Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Israel Joins the OECD

Israel Joins the OECD

The 31 members of the OECD today voted today to accept Estonia, Israel and Slovenia, which will thus become country members 32, 33 and 34. (The list of the other 31 is here).

The Economist often characterizes the OECD as "a rich-country think tank". While I doubt Israel's accession will make any difference in anyone's immediate day-to-day life, it's a nice club to belong to, and being inside is nicer than being outside.

The Palestinians did their best to prevent Israel being accepted, on the principle that anything that's good for Israel must be very bad. It seems however that the decision reflected actions and their expression in numbers, not ideology, so the Palestinian efforts didn't make any difference. The OECD press release announcing the decision (linked above) notes that "Israel’s scientific and technological policies have produced outstanding outcomes on a world scale."

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Israel Joins the OECD

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Colonial Camping

Colonial Camping

Jeffrey Goldberg has been beamed back to 1771, and is having problems blogging from the 18th century. Most people would - although David Ben Gurion, who has been dead for almost 40 years, does seem to manage to blog from the middle of the 20th century.

The reason I mention poor Jeffrey's predicament however, is to point out an interesting tidbit about language. Most Americans remember the colonial era sort of fondly: burning witches in Salem, having tea parties when it was still permissible, building your occasional sturdy farmhouse in New England which still stands till this day, and of course revving up to have that revolution against the English. That's how Jeffrey uses the term, in the context of an educative program with his kid.

Across the pond, meanwhile, Colonialism reminds the Brits of all their horrific crimes against the Asians Indians and Kenyans. There is no word worse for a proper Guardian reader than Colonial (unless it be Zionist - partly because they've decided the Zionists are colonialists). No proper self-hating Brit would ever send her kid to any program with even a whiff of colonialism about it.

As Churchill may have said: We are separated by our common language.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Colonial Camping

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Fred Halliday, 1946-2010

Fred Halliday, 1946-2010

Fred Halliday died yesterday, and I first heard of his existence, via Normblog, today. The Guardian has an obituary, which as you'd expect casts Halliday as one of them, in the negative meaning of the term. Yet Norm is more serious than the Guardian, and if he's mourning the passing of an important scholar, I decided to look a bit further. It took only a few minutes to find this list of articles he's written in recent years. David Hartman taught me many years ago that the best way to show respect for the passing of a scholar is to read something he or she has written (this was on the death of Gershom Scholem), so I picked two of Halliday's articles from the list. This one, about Palestine Tibet and other entities that did or didn't attain statehood, and this one in which he reported his thoughts on a visit to Auschwitz.

The articles demonstrate a breadth and depth of knowledge which are mostly lacking in public discourse. More important, they express an ideological commitment tempered by rational investigation. I get the feeling that he and I might have disagreed on some rather important matters in the areas where our expertize overlapped (he knew about lots of things I don't, and I know about some things he didn't). Yet we would have been able to disagree on rational grounds; indeed, we'd have been able to explain to each other in calm tones where our differences came from, and we'd each have come away from the discussion at least with an intellectual acceptance of the sources of the other fellow's positions. We could have had a rational discussion, in short.

Not something to take for granted, unfortunately. So may he rest in peace, but his intellectual example continue to reverberate.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Fred Halliday, 1946-2010

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Things People Talk About

Things People Talk About

Over Yom Haatzmaut, Independence Day, I spent time talking to people in a number of social events. Here are some of the things I heard:

A friend who runs a company that produces high-class tools for the creation of other tools ("our equipment is the Rolls-Royce of the field: expensive but the best") told me they've been selling to unfriendly countries such as Indonesia, and in recent weeks they've been approached by a potential client in Pakistan. A second friend who was standing with us told of other Israeli companies who sell to the Arab world, mostly via Jordan and often in Jordanian packaging to hide the Israeli provenance. Someone ought to tell the boycott folks.

A North-American journalist who has been reporting on the MidEast for a generation tells me the lack of a peace process enables all sides to live in practical peace; once negotiations start again they'll have to re-start the violence.

A Canadian who lives in Israel these past 30 years remarks, apropos Obama's plans to regulate American banks: Canada has strict bank regulations and sailed through the recent turmoil mostly unharmed. Israel has strict bank regulations, and sailed through likewise unscathed. America has light bank regulations, and look where they are.

The cutting edge in military technology is robots: drones, jeeps, and science fiction spy tools all operated from afar by highly trained soldiers who can't be harmed by the battlefield conditions. Israel is in the forefront of this technology, alongside the US.

Three if not four people separately remarked on the 20th of April as Hitler's birthday. Two of them are children of Holocaust survivors, so that's where that complex comes from; one came from Russia, and one was a thirty-something from North Africa. Jews are a screwed up bunch.

Volcanoes make humans look very small. Everyone agreed on that one.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Things People Talk About

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Talmudic Cows

Talmudic Cows

I don't know if Norm ever studied Talmud; I haven't thought of asking him. Whether he has or not, he certainly has the knack of it: he's a natural, one might say, assuming one might agree what constitutes being a natural.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Talmudic Cows

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Passover?

Passover?

I know what the Hebrew says. I don't know what the Arabic says (I'd ask Ibrahim, but being a fake, he's unlikely to know). To be honest, I don't know what the English says, either.

(Thanks for the gags, P)

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Passover?

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Tony Judt's "Postwar"

Tony Judt's "Postwar"

Trying to clear my desk this afternoon before going off to other climes, I recognize I'll never find the time to write the review of Postwar it so richly deserves. That would be Tony Judt's Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945.

I've said this before but Ill say it again. This is one of the best history books published in recent years, certainly one of the best I've read in years. First, there's the language. Often reviewers praise the language of a book when they've not got much better to say. In this case, I'm praising the language because it's clear, understated, but always a pleasure to read. Judt has the ability to wander over his terrain, looking at things from a changing perspective and through diverse lens, all without our being aware of his mechanics. It's like listening to a particularly compelling teacher roam over terrain he knows better than the back of his hand.

There's the breadth of knowledge. It is, quite simply, inspiring. Wow.

There's the author's perspective, and his professionalism. True, he really doesn't like Margaret Thatcher, and doesn't manage to hide it. Yet he's also a man with strong political convictions and a well-known writer on contemporary political issues. This never stops him from pointing out the weaknesses, cynicism or other foibles of the actors he's describing, even if you suspect he mostly agreed with some of them - yet he does this all in a calm, British understatement tone.

It must be said that the historical depth shallows out as he goes, but that's the way it has to be. We have far more perspective on the late 1940s and even the 1970s than on the 1990s. Eventually, his final chapters are not much more than exceptionally good Economist reports - but The Economist is, after all, the best news magazine out there, so that's not so bad. And all the previous chapters were much better.

The content: he says at the beginning that he doesn't have a grand thesis. His story, however, is the story of how present-day Europe came to be: and it's a very different place than it was. His first section, titled Post-War, deals with 1945-1953, and it starts with a litany of how awful things were in the various corners of Europe in 1945, and how they different countries went about their first attempts of climbing out of the mess. So it's a story of many strands. Then there's a section on Prosperity and Its Discontents: 1953-1971, then Recessional: 1971-1989. Without trumpeting the fact, his narrative begins losing strands, and begins to coalesce: South joins West, West is different than East in uniform ways. The poignant part here is how West Europeans essentially wrote off the East, while the East pined after the West. (A friend who read the book before me summed up it's 900-some pages in one sentence: It was because of the different quality of the refrigerators produced in East and West Germany).

The final chronological section is called After the Fall: 1989-2005. By now Judt is describing the world we're in, there;s only one major stand, yet he has shown that it wasn't planned, wasn't even contemplated in its present form, rather it grew out of a long serious of events and decisions and compromises. A sobering thought for those who see the European Model as humanity's future (Judt may; many of us don't).

He then finishes with thought on the role of memory and history.

It's a long book, but also a long pleasure to read.

Of course, Judt isn't just anyone. From the perspective of this blog and its themes, he's part of the problem: a Jew with a weighty voice who takes anti-Israeli positions and is widely recognized for them. How does this fit with the magnificent historian, I hear you wondering?

My answer is that I don't know. People are complex, and the author of this intelligent a book can also be the writer of profoundly wrong and wrong-headed columns about the Jews, their identity, and their place in the world. Fact.

Yet as is publicly known, he is suffering from a horrible and incurable sickness. That's not a justification for anything, but I choose to regard it as cause for reconciliation. I have no will to criticize him anymore. On the contrary: I hope, for him, that in the future he will be remembered as a fine and important historian, and his other writings will fade into oblivion.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Tony Judt's "Postwar"

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: The Fall of a Belief?

The Fall of a Belief?

Those of you with very long memories may be able to go back to the previous millennium and reconstruct the scientific-moralistic doom-theory of the day. This was before a series of unusually hot summers convinced everyone humans were cooking the planet; the Armageddon of the time was genetically modified crops: they were going to wreak havoc on nature, destroy the future, and anyway they were an American conspiracy of hegemony, so they had to be bad.

Then the world was distracted, GM crops fell off the radar, and more fashionable reasons were invented for the world to end. GM crops, however, are still out there - and mostly doing good, as a matter of fact. True, they're still banned in Europe, but Europe isn't a very important place anymore, and this is yet another indication of why.

It may be that we're now seeing the demise of the Church of Global Warming. The Weekly Standard - never a stalwart of the Church to begin with - has a long article about how the entire edifice seems to be crashing these past few months. So far, so unconvincing: that's what the Weekly Standard is supposed to say. Now if the Guardian were to say the same, that might get our attention... Over here. George Monbiot himself, the High Priest of the Church at the Guardian, trying to explain why no-one's listening anymore: it must be because people are stupid (he uses different words, but that's the thesis). Of course, if they're stupid now, how were they less stupid two years ago as they crammed the pews of his Church and clamored for the airlines to shut down? He doesn't get into this. Nor does he mention the possibility that rather than being plain stupid, people may look out the window from time to time: in the late 1990s it really was hot for a couple of summers; recently, it really has been quite cool for a number of winters.

I recommend reading the comments below his article, in which some seemingly educated folks engage with Monbiot, who to his credit engages back. This is what the demise of an entrenched intellectual fad looks like, and it's fascinating.

For what it's worth, here in the Holy Land we've just had the warmest winter in decades, so if Monbiot wishes to turn Zionist this is his opportunity.

Anyway, as I never tire of saying, I'm agnostic on the science of the matter, which is totally beyond me, but I'm convinced that paying the Saudis and the Iranians quadzillions of $ so we can pour gook into the air can't be a good thing; the sooner someone invents cheaper and cleaner options, the better. If it's cheaper, everyone will go for it, because whether folks are all stupid or not, they tend to look out for their private interests.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: The Fall of a Belief?

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Mesmerizing

Mesmerizing

Aaron Koblin, a fellow who likes to take large data-sets and express them visually, shows the flight patterns of American commuters. I especially liked watching the red-eye flights.


There's a more artsy version here, but I prefer the simpler one



And then there's another one, here

What does all this have to do with the usual topics of this blog, you ask? Not much. But believe me or not, it actually does have to do with my real job, which is keeping me away from blogging these days, so the least I can do is share the cooler aspects.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Mesmerizing

Fine Men Gone

Fine Men Gone

My friend Elly Dlin has died, suddenly. As did another friend, David Bankier, less than a week ago. We buried David on Friday, in the middle of one of the worst rainstorms I can remember; Elly, it seems, is to be buried in Edmonton, which is touching since there probably wasn't anywhere he would have fully called home,so he'll rest where he was born and grew up.

I need to write about them both; but I need to find the time. As you've noticed, I've been blogging less of late: too many other things going on, in other parts of life. In the meantime, if any of you are in Dallas or Edmonton, you might want to give Elly what we call chesed shel emet: the true charity, for it cannot be repaid.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Wee Scottish Laddie

Wee Scottish Laddie

For reasons which are irrelevant to this blog I was just looking at a web-page of the University of Edinburgh. The page instructs wee Scottish students how to use an American software which students sometimes use, stage by weary stage. Instruction line number 9 states, and I quote in unabridged form:

On the wee window labelled PubMed (NLM) which pops up, select Yes to save changes.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Wee Scottish Laddie

Costumes and Lightbulbs

Costumes and Lightbulbs

Purim is the day of the year when Israelis dress up in costumes, like Halloween in the US. The children I saw were in the usual: policemen, Queen Esther, that sort of thing. Among the adults, however, the most popular costume by far was something with a wig/three passports/tennis gear. Ive never seen so many Mossad agents out on the street in my life.

And then there was this variation on the "how many XXX to fix a light-bulb" joke:

- How many Mossad agents to fix a light-bulb?

- Light-bulb? There wasn't any light-bulb.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Temples Before Cities?

Temples Before Cities?

Via one of Andrew Sullivan's assistants, here's an article about an archeological finding poised to change the story of the rise of Man. It about the dig at Gobekli Tepe, in Turkey, where an extravagant complex of temples was constructed 11,500 years ago, centuries before the earliest know city, and with no city anywhere in sight. Klaus Schmidt, the chief archeologist, claims the need to have a temple ignited civilization rather than vice versa, the rise of civilization called forth religion.

Schmidt (55) has been digging there for 15 years, and expects to stay the rest of his life, yet he understood the full significance of the site in the first 60 seconds of his first visit.

The site is such an outlier that an American archeologist who stumbled on it in the 1960s simply walked away, unable to interpret what he saw. On a hunch, Schmidt followed the American's notes to the hilltop 15 years ago, a day he still recalls with a huge grin. He saw carved flint everywhere, and recognized a Neolithic quarry on an adjacent hill, with unfinished slabs of limestone hinting at some monument buried nearby. "In one minute—in one second—it was clear," the bearded, sun-browned archeologist recalls. He too considered walking away, he says, knowing that if he stayed, he would have to spend the rest of his life digging on the hill.

The human mind is even more complex than its past.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Temples Before Cities?

Another Complicated Jew

Another Complicated Jew

Here's a story about an Orthodox Jew who used to be a neo-Nazi: actually two of them, if you can believe it. (It's in the newspaper, so it's got to be true, right?)

Beyond the individual oddity is a story about Poland, which my own anecdotal experience indicates is about right: the antisemitism is down, the support for Israel is palpable, and history takes strange twists and turns sometimes, doesn't it.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Guardian of the Falklands

Guardian of the Falklands

The British and Argentinians are bickering about the Falklands, again. While no one expects them to start shooting, they are serious, not because of 2,500 Englishmen who live on the islands, nor because the islands are closer to Argentina than to the UK, but because there's oil nearby.

The historical claims of both sides stem from colonial pasts. The British have been coming and going since the late 16th century, perhaps, and the Spanish were in the picture since sometime in the late 18th century. The Argentinian claim flows from the Spanish one, apparently; no-one says they've been there from time immemorial or anything. If you're into damning colonialism - as some are - you're best bet is to wish for a pox on both their houses.

The Guardian is vehemently into damning colonialism. It's one of their favorite themes. On this one, however, they're a bit choosy: The British claim, they say, is a colonial vestige, so it should be dropped. (In favor of the Spanish colonial claim). Heh.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Guardian of the Falklands

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Jewish Review of Books

Jewish Review of Books

Hardly had Queen Victoria been laid to rest, some Englishmen started publishing a review of books at The Times. This was 1902. A few years later the publication became independent, as the Times Literary Supplement (TLS), though these days its Web presence is back at the Times. Along the way (1979, perhaps?) there was a fracas which gave birth to the London Review of Books. I don't dabble in all this enough to know which is the more important of the two.

Meanwhile, across the pond in New York, a group of rebels took advantage of a fracas of their own, and while the New York Times was temporarily shut down for strikers or some such, they launched a new review of their own: the New York Review of Books. This was in the early 1960s, and if you're into gossip about such matters it might tickle you to hear that the early editions of the LondonRB came out as a supplement to the NewYorkRB (I don't know how they justified calling it London, but perhaps literary types needn't be over-much bothered by earthly details.)

I sometimes read the NYRB and even cite articles here on Ruminations; I very rarely look at the London ones. I expect most all of them don't much like Israel and Zionism, but I'm not certain how much they like America, either, so I don't take much offense.

The Jews ("the Jews"?) have now decided they, too, need a Review of Books. I always thought the NYRB was a Jewish publication of course, but now there's an explicitly Jewish one; it's even called the Jewish Review of Books.

The first issue is just out, and online (I don't know how the publisher expects to make money), and has some interesting items. A student at Harvard who obviously gets all the insider jokes reviews Srugim, the popular Israeli non-response to Sex in the City. It's a different Harvard than it used to be. Shlomo Avineri, who could easily be the first reviewer's grandfather, reports on Dennis Ross and David Makovski's Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East. Avineri liked the book, but my synopsis of his synopsis is: There isn't much America can do about the Middle East, though it could make matters worse.

And then there's a review by one Azzan Yadin about a new English translation of the Bible, or rather, of the Mikraot Gedolot version of the Pentateuch. Yadin isn't gentle. He says the translation tries to make the texts simple and accessible to modern English readers, but they aren't: not simple, and not easily accessible. They need to be worked at to be appreciated. I recommend his review for the information it gives, but if you'd like to deal with the texts themselves, I'm sorry to report you'll have to read them in Hebrew, and you'll have to work at them.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Jewish Review of Books

Bloggers Aren't Very Important

Bloggers Aren't Very Important

Andrew Sullivan, about as popular a blogger as you'll find, had 11,000,000 page views in January (9 million the previous month). Page views aren't people, of course, but even if they were that comes out to about 350,000 a day. Let's say, by approximation, 0.1% of the American population (not to mention that some of his readers aren't Americans). This means, to put it mildly, that most people don't read Andrew. I'll go out on a limb here and say, most people have never heard of Andrew. And he's one of the biggest around, I repeat.

For all the self congratulatory stuff bloggers like to write about the demise of the mainstream media and all that, maybe the case isn't sealed yet.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

A No-Dollar Bill?

A No-Dollar Bill?

Well, not really. Close, though....

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Leviathan

Leviathan

I don't know where Prof. Geras dug this up, but it's worth it.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

A Small and Weak Country

A Small and Weak Country

What happens to a small and weak country, when it tries to move in a direction the neighbors don't like, and it must rely on its powerful friends to protect it?

It's not a nice place to be. Ask Georgia.

Better to be not weak, and not dependent on friends, no matter how nice they are. Ask Israel.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations