Opinion

Dry Bones

A MIX OF IDEAS

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ANGELS

A Secure Paradigm

I

is no surprise the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security will embrace a
Jewish security network as a national
model for other faiths as well as general
communities with a security concern. We
Jews are used to hatred and know ways
to counter it. We came by these ways the
hard way — by being assaulted, maimed
and murdered for no reason other than
being Jews.
Terror on our shores is
a relatively new phenom-
enon, but American Jews of
course have seen its scourge
play out in our ancestral
homeland. So we've learned
to adapt to the possibility.
Terrorists don't play by any
conventional rules of war;
we can only guess their next
brutal move.
The U.S. Department
of Homeland Security
will deploy the Secure
Community Network, a 2005 creation of
the Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations and the
Jewish Federations of North America.
SCN represents an adaptable pattern
for other communities, be it a Catholic
school network, a compendium of
mosques or a regional consortium of
energy companies. SCN operates on a
shoestring, with only a four-person staff.

It's yet another example of the good that
we as a people provide when the going
gets tough.
Via SCN, Homeland specialists have
hooked up with local Jewish organiza-
tions for insight into how to conduct a
security review. Homeland and SCN also
team up on the Web to instruct Jewish
groups on how to spot security risks.
The JCC Maccabi Games
have benefited directly
from the Homeland-SCN
relationship. An alert sys-
tem allows SCN to identify
Homeland-verified security
threats for 500 member
institutions.
In a very real way, Secure
Community Network is the
central address for security
matters in the Jewish world,
as SCN national director
Paul Goldenberg suggested
to the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency. The business of disseminating
credible information and a consistent,
singular message is never easy. By trial,
error and reloading, SCN is now achiev-
ing that lofty dual goal.
The Jewish community is the perfect
pathfinder for security innovation. It's
the community most in need of protec-
tion, specifically from Muslim terror-
ists and white supremacists. We tend to

The Jewish
community
is the perfect
pathfinder
for security
innovation.

think Israelis
attract more
violence. And
we know anti-
Jewish sentiment
is rampant in
parts of Europe.
But the FBI and
Anti-Defamation
League have the
grim data to
show that anti-
Semitism in its
harshest light is
building kilowatt
power here in
America. "Law
enforcement con-
siders the Jewish
community an
extremely vul-
nerable commu-
nity to terrorism:'
SCN's Goldenberg
told JTA in an
understatement.
Communities that can benefit from an
emergency information dissemination
network may share the need with the
Department of Homeland Security, but
the department won't hesitate to reach
out to other communities it believes are
security lame.
SCN was conceived in the aftermath

DryBonesBlog_com

of terrorist attacks on two Turkish
synagogues the same week in 2003. It's
a testimonial to the thought, planning
and rise of the Jewish community's
Secure Community Network that the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security, born
amid the ashes of 9-11, saw in SCN the
seeds for nurturing a more expansive
method for blocking or at least deterring
terrorist success within U.S. borders. I I

Fateful Dates For Israel

S

ince the establishment of the
State of Israel on May 14, 1948,
adversaries have underscored
that the state is illegal and that Palestine
belongs — and belonged — to the Arabs
and that Jews are occupiers of Arab land.
Putting aside the Jewish bible or the Old
Testament, which for Jews is their deed to
the land, there are two dates in more mod-
em times that can be viewed as proof of
Jewish claim to the land that Jews call Eretz
Yisrael, the Land of Israel, and that Arabs
call Palestine. These two dates are Nov. 2,
1917, the day the Balfour Declaration was
publicized, and Nov. 29, 1947, when the
United Nations decided on the partition of
the land to a Jewish land and an Arab land.
The Balfour Declaration is considered a
very important milestone on the road to the
establishment of the State of Israel on May
14, 1948. The declaration was actually a let-

ter authored by the then-British
foreign minister, Lord Arthur
James Balfour. The letter was
sent to the honorary president
of the British Zionist organiza-
tion, Lord James Rothschild,
stating in essence that the British
government views with favor
the establishment of a Jewish
national home in Eretz Yisrael
for the Jewish people and that it
would do its utmost to help to
achieve that goal. However, the
letter also stipulated that this
shouldn't, in any way, impinge on
the rights, civil or religious, of non-Jewish
entities residing in the land as well as the
status of Jews in other lands. Lord Balfour
concluded his letter with the request that
it be publicized and become known to the
Zionist Organization of Britain.

This considerable achieve-
ment of the Zionist movement
can be attributed not only to the
thousands of Jewish pioneers
who came to the land, motivated
by the Zionist ideal of returning
to the land of their ancestors
and rebuilding it as a home
for their people, but also to the
most vigorous diplomatic effort
exerted by leaders of the Zionist
movement, which began by its
founder and legendary vision-
ary, Theodor Herzl.
It is worth noting that in
1915, as World War I was raging, the
British Zionist movement led by Dr. Chaim
Weizmann, also a prominent chemist who
helped the government in its war effort,
was lobbying the British government on
behalf of a future Jewish state under the

assumption that at the conclusion of the
war, the British government would replace
the Turks in ruling the land. And indeed,
the British government was granted a
mandate by the League of Nations, which
made life incalculably more tolerable for
the Jewishyishuv, the Jewish community.
The British government also was respon-
sible for the massive Third Aliyah — the
immigration of the early 1920s, of which
both my mother and father separately
were proud participants and to which I
attribute my own life.
The Partition Resolution of Nov. 29,
1947, aimed to divide the land into a
Jewish state and an Arab state with the
city of Jerusalem to be internationalized. It
should be made clear that the Arab popu-
lation rejected the partition out of hand

November Dates on page 40

November 5 , 2009

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