Robert: Ditto about Rochelle's novels. I have had the pleasure of reading her first, "Blues in the Night". I really enjoyed the wonderful way Rochelle weaved the Orthodox Jewish background of her characters.....the story keeps you turning page after page.....and before I forget, my copy of "The Hebrew Kid" arrived on my door step. I am looking forward to reading it for the second time(downloaded it the first time). However, I noticed your picture on the inside back cover. Robert....it's a nice picture. Hardly, the dorky portrayal you often refer to....

Lance:

Glad you enjoy Rochelle's books. She's the real deal. As for my photo, well Photoshop does wonders.

It's one of those things I just shake my head to....why is that that MOST Jews have not awoken to the threat on the left?? Just look at the protesters....you see that they hate Jews and Israel just as much as they hate President Bush and America.
Hitchens is a refreshing voice from the left....I urge everyone to follow Robert's link and read his thoughts.

Well, I don't think Halevi actually had to go through any journey to arrive at these conclusions. As he describes in his excellent book "At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden," Halevi immersed himself into Muslim and Christian Arab religious communities to see if the hatred and other negative impressions and conclusions he had always held had any merit. What he arrived at was a predictable conclusion: the people ain't so bad, but their leaders are a combination of thieves and killers, etc. What a sad thing it is that the Palestinian leadership and their backers in the Arab world are perfectly happy to work on killing and defaming Israel and never do much else. What a tremendous waste.

What makes Israelis and Americans different? Well, we both have a democratic ideal, which helps the decent majority of us to keep the power-hungry politicians somewhat at bay. As much as Israel's politics are fraught with problems, there is no doubt in my mind that democratic participation will live on for a long time in Israel. But America's democracy has been declining for a long time... and that frightens me a lot. If you don't agree, just look at the signs. Despite blips here and there, voter participation is embarrassingly low, especially in crucial local elections. Corporations buy and sell Republicans and Democrats in Washington at will, producing everything from our incredible continued reliance on crude oil to the all-out assault on small business in this country. Partisan bickering helps mask real political discussion and worse, allows elected officials to do the most outrageous things and then claim all the criticism is "partisan." I fear that we Americans are becoming too much like Palestinians theese days. We're being led too far astray by our so-called "leaders," who in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, are now exposed to be the ineffective, self-serving people that they truly are.

Jake:

Again, thanks for bringing Halevi's article to my attention. I don't agree that Arab leadership is the root of their problems and that the ordinary guy is okay. The leadership of any country usually mirrors the popular opinions at large. The Arab world is drenched in Jew hatred and the desire to destroy Israel. To think otherwise is to delude oneself. Halevi is a smart guy but smart guys can often be awfully dumb. Especially when they start to identify with who they are writing about.

As for your idea that we are somehow less democratic because of poor turnouts at local elections and Hurricane Katrina. Poor local election turnouts are an historical fact of life. As for Hurricane Katrina, as Mr. Zimmerman says: "a hard rain's gonna fall." I believe that our republic is stronger and more vital than ever.

Finally: your comment that American society is somehow becoming like that of the barbaric Palestinians who have made a cult of murder and lies and death and whose society is nothing less than a vile thugocracy -- Jake, Jake, Jake, you disappoint me.

Hi Robert,

I thoroughly enjoyed Halevi's letter. I read his book "At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden" and enjoyed that too.

I think that part of the problem is that we do not want to believe that there are people who can do horrible things to others.

I watched Daniel Pearl's snuff film. It was hard.

I have written about all of the reasons why. We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same school, knew people in common etc. Part of me watched because in some way it felt like there had to be a witness to such barbarity.

But part of it was because of my own need to see that there are people who are evil, who can treat others as less than human. It was a bad moment for me in so many ways, but I think that I needed to see it.

I needed to be taken out of my comfort zone and reminded that the bad people are real and that even though their actions do not make sense to me, I cannot allow that to prevent me from taking action.

I need to remember and to help others understand that some of what we learned as children is not true and that is that if you treat others nicely they will treat you in kind because the sad reality is that this does not translate across the board.

Sorry for getting so wordy and long winded here.

Jack:

Thanks so much for your thoughtful and illuminating comment. Daniel Pearl's murder haunt's me. That it does not haunt the world disturbs me even more. His last words, "My father is a Jew, my mother is a Jew, I am a Jew," should be ingrained in the heart of every decent man and woman in the world, but his words already seem drowned out by the dreadful and cowardly voices of the appeasers who will not recognize the evil that crouches at the door.

I hope I do not come off as someone who does not recognize evil. The point I'm trying to make is that too many political leaders all over the world act as a catalyst for evil where they could just as easily be a catalyst for good. I do lay extra blame at their feet, especially because the ones doing all the instigating never seem to be willing to do any of the dirty work themselves.

So yes, the German people were at least latently anti-Semitic for centuries, but do you really think they would have resorted to the death camps without an established Nazi bureaucracy and power structure in place?

Call me crazy, but I think any large group of people is capable of both good and bad. Each situation can produce a different result. In the case of the Palestinians, so much bad has been coaxed out of them for so long that I am realistically pessimistic about their group outcomes. But given some better leadership, things could change in a few generations.

To effectively critique a culture, one must make an attempt to understand it. Contempt is not enough.

I am grateful to Yossi Klein Halevi and Jake Novak for making this effort, and injecting intelligence and a sense of balance into the conversation about the Palestinian question.

I'd be remiss, however, if I didn't echo Mr. Avrech's sentiments regarding the idea that American society is slouching toward Gomorrah is, well, rather incorrect.

Brian:

Thank you for your comment. However, I do not believe that any culture who uses terror and homicide bombers should be "critiqued". It should be crushed. As we crushed Germany and Japan -- both genocidal cultures.

Thanks so much for the link to the article. It was very well thought out and written just as well. As I am not Jewish, I don't think that I can give much of an opinion except to say that history shows that there simply must be a Jewish state and I am afraid that it must be well guarded. I find that very unfortunate, but the comments above are right in that there are evil people in the world and it is best we realize that.

Dear JC:

Thanks so much for your comment. I'm afraid that even after the Holocaust, many Jews still refuse to recognize pure evil even as it stares them in the face and states quite clearly the desire to eliminate them from the face of the earth. They insist on "undertstanding" and being "balanced". It certainly makes our enemies quite happy for it makes their murderous task much easier.

Well, I agree we must crush homicidal cultures... but remember that old commercial with the woman tap dancing in her kitchen and the announcer says: "That's no way to kill roaches?" Obviously, that is the way to kill the ones you're faced with at the moment, so I'm not saying we allow dangerous folks to keep crawling around. HOWEVER, if you have roaches, you're probably also doing something else, like leaving rotten food lying around. Our dependence on oil is one of those dumb things we've been doing for too long, and while I abhor those who somehow try to blame America or Israel for being victims, let's try to have some long-term thinking ALONG with the short-term necessity of wiping out our armed enemies? What disturbs me most about post 9/11 America is that it seems everyone who wants to attack our enemies is blind to some form of policy change and vice versa. The U.S. not only crushed Germany and Japan, but also ended its policy of isolationism that had contributed to their rise in the first place. America didn't "Apologize" for its past policies, it simply changed them. That's what we need to do again.

Thank you so much for introducing me to Rochelle Krich. After reading your blog, I read the local orthodox school's newsletter and saw that Mrs. Krich will be in town in November. If I hadn't read your post, I wouldn't have known who she was and I wouldn't be so excited to go get her books and go hear her speak!!!! Thank you.

Yetta:

Glad to be of service. BTW, you have a great blog. I read it regularly.

Robert, (can I call you Robert?)
YOU read my blog? I can't believe it. I feel very fourth rate. Just stupid ramblings. (Wanna buy one of my bracelets????)
Thank you so much for passing on my email to Rochelle. She just emailed me. I was so surprised. What a mentsch she is. Now I absolutely must hear her speak and meet her.
Thanks again for your book recommendations. Can't wait to get the Hebrew Kid for my son. He is going to love it!
Yetta

"Our dependence on oil is one of those dumb things we've been doing for too long"

The whole world is dependent on oil, and most countries are more dependent on Saudi oil than us (we only get 12% of our oil from the Gulf). If oil prices get too high many countries, esp. developing ones, will go into depression, which affects the global economy, including us. The US reducing our oil dependence doesn't do much in itself. Also oil is fungible so prices don't depend on just one thing.

We not only need to develop alt energy sources that are cheaper than oil, but spread them around the world, which will take decades.

Meanwhile let me tout my favorite alt energy project which is scalable, uses existing technology, and can transform any waste (except radioactive waste) into oil and water.

Robert,
Thanks for recommending LOOKING FOR ALASKA. At first, I thought it was a book about living in Alaska, but upon further googling, I found out it is about a girl named "Alaska".

One student reader, who liked it, has written: "As a student at the school Culver Creek is based on, I enjoyed LOOKING FOR ALASKA on two levels. I enjoyed it first as literature. Though the dialogue is occasionally too clever, and the end includes a little more explanation of Alaska's last night than I'd have liked, ''Looking for Alaska'' is a wonderful book about taking risks, exploring, experiencing life, and coming of age. .. John Green has a great ability to make his scenes and characters breathe, a great mind, and a great heart. I definitely recommend ''Looking for Alaska''.

The give away of the title was here:

"Miles Halter is the exact opposite of popular. He has a couple of `school friends' and is fascinated by the last words that people have ever said before they die. But when Miles goes to boarding school he makes actual friends! And he earns the nickname Pudge because he is super skinny (a misnomer). One of the friends he makes is the wild and beautiful Alaska. Pudge eventually falls in love with this wild prankster girl. But when she tragically dies in a car crash, and all the evidence points towards suicide, Pudge and his friends can't figure out why she would commit suicide. Alaska wasn't that kind of person. So Pudge and his friend set out on a quest to find out what happened on that tragic night. A wonderfully written story that is full of love, comedy, and tragedy."

Thanks for the heads-up, sir.

By the way, what do you make of the casting of Chinese actresses to play the lead roles in the new Memoirs of a Geisha movie coming from Rob Marshall? In the trailer I saw, their accents, Chinese-accented English, fail miserably to sound like Japanese accents, and I feel the entire movie is gonna bomb because of this accent problem. Even though the girls LOOK beautiful, of course, and could pass for Japanese women. (But all their Chinese-English accents are grating, and will in the end, I fear, ruin the movie.)

Dan:

Glad you and your studens enjoyed "Looking for Alaska". As for the upcoming "Memoirs of a Geisha," I won't comment until I have seen the film.