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LATEST?
I'm throwing a party
and found wonderful
caterers, florists,
entertainers
and more... all in
THE JEWISH NEWS
CELEBRATION CONNECTION
DIRECTORY
in the
Amazing Marketplace
in that South Pacific paradise,
nearly all in Suva, the capital
city. "Until very recently there
was no organized Jewish life," the
Web site tells us. "A communal
organization has recently been
established called the Fiji Jew-
ish Association; religious life has
been confined to a communal
seder organized by the Israeli
Embassy."
Or click on Bahrain in the
Middle East and Northern Africa
section, and read about the 30 or
so Jews there.
The site also offers some well-
designed charts and lists, in-
cluding cities with the largest
Jewish populations and total
Jewish population figures (El
Salvador: 120 Jews; Zimbabwe:
925).
The site also invites visitors to
add information; if you know a
lot about the 200 Jews in Suri-
name, be sure to pass it along.
Check it out by setting
your Web browser to:
http://www.jerLcoll/communi-
ties/wjcbook/index.htm.
— James D. Besser
Israel's Knesset
On The Web
S
Casual Dining
Aiwa cis
ews live in the unlikeliest
places, and thanks to a ter-
rific site on the World Wide
Web, learning about most
of them is a snap — or a mouse
click, to be more precise.
The Jewish Communities of
the World site, a joint project of
the Institute of the World Jew-
ish Congress and Virtual
Jerusalem, a jam-packed Jew-
ish Internet service, makes it
easy to explore Jewish geogra-
phy.
First, you select a continent,
and then a country from a list of
some 120. What you get is a ba-
sic history and description of the
Jewish population there. Or you
can ask for information on a ran-
domly selected nation.
Don't look for anything ency-
clopedic here; each entry is brief
and easily digestible, perfect for
kids doing school projects or
adults interested in some casual
learning.
In Asia, for example, you can
select from 17 countries —
Afghanistan to Thailand.
An entry for the Fiji Islands
reveals that about 40 Jews live
ometimes, the World Wide
Web is a metaphor for real
life. There's nobility and
sleaze; there's education
and time-wasting pop culture —
and there's democratic govern-
ment, the surest proof yet that
the shortest distance between
two points isn't- necessarily a
straight line.
The Knesset's new website is
a case in point.
As we all know, the Knesset
is one of the world's most
confusing parliaments, not to
mention one of the most ram-
bunctious. Its new website,
while offering tantalizing
glimpses of Israeli government
and promising to help us fath-
om its complexities, is a bewil-
dering mishmash.
The homepage opens with a
handsome picture of the impos-
ing Knesset building and a
choice of English or Hebrew
menus; the Web, many North
American Jews are discovering,
is a great place to polish that
rusty Hebrew.
From there, the going gets
rough.
A classy-looking map of the
site offers a bunch of possibili-
ties, including information about
the Knesset's composition and
operation, details about com-
mittees and some of the basic
documents that underlie Israeli
law.
But too often, clicking on
those icons leads to an electron-
ic wild goose chase — come to
think of it, a process not unlike
the operation of any democrat-
ic parliament, where good ideas
too often go in circles.
The Israeli Web site does have
an amusing little animation
telling us that various pages are
"under construction," but that
only serves to lessen the frus-
tration the first few times you
see it.
To be fair, the Knesset Web-
site opened for business only re-
cently; when the empty pages
are filled in and the kinks
worked out, this should be a ter-
rific resource for anybody inter-
ested in how Israel works.
Eventually, you'll even be able
to use the site to contact Knes-
set members and read about the
latest hot debates.
So check back often by set-
ting your Web browser to:
http://wvvw.knesset.gov.il .
— James D. Besser