Deep South File :: Bracing for Gustav

For the New Orleans Jewish community, this weekend was supposed to be much different.

Today, Beth Israel Congregation was to unveil a headstone where they buried the congregation's seven Torahs that were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina three years ago. Photos of the scrolls' evacuation through waist-deep water in the congregation's sanctuary were published worldwide after Katrina.

The ceremony was to cap a weekend that was to mark the progress New Orleans has made in the three years since being devastated after the levees failed during what is known locally simply as "the storm."

In addition to reopening all of the city's Jewish institutions despite a drop in Jewish residents from 9,500 pre-Katrina to about 7,000 afterward, incentive programs that are part of "reinventing" the community have attracted about 600 Jewish newcomers.

Instead of marking such progress, the Jewish community joined the rest of the city in leaving town in advance of Hurricane Gustav, which as of now is a Category 3 storm -- the same strength as Katrina was when it made landfall.

Gustav is expected to make landfall tomorrow night.

"These are difficult and strange times for us all," said Michael Weil, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, in an email to community members today. Weil, who was hired as executive director two years ago to guide the community's recovery, is riding out the storm in Memphis.

The Union of Reform Judaism's Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Miss., is reliving its Katrina role as a haven for displaced New Orleanians.

Other community members have fanned out across the region, staying with friends or relatives in places like Birmingham, Atlanta and throughout Texas.

In advance of the storm, the city's two Jewish Community Centers closed on Friday and announced plans to reopen on Wednesday.

The Federation's emergency plan is in place, with regular updates at its website, www.jewishnola.com, and through a phone message at (800) 510-8133.

Community members can relate their whereabouts to the Federation by emailing emergency (at) jewishnola.com, or jfgno1 (at) gmail.com.

"This is the time to gather strength, reflect, say a few words of prayer and hope for the best," Weil said.

On Thursday, Levees.org held a premiere of "The Katrina Myth: The Truth about a Thoroughly Unnatural Disaster" at Touro Synagogue. The film warns that what happened to the levees around New Orleans can also happen in many other parts of the country where there are projects also done by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Levees.org was founded after Hurricane Katrina at a kitchen table by Sandy Rosenthal, 51 and her son Stanford, then 15, while living in Lafayette, Louisiana after evacuating from New Orleans. The group now has chapters in Florida and California and numbers nearly 21,000 members.

On Friday, the anniversary of Katrina, Temple Sinai held an interfaith commemoration with representatives from the Christian and Muslim communities.

Also on Friday, Beth Israel began its commemoration weekend with Friday mincha outside its flooded-out building in the Lakeview district.

Since the storm, the Orthodox Beth Israel has met at Gates of Prayer, a Reform congregation in Metairie.

Myron Goldberg, center, president of Congregation Beth Israel, conducts a memorial Mincha service Friday, Aug. 29, to commemorate the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, at the old Beth Israel synagogue on Canal Blvd in New Orleans. Photo by Alexander Barkoff.

H. J. Bosworth, Dee Boling and Sandy Rosenthal, three leaders of Levees.org, at the Thursday premiere. Photo by Alan Smason.

Update :: Rabbi Flax to speak Tuesday night

According to a schedule released by the Republican National Convention 2008, Rabbi Ira Flax of Birmingham will lead the delegates in prayer on Tuesday, not Wednesday as originally reported. The retired Air Force chaplain, a Conservative rabbi, will speak on the day the convention's theme is "Reform."

As of this morning, there are reports that the McCain campaign is considering delaying the convention if Hurricane Gustav makes a direct hit on New Orleans early next week.

Deep South File :: Alabama Rabbi Asked to Give Republican Convention Invocation

Rabbi Ira Flax, a retired military chaplain now living in Birmingham, has been asked to give the invocation during the Wednesday session of the Republican National Convention.

The convention will be Sept. 1 to 4 in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Flax said he was asked to deliver an invocation on Sept. 3, likely at the evening session.

Flax said he was contacted by convention organizers on Aug. 14, and "I was very excited... it's an honor just to be asked."

Yohana de la Torre, deputy press secretary for the convention, would not confirm the schedule, saying it is has not been finalized or released.

When it comes to the convention schedule, Flax cautioned "Everything is subject to change."

Flax began his Air Force career in Biloxi, Miss., in 1988, and has served in Germany, Turkey and Nebraska, and the Air Force Academy in Colorado. He smuggled his tallit and tefillin into Saudi Arabia, a country that can and will confiscate non-Muslim religious objects, even from military members. He also was the only chaplain on duty at the base in Germany the night 57 wounded Rangers were brought in from Somalia in the "Black Hawk Down" incident.

When he was stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery starting in 2003, he moved his family to Birmingham and chose to retire there after a final posting in Texas. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel on June 1.

This month, Flax will also begin serving as a visiting rabbi for Beth Israel in Biloxi. The congregation lost its building in Hurricane Katrina and has been meeting at a church for almost three years. Groundbreaking on a new building in nearby Gulfport is anticipated in the next couple of months.

Flax will visit Biloxi monthly to lead services. "It's kind of a nice homecoming," he said, since that is where he first started.

Nation File :: Camps' Color Wars Turn Green As Campers Seek More Aid

Foundation for Jewish Camp
Camper at a Jewish camp tries his hand at archery.

By Jacob Berkman

NEW YORK (JTA) -- As social service agencies and charities brace for the fallout from the country's economic downturn, Jewish overnight camps already have felt the crunch: They are reporting a dramatic increase in requests for financial aid this summer.

More than 70,000 Jewish children attend some 150 nonprofit Jewish overnight camps. That number reflects an increase in recent years as the Foundation for Jewish Camp, working with other local agencies and private foundations, has engaged in a multimillion-dollar program to provide incentives to first-time campers.

The focus on camping comes as recent studies have shown that Jewish summer camps are the most effective form of informal Jewish education and identity building.

But many American Jews who once could afford camps, which can cost upwards of $7,000 for a season, are finding themselves priced out because of the squeeze on family budgets due to the economic downturn. This year they increasingly asked for help, according to camping officials.

“The pressure on the scholarship line to support families has been at the highest point that they have seen in many, many years,” said the executive director of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, Jerry Silverman. “In my time I haven’t seen this type of situation from a sense of pressure on the percentage of dollars they are being asked to use to support their campers.”

Silverman said the increased request has been heard across the country. To make up for the scholarship crunch, he said, many camps have been forced to cut other budget items, such as off-campus trips, food and maintenance staff, busing and capital improvements.

Camp directors and agencies that provide financial aid for camps almost uniformly confirmed Silverman's observation.

Camp Ramah New England had to increase its budget line for financial aid from $180,000 last year to more than $200,000 this summer, according to its executive director, Rabbi Ed Gelb.

The Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston tripled the number of scholarships it doled out for camp this year, according to its director of informal education, Ed Pletman.

In New York, the UJA-Federation of New York increased its budget for scholarships for overnight camps from $400,000 to $550,000 to help ease the situation, Louise Greilsheimer, the federation’s senior vice president for agency and external affairs, told JTA.

In Philadelphia, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia saw a 15 percent increase in requests for financial aid, according to its manager of allocations, Brian Mono.

And on the West Coast, the country's largest financial aid program for Jewish residential camps, which is run out of the Bureau of Jewish Education of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma, received 180 more applications this year than it did last year, according to its financial aid director, Janet Rothman.

"On average, a three-week camping experience in California is about $3,200, and if there are multiple siblings, for some people there is just no way you can afford that," Rothman said. "Absolutely the economic downturn is driving people to us."

Many of the new requests are coming from higher-income applicants.

The federation in Philadelphia, for instance, received 81 applications from families with net household incomes above $100,000, according to Mono. Twenty of them received aid, primarily because they also were paying for day school tuition.

The Foundation for Jewish Camp is trying to double the number of Jewish children enrolled in Jewish overnight camps and has been working with private foundations to give out non-need-based incentives of up to several thousand dollars to first-time campers through its Campership program.

Camping officials said it isn't clear now if the scholarships helped ease some of the financial pain or if the influx of campers has also brought an influx of campers with financial needs. But it is clear that in some parts of the country, the program itself has been crimped by the economy.

The New York federation, for instance, saw a slowdown in the growth of its incentive program as fewer parents than expected applied for the scholarships, said Greilsheimer. Despite the discount from the scholarships, parents simply could not afford to pay the rest of the price of tuition, she said.

The situation stands to get worse, according to Miriam Chilton, the director of business operations for camping and Israel programs for the Union for Reform Judaism.

The URJ operates 12 overnight camps for some 9,000 campers and allocates about $1 million annually for three financial aid programs, Chilton said. But for next year, the URJ already is looking at increasing the financial aid number to $1.5 million.

Camp officials told JTA they already are starting to raise more money for next year.

The Foundation for Jewish Camp has never been in the business of giving need-based scholarships. But for the first time, Silverman said, the foundation is considering rolling out a financial aid component.

In New York, it is running a pilot program with two camps to help the neediest attend camp, as well as to help them with supplementary money to pay for clothes and other camp expenses.

Increasing dollars will be a daunting task, Chilton said, given that fund raising becomes even more difficult in a tightened economy. She said she already has seen "donors who are taking much, much longer to commit."

"It's a catch-22 situation because often times when need is greatest, funding is the lowest, and that is goign to be the conundrum going forward," Chilton said.

And, she added, "The question is how long can we sustain this. If it is one season, we will be OK. But the question is will it be multiple years."

World File :: For Kampala's Needy Orphans, Israel Provides A Shining Light

Jonathan Pulik
Qasasa Ayeha, the head teacher at the Little Light Children’s Centre in Kampala, builds a sand castle with preschoolers on an outing to the Entebbe Botanical Garden.

By Jonathan Pulik

KAMPALA, Uganda (JTA) -- Bleak and dusty, the Namuwongo slum stretches along the main rail line that runs through this capital city.

Shantytown dwellers who use the tracks as a pedestrian thoroughfare are killed or maimed regularly by passing trains.

Yards away, among the wooden shacks, stand the bamboo walls of a kindergarten for some of the slum's neediest children.

Started last year by an oncologiy intern from Tel Aviv who was volunteering in Uganda with the Israel-based humanitarian aid organization Brit Olam, the Little Light Children's Centre is filled with AIDS orphans, children who are disabled and disfigured, and regular kids from the slums.

''We decided to invest in young children with no place to go, nourish them and prepare them for school,'' says the physician, Shiri Tenenboim, who has since returned to Israel. She helps manage the school's administration and fund-raising efforts from Tel Aviv.

Children come to Little Light from as far away as neighboring Congo, where a savage war turned them and their families into refugees. One girl's face is scarred permanently by burns from a falling candle that set her bed alight as she slept. Fewer than 10 percent of Ugandans have electricity at home.

Five days a week, about 60 children aged 3 to 7 eat a nutritious breakfast and learn from teachers who are trained with funds raised in Israel. The money comes from donations made by Israeli companies and funds raised by the sale in Israel of bead necklaces made in Uganda.

Along with a steady stream of Israeli volunteers, the kindergarten is run by Qasasa Ayeha, a resident of the slum, a devout Muslim and a diehard fan of Israel's Maccabi Haifa soccer club.

Not yet a formally qualified teacher, Qasasa is in the midst of two years of training -- paid for with Israeli donations. She says the experience has changed her view of Israelis.

''I had never met Israelis before,'' she says. ''I knew them as inflexible and sophisticated weapons makers. After seeing the film about the storming of Entebbe, I thought they had supernatural powers!''

For their part, the Israeli volunteers say that what impresses them about Qasasa is her ''innate wisdom'' and versatility. Qasasa even improvised a religion-neutral grace before meals that works for both the kindergarten's Christian and Muslim children. In Uganda, prayer is a fixture in most schools and in the workplace.

On a weekend outing to the Entebbe botanical garden some 20 miles from Kampala, Qasasa stands at the ready with her first-aid kit, nursing scrapes and mosquito bites almost before they happen. For some of the children, it is their first ride in a car. One toddler becomes motion sick, vomiting on her Sunday best.

Later, playing soccer with the children, Qasasa's flowing black abaya doesn't stop her from diving to the ground to make a save.

''The kids really change when they come to the school,'' she says. ''Some used to buy alcohol. Now it's sweets. I give them basic knowledge, and they take it higher.''

Until Little Light was established, many of the children who attend the kindergarten spent their days picking through the mountains of trash that litter the slum. Searching for scrap metal, bottles and other valuables, they'd sell their findings for a few cents to feed themselves and their families.

''They had nails like talons to scavenge,'' Qasasa says.

In the school's early days, heavy rains would turn its dirt floor into a muddy quagmire. Then an Israeli construction firm in Kampala poured a concrete floor here free of charge.

Mercy Annet, whose 3-year-old son Kinene Ramson attends the preschool, says the school has helped make Kinene healthy and strong.

''They care so much for the kids,'' Annet says. ''They give him milk, which we can't afford.''

Tenenboim says eventually the school will be part of a comprehensive, community-run center that will also host older children and evening parenting classes. It just may take a little time.

"It’s the difficult things that we do quickly; the impossible takes a little longer,'' she says, quoting the late Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.

''Israel is now a flourishing country, an example to struggling ones like Uganda. I see international aid as the new Zionism,'' Tenenboim says. ''We did it ourselves with the help of the international community. Now it's time to give back.''

World File :: Relief Groups Assist Refugees Caught In Caucasus Conflict

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Victims of the Georgia-Russia conflict adjust to their new surroundings in a Russian refugee camp in Alagir, on the border of South Ossetia.

By Grant Slater

MOSCOW (JTA) – Vissarion Manasherov left his city as the bombs were falling.

One day later, on Monday, with bombs still falling, he returned to Gori, a city at the edge of war, to convince the few Jewish families still in the area to leave. The Russians were at their doorstep, he told them.

Manasherov, the community's leader and a local emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel, said he fled to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi with a wave of 200 Jews, leaving fewer than a dozen compatriots behind.

"I was the last to leave," he said. "But I went back. And we'll go back."

As the conflict between Georgia and Russia moved toward an uneasy stalemate Tuesday, the migration of refugees away from the devastated capital of the breakaway republic of South Ossetia spread further and more Jews emerged from the fog of war.

Ossetians and Georgians fled north to Russia through a mountain tunnel or south to Tbilisi, while others boarded planes to Israel.

The evacuation effort has been a lightning, joint project of international Jewish organizations working in close conjunction with the Israeli government. The Israeli Embassy has become a hub of activity where leaders and refugees have shuttled to and from since the conflict began.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, one of the agencies working on the ground, estimates that more than 700 Jews have been displaced in recent days.

Jews caught on both sides of the conflict looked back at the damage with starkly different political viewpoints.

"Who's at fault? Who bombed whom? Who fired the first shot?" Manasherov said by telephone from the Israeli Embassy in Tbilisi. "War is war. It's hard to say who is right and who is at fault."

Russia has taken a hard line against Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, branding his initial incursion into South Ossetia as genocide and strongly defending its campaign into undisputed Georgian territory.

Following days of fighting, which left an estimated 2000 dead and scores more wounded, leaders from Georgia and Russia took tentative steps toward ending the latest conflagration in the war-weary Caucasus region -- Russia's largest use of force outside its borders since 1989.

On Tuesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced an end to attacks beyond Georgia's border with South Ossetia while Saakashvili pressed a cease-fire agreement. Saakashvili also announced to thousands in Tbilisi that Georgia would leave the Commonwealth of Independent States, an umbrella organization largely controlled by Russia.

The conflagration began Aug. 8 when Russian tanks and soldiers poured into South Ossetia, which fought a war for independence from Georgia in the early 1990s. Russia said it was protecting its citizens and peacekeepers from a Georgian attempt to secure the capital, Tskhinvali.

Amid the uncertainty, Jewish rescue and relief agencies worked throughout the fighting and planned to continue their work to assist refugees in need.

The Jewish Agency helped evacuate 31 Georgians to Israel aboard special flights Tuesday. The agency said others have applied to make aliyah and their paperwork is being expedited.

Alex Katz, the Jewish Agency's emissary to the former Soviet Union, accompanied Gori's community leader Manasherov to the city on Monday and saw columns of Georgian troops leaving the city.

The JDC, meanwhile, has eight representatives in the region helping to locate and rescue local Jews, as well as provide food and medical relief in both Georgia and Russia.

The head regional representative said the JDC had helped evacuate a Jewish family from a bombed-out building in Gori on Monday.

Most of the more than 200 Georgian Jewish refugees who have made their way to Tbilisi are staying with relatives and friends there. Between 10,000 to 12,000 Jews live in Georgia, mostly in the capital.

The local Chabad community, headed by Rabbi Avraham Michaelashvili, organized a three-day blood drive for victims, and Chabad rabbis have worked to ensure safe passage for a group of 50 Israeli tourists vacationing on the Black Sea, according to reports from the Chabad Web site.

In the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali, the JDC listed the number of Jews at 19, as of one month ago. Before wave after wave of ethnic conflict shook the foundations of Tskhinvali starting in 1992, there was a growing Jewish community of more than 2,000 people in the city of 30,000.

Nothing was heard for days from these refugees.

But the JDC representative in Vladikavkaz, the Russian regional capital closest to the conflict, said they had located five of the Tskhinvali Jews, including girls aged 6 and 16. The girls had made their way to the Russian city with the younger girl's grandmother after spending several days huddled in a basement without food or water.

The representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity owing to safety concerns, said the experience of hiding from the shelling in the Ossetian capital had badly shaken the teenager.

On the Russian border, the representative said the Russian government was refusing help from international aid organizations and the JDC was the only nongovernmental organization operating in Vladikavkaz.

In the United States, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, alongside a group that advocates for Jews in the former Soviet Union, NCSJ, released a statement rebuking Russia for its forays into Georgian territory and calling for an end to the hostilities.

"We urge that the cease-fire be implemented fully and immediately, and that the status quo be re-established," the statement said.

Local Jewish groups were more reluctant to take sides.

World File :: Maccabiah Bridge Collapse Survivor Beats The Odds To Reach Beijing

Peter Haskin/Australian Jewish News
David Zalcberg in action at the Maccabi Pan Am Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in December 2007.

By Dan Goldberg

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) -- David Zalcberg has cheated death and defied his doctors to compete in Beijing.

Zalcberg was 16, a rising Australian table tennis star, when he survived what he called the "horrendous experience" of the 1997 Maccabiah Games disaster.

A footbridge collapsed, plunging him and the rest of the Australian team into the polluted waters of the Yarkon River.

Four Australians died and scores were injured, including one of Zalcberg's table tennis teammates, who broke both of his legs.

Zalcberg would face more challenges.

In 2006, during the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, the left-hander suffered a prolapsed disc, sending him to the sidelines for eight months. In January 2007, during his first training session, he crashed his bicycle and broke his arm in two places.

“The doctors said I would never play again,” he told JTA on the eve of his departure for China.

It wasn’t until mid-2007 that he began the long road to recovery. Last month he won the doubles championship at the Australian Open, with partner William Henzel, for the third time.

Zalcberg, 27, says qualifying for Beijing was a bigger deal than competing at the Athens Olympics in 2004.

“I feel very, very lucky," he says. "The highlight of my career, for sure, would have to be qualifying for these Olympics.”

Zalcberg is one of six table tennis players – three men and three women – from the Oceania region to reach Beijing. The top 64 players in the world qualify for the Olympics and compete in singles and a Davis Cup-style team event, which begins Wednesday.

He was the lone Australian Jewish athlete to make it to Beijing. Four qualified for Athens.

Zalcberg, who grew up playing at Maccabi and has competed at the North American and Pan-American Maccabi Games, recognizes the irony of playing table tennis in China -- the overwhelming favorite to take the gold medal.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “To the Chinese it’s the premier event; they are so good. They have 20 million players and we have 20 million people in the whole of Australia!”

A graduate of Mount Scopus College, one of the largest Jewish schools in the country, Zalcberg just completed his medical degree and will begin working as a trainee doctor when he returns from China.

Regardless of his medal chances, Zalcberg is grateful to be donning a green-and-gold jersey for his country.

“I feel very lucky just to be able to get here,” he said. “This one’s pretty special.”

Israel File :: Israeli Swimmer's Olympic Dreams Marred By Father's Tragic Death

By Roy Eitan

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israeli swimmer Alon Mandel realized his father's dream when he qualified for the Olympic team.

Sadly, his father won't be there to see his son compete, after an accident at the family's Netanya home claimed Costa Mandel's life.

In a tragic irony, Alon, 20, was in Beijing preparing to vie for a medal when he learned that his father suffered fatal head injuries after falling off a ladder outside the family home Wednesday night while trying to hang up a banner honoring his son's Olympic bid. Costa was also Alon's longtime coach.

"How do you say 'semifinals' in Chinese?" read the hand-painted banner, a testament to Costa's optimism about the prospects of Alon, who joined the Israeli delegation after another swimmer was disqualified.

For the Mandel family, the loss was made more acute by the dilemma of whether to recall Alon from the Games. He is scheduled to compete Monday in the 200-meter butterfly race.

Alon's mother, Rina, decided that the best way to honor Costa's memory would be for her son to compete. His sister Maya joined him in Beijing, while another sister remained in Netanya to help arrange the funeral.

"You have to stay there and be strong," Rina told Alon by phone Thursday in a conversation recorded by Israel's Channel 10 television.

"You know your father waited for this moment. Your parents waited for this. We will be among 42 sets of parents watching," she said, in reference to the size of Israel's biggest-ever Olympic delegation.

Judaism places great importance on honoring the dead by attending the burial and, in the case of next of kin, giving up all activities to sit for the seven-day shiva.

Not everyone agreed with the Mendels' thinking. Reams of comments on Web sites disapproved of Alon's staying in Beijing.

Channel 10 quoted Alon as saying that when he swims Monday, he will imagine his father sitting in the audience, cheering him on along with the rest of his family and the State of Israel.

"I intend to muster all my strength and compete," he said.

According to Ha'aretz, Alon will fly back to Israel after competing to take part in what remains of the shiva week.

World File :: Israel Brings Its Largest Contingent, Great Expectations To Beijing

Alison Klayman
Beijing welcomes Israel to the Olympic Games

By Alison Klayman

BEIJING (JTA) -- The largest contingent in Israeli Olympic history is eyeing its biggest medal haul as the 2008 Games get under way here.

Two of the five medal winners in the country's Olympic history are among the 43 athletes -- nearly half females -- competing in China. Plus there are hopes for several others.

Michael Kolganov, who won a bronze medal in kayaking at the 2000 Games in Sydney, was designated the flag-bearer for the opening ceremony Friday evening.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, who composed a poem about the Olympics, joined Kolganov and others from the Israeli delegation at the ceremony.

Arik Ze’evi is back after taking the bronze in judo at the 2004 Games in Athens. With third-place finishes in the 2007 and 2008 European Championships, expectations for him are high.

Gil Fridman, who won the gold in men’s windsurfing in Athens, is not on this year's squad.

But the 470 men’s sailing duo of Udi Gal and Gidi Kliger is coming off three straight bronze medals in the World Championships and a bronze in the European Championship.

Israel, which has never won more than two medals in an Olympics, is also looking for hardware from its men's doubles tennis team of Andy Ram and Yoni Erlich. Ranked No. 5 in the world, Ram and Erlich captured their first Grand Slam title at the Australia Open in January, and reached the quarterfinals last month at Wimbledon.

While the expectations are high, most of the athletes are making their Olympic debuts and are relatively young.

"Many will continue on to the next Games,” predicted Ephraim Zinger, the Israel Olympic Committee secretary-general and mission chief.

Zinger told JTA that Kolganov was chosen as the flag bearer for his "personality." A native of the former Soviet Union, Kolganov made aliyah as a teenager, eventually moving from Haifa to a Jordan Valley kibbutz. He fulfilled his military obligation by serving in the army's program for sporting excellence.

"He is a kind of role model, as someone who made aliyah when he was young and became a successful part of Israeli society,” Zinger told JTA.

Kolganov won the bronze in the K1 500 meters in Sydney and finished fourth in the 1000-meter race, falling just short of becoming the only Israeli to earn two medals in a single Olympics.

Not all the Israeli athletes were on hand for the opening ceremony. The Israel Olympic Committee is flying in the competitors according to the date of their events and a formula for calculating the amount of time needed to acclimate to a new time zone.

Zinger says the Israelis do not have any extra security accommodations in China. Eleven Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Games in Munich.

“We live in the Olympic Village like all the other athletes, and we rely on the experience and expertise of the local authorities to do their best so we can compete peacefully and go back safely,” said Zinger, who noted that the Israel Olympic Committee has invested some $20 million over the past four years in preparation for the Beijing Olympics.

“The Olympic Security Department made an assessment and drew up a list of countries with the most sensitive security issues, and I can tell you we aren’t the only ones, and we aren’t at the top of the list either,” Zinger said.

Israel File :: Red Sea - Dead Sea Canal Idea Stirs Controversy

Uriel Heilman
One of the ideas for saving the Dead Sea, whose rapid retreat is visible in this bird's-eye view, is constructing a channel to bring sea water from the Red Sea.

By Dina Kraft

HERZLIYA, Israel (JTA) – On aerial photographs, the shrinking Dead Sea juts into the surrounding desert landscape like a blue index finger.

As part of the effort to prevent this finger from becoming a mere smudge on the map by 2050, the World Bank is conducting a $14 million study into the practicalities of building a channel to bring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, which is shrinking rapidly due to evaporation and upstream water diversion.

Proponents say the plan could rescue the Dead Sea while supplying desalinated water and hydroelectric power to the region.

"We will have to balance the technological, environmental and economic issues at the heart of this complex study," Peter Darley, the team leader of the feasibility part of the World Bank study, said at a public hearing last week in Herzliya.

Similar public hearings were held earlier in the week in Amman, Jordan, and the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The governments of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, all of which stand to benefit from such a project, had asked the World Bank to fund and oversee the study on the implications of building a 112-mile long conveyance system -- either a canal or pipeline -- to bring the water to the Dead Sea.

The idea has come under intense fire from Israeli environmentalists and water experts, who argue that more time than the year currently allotted needs to be devoted to studying the possible scientific consequences of the project.

They cite the potential environmental damages the project could cause, whether it be to the fragile coral reefs of the Red Sea or the unique Dead Sea ecosystem. They say alternatives must be studied in tandem by independent-minded international consultants -- not representatives of the three governments involved, as is currently proposed.

"It's like asking a cat to guard a bowl of milk," said Gidon Bromberg, the Israel director of Friends of the Earth Middle East.

Bromberg and other critics of the canal plan charge that the Israeli, Jordanian and P.A. governments are interested in the canal solution because the international community might foot the bill for it as a massive desalinization or peace project.

Alex McPhail, the program manager at the World Bank who is overseeing the overall study of the project, says the bank is being methodical and scientific in its approach. He noted that the World Bank’s approach consists of three parts: a feasibility study, an environmental impact study and a report on alternative solutions.

"It's an environmental question mark and that's why we are doing these studies,” McPhail said. “It's very important that we examine and understand all the potential environmental implications.”

Proponents of the canal project argue that the project could be a one-stop solution for replenishing the waters of the Dead Sea, generating energy, and providing drinking and agricultural water for Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians.

The project also is being touted as a rare symbol of regional cooperation.

"There is an interest internationally in saving the Dead Sea and this could also help bring water to the region that badly needs it," said Uri Schor, a spokesman for the Israeli Water Authority.

Addressing environmentalists’ concerns, he added, "That is why everything is being checked out first.”

“We need to check all the options. If the project is deemed unsuitable, then we won't do it. But if there are no problems found, then why shouldn't we pursue it?"

Some developers see the project dubbed the Red-Dead Canal as a potential boon.

Isaac Tshuva, the Israeli real estate magnate, has answered President Shimon Peres' vision for a so-called Peace Valley to be built along the canal -- a corridor of shimmering skyscrapers, casinos, man-made lakes and 200,000 hotel rooms. That’s more hotels rooms than currently exist in all of Israel. The vision is for a new tourist and industrial mecca that planners hope would draw as many as 3 million Israelis to live in the region.

The project, whose scale would be unprecedented in Israel, has been described as Las Vegas meets Dubai in the Arava Desert.

Its detractors roundly condemn it as an environmental nightmare.

In 2007, when Peres was Israel’s minister in charge of Negev and Galilee development, a government decision declared the Peace Valley project and the canal as national projects.

At the time, some environmentalists warned that political and business interests were being mixed too closely at the potential expense of the environment.

Baruch Spiegel, Peres' adviser for regional affairs, rejects any such notions.

The government made its decision to prioritize the project because of Israel’s water crisis and the shrinking of the Dead Sea, he told JTA. The Dead Sea’s water levels are dropping by about 3.2 to 3.5 feet per year.

"This is a major vision of the president of Israel -- to use water and energy as a catalyst for peace and stability," Spiegel said, emphasizing that environmental concerns will come first and any development that follows will have to adhere to strict guidelines.

"All options are being examined very carefully," he said. "But without a project, things will get worse."

Some Israeli and Arab environmentalists say the Jordan River, historically the main source for the Dead Sea's water, should be rehabilitated rather than undertaking such a complex and expensive project as the canal. They also suggest reforms in the chemical industries on both sides of the sea, which are blamed for contributing to the Dead Sea's dwindling water levels.

Among the environmentalists’ main concerns is that mixing Dead Sea and Red Sea water could damage the Dead Sea's unique ecosystem, leading to growth of algae that could change the color and buoyancy of the water. That would also damage the tourism industry that has sprung up around the Dead Sea in both Israel and Jordan.

Others note that if the salty marine water from a canal or pipeline were to leak, it could seep into the ground water and contaminate local aquifers. There are also concerns that the coral reefs of the Red Sea could be harmed by the pumping out of so much of its water.

"I'm worried," Yehoshua Shkedi, chief scientist of Israel's Nature and Parks Authority said at last week’s hearing in Herzliya. "I have a feeling not enough money or time is being given to research to answer major questions. Good studies have to be done.”

For Gundi Shahal, a member of Kibbutz Ein Gedi, which sits near the banks of the Dead Sea, the questions about the canal plan are not just academic.

"Who will take responsibility for the impact on our lives, livelihoods and what we call home?" she asked at last week’s hearing.

Israel File :: Dead Sea's Shrinking Prompts Concern

Uriel Heilman
The Dead Sea's rapid retreat has made a mockery of signs warning of the dangers of deep water and left beaches like this one high and dry.

By Uriel Heilman

EIN GEDI, Israel (JTA) -- The beach at the Ein Gedi Spa at the Dead Sea would seem like an ideal place for a little R&R amid the frenzy of modern Israel. Set in the quiet of the desert, it has stunning views of Jordan’s mountains and its therapeutic waters reputedly do wonders for the complexion.

There’s only one problem at this beach: The sea is gone.

In its place are empty lifeguard towers and abandoned beach umbrellas lodged in the parched earth that make a mockery of the Dead Sea’s quiet retreat.

The sea actually still exists, but it’s smaller, shallower and much more distant than it once was -- some 160 feet from the original beach built at Ein Gedi. The Dead Sea is shrinking because nearly every source of water that feeds into this iconic tourist destination has been cut off, diverted or polluted over the last half century.

This is a completely man-made disaster,” says Gidon Bromberg, the Israel director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, an international environmental group. “There is nothing natural about this.”

A tram now shuttles visitors from the abandoned beach at Ein Gedi to the new beach, which sits at more than 1,300 feet below sea level. Thirty years ago this beach was submerged under water. In 10 years it likely will be dry, too, and the visitors’ ramp again will have to be extended to reach the sea.

By 2025, the sea is expected to be at 1,440 feet below sea level.

The shrinking of the Dead Sea has become an issue of grave concern for environmentalists, industries that produce Dead Sea-related products and Israel’s tourism sector, which worries that the visitors who come here from all over the world will disappear along with the sea.

To environmentalists, the shrinking of the sea is an environmental disaster that left unchecked could devastate the region in the coming decades.

The sea’s retreat already has spawned thousands of dangerous sinkholes. Created by retreating groundwater washing away salt deposits that had supported a surface layer of sand, the sinkholes have decimated beaches, nature reserves and agricultural fields in the area.

Future development along the northern rim of the sea has been suspended indefinitely, and the sinkholes have taken a toll on the area’s roads. Route 90, the Israeli highway that runs north-south along the Dead Sea’s western shore, has had to be rebuilt several times because of sinkholes opening up in its path.

In the meantime, the shifting groundwater has wreaked havoc with the natural oases and springs near the sea. Some natural habitats have been destroyed, and with them the feeding grounds of indigenous wildlife. Ornithologists say the annual migration of birds to this area -- the third-largest migration in the world -- has begun to taper off.

Perhaps most significantly for the people who live in the region, the economic consequences of the sea’s retreat have been staggering for agriculture and tourism.

“This has cost us more than $25 million since 1995, when the sinkholes started opening up,” Merav Ayalon, a spokeswoman for Kibbutz Ein Gedi, the largest Israeli town at the Dead Sea, said.

The kibbutz has had to close its resort village -- though it still operates guest houses -- abandon its groves of date palms and forego any expansion plans because it is virtually locked in now by mountains or unsafe, shifting ground.

Farther south, at the cluster of hotels on the Israeli side of the sea, hotels built decades ago along the Dead Sea’s shores have preserved their beaches only thanks to an artificial pool of sea water. The pool, which is connected to the Dead Sea, is maintained by Dead Sea Works, the massive mineral extraction plant whose operations have accelerated the sea’s disappearance through wholesale evaporation of water.

If not for the artificial pool, the hotels would be in the desert, since the southern portion of the Dead Sea no longer exists. Though visitors cannot tell that the hotels' beaches are artificially maintained, hoteliers say they fear potential tourists are deterred from coming to the region because they think the sea's retreat has left the hotels high and dry.

“Tourists from abroad don’t know exactly where the sea is located and where the sinkholes are, so they don’t come as much anymore,” said Avi Levy, who used to be the general manager of the Crowne Plaza Dead Sea but now works at the franchise’s hotel in Tel Aviv. “Also, I think, there is antagonism that we are allowing such a valuable site as the Dead Sea to be destroyed.”

Agricultural industries in Israel, Jordan and Syria siphon water from the rivers that used to feed into the Dead Sea, diverting the water flow for agricultural use. This, along with the dumping of sewage by these countries and the Palestinian Authority, has turned the Jordan River, the sea’s main tributary, from the voluminous flow described in the Bible to a muddy, polluted dribble that doesn’t even reach the Dead Sea anymore during the summer months.

In addition, companies like Dead Sea Works are removing water from the sea at a rate of about 150 million cubic meters per year to get at the lucrative minerals beneath the water. The minerals are used to produce chemical products for export such as potash and magnesium chloride.

Potash can be used to make glass, soap and fertilizer, and magnesium chloride can be used in the manufacture of foodstuffs and roadway deicing products.

The work of these companies has turned what once was the southern portion of the sea into a massive industrial site.

At the time of Israel’s founding in 1948, about 1.4 billion cubic meters of water per year flowed into the Dead Sea. That total has shrunk to 100 million cubic meters, much of it polluted. Today the only fresh water the sea gets is from underground springs and rainwater. With inadequate fresh water, the sea has become more salty and oleaginous.

Scientists estimate that the Dead Sea needs at least 650 million cubic meters of water per year in order to stabilize over the next two decades.

Short of a major change in water-use policy, which environmentalists say is imperative, the Dead Sea will continue to shrink at its current rate of 3.2 to 3.5 feet per year until it reaches an equilibrium in 100 to 200 years at some 1,800 feet below sea level, experts say.

There are two main ideas for stabilizing the Dead Sea.

Environmentalists want to restore flow to the sea from the Jordan River. But that would require a sharp reduction in the use of Jordan River water for agricultural and domestic consumption, as well as cooperation between the Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians and Jordanians. At this point, neither seems likely.

The other idea is to construct a canal to bring salt water to the Dead Sea from the Red Sea, some 125 miles to the south. Championed by Israeli President Shimon Peres and Israeli real estate magnate Isaac Tshuva, among others, this plan envisions the construction of up to 200,000 new hotel rooms and the transformation of the desert along the channel’s route into an Israeli-Jordanian “peace valley.”

Notwithstanding the enormous financial costs of such an enterprise -- $3 billion to $5 billion -- scientists say bringing salt water to a sea that heretofore has been fed only by fresh water has unknown risks.

“A decision like this cannot be made without checking the ecological impact on the environment,” said Noam Goldstein, project manager at Dead Sea Works, which has made a fortune extracting minerals like potash, table salt and bromide from the Dead Sea. “It’s possible that with a canal the sea will turn brown or red. It’s possible it will stink because of the introduction of new chemical and biological substances into the water.”

The World Bank is conducting a $14 million study into the practicalities of the channel, dubbed the Red-to-Dead Canal.

For the time being, no solution to the problem of the Dead Sea has moved beyond the review stage. Meanwhile, with the Holy Land facing its worst drought in 80 years, the sea continues to disappear.

Nation File :: Rabbis Give OK, Child Labor Allegations Proceed

Aaron Troodler
Rabbi Pesach Lerner, center, the executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, speaks with a worker at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, on July 31, 2008.

By Ben Harris

NEW YORK (JTA) -- In what could result in the first charges to be brought against upper management at Agriprocessors, the Iowa Labor Commissioner's Office has sent dozens of alleged child labor violations to the state’s attorney general for prosecution.

Completing a months-long investigation of the Postville-based company, which is the country's largest kosher meat producer, the labor commissioner found 57 cases of alleged child labor violations, Iowa Workforce Development announced Tuesday.

Dave Neil, the labor commissioner, told JTA he had never seen anything like it in 30 years working on labor issues in Iowa. In a statement, he described the allegations as “egregious” and recommended the attorney general prosecute the company “to the fullest extent of the law.”

Agriprocessors responded with a statement saying it was "at a loss to understand" the labor commissioner's referral, noting that the company had cooperated with the investigation. The company also claims the government denied requests to identify underage workers so they could be terminated. It asked the public to keep an open mind before making any judgments.

Several documents provided by Agriprocessors to JTA show the company responded to requests for information from Iowa officials conducting their investigation; the first request was made in January. The documents include a request that the labor commissioner reconsider its decision not to disclose the names of suspected underage workers employed at Agriprocessors.

The company also provided copies of termination documents for three employees who were fired after they were found to be underage. A fourth employee was fired for insubordination after she was asked to produce a birth certificate and became belligerent.

Neil told JTA that in April, when Agriprocessors made the request for the names, his office only had general reports of child labor violations without specific names.

“If we had solid names and evidence at that time we would certainly have done that,” Neil said. “We had reports at that time. We put them on notice to that effect. And then we started our investigation.”

The labor commissioner's referral comes as Agriprocessors continues to try to restore its production capacity and revive its public image in the aftermath of a May 12 immigration raid, which the government says was the largest of its kind in U.S. history.

It also comes just days after a group of 25 Orthodox rabbis visiting Postville on a trip paid for by Agriprocessors issued the company a clean bill of health.

The immigration raid led to the arrest of 389 illegal workers, a number of them underage. In the raid's aftermath, employees unleashed a flood of allegations against their former employer, charging that they were subjected to harsh working conditions and sexual abuse, among other complaints. The company has denied the charges.

The Orthodox delegation reported this week that the Postville plant bears no resemblance to its image as a place where safety lapses are routine and workers allegedly are abused and underpaid.

In the course of their one-day visit, coordinated through the National Council of Young Israel, an Orthodox synagogue association, the rabbis toured the plant and met with its recently hired compliance officer, the mayor of Postville and a Presbyterian minister.

Some of the rabbis also met with representatives of St. Bridget's Catholic Church, which has taken the lead in ministering to families affected by the raid.

“At this point I don't see any reason why someone should not buy things from Agriprocessors,” Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, the regional director of Chabad of Illinois and the president of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, told JTA. “They run a very impressive operation. They're very dedicated to making sure that everything is being done in the most appropriate way possible."

To date, no senior managers have been charged with a crime, though a grand jury investigation is ongoing. Two supervisors have pleaded guilty to assisting illegal immigrants in the procurement of false employment documents and a warrant is outstanding for a third.

While the visiting rabbis were careful to point out that they have no personal knowledge of what transpired before their arrival, they expressed confidence that current conditions at the plant contrast with its checkered reputation.

Participants told JTA there were no restrictions placed on where they could go in the plant and with whom they could speak. Several conducted their own interviews with employees, who reported that they were treated well and were provided with ample safety training.

"I was shocked when I walked into that plant because I was expecting a lot worse," Rabbi Pesach Lerner, the executive vice president of National Council, told JTA. In a statement, Lerner referred to the plant as a “Cadillac.”

In the eyes of the company's critics, and even some Orthodox rabbis, the fact that Agriprocessors paid for the trip rendered the rabbis’ conclusions suspect. Neither of the national council's two news releases regarding the trip disclosed that Agriprocessors had footed the bill for the rabbis.

“If they're going and being paid by Rubashkin, then that should be forthrightly disclosed,” said Maury Kelman, a lawyer and Orthodox rabbi who has led congregations in Israel and New York.

Kelman said Jewish law, or halachah, insists that rabbis involved in such matters do everything to avoid even the perception that their judgment could be compromised.

“It's very important if rabbis are going that things look totally above board, and that it’s 100 percent clear that the desire is to do the right thing and not just the expedient thing,” he said. “If somebody's being paid, you're beholden to them. Halachah is very clear about this.”

Lerner rejected the suggestion that the rabbis' impartiality might be compromised.

"Give me a break," Lerner said. "To impugn the integrity of 25 people is out of line."

The rabbis also were criticized for not meeting directly with former workers, who have lodged the harshest complaints against the company. They did, however, meet with one of their advocates, Paul Rael, the director of Hispanic Ministries at St. Bridget's.

Lerner said his group was expecting to speak with the workers and was surprised to see that none were present for the meeting.

The rabbinic delegation, which dwindled to four for the late-afternoon meeting with Rael, sought to establish itself as a conduit between the church and Agriprocessors to discuss outstanding problems.

Rael told JTA he was “absolutely” ready to open a dialogue with the company. Chaim Abrahams, an Agriprocessors representative, said the company was “considering” the suggestion “in a positive light.”

Regarding past allegations, Lerner said he had asked that a file of worker complaints be prepared and that he would take up the issue with Agriprocessors. But Lerner stressed that the main issue now should be how to move forward.

Rael said he won't be ready for that until various problems, like employee back pay, are worked out.

“The minute that I got through giving my little dialogue, they said, 'That's the past,'” Rael recalled. “I said, 'Yeah, but the past is what created the problem.' If their intent is to move forward, I can't move forward until this issue is totally, totally done."

Nation File :: Swimmers Lead U.S. Contingent Of Jewish Athletes In Beijing

5

A. Dawson/flickr
Garrett Weber-Gale, who won the 100-meter freestyle at the U.S. Olympic trials, is one of four Jewish swimmers on the American squad going to Beijing.

By Marc Brodsky

NEW YORK (JTA) -- For Jason Lezak, Ben Wildman-Tobriner and Garrett Weber-Gale, the marketing possibilities are endless -- perhaps “The Three Chaverim” or “Jews in the Pool.”

All three Jewish sprinters are hoping to make a splash as part of the U.S. men’s swimming team heading to Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Not only will they be competing as individuals, but they are expected to make up three-fourths of the 4x100-meter freestyle relay team.

“We joke about going to the Maccabiah Games and setting a world record,” Lezak tells JTA, referring to what is known as “the Jewish Olympics.”

Toss in 41-year-old Dara Torres, another Jewish swimmer and sprinter who will be competing in her fifth Games, and the possibilities rise even higher.

The swimmers are among the seven Jewish athletes believed to comprise the American Jewish contingent headed to China. They are a mix of veterans and newcomers, all with a realistic chance of acquiring medals at the Games, which begin with the opening ceremony Aug. 8.

Already, Wildman-Tobriner and Weber-Gale have their nickname: the “hyphenated Jew crew.” That makes for some good-natured fun around the pool, Wildman-Tobriner says, adding that he is proud to represent his heritage -- along with the United States -- in China.

Another Jewish athlete eyeing water-related success for the Americans is kayaker Rami Zur, who is in his second Olympics for the United States after representing Israel in the 2000 Games.

Some Jewish land lubbers also will wear the red, white and blue in Beijing: fencer Sara Jacobson and marathoner Deena Kastor. Both won bronze medals in ’04 in Athens.

Lezak is competing in his third Olympics and has garnered four medals on relay teams, including a gold in the 4x100 medley in ’04. At 32, he is the oldest male to qualify for an Olympic swim team.

“That’s an accomplishment in itself,” says Lezak, of Irvine, Calif.

At the recent U.S. Olympic trials in Omaha, Neb., the 6-foot-4, 215-pounder broke the American record in the 100-meter freestyle with a semifinal time of 47.58, setting himself up as the probable anchor on that relay team.

“Winning medals in the relays is such an amazing feeling, being a part of a team,” Lezak says, speaking to JTA by telephone.

In part, it was his disappointment as an individual competitor in Athens that spurred Lezak to keep his Olympic dreams. He failed to qualify for the finals in the 100-meter freestyle, though Lezak says he had a “great opportunity” to win an individual medal.

“I took the preliminaries too lightly,” he admits. “I was thinking about how many races I had to swim and I saved too much energy.

“I learned a horrible lesson, but it kind of got me going another four years. I kind of felt like I had unfinished business.”

Now Lezak, who will be competing in relays and in the 100-meter race, wants to mount the podium by himself.

“I’m a team-type player,” he says, “but to do something on your own feels pretty good. I have a lot to prove to myself. I know I’m capable, I just haven’t done it yet.”

He’ll have plenty of competition from Weber-Gale, of Milwaukee, and Wildman-Tobriner, a fellow Californian. Weber-Gale, 22, edged Lezak in the 100-meter finals in the trials.

Weber-Gale, who won the World Championships in 2005 and 2007, will be making his Olympics debut after narrowly missing a spot four years ago. He expects to compete in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle and on the 4x100 freestyle and medley teams.

The University of Texas All-American predicts an outstanding Olympics for the U.S. squad.

“I think this is the best Olympic swim team ever assembled,” Weber-Gale told the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. “There are several events where we could get multiple medals, and we could win all three relays."

Wildman-Tobriner, 23, also is making his Olympic debut. The Stanford University All-American will compete in the 50-meter freestyle and the relay.

“To finally be able to participate is going to be really exciting,” he told the j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California. “It still hasn’t really sunk in yet.”

Lezak, who has been coaching himself the last two years, says he met his younger Jewish colleagues at the ’05 World Championships.

“They were in a different stage of their lives,” he says. “They were in college, and the international scene was more important to me.”

Lezak says they mostly talk to each other about their common Jewish identity.

“You don’t see that too often,” he says of three Jewish Olympians in the same events. “They’re both nice guys and we all get along.”

The younger duo hasn’t yet picked the brain of their more seasoned colleague, Lezak says.

“Once you start getting to the Games, to the Olympic village, people are more curious of the type of things to expect, more questions come up,” he says.

They can all learn from Torres, a member of the Jewish International Sports Hall of Fame.

Despite having a 2-year-old daughter, the Los Angeles native who now works out in southern Florida qualified in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle, though she will compete in only the former in Beijing.

Torres, who graces the cover of Time Magazine’s Olympics preview, which touts “Dana Torres & 99 More Athletes To Watch,” is a nine-time Olympic medalist, including four golds. She established an American record at the trials finals in the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 24.25; Torres broke her own mark set in the semis.

“That she’s doing her best times is phenomenal,” Lezak says. “She’s pretty inspiring to all the athletes out there.”

Her success at an advanced age for athletes has brought suspicions of doping, but Torres has passed every drug test.

“I’ve gone beyond the call of duty to prove I’m clean, but you are guilty until proven innocent in this day and age, so what else can I do?” she told Time. “It’s a real bummer.”

Zur, the kayaker, is seeking his first medal in his third Olympics. He has failed to reach the finals as an individual in the 500-meter event or in the two-man 500- and 1,000-meter events.

The 5-foot-9, 160-pounder is considered a contender as he vies solo in the 500, despite a severe spinal injury that jeopardized his career.

“I want to go there and come back with some hardware,” Zur, 31, told the j.

The native of Berkeley, Calif., was adopted as an infant by a kibbutz couple near the Sea of Galilee. His proximity to the sea helped develop his love of water sports.

“Kayaking was the first sport where I could go wherever I wanted to,” he says.

The Israeli Olympic Committee cut back on funding for his training following the Sydney Games and he left the Jewish state for the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif., where he lived for free.
Zur says the Israelis were understanding of his choice to wear U.S. colors.

Kastor, 35, is another Jewish Californian bound for Beijing. A two-time Olympian, she holds the American records in the marathon and half-marathon. In April, Kastor won the U.S. Olympic trials in Boston with a time of 2:29:35.

Her bronze in Athens was the first medal for an American marathoner in two decades.

Jacobson, 25, of Dunwoody, Ga., brings a No. 1 world ranking in sabre to China. Her sister Emily was on the ’04 Olympics fencing team; her father, David, was a member of the ’74 national squad.

Jacobson, who attends Yale University, is a two-time winner of the U.S. women’s sabre championship.

World File :: Jews In China Roll Out Red Carpet For Tourists, Athletes

Alison Klayman
Dini's kosher restaurant in Beijing plans to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the 2008 Olympic Games.

By Alison Klayman

BEIJING (JTA) -- Gold medalists won't be the only ones climbing podiums in Beijing once the 2008 Olympic Games are under way. Isaac Shapiro will be stepping up to celebrate his bar mitzvah.

Isaac, of Highland Park, Ill., will be called to the Torah at the Chabad House in Beijing on Aug. 16.

Isaac and his family are among the hundreds of Jewish tourists, athletes, dignitaries and media expected to converge on the Chinese capital for the 2008 Olympic Games, which begin Aug. 8.

While most visitors probably don't even realize there is a local Jewish community in Beijing, the resident Jews of China's capital are getting ready to welcome anyone who seeks them out.

The Shapiro family was already planning a trip to Shanghai and then to the Olympics, motivated by Isaac's love of sports and his older sister Chloe's previous career as a competitive gymnast.

When Isaac's bar mitzvah tutor in Chicago, a photographer for the Games, suggested he have his bar mitzvah in Beijing, it all clicked.

Isaac's father, Sam, said the family didn't feel the need for a "big American bar mitzvah."

Sam Shapiro offered many reasons for the off-beat choice of his son's bar mitzvah location. "It will give Isaac a wonderful sense for the Jewish Diaspora," he told JTA. "We also wanted to give our kids a better understanding of China since it is rapidly becoming one of the most important countries in the world."

While the bar mitzvah will make the second Shabbat during the Olympics an especially lively affair (in Chinese, they would say "renao") at the Chabad House, the local rabbi expects a big crowd the prior Shabbat as well.

Rabbi Shimon Freundlich of Chabad Beijing said he expects a packed house in the already squeezed villa living room of the main Chabad House, which is converted into a shul with mechitzah separating men and women every week.

He said he has been contacted by tourists from all over the world, including Australia, Israel, the United States and Europe, and even by some athletes directly. Without naming names, Freundlich did divulge that "there will be athletes at services."

"It will be packed wall to wall, no question," he said, noting they couldn't find a larger hall because everything else was booked.

Chabad will offer services three times a day every day during the Games, Freundlich said, at both the main Chabad house and the Central Business District location.

The main Chabad house will also display a special Sino-Judaic exhibit of artifacts belonging to Jews around China in the last 200 years, including books, photographs and religious items like a Hannukiah from Shanghai.

While the Chabad community will be bustling, all signs indicate that the egalitarian, lay-led Kehillat Beijing minyan will have its share of visitors. Almost one-fifth of the total 18,000 hits on the Kehillat Web site (www.sinogogue.org) came during the month of July alone.

Kehillat will only meet on the Friday nights of Aug. 15 and 22. The minyan decided to cancel its Shabbat services the night of the opening ceremony, figuring that Olympic guests might plan to attend the show-stopping event. Even Kehillat regulars might find it hard to travel that night or simply might opt to watch the event on television.

Kehillat Beijing does not have regular Saturday morning services.

Athletes and tourists alike will be taken care of when it comes to kosher food, thanks to months of preparation leading up to the Beijing Summer Games.

There will be a place inside the Olympic Village for those seeking kosher food and prayer services. There are five places in the Village that will host religious activities, for Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

In the city itself, Dini's Restaurant, mainland China's only kosher eatery that is not part of a Chabad House, will be open to customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. On Shabbat, meals are served after services.

Over a period of several months, Dini's was visited by South African shochet Rabbi Chaim Klein, who in total prepared over seven and a half tons of beef and nine tons of chicken.

"Everything is slaughtered and in the freezer," Freundlich, the Chabad rabbi, told JTA.

Five rabbinical students from Australia, South Africa and the United States will come to Beijing for the Games to help at the restaurant, as well as perform tasks like delivering food or greeting people at the airport.

As a special Olympics precaution, the restaurant has hired a 24/7 security guard. In addition, Dini's will make deliveries to hotels all around the city.

Available for sale at both Dini's and Chabad locations will be a 65-page English-Chinese travel booklet made by Chabad, with helpful tips especially for Jewish tourists.

The Israeli Embassy in Beijing is preparing an informational letter of its own for Israeli tourists, with a guide to the city and useful embassy information, according to the embassy's press officer, Guy Kivetz.

The embassy will provide support not only for Israeli tourists but also for the more than 20 expected journalists from Israel. Israel is bringing its largest delegation ever to the Olympics, with 42 athletes.

Of course, security is always a concern.

"To host an Olympics is not easy security-wise," Kivetz said, "but we are confident in the measures that China is taking, and Beijing compared to other places is considered to be safe."

The Israeli Embassy will also host an event Aug 18 with the dual purpose of commemorating the 11 athletes killed at the 1972 Munich Games and welcoming the Israeli Olympic delegation.

Nation :: Conservatives Issue Guidelines For Ethical Kosher Certification

By Ben Harris

NEW YORK (JTA) -- The Conservative movement released a policy statement and guidelines for its much-anticipated ethical kashrut certification, outlining the social justice standards companies are expected to meet if their foodstuffs are to qualify for the designation.

According to the document released Thursday, products will be evaluated in five main areas -- employees' wages and benefits, employee health and safety, product development, corporate transparency and environmental impact -- and assessed in part on the basis of information from third-party sources.

Essential to acquiring the Hekhsher Tzedek certification is a company's willingness to engage with the movement's leadership. Hekhsher Tzedek is a joint initiative of the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism and the Rabbinical Assembly.

“Transparency and a willingness to enter into dialogue with the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism, the Rabbinical Assembly and their partners will therefore be essential for a company's products to qualify for the Hekhsher Tzedek,” the statement says.

The new guidelines are seen as an important step forward for the initiative, which represents the first effort to brand items as kosher on the basis of ethical criteria separate from the ritual aspects of food production.

It also marks the most significant attempt by Conservative rabbis to influence the national kosher food market, an area traditionally dominated by the Orthodox.

“We believe that we have now demonstrated that it is indeed possible to have verifiable standards in these areas that will allow us to demonstrate that as an enhancement to ritual certification of kosher food, you can ensure that kosher observance is mindful and sensitive to God's creation,” said Rabbi Morris Allen, the founder and director of Hekhsher Tzedek.

Rabbi Michael Siegel, who co-chairs the nine-member commission overseeing the project, told JTA he expects to see the Hekhsher Tzedek label on food products by Jan. 1, 2009.

Though he wouldn't name names, Siegel said the commission already is in talks with several companies who have been receptive to the idea, including a bakery, a ready-made salad producer and a kosher meat purveyor, all of whom would be required to pay a fee for the certification. Two of the companies are nationally known, Siegel said.

In the coming weeks, Heksher Tzedek plans to release a marketing plan and a rabbinic paper on ethical concerns within kashrut by Rabbi Avram Reisner, a commission member.

Some in the kosher world have met the initiative with skepticism, even hostility. These skeptics question what they see as the expansion of the concept of kosher, which traditionally has focused more narrowly on ritual and dietary concerns.

Rabbi Avrom Pollak, the president of Star-K, a kosher certifier that works with more than 1,500 manufacturers, told JTA he is all in favor of treating workers ethically, but expressed doubt that companies would find it in their financial interest to pay for Hekhsher Tzedek.

“What does somehow trouble me a little is the fact that they are devoting all their efforts to kosher food companies,” Pollak said. “I think it should be a much broader effort. All the services that we use and buy should also be subject to the same scrutiny.”

Allen conceived of the idea of Hekhsher Tzedek in 2006, the same year that an expose in the Forward detailed allegations of worker mistreatment at Agriprocessors, which runs the nation's largest kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa.

The initiative received a boost in May when federal agents raided the Postville plant, arresting nearly 400 illegal workers and prompting another round of allegations against the company. Agriprocessors has denied any wrongdoing.

The Postville raid thrust issues of worker treatment in the production of kosher food to the forefront of a national debate over the parameters of kosher certification. Allen said he envisions a day when consumers will look at the Hekhsher Tzedek label before purchasing food the same way some now look for a kosher label.

“I see the kinds of responses that we're getting now from people across the country, letters that come in, e-mails that come in,” Allen said.

“I do believe that people are eager because I think that we have always believed that in the observance of kashrut, our actions are such that is at the core an act of sanctification. And we want to make sure as Jews that act of sanctification is not just a ritual act.”

Nation File :: How Would New Israeli PM Affect Key Issues With U.S.?

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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, left, shown meeting with President Bush at the White House on Nov. 26, 2007, forged a friendship with the U.S. leader.

By Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- When Ehud Olmert announced this week he was quitting, three of the four people likeliest to succeed him already were auditioning for two of the job's toughest constituencies: the U.S. government and American Jewry.

Whether intentional or not, Olmert's timing was notable: Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz -- both Kadima candidates -- and Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the Labor Party, all were in Washington this week.

They, along with Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, are vying to succeed Olmert, who is quitting under a cloud of multiple police investigations into allegations of corruption.

In Washington, the question of who would succeed Olmert provoked uncertainty about the future of the signature issues of the U.S.-Israel partnership: U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, re-launched last year at Annapolis, Md., and isolating Iran until it ends its suspected nuclear weapons program.

Livni was quick to offer assurances that though Israel’s leader is changing, its priorities are not.

"The fact that there are internal changes does not change the fact that a threat exists," Livni said of Iran after meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York. "It doesn't change the interests of Israel that we are obligated to represent."

Jewish leaders in the United States publicly expressed confidence that the U.S.-Israel relationship was strong enough to weather the crisis, but privately many wondered whether any of Olmert’s likely successors could match his warm ties both with U.S. Jews and the White House.

Of Israel’s four main contenders, only Livni and Mofaz can run in the Kadima primaries in September to succeed Olmert. But Israel could see new general elections in early 2009 if the winner of Kadima’s primary is unable to assemble a coalition government. In that case, Netanyahu, Barak and others could compete, and Olmert would remain caretaker prime minister into next year, beyond the tenure of the Bush administration.

New polls taken in Israel on Thursday cast Livni as the front-runner. As Israel’s lead negotiator with the Palestinians, Livni is an enthusiastic proponent of Israeli-Palestinian talks and already has pledged to do her best to close a deal before President Bush leaves office.

She is well-liked among American Jews, in part for her articulate English skills and because she represents a successful woman politician. She is also close with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, with whom she met this week in Washington.

Barak, too, spent time with Rice this week. He was invited to her home for dinner Tuesday evening, the day before Olmert’s announcement, after spending a day in talks with his U.S. counterpart, Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Rice and Barak are both accomplished pianists, and that was to have been a component of the evening's entertainment.

In their daytime meeting, however, Rice was all business, extracting a pledge from Barak to do more to facilitate freedom of movement for Palestinians in the West Bank and to cooperate with Gen. James Jones, the U.S. envoy assigned the task of nurturing the Palestinian security force to maturity.

In his meeting with Gates, Barak said that when it comes to threatening the possibility of military action should sanctions fail to cow Iran, "We should mean it when we say it."

That imperious tone did little to endear Barak to the Clinton administration during his own stint as prime minister, from 1999 to 2001, although President Clinton did defer to the Israeli leader in the 2000 talks with the Palestinians at Camp David.

This week, Barak told Israeli reporters he missed those days when Israel and the United States tacitly agreed on "contours" before launching peace talks.

It's not clear a Barak premiership would enjoy the same collaborative relationship with a President Barack Obama or a President John McCain. Both U.S. candidates have suggested they're likelier to lead than to follow when it comes to Middle East peacemaking.

Mofaz is well liked by the Bush administration for deferring to its preferences, particularly on Iran, and might be seen as a better alternative than Barak.

In Washington this week, in his capacity as the chief Israeli negotiator in the U.S.-Israel strategic dialogue, Mofaz and his U.S. counterparts released a joint statement Thursday after their meeting: "The United States and Israel share deep concern about Iran’s nuclear program, and the two delegations discussed steps to strengthen diplomatic efforts and financial measures to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability.”

If there's a concern about Mofaz, it's his halting English, a deficit that could also hinder his relationship with U.S. Jews.

Seymour Reich, president of the Israeli Policy Forum and a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, recalled the difficulties posed by Amir Peretz, Barak's predecessor as defense minister, whose English was also poor.

"He had difficulty in articulating his concepts ands thoughts to our community. He never overcame that, although he did try hard," Reich said. "Hopefully, any successor will be fluent in English and, more importantly, in the idioms and the nuances."

That has never been a problem for Netanyahu, who was raised in the United States. However, foreign policy officials and Jewish community leaders have mixed feelings about his record when he was prime minister, from 1996 to 1999.

Netanyahu was a tough advocate for Israel, but he angered some U.S. Jews when he courted Republicans and evangelical Christians to press Clinton to abandon some of the precepts of the Oslo process. Netanyahu was also responsible for the sole episode when Israel, rather than the Palestinians, was widely perceived in the United States as reneging on a deal -- when he failed to withdraw Israeli forces from Palestinian areas after the Wye River agreement in 1998.

This week, some hawkish Jewish groups already were seizing on the prospect of a change in Israel’s leadership as a hopeful sign that peace deals they see as too concessionary will be scuttled.

Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, said Olmert’s closeness to Bush was more of a danger than a salve.

"Under the circumstances of a concessionary government like Olmert's, a good relationship with Bush -- I don’t think was a great benefit right now," Klein said. However, Klein credited Olmert with having a sensitive understanding of the Diaspora's relationship to Israel.

Freezing peace talks now would send the wrong message, Americans for Peace Now warned.

"Israel is engaging on both of these tracks because it is in Israel’s vital interests to do so," Americans for Peace Now said in an analysis, referring to Israel’s peace talks with the Palestinians and with Syria. "Abandoning these efforts during this transition would be a major, and unnecessary, setback."