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truth
4/22/2002 (16:12) |
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Since the 1940’s.. Libralism and atheism has been the ' ticket ' for most American Jews. They were the most out spoken as usual ..!!They have gained huge social gains under its banner! But in this new York times article.. This is indeed changing mainly because of the rise of the 700 club ( Armageddon wish washers)!! Now.. it is fascism they will follow!
I guess Murdoch was ahead of the curve when he decided to start making an INVESTMENT into fox news!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/22/national/22JEWS.html
April 22, 2002
AMERICAN JEWS
Unusually Unified in Solidarity With Israel, but Also Unusually Unnerved
By JODI WILGOREN
cHICAGO, April 21 — Every month, two dozen young professionals trying to learn Hebrew gather for lunch downtown. Usually, they practice with chitchat about vacations and jobs, dates and children. But last week, the hour disappeared in a single topic, one that has consumed American Jews lately: What to do?
Buy Israeli products, one young professional suggested, pointing the others toward the imported hummus at the Jewel supermarket on the city's North Side. Send postcards to Israeli acquaintances, offered another. Call a congressman. Give money.
'Go there,' said Rebecca Kahn, 40, a lawyer who just returned from Jerusalem and plans to make aliyah, or immigrate to Israel, in October. 'I'm worried there won't be an Israel,' she explained afterward. 'I feel better when I'm there. I feel part of the Jewish people.'
Fueled in part by an incident last fall in which 'Jew' was painted on the side of her car, Ms. Kahn's commitment is an extreme example of the transformation under way in the attitudes and actions of American Jews.
With the intensifying conflict in the Middle East and a cluster of anti-Semitic attacks in Europe, Jews across the country are feeling squeezed, increasingly worried that their homeland, and their people, are under siege. Public opinion and political statements abroad isolating United States support for Israel have made many here worry whether the tight alliance between the two countries will fray. Not since the wars of 1967 and 1973, perhaps not since Israel's founding in 1948, have American Jews been this united — or this unnerved.
While some Jews fear that any criticism of Israel's military response will be read as disloyalty, and a few report being afraid to put Israeli flag stickers on their windshields, the current crisis has inspired more of a coming out than a run for cover.
Jewish leaders nationwide have reported a spike in synagogue attendance and fund-raising — as well as a 46 percent increase in applications for aliyah, with 236 families seeking to immigrate since Jan. 1, up from 162 at this time last year. The pro-Israel rally last Monday in Washington, organized in less than a week, attracted a crowd estimated at 100,000 people from across the fractious spectrum of American Jewry.
The change is apparent in small ways, too.
A Brooklyn art student, for example, now starts each morning reciting Psalm 121 — 'He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep' — and buys cosmetics made from Dead Sea mud. A 23-year-old woman from the Chicago suburbs sent e-mail messages to every Jew in her address book, challenging them, 'What will we tell our grandchildren we did when there was a turning point in Jewish destiny?'
For many Jewish Americans, the call to action came after the suicide bombing at a Passover Seder at a hotel in Netanya, Israel. More American Jews observe Passover than any other holiday, and the news resonated around thousands of tables, as people read the traditional text's warning that every generation will bring new enemies.
On April 8, just after the conclusion of Passover, United Jewish Communities, a national group of 160 Jewish federations, announced a special Israel emergency fund. The organization has already collected $100 million.
'There is a sense of really being threatened, and there's also a sense the world is ganging up,' said Michael Kotzin, executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, home to 261,000 of the nation's six million Jews. 'It's touching something that's deep within people. Their being is at stake.'
There is also the sense that something positive may be emerging from the perceived peril.
'It's an opportunity to look at a difficult situation and see if there's something empowering that can come out of it,' said Linda Askenazi, the Hillel director at Brooklyn College. 'I think there is an energy that can be had in this situation. It gives me a sense of purpose.'
That energy has been expressed through increasingly assertive displays of support. On April 7, an impromptu rally drew 2,500 to the Jewish Community Center in Northbrook, Ill.
Some 4,000 turned up for a rally in Miami Beach on April 9. A week later, Israel's Memorial Day, nearly 1,000 marched on Philadelphia City Hall with signs that said, 'Stop Arab terror before it comes here again.'
At the rally in Washington last Monday, New Age grandmothers and yeshiva-trained stockbrokers, secular Jews and kosher-restaurant owners — many having flown in on chartered planes — protested suicide bombings and the deepening international isolation of Israel. Young people slung blue-and-white Israeli flags over their shoulders like capes, and children wore T-shirts emblazoned with 'Am Yisroel Chai,' or 'the people of Israel live.'
In Skokie, the heart of the Jewish community in Chicago's northern suburbs, Gary Elkins, an accountant, said he had collected $50,000 for the Israeli Defense Forces on April 14 at a rally of Russian Jews, many of whom he had helped bring to the United States a few years ago.
'I'm holding a bag, people are coming up, `This is for the soldiers, this is for the people,' ' Mr. Elkins recalled. 'They're writing checks, they're giving cash — $20, $40, $60. One guy threw in $1,000.'
For months, Palestinians have been gathering on Friday afternoons to march on the Israeli Consulate in downtown Chicago. Two weeks ago, Jews decided to stage counterdemonstrations; on Friday, 250 Jews and 350 Palestinians shouted at each other across Michigan Avenue.
Max Rovner, 34, a lawyer, said the demonstration the previous Friday was the first political rally he had ever attended. He has also written his first letter to the editor, and he spends hours online each day reading The Daily Star of Lebanon and The Jordan Times, as well as editorials from a dozen American newspapers.
But beyond that, Mr. Rovner said he felt a shift in his identity. As a liberal, he used to look at National Review with disdain; now, as a Jew, he sees kinship in its support of Israel.
'I had never felt any connection whatsoever to the Christian right, but here they are, staunchly, 100 percent behind Israel,' Mr. Rovner said, echoing comments heard across the country. 'Alan Keyes, the folks on the Fox News Channel, Newt Gingrich — I disagree with all of these people constantly. I'm not going to become a conservative because of this, but I have more regard for the lonely fight these guys fight.'
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