feel good." He also said, "who else will take care of these people? I see people here who are so unhappy. The woman behind you is 65 and just lost her husband. Who's going to help her, the government?" By now I had understood that this attendant, as some of the others, was an Russian immigrant, probably with some Jewish background, who had been living in Israel for some time.

I also commented that I found it strange that many of the visitors to this expo seemed to actually be friends with the attendants and not random Haifans who had come to check out the Health Expo. It was now after closing hours, and many of the "visitors" had actually stayed on and were chatting with the attendants. The (boy)friend then said, "Yes, we're a small community." At this point, the three finally admitted that they were Adventists. They conceded that part of their "total health" plan included spreading the gospel, but they hurried to reassure me that nothing was being forced on anyone.

After I arrived at home, I started doing my online research to complete the picture. Apparently, the Health Expo is a strategy that the Adventist group uses to evangelicalize around the world, but they seem to be much more open in other places regarding their true message.

The flyers which the group had used to advertise the expo had been printed in Hebrew, Russian, and Romanian. On the flyer, it was mentioned that the fair was being co-sponsored with the non-profit HOR organization, which is a Romanian Jewish association in Israel. I wonder if they realized that Jesus was part of what they were sponsoring.

Natan Sharansky, from Refusenik to Likudnik to Publicist

 

BY NOAH S.        

Natan Sharansky, the famous Soviet dissident and Israeli political leader, spoke yesterday evening at the University of California, Berkeley. Freshly appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu to head the Jewish Agency for Israel, Sharansky is touring college campuses in an attempt to foster a more positive image of Israel among American youth. The audience in the large lecture hall, however—considering the stature of the guest and the amount of publicity for the event—was surprisingly sparse and composed largely (in this author’s estimation, at least) of non-students who were old enough to remember Sharansky when he was a hero for Americans and Jews during the Cold War. But then, this is Berkeley—a “haven” for “anti-Israel forces,” as the student organizers put it—the speaker was Sharansky—famous now more as George W. Bush's favorite author than anything else—and the event was part of the dubiously titled “Caravan for Democracy” series, which is funded by such local favorites as Media Watch International (a group aligned with Likud) and the Jewish National Fund (among other things, since 1901 a major land-owner in Palestine/Israel which still refuses to lease its land to Arabs). It is a shame, though, that more students were not in attendance, because they would have been challenged by a trenchant thinker with a compelling personal story to think through some of the basic justifications for the existence of a Jewish state.

The talk was brilliantly composed and delivered, though problematic upon close scrutiny. Sharansky structured his argument around “two ideas” which he claims share a “deep connection”: “the desire to be free” and “the desire to belong,” or between “democracy” and “identity.” (The connection between the two forms the basis of a course Sharansky is leading at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.) Those familiar with his books The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror (2004) and Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy (2008) will recognize the argument. It is directed mainly against those “intellectuals,” as he called them, who believe in “post-identity,” “post-nationalism,” “post-modernism,” and “multiculturalism” - in other words, the relativists who believe that “nothing is different, that everything is equal.” (Berkeley professors?)  In order to illustrate this caricatured line of thought, Sharansky quoted (God help us) none other than the hippie-icon John Lennon, who asked us in 1971 to “imagine” a world in which there are “no countries,” “no religion,” and “nothing to kill or die for.” (Actually, Sharansky only quoted “nothing to die for.”). The logic of Sharansky’s unnamed intellectuals, represented here by the post-Beatle, holds that “strong identities” like nationalism and religion are “the enemies of peace.” Strong identities in Europe supposedly led to two world wars; war is evil; therefore, identity is evil. For them, being a human rights activist and a nationalist is an internal contradiction. And by this logic, the nation-state of Israel, which claims to be a leader of the free world yet retains its identity as the homeland of only one people, is an anachronism in a post-identity Western world. Sharanksy has set out to prove these critics wrong.

Born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky in Donetsk, Ukraine (then the Soviet Union) in 1948, Sharansky never saw any contradiction between the desire to be free and the desire to belong because under the Soviet regime both were stifled if you were a Jew. He was neither allowed to voice a dissenting political opinion, nor to learn anything about his religious and cultural heritage. When he attempted to immigrate to Israel in 1973 and was refused passage—thus acquiring the title of refusenik—he became an outspoken dissident and spent years in Soviet prisons. He realized that he had found something—his Jewishness—which he was “willing to die for,” and it gave him the strength to withstand the KGB. In this brief biographical narrative, Sharansky did not take time to discuss why the struggle to express one’s political views and the struggle to express one’s cultural identity publicly—which in his case did coincide—should resonate with people growing up in a free world. A tighter case would have to be made; perhaps those who have read his latest book could chime in here. In any case, the argument offers some insight into the psychology of this Soviet dissident turned militant democrat.

In fact, most of the talk was about Sharansky’s own story, and the move from the personal to the contemporary political came only at the very end, in a rhetorical flourish when he accused European intellectuals of “having nothing to die for.” As a result, he claimed, when faced with a very small minority of possible fundamentalist terrorists whose identity is strong and who are willing to die for their cause, they feel bewildered and defenseless. In the wake of World War II, just as Europeans vowed never to fight again, Zionists vowed never to not fight again. Israel has paid the price in its international image for the post-war move toward pacifism and post-identity among "intellectuals," Sharansky claimed, because it became a nation-state precisely at the moment when the idea of the nation-state became unpopular. The Western nations said accusingly, “We have given up our nationalism, our colonialism - why not you?” Sharansky’s answer is that Israelis need to have a strong identity to fight and die (and kill) for if they are to defend against “all these totalitarian regimes” in its region. One senses that Sharansky’s experience in the Soviet prisons has left its indelible mark upon this man’s political philosophy.