Sen. Joseph Lieberman participates in the Race for the Cure event in Jerusalem in 2010 with his wife. Hadassah, left, and Komen founder Nancy Brinker. (Photo U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv)

February 3, 2012, Washington, DC — The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) today commended the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® foundation for reversing its decision to defund cancer screenings performed by Planned Parenthood. NCJW CEO Nancy K. Kaufman released the following statement:
“NCJW was deeply disappointed when the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® foundation first announced it would no longer fund breast cancer prevention services provided by Planned Parenthood clinics. Today, we applaud the foundation for reversing that decision.
“Thousands of NCJW members and supporters spoke out against Komen’s initial decision, dismayed that a women’s health organization would put politics ahead of women’s health. We are pleased that the Komen foundation responded to the public outcry by reconsidering their decision and reaffirming their commitment to promoting health and wellness for all women.
“For years, NCJW advocates from across the United States have helped initiate and coordinate Komen Races for the Cure. Likewise, our members and supporters have a long history of partnership with Planned Parenthood. Both relationships are essential to our efforts to improve women’s access to health care, and Komen’s decision to retain its association with Planned Parenthood ensures that those partnerships can carry on and that women will continue to get needed cancer screenings and referral services from a trusted health care provider.”

Nearly two months after their dispute made headlines, both parties have been left bloodied — and some in the pro-Israel community say they wish the issue had never played out in such a public way.

“We have been contacted by a couple of people” at CAP “who want to see some peace,” said Jason Isaacson, director of government and international affairs at the American Jewish Committee. “We don’t want a war with CAP, although that probably is the intention of some people.”

Today, CAP is noticeably more careful about how its affiliated Think Progress and Middle East Progress blogs treat the issue of Israel. Block, meanwhile, was ousted from the Truman National Security Project, a network of young Democrats with an interest in foreign policy, for what it described as “uncivil discourse.”

At issue in the controversy were posts on the Think Progress and Middle East Progress blogs that either criticized Israel and its American allies — sometimes in harsh terms — or questioned calls for a tougher line on Iran. In addition, there were personal tweets by a Middle East Progress blogger that used the words “Israel Firster” — a phrase that many in the Jewish community feel is anti-Semitic — to disparage some supporters of Israel.

Late last year, Block shopped to reporters with whom he had longstanding ties a file of what he portrayed as statements that he said showed CAP, as well as the liberal group Media Matters, using the “words of anti-Semites.” Politico was the first to bite, running a story Dec. 7 that said CAP and Media Matters were “challenging a bipartisan consensus on Israel and Palestine that has dominated American foreign policy for more than a decade.”

The story quickly garnered attention, and it proved to have legs. On Jan. 19, the Washington Post reported on the anger of Jewish groups over some of the Israel rhetoric employed by CAP bloggers.

CAP has responded throughout by emphatically denying charges that it is hostile to Israel and insisting that its bloggers’ writings do not necessarily reflect the organization’s position.

CAP emailed a statement to JTA noting the group’s “zero tolerance” for anti-Semitism and other forms of bias.

“The Center for American Progress is and always has been pro-Israel, committed to a peace process that produces a durable two-state solution negotiated by the parties, and it takes seriously the threat posed by Iran and its nuclear activities,” CAP said in its statement. “The overwhelming record from hundreds of our articles, posts, and policy papers demonstrates our support for the longstanding bipartisan consensus that the two-state solution is in the moral and national security interests of the United States.”

CAP officials, seeking to contain the controversy’s fallout, have instructed staffers and others close to the organization not to speak to the media.

But figures close to the think tank, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they perceive Block’s efforts as an attempt to keep views critical of Israel out of the discourse or challenge what they see as pieties about the dangers posed by Iran. They also acknowledged, however, that since the controversy broke, CAP has become more careful about moderating its writers’ language on the topic.

Officials at some pro-Israel groups expressed frustration with the public attack on CAP at a time that they were trying to address their differences with the group through quiet diplomacy. A number of Jewish organizations had been making representations to CAP before the Politico story was published.

“At the highest levels of AIPAC, there is a philosophy of never going to the media with policy disputes,” an AIPAC official said on condition of anonymity.

“We’re not happy this has taken the course it has,” the official added. “We would have preferred it was dealt with quietly.”

Block declined to respond to suggestions by some Jewish communal officials that the issue should have been handled more discreetly. But within minutes of Block being approached for comment, the same AIPAC official, spurred by Block, called JTA and said that he would prefer not having his quote used. But he agreed that since he had said it for the record, it was fair to publish.

The AIPAC official made clear that his organization remained frustrated with CAP. Top AIPAC officials would meet with top CAP officials, the official said, and these meetings would conclude with an agreement by CAP to monitor blog posts more closely. AIPAC recently took CAP officials on an Israel tour, the official noted.

Yet CAP and its Middle East shop in particular would consistently return to what AIPAC perceived as unfair depictions of the policies of Israel and its supporters.

The stakes are high because of CAP’s perceived closeness to the White House and its centrality in Washington’s Democratic policy community. In 2008, Time Magazine called it “the most influential independent organization in Obama’s nascent Washington.”

Block says that CAP has allowed its bloggers to peddle distortions and falsehoods that demonize the pro-Israel community.

“As long as CAP chooses to have people writing the organization’s day-to-day views on national security and Middle East issues who truck in language and theories more at home on White Power and anti-Jewish conspiracy websites than in the mainstream of the Democratic Party, CAP’s work will be judged accordingly and the organization will continue to see its credibility erode,” Block told JTA.

Block is not alone in his distaste for some of CAP’s rhetoric.

“There were certain things that CAP was responsible for putting in the public arena that were not fair to Israel’s strategic situation and people who are sympathetic to Israel’s situation,” the AJC’s Isaacson said.

Perhaps the most incendiary items were tweets by Think Progress staffer Zaid Jilani, who several times used the term “Israel Firster” on his private Twitter feed.

In the wake of the Politico article, three Jewish groups — the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the Simon Wiesenthal Center — expressed alarm. The term, the ADL says, plays “into the old anti-Semitic notion that Jews are more loyal to some foreign entity than to their own country.”

CAP repudiated the term “Israel Firster,” and Jilani expunged from his Twitter feed the posts that used the term.

Sources close to CAP said Jilani, who is 23 and has since left CAP, used the term because it had the imprimatur of repeated use by M.J. Rosenberg, a one-time AIPAC staffer who long ago turned against the organization and now blogs for Media Matters, another target of Block’s ire. Rosenberg is a figure known in the left-leaning Middle East policy community as an analyst who can be incisive but who frequently veers into provocative rhetoric and name calling.

Rosenberg deferred comment on this matter, directing queries to Ari Rabin-Havt, Media Matters’ executive vice president. In an interview, Rabin-Havt said the terminology was beside the point.

“When we’re talking war and peace, the facts that tweets come up is symbolic of how the conversation has gone awry,” said Rabin-Havt, who said the survival of Israel was critical to him personally. “We should debate this. As Israel is one of our largest recipients of foreign aid, this is an American and Israeli issue.”

Yet it is the contours of that very debate that trouble pro-Israel groups. Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s national director, singled out an article by Eli Clifton, a Think Progress staffer, that seemed to suggest that AIPAC was driving the country toward war with Iran.

In an Aug. 10 post, Clifton described an AIPAC statement applauding a bipartisan Senate letter urging sanctions on Iran’s central bank as drawing “eerie parallels between the escalation of sanctions against Iran and the slow lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.”

Foxman said it was legitimate “to say that there are those in the Jewish community who feel very strongly about confronting Iran. But when it’s linked to a conspiratorial view of the Iraq war, ‘It’s the Israel lobby, it’s the Jewish community,’ that parrots a line.”

Sources close to CAP say the organization recognizes how Clifton’s language may have been problematic, and that it would be more useful to describe groups like AIPAC as backing measures that could escalate into military conflict, as opposed to accusing AIPAC of seeking war.

AIPAC does not advocate war with Iran. In public and private forums, top AIPAC officials have made clear their fears of the consequences of military conflict.

In a later clarification appended to Clifton’s post, Think Progress said that “Given Iran’s horrible record on human rights abuses and outright hostile and anti-Semitic rhetoric towards Israel, an Iran with nuclear weapons is very concerning and we support responsible measures to reduce that threat.”

In a Dec. 7 email forwarding the Politico story about the controversy to reporters, Block pointed to examples of what he said were provocative writings from CAP. But he included blog posts suggesting that Iran might be further away from a nuclear weapon than is commonly believed and advocating deterrence as opposed to an escalating confrontation.

“CAP authors have long sought to both debunk and sneer at suggestions of Iranian nuclearization, right through this morning,” he said. “This flies in the face of overwhelming congressional and center-left conviction that Iran is nuclearizing and that a robust sanctions regime is necessary to counter their efforts.”

CAP’s position on Iran is that it backs multilateral sanctions but opposes attempts in Congress — and backed by some pro-Israel groups — to impose sanctions unilaterally. It is the lumping together of criticisms of policy positions with accusations of anti-Semitism that infuriates CAP supporters.

“It was clearly a smear campaign against people, not because they are anti-Semitic, but because he disagreed with them on policy,” said Dave Solimini, the Truman National Security Project’s spokesman.

Block, who is a partner in a Washington consulting firm and a senior fellow at the centrist Progressive Policy Institute, has said that he is not bothered by being ousted from the Truman Project.

He expresses pride in what he sees as his role in spurring CAP to change.

“I don’t think this is who CAP, its new leadership or its allies want the organization to be,” Block said.  “I hope we will see more meaningful corrective measures in the future.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, seen here addressing a regional economic summit in Tehran in May 2011, says he is "optimistic" that nuclear inspectors will not find anything amiss this week during their visit to the country. (Parmida Rahimi via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel, the United States and Iran have all gone deep into mixed-signals territory.

Conversations with Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, left one prominent journalist convinced that Israel will strike Iran by year’s end. Yet two weeks ago, Barak had said that any possible Israeli attack on Iran is “far off.”

Leon Panetta, the U.S. defense secretary, said in December that any military strike would only set Iran’s nuclear program back a couple years — a remark that some Israelis read as conveying a sense of resignation to the idea that if Iran really wants a nuclear weapon, eventually it will be able to get one. But in a television interview broadcast Sunday, he vowed that the U.S. would take “whatever steps are necessary” to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Meanwhile, Iran is responding to international sanctions with a mix of threats to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and efforts to placate Western concerns about its nuclear program by allowing in inspectors and calling for new talks.

Two questions remain the focus of considerable speculation: Will Israel strike Iran? And will the sanctions cause Iran to bend?

The first question was the subject of a much-discussed Sunday New York Times Magazine cover story by Ronen Bergman, one of Israel’s best-connected security journalists. It featured rare and extensive on-the-record interviews with top Israeli officials, most prominently Barak.

Recent moves by the Iranians have underscored the significance of the second question.

Last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran was ready to sit down for talks to discuss its nuclear program. On Sunday, a team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, arrived in Tehran.

The team, according to the Associated Press, includes two weapons experts and will visit an Iranian nuclear facility near the religious city of Qom. President Obama’s revelation in 2009 of the until-then secret underground facility helped the U.S. make the case to the world community for intensified sanctions, leading to the recent international squeeze on Iran’s economy and energy sector.

The inspectors’ visit is the first since an IAEA report in November concluded that Iran was engaged in activities — particularly in the area of enhanced uranium enrichment capabilities — that could have no other discernible purpose but weaponization.

Iran continues to insist that its nuclear program has strictly civilian purposes. Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s foreign minister, was quoted by various media on Monday as saying that he was “optimistic” about the results of the inspectors’ three-day visit, and that it could be extended “if necessary.”

“One shouldn’t get too carried away, but I assume they have something to offer or they would not agree to schedule this visit,” said Barbara Slavin, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has written a book on U.S.-Iran relations titled “Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies.”

But Michael Adler, an Iran expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, noted that the Iranians resisted setting a formal agenda for the inspectors’ visit, which suggested a lack of seriousness by the Iranians.

“Iran has a history of offering to talk when it is under pressure, and then stalling so that the talks delay punitive measures against it,” Adler said.

Iran is also sending mixed messages to the United States in the region. In addition to its threat to shut the Strait of Hormuz in response to mounting sanctions, Iran’s army chief warned a U.S. aircraft carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf. But other Iranian officials later seemed to backtrack, calling the entry of another U.S. carrier into the gulf a routine event. Also this month, Iran test-fired cruise missiles that could be used against U.S. ships.

Israel’s plans, meanwhile, also have been the subject of speculation.

Bergman in his New York Times Magazine article concluded that an Israeli strike before year’s end was all but inevitable.

“I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012,” he wrote. “Perhaps in the small and ever-diminishing window that is left, the United States will choose to intervene after all, but here, from the Israeli perspective, there is not much hope for that.”

A number of Iran experts questioned his conclusions, noting that his article included a wealth of Israelis warning against such a strike — and even referred to Barak’s Jan. 18 statement that any decision to strike was “very far off.”

“It was a very odd article considering all the people he quoted who said that a strike was a bad idea,” Slavin said.

In part, Bergman argues, the feeling that Israel will need to strike Iran stems from what he suggests is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s belief that the U.S. will not attack in its stead should Iran be on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.

U.S. officials, including Panetta, have tried in recent weeks to emphasize their commitment to stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. In an interview broadcast Sunday, Panetta told the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes” that the United States would take “whatever steps are necessary” to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, calling it a “red line” for both Israelis and the United States.

Asked about the possibility of military action, Panetta responded that “there are no options that are off the table.”

Panetta also stressed the urgency of the situation, suggesting that Iran would be able to develop a nuclear weapon in approximately a year.

“The consensus is that if they decided to do it, it would probably take them about a year to be able to produce a bomb and then possibly another one to two years in order to put it on a deliverable vehicle of some sort in order to deliver that weapon,” Panetta said.

In articulating the notion that Iran could be able to develop a nuclear weapon in fairly short order, Panetta seems to be on the same page as Israeli officials.

In a statement Monday after returning from the annual economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, Barak again sounded a note of concern.

“Over the course of the various meetings” with other leaders at the forum, Barak said, “we repeatedly emphasized our stance that we must urgently intensify and broaden the sanctions against Iran. The determination of world leaders is critical in order to prevent the Iranians from advancing their military nuclear program.

“We must not waste time on this matter; the Iranians continue to advance [toward nuclear weapons], identifying every crack and squeezing through. Time is urgently running out.”

“Three years ago this week, NCJW was there as President Obama signed into the law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which reversed a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that deprived Lilly Ledbetter of the right to sue her employer based on a flawed interpretation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Ledbetter law marked an important step forward in the pursuit of equal pay for women. But women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. Clearly, Congress has not yet finished its job. Passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act to strengthen and update the 1963 Equal Pay Act is long overdue. The Paycheck Fairness Act, under consideration for decades, passed the House in 2009, only to be narrowly denied a cloture vote by a minority of senators in November of 2010.

“NCJW has long supported the Paycheck Fairness Act, and we join with those calling for its enactment, including Lilly Ledbetter herself. Now in a time of continuing economic stress, it is even more important for the well-being of American families that women receive equal pay for equal work. The fact that the reforms promised by the Paycheck Fairness Act are still languishing in Congress is a disgrace to our nation’s promise of equality.”

The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) is a grassroots organization of volunteers and advocates who turn progressive ideals into action. Inspired by Jewish values, NCJW strives for social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms.

]]> http://azjewishpost.com/2012/in-honor-of-ledbetter-anniversary-ncjw-calls-for-passage-of-paycheck-fairness-act/feed/ 0 http://azjewishpost.com/2012/in-jewish-fracking-debate-its-the-environment-vs-energy-independence-and-energys-winning/ http://azjewishpost.com/2012/in-jewish-fracking-debate-its-the-environment-vs-energy-independence-and-energys-winning/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:15:16 +0000 SHEILA WILENSKY - AJP Assistant Editor http://azjewishpost.com/?p=12514

Activists connected to Jews Against Hydrofracking demonstrating in New Jersey on Nov. 21. (Jews Against Hydrofracking)

NEW YORK (JTA) – To frack or not to frack?

As concerns mount over the environmental and public health consequences of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, Jewish groups are coalescing around a strategy that supports efforts to extract natural gas from shale rock while seeking to mitigate its worst effects.

In May, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the community’s main public policy umbrella group, will consider a draft resolution on fracking that in its current form acknowledges the potential benefits of a major new source of natural gas while urging greater oversight and government regulation of the practice.

“Our goal is to see energy independence that protects the environment,” said Sybil Sanchez, executive director of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, or COEJL, an initiative of the JCPA that promotes environmental stewardship.

Fracking refers to the process of pumping water, sand and chemicals into rock deep below the surface of the earth in an effort to release trapped deposits of natural gas. The controversial technique, which critics allege poisons groundwater and creates significant public health problems near drilling sites, has grown into a major policy debate.

In Pennsylvania, thousands of wells already have been dug to tap gas from the Marcellus Shale Deposit, a vast subterranean rock formation that is believed to hold enough natural gas to supply American demand for decades. New York, which also sits atop the Marcellus, has a moratorium in place on fracking, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo is considering lifting the ban.

At least four Jewish summer camps in northern Pennsylvania have signed leases to permit fracking on their land, the Forward reported last summer.

In the Jewish community, the fracking debate pits two established communal policy objectives against one another: protection of the environment vs. the desire to achieve independence from foreign energy sources, particularly from the Arab Middle East.

Energy independence is among the major policy objectives of the American Jewish Committee, whose New York chapter will host a panel discussion on Feb. 6 with three speakers who either endorse fracking or accept its inevitability.

Richard Foltin, AJC’s director of national and legislative affairs, told JTA that his organization believes that natural gas can be safely extracted from shale.

“We see this as a crucial part of a larger, multifaceted approach to promote reduced energy dependence that also includes enhanced efficiency and movement toward alternative fuels and alternative technologies,” Foltin said. “We want to see development of these domestic resources go forward — as safely as possible, but with an emphasis on allowing it to be done.”

Some environmental activists are deeply skeptical of both those claims.

The environmental safety of fracking has yet to be conclusively demonstrated, they say, and the industry has a poor track record. Moreover, even if the environmental concerns were addressed, the effects on foreign oil imports are likely to be negligible in the short term.

“The impact that increased natural gas production has on our consumption of foreign oil has more to do with whether or not natural gas becomes a viable vehicle fuel,” said Mark Brownstein, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund and a panelist at the AJC event. “The vast majority of oil is for transportation.”

Even so, fracking is virtually certain not just to continue but to expand. Thousands of wells already have been drilled, vast economic interests incentives are at play and the natural gas would be a cleaner-burning replacement for coal, the main U.S. source of energy.

Consequently, some in the environmental world have adopted a harm-minimization strategy rather than pushing for an outright ban.

The JCPA resolution, which was proposed by the Jewish Labor Committee, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation and the community relations councils of Pittsburgh and Silicon Valley in California, urges legislation that eliminates the gas industry’s exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act and requires full disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking.

“In an ideal world, it would not be happening at all,” said Deborah Goldberg, an attorney at Earthjustice and another AJC panelist. “We’re realists. We know this is going forward in many parts of the country and that it will go forward whether we like it or not. So in those areas we are working to get the best possible protections in place that we can.”

For some, though, no regulatory regime will ever be sufficient.

“We should not be expanding it,” said Mirele Goldsmith, an organizer with Jews Against Hydrofracking who would like to see New York ban the practice permanently. “We should instead be looking at renewable sources of energy that don’t have the risks that hydrofracking has.”

“Your coffee’s warm but your milk is sour/Life is short but you’re here to flower,” the lyrics state. “Dream yourself along another day/Never miss opportunity.”

Those were words Matt Seidler lived by, his father, Marc, said in a tearful eulogy for his son on Jan. 17 at Sol Levinson and Bros. Funeral Home.

“He loved the Air Force. It was his calling. There was no second choice,” Marc Seidler said. “He was very happy with his band of brothers, and [being in the U.S. Air Force] reconnected him with the importance of family. He loved getting the letters and e-mails and packages.”

Marc Seidler went on: “I wonder where he got his bravery from. He never questioned his commitment to his country. We can all learn from Matt. Our freedom is something we should never take for granted.”

More than 500 mourners – including dozens of members of the military and the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A. – attended the funeral service for Matt Seidler, an explosive ordnance disposal technician who died Jan. 5 of injuries sustained from an improvised explosive attack in Shir Ghazi in the Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan. The Baltimore-born Seidler, who was assigned to the 21st Civil Engineer Squadron headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base in El Paso County, Colo., died only two days after his 24th birthday.

Also killed in the attack were Senior Airman Bryan R. Bell, 23, of Erie, Pa., and Tech. Sgt. Matthew S. Schwartz, 34, of Traverse City, Mich. At least 1,472 service members have died in Afghanistan as a result of hostile action, according to the military.

A 2006 graduate of Westminster High School who became a Bar Mitzvah at the now-defunct Beth Shalom of Carroll County, Seidler entered active duty in November 2009. Before joining the Air Force, he took classes for a year in business administration at Stevenson University and started in a multimedia design program at Carroll Community College.

Standing at attention and holding American flags upright in the cold, drizzling rain, approximately 40 leather-clad members of the Patriot Guard Riders motorcycle club lined the front of Levinson’s to pay respect to Seidler and his family, as well as to prevent potential disruptions by members of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church. (Church members have shown up frequently at soldiers’ funerals across the country to voice their opposition to what they view as American tolerance of homosexuality.)

“We’re here to be there for the soldier’s family,” one Patriot Guard member said. “It’s the least we can do. Right now, they have to have their time.”

At the funeral, members of the military in the audience stood up as a high-ranking Air Force officer presented the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the Air Force Commendation Medal and the Air Force Combat Action Medal to Seidler posthumously.

On the podium near the flag-draped casket, Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation’s Rabbi Yerachmiel Shapiro led the mourners in the 23rd Psalm. He noted that Seidler, known for his modesty and humility, “would probably be embarrassed by all of this.”

“When it comes to Matt, we have much to mourn for, and much to honor and celebrate,” Shapiro said. “We mourn his life just as he was starting to blossom and grow. But we are overwhelmed by the dignity and honor of a young man who gave everything for his country.”

The rabbi recalled Seidler’s childhood growing up in Finksburg, being a Cub Scout, attending a Montessori school and playing in old refrigerator boxes with his younger brother, Justin.

“He loved his Bar Mitzvah because for that one day he was hot stuff, the center of attention,” Shapiro said. “He was extremely proud of being a Jewish man. … He observed and respected the Jewish tradition.”

In addition, Shapiro said that Seidler possessed a curious, adventurous nature. “Matt loved to explore, whether it was Kings Dominion, Gettysburg or the [Maryland] Science Center,” the rabbi said.

Seidler also was creative and competitive throughout his life, whether he was playing Frisbee, pool or poker with friends or dreaming about his future, according to Shapiro.

“Matt always told people he planned to be a CEO when he grew up,” he said. “He had a quiet, reserved nature. It was hard for him to share internal thoughts.”

Joining the Air Force was an opportunity for Seidler – who loved dressing up in costumes as a kid and pretending to be a cowboy or pirate – “to be a real superhero,” Shapiro said. “He didn’t just join any unit. His job was to defuse and detonate bombs. He knew what he was getting into.”

Always a stubborn individual, Seidler utilized his nature for the common good. “Matt Seidler was strong-willed, full of convictions for his values, and stood up for what he believed in,” the rabbi. “He wanted to help his fellow soldiers and serve his country.”

The Air Force transformed Seidler. “He became a man,” Shapiro said. “He grew in confidence and comfort in himself, and developed a camaraderie of friends that he enjoyed. He became a lover of nature and the outdoors.”

The rabbi also said, “At least he found himself and lived his dream while he was alive. Matt never said negative things about anyone. He was an encourager and he led by example. He followed his dream and didn’t let fear determine his path. If he was here, he’d say, `Don’t cry for me. You’ve got to understand, I was doing this for you.’ ”

When last speaking with his son, Marc Seidler said, “He was the happiest he’d ever been in his life. He told us he loved us, and that’s not easy for a 24-year-old to say to his mother and father. … We were blessed to have him for 24 years. He was a good guy, with not a mean bone in his body.”

Matt Seidler, who was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, is survived by his parents, Marc and Lauren Seidler; his brother, Justin Seidler; his grandparents, Pearl and Aaron Seidler, and Leda Hoff; and other family members, friends and extended family in the U.S. Air Force and EOD Unit. Contributions in his memory may be sent to the Matthew Seidler Memorial Fund, c/o Susquehanna Bank, Attn: John Cole, 532 Baltimore Blvd., Suite 202, Westminster, MD 21157; or the EOD Memorial Foundation (www.eodmemorial.org), Fisher House Foundation (www.fisherhouse.org) or the USO (www.uso.org).

Democrats are rolling out a campaign to rival any of the GOP candidates, with a particular focus on the state’s substantial Jewish community.

Democratic officials said that volunteers in Florida already had made nearly 600,000 calls to supporters and conducted thousands of training sessions, many of them focusing on the Jewish community, 10 months before the general election. The Obama campaign has opened nine offices in the state.

“Florida is the most significant battleground state, and will be in 2012,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, in a conference call Monday with the Jewish media. “We’re taking nothing for granted. We’re in the process of using these primaries as an organizing tool.”

Wasserman Schultz said Jewish surrogates were targeting communities across the state, defending Obama’s Israel record as well as emphasizing differences on health care and social issues, like abortion.

The rollout was planned months ago, well before Newt Gingrich’s stunning upset win Saturday in the South Carolina GOP primary buried the notion of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, as the party’s impervious front-runner. The latest polls from Florida show Gingrich pulling ahead of Romney by 7 to 9 percentage points; just a week earlier Romney had enjoyed double-digit leads in the state’s polls.

Florida is a testing ground because it is the first large and diverse state, said Nancy Ratzan, a former president of the National Council of Jewish Women who is now active in the Democratic Party.

“Florida is more reflective of what they’re going to find in other parts of the country,” she said.

Romney and Gingrich head into Florida with few holds barred, each striving to identify the other as a member of the “elites” reviled by the Republican base.

A Romney ad released Monday accused Gingrich of making money off the financial crisis by taking money from a government-backed mortgage company. It said that the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and Georgia congressman was a Washington “insider.”

Gingrich has depicted Romney as uncaring, drawing on his career as a venture capitalist. He also has seized on Romney’s tax returns, just released, which show investments in the same government-backed mortgage company that paid Gingrich for consulting fees.

Noam Neusner, a former domestic policy adviser to President George W. Bush, said that Gingrich had upended the race with his South Carolina victory and the race was now wide open.

Neusner, who has not endorsed a candidate, noted that Romney had won the “Jewish donors” primary, drawing the largest assemblage of Jewish supporters. But he noted that Gingrich was a known quantity among Jewish conservatives going back to his days as House speaker from 1995 to 1998.

Gingrich’s positions are “very similar to Romney’s and certainly very acceptable to Republican voters,” he said.

Tevi Troy, a deputy health secretary under President George W. Bush who now advises the Romney campaign, suggested — very delicately — that Gingrich’s mercurial personality would be an issue as the campaign rolls forward.

“You have to choose wisely about who the right candidate is,” Troy said. “Here you have a guy with strong leadership experience and in business, and has a good chance of beating President Obama and running a strong, competent foreign policy.”

Neusner acknowledged that “there’s a greater comfort level with a certain constancy of personality in Romney.”

“Gingrich is admired” for his intellect, Neusner said, “but there’s greater enthusiasm that Romney could do better in the general” election.

Both presidential hopefuls, as well as fellow candidate Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, have made Obama’s relationship with Israel a key target of their foreign policy campaigning.

“We’re very comfortable saying that so long as Barack Obama or Ron Paul are not the president, Israel will be a much safer place,” said Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the West Palm Beach Republican Party who has not endorsed a candidate.

Dinerstein said that Republican Jews were too small a constituency to expect to be courted intensely in the primary, which is open only to registered Republicans. But that will change ahead of the general election, he said, when he expects the eventual Republican candidate to draw Jewish independents and centrist Democrats because of Obama’s Israel record.

“President Obama has no chance of getting 78 percent of the vote,” he said, a reference to the level of Jewish support Obama garnered in the 2008 elections, according to exit polling.

The Republican National Committee has identified Florida as a swing state with a substantial Jewish population where Jewish votes could make the difference, according to an activist who saw an RNC memo late last year. The memo listed Jewish voters in the state as numbering 450,000, which seems to comport with figures from Jewish groups that estimate the state’s overall Jewish population at 640,000. Other such states listed in the memo were Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nevada, according to the activist.

The importance of Florida’s Jewish vote is one area where there is bipartisan agreement. Obama proxies in Florida include Wasserman Schultz and Robert Wexler, a former Florida congressman who now heads the Center for Middle East Peace in Washington.

Democrats are emphasizing domestic issues in their approach to Jewish voters, as well as Obama’s Israel record. Wasserman Schultz said on the call that Republican plans to privatize parts of Medicare threatened a key safety net for the elderly.

Romney is planning Jewish events, a campaign official said. The campaign official also said that John Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations who is a favorite of many hawkish Jewish conservatives, will campaign in the state for Romney ahead of the primary.

Queries to Gingrich’s campaign went unanswered. Reports say he is going into Florida without funds or organization comparable to those at Romney’s disposal.

Sheldon Adelson, the pro-Israel casino magnate who has long been close to the former House speaker, helped boost his prospects in South Carolina with a $5 million infusion to an independent pro-Gingrich group, Winning America’s Future. And on Monday it was reported that thebillionaire’s wife, Miriam, was donating another $5 million to the group.

Republicans emphasize the diplomatic disagreements that Obama has had with Israel over its settlement policies, and say the president has not done enough to isolate Iran. Democrats stress the close security relationship with Israel cultivated by Obama and say Iran is more isolated than it’s ever been because of his policies.

Ratzan, who now speaks regularly to Jewish groups on behalf of Democrats, said she is encountering the effects of a Republican attacks on Obama’s Israel record.

“I’m definitely getting questions,” she said, but the Obama campaign and the administration “are doing a good job of getting the message out.”

A case in point, she said, was the 7-minute video that the Obama campaign released last week that culled from news footage a slew of testimonials to the president’s commitment to Israel from a slate of Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Alan Solow, a key Obama fundraiser and the immediate past president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said it is critical to get out Obama’s pro-Israel message now.

“We think it’s important that we don’t allow the Republicans to establish the narrative regarding what the president has done for Israel,” he said, adding that the timing was fortuitous.

“We thought that this was a good time, generally, to do the video,” Solow said, noting that the election season had been launched in earnest. “It’s a happy coincidence for us that we’re doing it at a time when there was attention for Florida.”

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords hugs Daniel Hernandez, the former congressional intern who helped save her life, at a private gathering Jan. 23. (Facebook.com)

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was wounded in an assassination attempt on Jan. 8, 2011, announced Sunday that she would resign from Congress. In a dramatic two-minute video posted on her congressional website, Giffords said she will step down as she continues her recovery.

“I have more work to do on my recovery, so to do what is best for Arizona, I will step down this week,” she said. “I’m getting better. Every day my spirit is high. I will return, and we will work together for Arizona and this great country.”

Speaking slowly but clearly, Giffords thanked viewers for their prayers and said that she will always remember the trust her constitutents placed in her.

Tucsonans were quick to weigh in on Giffords’ resignation on Facebook.  Mayor Jonathan Rothschild posted the following message:  “Gabby, Tucson loves you. We wish you all the best in your amazing recovery. We are grateful for your service in Congress and, before that, in the Arizona Legislature. I know that you will continue to inspire, to lead, and to accomplish great things.”

Giffords was shot through the left side of her brain at a Congress on Your Corner event last January outside a Safeway in northwest Tucson.  Six people were killed and 13 others, including Giffords, were wounded. The accused gunman, Jared Loughner, is being treated in a Missouri federal prison in an attempt to make him psychologically fit to stand trial. In the video, Giffords said she doesn’t “remember much from that horrible day.”

On Monday, her last day in Tucson as a member of Congress, the 41-year-old Giffords held a private gathering with some of the people who were at the Jan. 8, 2011 event, including some of the citizens who aided injured people and others who subdued the gunman.  She also visited the Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, established with donations made in her honor after the shooting.

Giffords attended President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday evening at the Capital. She sat between U.S. Reps. Jeff Flake, a Republican, and Raul Grijalva, a Democrat. At last year’s State of the Union address, shortly after Giffords was shot, the Arizona congressmen flanked an empty seat reserved for Giffords.

President Obama invited Giffords’ husband, Mark Kelly, to be his guest at the address. Kelly sat with First Lady Michelle Obama.

The National Jewish Democratic Council wished Giffords, the first Jewish woman to be elected to Congress from Arizona, “continued quick healing on her path to recovery” and looked forward to “the occasion when we can welcome her back to public life.”

“We are so tremendously proud of the remarkable determination and resiliency that Gabby has shown in her amazing recovery; indeed all Americans have watched in awe as she has taken her first steps and grown stronger and stronger,” NJDC chair Marc Stanley and vice-chair Marc Winkelman said in a statement. “While we have all eagerly hoped for the day that Gabby would rejoin her colleagues on a daily basis on Capitol Hill, it’s a sign of how highly she values her constituents and her district that she has made this very difficult decision to step aside.”

Giffords, a third-generation Arizonan who served for five years in the state legislature before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2006, was sworn in for her third term just  days before the shooting tragedy.

After she joined Congress on Jan. 4, 2007, Giffords cast herself as a champion of border security, energy independence and the needs of military families and veterans.

According to her congressional office, Giffords was proud that her 9,000-square mile district included Tombstone, the town “too tough to die.”

Giffords, who was honored in an emotional farewell on the House floor, submitted her letter of resignation Wednesday to  Speaker John Boehner. She also submitted her letter to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. The governor will set a date for special primary and general elections this spring to determine who will serve the remainder of Giffords’ term until January 2013, followed by the regular primary and general elections in the fall.

Former Tucson Mayor Tom Volgy, a political science professor at the University of Arizona, predicted in Monday’s Arizona Daily Star, “There is an enormous amount of good will toward Gabby, and whoever she would endorse would likely win the special election.”

Republican National Committeeman Bruce Ash told the AJP that “a Giffords endorsement will mean something more in the primary than in the general election.”

“Being a member of Congress is just a job,” he added. “Gabby and her family know what is most important is her full recovery and return to full health. All of her friends feel the same way. She has served her constituents very well. She is a patriot. We all look forward to what we hope is a long healthy life.”

Rabbi Stephanie Aaron of Congregation Chaverim, where Giffords is a member, told the AJP, “I’m very, very sad. It’s an acute feeling that our state, our country, our world has been deprived of a great leader. For her it was the right thing to do. It will take a combination of a lot of strong prayer for Gabby’s continued recovery, and hope that she returns to public service as the powerful Gabby Giffords we all know and love.”

To view Rep. Giffords’ resignation video, go to  giffordsforcongress.com. JTA contributed to this article.

Extra police cars were on patrol near synagogues. At Bnei Yeshurun in Teaneck, a new buzzer system had been installed. And at Ahavath Torah in Englewood, a phalanx of security guards stood sentry.

The heightened caution comes after a month of increasingly worrisome attacks against synagogues in Bergen County, an affluent part of New York City’s suburbs with a sizable Jewish population.

“There was a profound sense of unease this past Shabbat in Bergen County,” Etzion Neuer, the acting regional director of the New Jersey branch of the Anti-Defamation League, said this week. “It’s largely anecdotal, but in conversations I’ve had with individuals and community leaders, there is a strong sense of unease and real anxiety over what’s happened lately.”

What’s happened is a string of attacks against Jewish institutions. The attacks began on Dec. 10, when the exterior of Temple Beth Israel in Maywood was spray-painted with swastikas and the phrase “Jews did 9/11.” Eleven days later, Temple Beth El in neighboring Hackensack was similarly defaced with graffiti.

On Jan. 3, an arsonist targeted Congregation K’Hal Adath Jeshurun in Paramus, which borders Hackensack and Maywood. And on Jan. 11, five Molotov cocktails were thrown through the window of a synagogue and rabbi’s residence in Rutherford, burning the rabbi’s hands and forcing his family to flee from the building.

“As I was trying to smother the flames on the windowsill with my blanket, I looked out and saw another incendiary on the roof,” Rabbi Nosson Schuman told JTA. “That’s when I realized it was a hate crime.”

The attacks come as another New York area neighborhood, the heavily Jewish Midwood section of Brooklyn, saw a spate of incidents in recent months, including the torching of parked vehicles, threatening phone calls and swastikas. On Monday, police arrested a New York City Jewish man suspected in those attacks, raising the specter that anti-Semitism was not the motive.

In New Jersey, no arrests have been made in the attacks, which have undermined the sense of security of one of the country’s largest and most established Jewish communities. ADL tripled its original offer for information leading to the arrest of the Rutherford perpetrator, to $7,500, after community members chipped in their own money.

“You may get leaders who are publicly putting on a bright face but are privately concerned about their communities,” Neuer said. “Anxiety is not inherently healthy, but in this particular case it is natural, and what we would like is for leaders to channel that anxiety into better security policies.”

In an effort to do that, law enforcement officials met last week with representatives of more than 80 Jewish institutions to discuss security measures for synagogues and schools. The meeting, held at the Paramus headquarters of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, reviewed current procedures and introduced new measures for tightened security around Jewish communities.

“This is a new type of training for us,” said Ruth Gafni, principal of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County. “We have lived in such a peaceful way so far and we’ve been so blessed to feel so safe and secure. This attack has changed the playing field.”

Also over the past week, more than a dozen Jewish institutions have reached out for help to the Community Security Service, a nonprofit organization that provides training and services that aim to help tighten security at Jewish facilities.

Joshua Glice, the director of synagogue and school operations for the service, told JTA that he had conducted risk assessment studies this week for rabbis at their homes.

The attack that raised special concern in New Jersey was the Rutherford incident, which was the first anti-Jewish attack to result in injury.

At 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 11, Schuman was awakened by the sound of the Molotov cocktails entering his home, which is attached to the synagogue he leads. Schuman’s wife, children and parents escaped from the fire without injury, but the rabbi endured the burns to his hands. Bergen County’s prosecutor, John Molinelli, said he will charge the perpetrator with attempted murder, according to The Record newspaper.

“Someone was clearly trying to kill me and my family,” Schuman said, “not just damage the synagogue.”

According to the ADL, New Jersey typically reports one of the higher totals for anti-Semitic incidents in the United States, owing largely to its sizable and visible Jewish population.

The ADL’s 2010 national audit of anti-Semitic incidents reported 130 incidents statewide, placing New Jersey third in the nation after California and New York. The figure was 132 the previous year. Most of the incidents in the ADL survey are acts of harassment or vandalism; only a tiny minority are acts of physical violence.

According to the New Jersey State Police, Jews are the religious group most frequently victimized by bias crimes, accounting for 34 percent of the total in 2010.

“These crimes are more serious than previous ones,” Neuer said. “Four incidents in such a short period of time in a concentrated area suggest something more significant in play here.”

Police as of Tuesday had not decided whether to treat the incidents as the work of a single perpetrator or not. A spokesman for the Hackensack police told JTA that the attack there and in Maywood are being treated as related incidents. The other two, he said, have no definitive connection.

Community leaders are more inclined to view the incidents as part of a single phenomenon, though they are hesitant to speculate on what lies behind the recent spate. Anti-Semitic incidents occasionally spike in reaction to rising tensions in the Middle East.

“I think that if there’s division amongst the Jewish people it shows weakness, and that’s when [anti-Semites] attack,” Schuman said. “We have to work on Jewish unity.”

Schuman added that the response following the attack showed that unity among all faiths is possible. At a Saturday night interfaith event organized to promote unity and support, more than 250 people of diverse religions attended.

“People have sent e-mails, gave donations and brought over food,” Schuman said. “We had a special kiddush. So many people came over with food that we had to share it with the community.”

A swastika spray-painted on a window of Temple Beth Israel in Hackensack, N.J., Dec. 10, 2011. (ADL)

U.S. and Israeli officials confirmed to JTA over the weekend that they had delayed until the second half of 2012 what was to have been the largest-ever joint anti-missile exercise, Austere Challenge 12.

Speaking off the record, officials in the United States and Israel confirmed published reports that Iran factored into the decision. But just how Iran factored in they would not say, and they insisted that the overriding factor had to do with preparedness for the exercise and Israeli budgetary concerns.

A Pentagon spokesman, Capt. John Kirby, said in an e-mail that the exercise was canceled for routine reasons of wanting “optimum participation” by both sides.

“It is not at all uncommon for routine exercises to be postponed,” Kirby said. “There were a variety of factors at play in this case, but in general, leaders from both sides believe that optimum participation by all units is best achieved later in the year. We remain dedicated to this exercise and naturally want it to be as robust and as productive as it can be.”

On background, Israeli and U.S. officials said that “optimum conditions” had to do with defense spending, now the subject of a fierce debate in Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure, after a summer of protests, to increase social safety net spending.

In October, Netanyahu said he would cut defense spending to fund social spending, but last week he reversed course, hiking defense allocations by $700 million.

The fluctuating positions have created uncertainty in Israel’s defense establishment, and U.S. officials confirmed an account originally reported by Laura Rozen of Yahoo News that it was Defense Minister Ehud Barak who requested the delay in December.

Critics of the Obama administration were not buying it, insisting that the delay revealed a fissure between President Obama and Netanyahu over how to handle Iran. Some suggested that the Obama administration feared the joint exercise would further ratchet up tensions with Iran.

Danielle Pletka, vice president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the announcement fit into a pattern of what she depicted as the Obama administration’s overly cautious approach to Iran’s aggression, including its threats to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which would cut off much of the West’s oil supply.

“Now they cancel these exercises with the Israelis and make the Israelis say they asked for it,” she said. “For the Iranians there is only one message here. That is: ‘Our tactics are working!’ ”

One Israeli report, on the country’s Channel 2, quoted unnamed Israeli officials as saying that it was the U.S. that requested the postponement, although U.S. officials and other Israelis have pushed back, insisting that it was Israel that made the request.

Pentagon officials reached out to journalists Tuesday to reinforce their claim that it was Israel, not the United States, that requested the delay. According to an unnamed senior U.S. defense official cited by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Barak requested to cancel the exercise because he feared the Israeli military lacked the resources to carry it out effectively.

The official said that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta objected, fearing that it would send Iran a signal that Israel and the United States were wavering.

“Panetta’s initial reaction was, ‘I don’t want to take this off the calendar,’ ” Goldberg quoted the official as saying. Panetta, the official said, was unwilling to cancel the exercise but agreed to a postponement.

Still, speculation regarding the exercise’s postponement reflects worries over whether the United States and Israel are on the same page when it comes to Iran.

There have been reports that Obama is pressing Netanyahu not to strike Iran — or at least to notify the United States in advance of such a strike. More recently, the U.S. condemned last week’s assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, a killing that many commentators suggest was carried out by the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency.

One theory circulating in the wake of the cancellation of the postponement of the anti-missile exercises is that Israel may be retreating from close defense cooperation, in part because of the U.S. pressure to coordinate on Iran.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. joint military chiefs of staff, is due to arrive in Israel on Thursday and is expected to again press Israel not to strike Iran.

Eitan Barak, an assistant professor of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, suggested that Israel’s refusal to commit to notifying the U.S. in advance of any military plans “could be an exercise to employ pressure on the United States to urge it to act against Iran.”

He said that Israel has in the past ratcheted up its defensive posture as a means of pressuring the United States and the West to confront a regional threat. He noted that during the first Gulf War, in 1991, Israel pulled its missiles out of their silos after suffering a barrage of Iraqi Scud missiles. Israel was signaling impatience with the failure of allied forces to take out Scud missile launchers in western Iraq.

“Once the U.S. satellites detected the missiles, the United States took Israel seriously” and started hitting western Iraqi targets, the Hebrew University’s Barak said. “It was a clear signal, if you don’t do something, we will.”

Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born analyst who lives in Israel, said the announcement of the decision to delay the anti-missile exercise could as easily be spun as a tale of closer Israel-U.S. cooperation.

“The preference here is for a negotiated settlement,” Javedanfar said. “Nobody in Israel wants Iran to havea  nuclear bomb — this is one of the few nonpartisan issues — but we are also aware that the war with Iran could have far-reaching consequences, including our relationship with the United States.”

The decision to postpone a robust U.S.-Israel show of strength could be tied to signals that Iran is softening its position on negotiations over increasing the transparency of its nuclear program, he suggested. Western nations believe the program is aimed at building a bomb, while Iran insists it is peaceful.

Iran has invited inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit its facilities later this month, a key U.S. demand, and the Obama administration reportedly is considering a Turkish offer to broker new talks on making transparent Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

“The Israeli way of making Khameini sit with Obama is to make it clear all options are on the table,” Javedanfar said, referring to the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini. “The idea is to get Khameini to return to the table with a serious offer.”