oints of view >> Send letters to: letters@thejewishnews.com Contributing Editor EDITORIAL BOARD: Publisher: Arthur M. Horwitz Chief Operating Officer: F. Kevin Browett Interim Editor: Alan Hitsky Contributing Editor: Robert Sklar Editorial •,t3.0.c1 Stronwor Jewish Women attend Friday prayers in a street in Benghazi, Libya, on March 4. Winnick's logic is sobering. Recall, he says, that in I t's easy to be enamored by the populist-style the 1980s, we supplied some of the same characters protests in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia and who later founded the Taliban and Al Qaida with other Arab nations and the sometimes-resulting military supplies and know-how to help them oust toppling of dictators. The protests seem to be a sign the Soviets from Afghanistan, a major of Muslims expressing their desire for factor in the disintegration of the Soviet freedom and liberty — almost a very Union. Only a decade later, our newfound American-like, valiant, grassroots rebel- "friends," the Taliban, were using this same lion to make good triumph over evil. Some observers are in awe of the brave 4 aid to fight their "enemy," the West. Notably, the goals of the Muslim citizens fighting for liberty. The hope, of Brotherhood and its ilk, Al Qaida, Taliban, course, is that new leaders would be bet- Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, are ter than the current dictators. the same: elimination of Israel and the But reality points in a different direc- installation of Sharia law throughout tion. So argues U.S. professor of chemi- the Middle East and beyond. Sharia law cal engineering Jack Winnick. He has Robert Sklar is the ancient legal system that, among served for more than 40 years as a con- other things, permits stoning and genital sultant within the industry and to NASA. mutilation against women. Even the most Currently, he's professor emeritus at the moderate of the leaders set to take power in Egypt, Georgia Institute of Technology Mohamed ElBaradei, does not deny Sharia or the School of Chemical & goals of the Brotherhood; he states he will open the Biomolecular Engineering in Atlanta. Egyptian border into Gaza, effectively permitting the In a powerful essay, he stakes claim to the flow of weapons to the Hamas terrorists in control. position that historical evidence and the clearly expressed desires of the protestors portend a poten- tial nuclear disaster for the opttirm If Strafoillf There are many who believe Israeli intransigence is U.S. and Israel. the barrier to peace in the region, Winnick continues. Eighty percent of all But Israel remains the only democracy in the Middle Egyptians and the major- ity of people in many other East with full religious freedom as well as participa- tion in government by all — Jews, Christians, Arabs, Muslim countries harbor Druze. This freedom, right on the Arabs' doorstep, animosity toward Israel has so angered theocratic zealots, including the and America, Winnick Muslim Brotherhood, that they have stoked the fires asserts. We know that in Egypt, the brutal leaders of of hatred and revolt across the region. That Arabs living in Israel have a higher standard the Muslim Brotherhood of living than those in the neighboring states is a would be far worse than Lta Professor Winnick constant thorn in the side of the Islamists (terrorists). the Mubarak regime. Power on page 27 26 May 12 2011 ore Jews live in metropolitan Tel Aviv than in New York City; and Israel is one of the world's most-developed nations, just as the U.S. is. The point: The Jewish state is no longer a poor cousin to the Washington-based superpower. America is larger, wealthier and more powerful than Israel. But the gap is no longer canyon sized; so the relationship between Jews in each country is changing. Better relations can come none too soon: The Palestinian Authority has sought U.N. approval for a sovereign, inde- pendent government in the West Bank by September. In a JTA-released essay, Jonathan Sarna and Jay Ruderman examine the budding new relationship between U.S. and Israeli Jews. Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. Ruderman is president of the Ruderman Family Foundation, based in Boston and Rehovot. Their thesis – that while U.S. Jews are learning much about Israeli life, Israelis learn little about American Jewry. Their examples resonate: • Whereas charitable funds once flowed almost exclu- sively from American Jewry to Israel, now Israel returns the acts of chesed (kindness) through programs such as Taglit-Birthright Israel. • Thanks in large part to the Internet, American Jews no longer categorically support Israeli government policy. They hear a full spectrum of Israeli voices, meaning the opinion of American Jews is as diverse as the views of Israelis. • Centers for Judaic studies have proliferated on U.S. campuses of higher education, but Israel boasts not even one significant academic center for the study of American Jewish life. And there are few university-based courses on American Jewish life. Israelis know "next to nothing about the deepest issues which Israelis and American Jews agree and dis- agree," the essay maintains. "They cannot comprehend what church-state separation means and how pluralism operates in the American context." How troubling is that? Every Israeli, notably political leaders, would benefit from knowing more about American Jewish life. The more American Jews and Israelis learn about one anoth- er, the better their future dealings indeed would be. As the essayists suggest, Knesset members would do well to consider the impact of their lawmaking on the American Jewish community. Israel as a democracy is beholden to its citizens first. But it also is the ancestral homeland for Jews throughout the diaspora. How the Knesset defines who is a Jew for marriage or aliyah is a global concern, as is how the Foreign Ministry responds to street uprisings for freedom in the Arab world and how the prime minister and army react in self-defense to Islamist terror. More than ever, American Jews and Israelis can strengthen their bond as strategic allies 6,000 miles apart by better understanding how their interests and challenges are inextricably tied. II