Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

The following is the Comment is Free article published last Tuesday when J Street launched. Before you read it, if you haven’t already visited the J Street site to join its mailing list, please consider doing so. And even more important, consider making a generous donation so J Street can begin to make a difference in Congress by promoting candidates who will engage with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pressure our next president to make every effort to promote peace, not war. Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their country if we are ever to see peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Recently, I attended a private Seattle dinner featuring J Street co-founders Daniel Levy and Jeremy Ben Ami. On April 15th, J Street will launch. It will be the first American Jewish PAC dedicated to promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace:

For too long, the primary and often only voices policy makers and politicians have heard regarding American policy toward Israel and the Middle East have been those of a vocal minority at the far-right of American society.

…Neoconservative, right-wing Jewish leaders and radical Christian Zionists have turned their definition of “pro-Israel” into a driving force in the American political process…

These voices do not…represent the mainstream of American Jews or the broader community that cares about Israel or American interests in the Middle East. Their efforts have skewed American policy, undermined Israeli and American interests, and constrained the domestic political and public debate about American foreign policy.

It is time for the mainstream of Americans–Jews and others–to establish a bold, political voice that advocates for the best interests of the U.S. and Israel, including a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the 1967 borders with agreed reciprocal land swaps, and for American policy that will lead to real security for Israelis, Americans and the entire Middle East.

J Street proposes an overarching U.S. approach to the Middle East that eschews military conflict and embraces diplomatic negotiation; that advocates multilateralism over unilateralism; and dialogue over confrontation. It proposes negotiation with Syria and Iran rather than diplomatic isolation and threats. And it will advance these goals both in the legislative and electoral process as well as the media.

Daniel Levy is a British Jew and son of the leading fundraiser for Tony Blair’s Labor Party, Lord Levy. The younger Levy made aliyah to Israel in 1991, where he worked on the peace process with Labor governments. He moved to DC two years ago to become a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, where he writes the well-respected blog, Prospects for Peace. Levy is the passionate, thoughtful, philosophical member of the duo. He is the deep thinker who ponders the big questions. Ben Ami, a former deputy domestic policy advisor in the Clinton administration is the operations chief. He knows the campaigns and the politicians. He is inside the political process. They make a good team.

J Street plans to do two things. First, it will be a traditional PAC raising funds to support a limited number of candidates for Senate and Congressional races. Second, it will lobby for and against Israel-related bills and legislation. Regarding the PAC portion of its mandate: in its first year (the current election cycle), it hopes to raise around $300,000 to funnel into three to five races in which it can make a significant impact in swing districts. According to the co-founders, it sees no benefit in going after long-serving Democrats who take doctrinaire pro-AIPAC positions because they are too entrenched. Rather, J Street sees its best efforts devoted to choosing races in which there is a weak incumbent with an anti-peace agenda running against a candidate who is open to J Street’s political agenda. Norm Coleman is someone high on the group’s list since he is such a weak incumbent and is opposed by Al Franken, who is already sympathetic to a pro-peace agenda regarding the I-P conflict.

In the following (2010) election cycle, J Street hopes to raise several million dollars and target a slightly larger number of races. Ben Ami noted that he and Levy had studied two critical AIPAC campaigns against Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard. By cross-checking the donor lists they discovered that AIPAC wields an enormous amount of clout with a rather limited amount of donations (in the low millions).

However, it should be noted that AIPAC has a reach that extends far beyond merely punishing those it deems hostile to Israel. After all, it has a $60 million annual budget along with a deep volunteer base. Its power flows in many directions. In this sense, J Street really has its work cut out for itself.

The new group is studying AIPAC’s example and plans to use its tactics while turning them inside out on behalf of peace. Both co-founders reinforced that this effort is not meant to oppose, criticize or attack AIPAC. The idea is that there is room for AIPAC in this political debate while there is also room for a variety of other voices, including J Street.

Ben Ami, who was deputy domestic policy advisor in the Clinton administration, said they’d sounded out scores of politicians and their staffs about how J Street would be received. He is convinced that its message is welcomed with open arms almost universally. Of course, there will be some dyed in the wool Old School holdouts. But he believes that J Street is something the DC pols have been waiting for for a long time. They’ve been eager to break away from heterodoxy but needed the political cover to do so. J Street would help provide it for them.

In talking about what J Street planned to do differently from the mainstream Israel lobby organizations, I was heartened that it planned to pay lots of attention to voices of young people especially those represented by bloggers like Ezra Klein and Matt Ygleisias and others. Ben Ami sees the younger generation as the hope for the future as they haven’t yet bought “their father’s Oldsmobile” in terms of embracing the stereotypes and accepted wisdom of the established groups. The Israel lobby groups are heavily populated and led by the older generation and Jewish opinion surveys show that the younger generation is both more liberal on Israeli politics and more turned off by the Israel-centric issues dear to the heart of the Old School.

The J Street leaders also addressed their relationship with the three existing Jewish peace groups: Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek. They said that J Street would not duplicate their efforts nor was it meant to replace them. Rather, J Street is the next logical step in the development of a pro-peace political agenda in which candidates would be encouraged to take an independent look at the I-P conflict and throw out old orthodoxies.

Levy, in his talk to the dinner group, emphasized that while Israelis realized that they were primarily responsible for resolving the conflict, that they also needed a good swift kick in the rear end from an energized American Jewish community and U.S. president. An Israeli prime minister like Olmert might welcome pressure coming from America to adopt a more forthcoming approach to the idea of compromise. He could then turn around to the Liebermans (Avigdor, not Joe) on his right and say: “If you want to buck our American friends, be my guest. But where will you turn once you do and they’ve abandoned you?” Levy believes that this narrative will resonate in Israeli political circles.

In fact, the group has recruited a group of distinguished Israeli academics, political analysts and former senior military officers to sign a letter of support for J Street. Among others, it includes former IDF chief of staff Amnon Lipkin Shahak, former foreign minister Shlomo Ben Ami, and former directors general of the foreign ministry David Kimche, Alon Liel, and Uri Savir.

It’s always important with efforts like this to examine the board member names. There are of course leaders of the main American Jewish peace groups. There are rabbis and academics. But most important there are heavy hitter political donors (Alan Solomont), policy wonks (Rob Malley), U.S. ambassadors to Israel (Samuel Lewis), high level political operatives (Eli Pariser of Moveon), Hollywood liberals (Robert Greenwald), business leaders, George Soros’ top aide (Morton Halperin), and even a former Republican senator (Lincoln Chafee) and former Congressman (Tom Downey). The major political donors and business leaders are critical to provide the funding necessary to have an impact on political campaigns.

The group founders believe that Barack Obama and his staff “get” J Street’s perspective while they believe a Clinton candidacy might not advance J Street’s mission as aggressively. In particular, Ben Ami mentioned Tony Lake, Obama’s chief foreign policy advisor as someone who was probably responsible for the candidate’s bracing Cleveland speech in which he admonished American Jews not to believe that a pro-Israel presidential candidacy need also be pro-Likud.

I came away from the dinner heartened by the J Street effort. Trying to be a realist after feeling burned by previous similar efforts, I’m not yet firmly convinced it will succeed. But it is bold, ambitious, well thought out, and doable. Many other dovish political efforts in the past had one or even two of those qualities going for them, but few have had all of them. That is in J Street’s favor.

One big question will be how AIPAC responds to the new initiative. As the big kid on the block it has the most to lose from J Street becoming a major success. So it’s got to feel threatened in some way. My only question is whether it feels defensive and threatened enough that it would take on J Street in its infancy. Already, AIPAC’s former director Morris Amitay has denounced J Street in the pages of the Jewish Forward. Amitay seems to be a surrogate for the group, which doesn’t want to lay down a marker in public yet on the matter. It remains to be seen how the big guns of the right-wing Israel lobby like Malcolm Hoenlein and Abe Foxman will react. If they do, they will only be endorsing the idea that J Street is a force to be reckoned with.

tags aipac, daniel levy, israel, israel-lobby, j street, jeremy-ben-ami, Mideast Peace, norm coleman, palestine, political-lobbying, tony lake

It’s pouring snow from the heavens as I write this! I’ve lived here in Seattle 11 years and never seen snow this late in the season. Maybe in Boston or New York, but never here. What’s the world coming to?

A friend who was born here told me the last time it snowed so late in the season was 1985.

tags snow in seattle

You know something is very dysfunctional in the Seattle Public Schools when the District and a distinguished non-profit honor a local principal (Kaaren Andrews of Madrona School) whose school has a reputation for disrespecting a certain group of parents and essentially telling them to take their children out of the school if they’re unhappy with their treatment. And there’s much worse. I’ll give you the backstory later. But first this bit of news that shocked and enraged me both as a local Madrona resident and parent of a public school student:

Seattle school district leaders, Madrona staff, friends and even Andrews’ parents gathered Wednesday morning in the school’s library to award Andrews the Thomas B. Foster Award for Excellence for outstanding leadership.

…The Alliance for Education and Seattle Public Schools academic leaders choose an annual recipient for the $50,000 Foster award, named for Tom Foster, a founder of the Seattle law firm Foster Pepper and a Seattle civic leader.

…Seattle Public Schools Chief Academic Officer Carla Santorno praised Andrews’ consistent work on student achievement.”Success with kids is not magic,” she said. “It’s about hard work.”

Madrona was historically an African-American, low-income neighborhood that has been changing over the last ten to twenty years. Madrona School has always had a high minority enrollment and a low academic achievement record. About six years ago, a group of local parents (mostly non-minority) decided they would enroll their children in the School and organize to raise funds to supplement what the District offered it and enrich the curriculum. Their motives were to turn the School into one that every resident and student could be proud of; an integrated school that had a good academic record with enriched offerings for any student who wished to partake. After beginning with high hopes and the support of the then principal (not Andrews), things turned sour. Minority parents and staff came to believe the parents wanted to “take the school over” from them. They resented the efforts to enrich the program.

The new parents in turn felt unwelcome and disrespected. For example, the group offered to raise money to fund a teaching position in a foreign language. Andrews told them the School didn’t want or need such a program. A foreign language was a “frill” the School and its students didn’t need and couldn’t afford. What the students needed was to pass standardized tests and offering a foreign language would be a distraction.

Now for a personal story that was very disturbing. A few years ago, my three children were picnicking at Madrona Playfield around 10:30 AM next to the basketball court with two adult friends accompanying them. All of a sudden a group of 50 or so Madrona middle school students ran toward the basketball court and a fight commenced between two children. Not only did the swirling mass of children frighten my children and endanger their safety, the students were screaming the foulest language imaginable.

One of our adult friends attempted to intervene (no supervisors or teachers were in the park at the time), but the fighting students ignored her. The adults decided to remove our children from the park and come home. On their way out of the park, they saw someone who seemed to be affiliated with the School go to the children congregated on the basketball court. The adults didn’t have any conversation with this person.

When they came home they alerted me to what happened. I immediately called the School to complain. I reached the principal who told me she had been the person going over to the group when my family left. I complained to her about the lack of supervision of the children and their endangering my own children. She replied that her students had every right to be in a public park and that they were unsupervised because that day was a “late start” day and there was no reason for the School to be expected to provide supervision since School hadn’t officially started when the incident occurred. She assured me the incident had been “taken care of” and there was nothing else that needed to be done. She made clear that she felt she had fulfilled her obligation to listen to me and that would be the last of it as far as she was concerned.

In short, I felt disrespected. Andrews didn’t get it. She discounted my concern over my children’s safety and discounted the need to supervise her own students outside of the School grounds. I decided to post about this at Madrona Moms, a local Yahoo! discussion group. While a number of parents thanked me for my courage and candor in reporting this incident, Madrona School parents posted to the group attacking me for “washing dirty linen” in public, for tearing down the School, for being racist, etc. It was most discouraging.

Then the Madrona Community Council president invited me to attend the monthly meeting of the group to discuss the incident. When I arrived, I was shocked to find the small group of local residents overwhelmed by the principal, assistant principal, the District’s race and equity coordinator, several School parents and a teacher from the School. After presenting what happened, Andrews in response had the chutzpah to say that my two adult friends had approached her in the park after the incident and berated her saying: “How can you waste your time on these kids? What do you see in them?” This of course was an outright lie as I mentioned that my friends had no conversation with Andrews whatsoever. It was an attempt to grandstand before the meeting and elicit racial sympathy for herself, her School and her students.

This is clearly a woman who, while clearly committed to her School and students, is so defensive and protective that the least criticism is viewed with tremendous hostility. Instead of engaging with reasonable and constructive criticism the response is to circle the wagons and cry racism. What kind of school is this and what kind of school district is this that rewards this type of mentality with a distinguished award?

The race and equity coordinator complained that my expression of concern for my own children’s safety was racist. Apparently, white parents who are nervous when fights break out in their neighborhood park are racists. In truth, one of the fighting students was white and the other African-American. The group that congregated around them was also mixed. I didn’t view this fight as a racial incident in any way. Only one resident attending the meeting expressed any understanding or support for my point of view. Even the MCC vice-president chairing the meeting attacked my motives.

I was shocked. I felt ganged up on. I then vowed to complain to Andrews’ District supervisor. I called her twice and received no answer. I then called the Superintendent’s office. All of a sudden, Andrews’ supervisor called me. We had a long talk and she acknowledged many of my criticisms as legitimate and said the School would now supervise “late start” days in the park.

Regardless of any of this, the truth is that Kaaren Andrews doesn’t want white parents at this School who do anything other than accept the educational agenda offered by the School. Any white parents who seek to enrich the School or offer programs not deemed central to Andrews’ philosophy are implicitly invited to leave. No effort is made to make white parents or students feel welcome in a student body that is 77% minority. Hostility to white parents is palpable, which is a further reason why they take their students out of the School in droves. Only 9% of the student body is “Caucasian” as the District statistics note.

Besides which, Madrona failed the No Child Left Behind standards and was forced to allow any parent to remove their children and place them in another public school. The students who leave in turn place a great burden on neighboring public school like Stevens and McGilvra, expected to take on the departing students. So instead of embracing parents attempting to get the School to succeed academically, Andrews turns her back on them and turns her School into a racial enclave. This in turn drives non-minority students away.

My wife and I vowed that none of my children would ever attend Madrona School as long as Andrews was principal and this racial isolationist attitude prevailed. As a result, my son attends TOPS, an alternative public school dedicated to a social justice theme. TOPS is a far more diverse school than Madrona AND it is devoted to the concept of multiculturalism and respect for all ethnic groups. There my child is learning how to appreciate people of all ethnic groups and to be inclusive and respectful to everyone regardless of race, color or religion. I’m afraid this is not a lesson that he would learn at Madrona.

tags alliance-for-education, kaaren-andrews, madrona-school, seattle-public-school-district, Thomas-B.-Foster-Award-for-Excellence

A few weeks ago I read that Seattle’s Medieval Women’s Choir would be performing Sephardic music tonight. That was a good reason to go since I love early music and Sephardic music. But an even more important reason was that I saw my old band mate, Shira Kammen was performing as accompanist. Way back in the early 1980s when we were both UC Berkeley grad students, my brother and I formed a Jewish music ensemble, Yasmine, which played in the Bay Area and recorded one audio tape, Jewish Songs of Celebration and Struggle. We also performed at the first Bay Area Jewish Music Festival which I founded with Gerry Tenney. When we first conceived of our group, Todd decided to invite Shira to join. She was a consummate fiddle player with a wonderful alto voice.

My brother is an excellent musician, far better than I. But Shira was the true professional among us. She was an elegant accompanist, never missing a note, never performing off key. She was always prominent in the mix but never too forward and never too far back. Not only that, but when two brothers perform together while their voices mesh wonderfully their personalities don’t always. Shira was the calm middle whenever there was tension. She had that wry, self-deprecating sense of humor that so many Jews share. She’s gone on to a professional career performing on medieval stringed instruments though her original one is the violin. Among the distinguished early music groups she’s belonged to are Ensemble Alcatraz and Ensemble P.A.N.

The concert was delightful. Here are Margriet’s insightful program notes. The choir was quite good but the soloists and accompanists were even better. Linda Strandberg had a vibrant soprano voice that conveyed the passion and intensity of the Sephardic melodies. I especially loved her opening the concert standing at the entrance to the synagogue’s sanctuary singing a very slow, resonant version of La Rosa Enfloresce (”The Rose Flowers”). The notes were piercing. The melody gorgeous. For my wife and I this was a special moment since this was the music we chose to walk down the aisle at our wedding. I first heard the song from a Hesperion XX record I bought while a grad student at UC Berkeley, right around the time Shira and I were in Yasmine together. I also note that Shira has performed with Hesperion XX, another indication of the high musical regard in which she is held.

Shira had great attack during her solos and accompaniment bringing gusto to the music. Her duets with Margriet Tindemans (also the Choir’s director), who played medieval fiddle, were exciting to listen to. The concert even featured two songs on Yasmine’s cassette, Dodi Li and Et Dodim, both from Song of Songs. During several songs, notably the sinuous vocal ornamentations of D’ror Yikra, it was all I could do to stop myself from joining along with the singing.

When I introduced myself during intermission I was delighted to find that she remembered me and our collaboration. It was so good to see her.

For anyone from Seattle, my wife and I ate at a new Asian noodle place called Boom Noodle on Capitol Hill. While the ambiance reminded me of a college cafeteria (big open tiled space with lots of reverb and noise of diners). People eat at long common tables so you don’t get a lot of privacy. But the food is quite extraordinary along with being relatively inexpensive. We had an appetizer, two noodle bowls, dessert and sake for $50 including tip. I had a seafood noodle soup with udon that included ling cod, penn cove mussels and shrimp. The mango mousse was delightful, closer to pane cotta than mousse. While Seattle is a good city for restaurants I’ve never been impressed by most of the Asian offerings. It’s great to have our first superb noodle house. Here’s the P-I review.

tags boom-noodle, ladino, margriet-tindemans, medieval-womens-choir, sephardic-music, shira-kammen

Nakata family mourns during Schwartz sentencing (Erika Schultz/Seattle Times)

I’d hoped I’d never have to write this. Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz struck and killed a Seattle pedestrian who was crossing a street in a crosswalk:

The morning of Nov. 14, 2006, Schwartz struck Tatsuo Nakata, who was crossing Southwest Admiral Way in a crosswalk at 47th Avenue Southwest. Nakata, 29, who was an aide to then-City Councilman David Della, later died at Harborview Medical Center.

There were no skid marks to show Schwartz tried to brake, Senior Assistant City Attorney Kevin Kilpatrick said. “He wasn’t paying attention.”

Schwartz, the director of the West Seattle Torah Learning Center, was on his cellphone at the time, according to court testimony.

It was the second time Schwartz had struck someone with his car. The first time was in May 2005, when he struck Ilsa Govan, who was riding her bike along Interlaken Drive East. Schwartz’s car crossed the lane and collided with her, she testified at the sentencing.

…Schwartz was cited for driving on the wrong side of the road, but the charge was later removed from his record. “I feel lucky to be here. I wish Mr. Schwartz would make the decision never to drive again.”

The deferred sentence means that if Schwartz, 37, has no infractions of the law after two years the charge will be dropped from his record.

Schwartz was talking on a cellphone when the accident occurred. He had eight moving violations over a several year period. He’d struck and seriously injured a bicyclist. I trusted the criminal justice system to do right by his victim despite the fact that Schwartz was a rabbi who’d done good in his Jewish community. There is nothing in Jewish tradition that holds rabbis above the law. In fact, rabbis have been tried and convicted for serious criminal offenses. So I was hoping that Schwartz would be fairly punished for his infraction. He wasn’t. He got away with murder.

A Seattle municipal judge sentenced Schwartz to a two-year suspended sentence. His license will be suspended for only two years. And if he has no further infractions in the next two years even his vehicular killing will be expunged from his record. The judge said no useful purpose would be served by sentencing him to jail time. The implication was that the service Schwartz performs in his community would more than outweigh any purpose there might be in serving time.

But I’ve got news for the judge. Our community isn’t so desperate and our leaders not so irreplaceable that we wouldn’t miss one who had a debt to pay to society. And Schwartz has a big debt to pay.

Look, I am Jewish. I respect rabbis. This man could’ve been a lamed vavnik (saint) for all I know. But he got away with murder. And it’s a shande. Doesn’t the life of a young city council aide with his entire life before him count for anything? And what is the Japanese community to think of their Jewish neighbors when a man who is supposed to represent the highest ethical values of our religion walks? What does that say to the non-Jewish world about Jews and Judaism? Is all we do looking out for our own? And what about Tatsuo Nakata and his family? What do we say to them? “Sorry for your loss but we’ve got bigger fish to fry?”

As a Jew, this makes me sick:

Some 100 letters supporting Schwartz were sent to the judge, and supporters spoke about his care and support. He told the court that as a result of publicity about the case, he’s also received anti-Semitic mail.

One of Schwartz’s congregants, Carmen Crincoli, said that on Yom Kippur last September it was agonizing to watch Schwartz’s prayers go on and on, evidence, he believed, of the rabbi’s inner turmoil. He begged the judge not to incarcerate Schwartz.

…When speaking to the court, Schwartz at times was tearful and said that a DVD of Nakata’s life — sent to him by Nakata’s family — rests beside his bed.

“It haunts my night,” he said. “Those thoughts were with me on Yom Kippur.”

What does Schwartz expect–a medal? What does he expect people to think of us when justice metes out a slap on the wrist merely because you serve the Jewish community?

The judge’s leniency was astonishing. And his legal logic entirely lacking:

“Regardless or not if he’s a good person,” Holifield said, “he’s a lousy driver.”

“Lousy driver?” Try lethal driver. Yet this judge allows Schwartz to get back behind the wheel of a potential murder weapon in two years time. What was George Hollifield thinking when he devised this sentence? Don’t you think the least he could’ve done was ensured that no Seattleite would ever be run down again by this man? Would someone in Seattle start a campaign to recall this judge? Or at least get someone elected in his place the next time he comes up for election. This guy shouldn’t be on the bench if he can’t mete out a fair punishment.

And please, Seattle city attorney, appeal this ruling. It cries out for it.

One final note of humility here: Ephraim Schwartz did something that any one of us drivers could’ve done on a bad day.  Anyone who drives day to day in a big city understands just how easy it would be to hit a pedestrian.  A moment’s lapsed attention or distraction and there but for the grace of God go I.  So I don’t want to come across as someone incapable of making the same human error this rabbi made.  But the difference is that I would be humiliated to have my entire religious community mount an intense campaign on my behalf seeking to eliminate any serious punishment for my crime.  That’s what makes Rabbi Schwartz’s behavior and that of his Orthodox community so reprehensible.

tags rabbi-ephraim-schwartz, seattle-rabbi-kills-pedestrian, tatsuo-nakata

Last night, we went to see Michael Clayton. I'd read fabulous reviews of No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, but I find it harder and harder to see downbeat films full of violence. There's just too much violence in the real world for me to be able to enjoy it represented on screen. I know it means I'm missing some amazing films and acting. Michael Clayton is a terrific film. A dramatic thriller involving corporate and legal skulduggery, it features a wonderful cast involving some of the finest actors working today including George Clooney in the lead, ...

Something is happening here and you don't know what it is, do you, Mrs. Clinton? Actually, I think many of us know what is happening and it's pretty amazing to watch it all unfold. I don't think I can remember a presidential primary campaign like this one in my lifetime. Where the frontrunner's thunder is stolen by a relative newcomer, who goes on to triumph despite all odds. I realize I'm ahead of myself since Obama hasn't triumphed yet. But today's news augurs well for Obama and poorly for Clinton. But I digress. There are plenty of examples of political newcomers who stole a march on veteran pols during primary campaigns but who didn't ultimately win. ...

Enough posting about politics. Now, for something completely different. In the old days proud parents used to whip out wallet-size photos of those apples of their eye and show them off to neighbors or relatives. Bloggers have it much better. I can show you full size images. Apologies to my wife, to whom I promised over several months to edit and publish the 140 new images I just uploaded to my photo gallery site. The images there are from May-September, 2007 and they feature some cool Seattle sites and events like ...

Sam Bayard wrote up Neuwirth v. Silverstein for the Citizen Media Law Project which is sponsored by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He gives a nice summary of the legal issues involved in the case including the free speech aspects. Sam linked to two other similar cases, one of which involves an Iranian blogger who attacked an Iranian fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, generally thought of as AIPAC's think tank. Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk are associated with it. Seems to me that this lawsuit is yet another example of right-wingers affiliated with the Israel lobby intimidating dissent against them and their views. Joel Magalnick, editor of Seattle local Jewish paper ...

Oh how you can tell after reading this that we're the parents of small children! My wife last week went on her first business trip since our twins were born nearly three years ago. She was only away two days but oh how our daughter has punished both of us for mommie's "betrayal." Temper tantrums from a normally well-tempered girl. Screaming, hissy fits, crankiness and all around sourpussedness. We just can't get either of them to stop whining when they hardly ever whined before this. Last Saturday, despite a lashing rainstorm I decided we needed to maintain our morning routine of hitting the University District farmer's market to pick up our favorite Honeycrisp apples ...