According to a poll conducted last month by Hebrew University’s Harry Truman Center and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, roughly two-thirds of both Israelis and Palestinians believe the chances of implementing a two-state solution in the next five years is low or nonexistent. The one-state solution, on the other hand, enjoys the support of only one-third of both peoples, although this has increased by over 10 percent in the past year.

But the lack of confidence in a two-state solution and limited support for a single state should not mean the conflict is destined for intractability. Other options exist. Those that creatively incorporate elements of both the two- and one-state models are being examined by some Israeli and Palestinian civil society groups and academics. And this simple act could yield positive results.

One explanation of the low support for the single state solution is the suspicion both Israelis and Palestinians have of each other’s intentions. Many people on both sides view such arrangements as favoring the rights and national aims of one side over the other, thereby framing the conflict as a zero-sum game.

We need to “expand the pie” and reformulate the zero-sum equation to one in which the two sides share resources like land, instead of dividing them. Such a framework could focus on the new benefits both sides stand to gain, rather than what each side must compromise on.

In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, there are two widely ignored alternative models that do just that.

One model is a federation between Israel and Palestine that acknowledges the intimate and small geographic area of the land, while addressing the desires of different communities and ethnic groups for national self-determination. Unlike past proposals that envisioned a wider regional federation that included Jordan, the current models are limited to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Most federal models include a number of administrative regions that are largely autonomous but still subordinate to a federal government whose jurisdiction is limited in scope to areas of shared concern. The sovereign concept of territorial control is maintained while obviating the need to sacrifice territory.

The federal model offers an interesting solution for Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital. The holy city would be the seat of a federal government that serves both nationalities equally. Administratively, it would fall under the control of no single national group or district.

One group promoting a federal model is the Federation of Israel-Palestine, a civil society group composed of both Palestinians and Israelis, which focuses on new potential mechanisms for solving the conflict. Late last year the group planned to hold symbolic elections for 300 districts within Israel and Palestine to form a third, federal government. Palestinian anti-normalisation protesters, however, prevented the event from taking place, highlighting the difficulty of introducing alternative ideas into the mainstream.

Another model being discussed is also composed of separate Israeli and Palestinian governments within a single state, but unlike the federal model it does so without delineating internal geographic boundaries. The idea, which has not been implemented anywhere else in the world, was formulated by Israeli and Palestinian academics working with Lund University, in Sweden, on the Parallel States Project. In this project’s model, parallel state governments based on national identity would govern religion, culture and nationality for their citizens regardless of where they live within the territory. The two governments would coordinate security, infrastructure and other areas of shared concern.

These models face serious challenges and have significant shortcomings; neither adequately addresses how military and security forces are controlled or defines their role. Another problem is that an end to violence must precede any resolution that does not physically separate the two sides. While they have yet to gain traction amongst the general public, they are becoming better known in civil society and academic circles.

By combining and incorporating elements of both one and two-state solutions, there is an opportunity to reformulate the stakes and expand the possibilities for reaching an agreement.

Surely, if the current process and ideas are not working, it can’t hurt to look at others. Introducing new ideas into the Israeli and Palestinian discourse could revitalize the peace process and reveal undiscovered paths to overcoming seemingly intractable differences that have led to its stagnation.

Michael Omer-Man is a staff writer and breaking news editor for The Jerusalem Post’s online edition. He has an academic background in conflict resolution. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

A haredi Orthodox man watching Israeli soldiers as an army ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Feb. 22, 2012. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90/JTA)

(JTA) – Israel’s new unity government may not alter Jerusalem’s strategy for curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons program or do much to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

It could, however, dramatically change something at home about which a huge number of Israelis care deeply: haredi Orthodox exemptions from military service.

For years, haredi issues have been something of a third rail in Israeli politics. Nearly every government in recent years has needed the haredi parties to cobble together a governing coalition, rendering haredi entitlement programs like the military exemption politically untouchable.

This long has irritated Israelis who serve in the army and resent that the haredim, by and large, do not serve yet draw all sorts of entitlement payments from the state.

But with Shaul Mofaz’s decision to bring his Kadima party and its 28 seats into the ruling coalition, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu no longer needs the haredi parties to keep his government in power. They could pull out, and it would make no real difference — at least until the elections that are scheduled for October 2013.

How far will Netanyahu go in taking advantage of a historic opportunity to end the special treatment for haredi Israelis?

The question is likely to hinge on political considerations.

Already there is movement on finding an alternative to the Tal Law, which granted military exemptions to haredi Israeli men but was struck down several months ago by Israel’s Supreme Court. The court ordered that an alternative to the law be put into place by Aug. 1.

Crafting an alternative to the Tal Law is one of the top four priorities set forth by the new government coalition. The other three are passing a comprehensive budget, reforming the structure of government and making progress toward peace. The budget issue is expected to be resolved one way or the other, as budgets generally are, but there is something pie in the sky about the other two priorities.

That leaves the Tal Law alternative as the potential historical legacy of this 18-month alliance between Netanyahu and Mofaz.

On Tuesday, that alternative began to take shape.

The Jerusalem Post reported that under the Mofaz-Netanyahu deal, haredi exemptions from the army would be replaced by a Basic Law — the Israeli equivalent to a constitutional amendment — requiring all citizens to perform military or civilian service.

Last month, Kadima proposed instituting a universal military draft within five years. Under the Kadima plan, all Israelis either would serve in the military or do national service in a variety of fields, among them education, health and domestic security. Those who fail to comply would be barred from receiving any state funding.

The question is whether such a plan, which would radically alter the relationship between the state and its rapidly growing haredi Orthodox population, could survive opposition from Israel’s haredi Orthodox parties.

Netanyahu doesn’t need them to survive in office until the next elections. Indeed, if he were to push through such legislation, it could earn his Likud party much broader support, including from secular and more centrist voters, the next time Israel goes to the polls.

But it could cost Netanyahu in October 2013 if Likud wins the election, Kadima fares poorly and Netanyahu needs the haredi parties to form a coalition.

Those considerations, political analysts say, will mitigate whatever changes are made to haredi exemptions.

Some other factors are at play, too.

For one thing, while in principle most Israelis would like haredim to be subject to the same requirements of service demanded of all other Israelis, in practice the army does not want a sudden flood of tens of thousands of new haredi recruits. The Israel Defense Forces lacks the infrastructure to absorb them, both in numbers and operationally. What would the army do with 10,000 new recruits who are religiously opposed to significant interaction with female instructors?

Also, a dramatic transformation of the relationship between haredim and the state would run up against opposition not only from haredi parties in the Knesset but from haredi citizens. They would see the sudden change as a broadside against their way of life, and mass demonstrations and even riots likely would ensue. It would make the haredi riots against parking lots opening on the Sabbath and a Modern Orthodox girls’ school in Beit Shemesh seem like child’s play.

The reality is that Israel doesn’t want all these haredim in the army .What Israel wants is more haredi men working, paying taxes and integrated into Israeli society.

Under the current system, haredi men must stay in yeshiva until their 30s to keep their military exemption (religious women are granted exemptions from army service upon request). That has helped bankrupt the haredi community and nurture a black market economy in which many haredi men work surreptitiously and do not pay taxes.

Changing the rule would help drive haredim into the workforce and into better-paying jobs. That would help Israel’s tax rolls, reduce haredi dependency on welfare and help integrate haredim into Israeli society.

There is great debate within the haredi community about whether or not to welcome these changes. Some haredim see it as key to the economic and social survival of their community. But other haredi leaders see it as opening up a slipperly slope away from the yeshiva and Jewish observance and toward the dangerous temptations of modern, secular Israel.

Ultimately, whatever change comes to the haredi community is likely to come gradually.

Kadima has proposed exempting 1,000 haredi yeshiva students from the military draft and allowing others to defer military service on a year-by-year basis while they are studying in yeshiva. According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, Likud is likely to propose an alternative that instead would establish a minimum number of haredi participants in national service programs that would increase every year without a cap on those claiming yeshiva-related exemptions from service.

For now, the haredi parties appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach.

“There can’t be a situation in Israel in 2012 where someone who wants to study Torah will not be able to do so,” Yakov Litzman of the United Torah Judaism party told the Post. “But as long as the principle of torato Omunato

[Torah is one’s work] is preserved, UTJ will remain in the coalition.”

Even though — perhaps because — many Russian-speaking Jews were deprived for years of a Jewish education or the ability to affiliate with other Jews, the strong emotional connection that many Russian-speaking Jews have with their Jewishness and to Israel and the Jewish world at large is tribal. This stands in contrast to the majority of North American Jews who define their Jewishness as a religious identity.

While the Russian-speaking Jewish community, particularly the second generation, has gained much success in commerce, the arts, technology and medicine, I am concerned about its third generation. Without even a faint memory of life behind the Iron Curtain, my children’s children will need more than an ethnic sense of connectedness if they are to choose being Jewish. And unless the organized Jewish community can figure out how to tap into the potential of what is undeniably a vast infusion of energy, passion and creativity, we are looking at an epic failure in recognizing and addressing a game-changing opportunity.

Twenty percent of the Jewish world is Russian speaking, but it occupies only a small percentage of our thinking as an organized Jewish community. While the members of an emerging generation of Russian-speaking Jews worldwide are connected to one another and feel a strong kinship with Israel, their strong identity is decidedly not reflected in affiliation with organized Jewish life.

Perhaps a million Jews remain in the former Soviet Union, but most are highly assimilated and it is estimated that our outreach efforts are only reaching 8 percent to 15 percent of them. The majority of the 1 million Russian-speaking Jews who are now making a tremendous impact in Israel remain disconnected from the Jewish communal milieu. More than 200,000 Russian-speaking Jews now live dispersed across 180 communities in Germany, where a generation without great knowledge or practice of Judaism has no Jewish community to seek.

And in North America, where Google, PayPal and VoiceOver IP would not exist if not for Russian-speaking Jews, synagogues and federations — the core institutions of Jewish communal life — barely register on the Russian-speaking Jew’s radar.

To be fair, some of the more visionary leaders do get it. In partnership with UJA-Federation of New York, the Wexner Heritage Foundation, which identifies young, talented and committed Jewish leaders from across the professional spectrum and trains them in contemporary Jewish leadership, has launched a cohort exclusively for Russian-speaking Jews. It is a great model. But unless it is scaled and replicated by federations across North America, the impact will be negligible. We need a cadre of Russian-speaking Jewish lay leaders in every major city.

The second issue is directly related to the first. Once these talented and motivated people are ready to lead, they will need to be continually engaged. There is a severe lack of first- and second-generation Russian-speaking professionals in the Jewish communal arena who, through shared history and personal experiences, can harness the energy of potential leaders and keep them involved. In North America, there are less than a few dozen trained Russian-speaking Jewish communal professionals to work with a population of 500,000. Building a platform to sustain the engagement of networked lay and professional leaders should be a top priority.

The third challenge is more deeply rooted in the psyches of many Russian-speaking Jews: the notion of “collective” response. Not surprisingly, the idea of centralized giving and planning does not sit very well with a population that associates collectivism with identity suppression, corruption and inefficiency. To many it is what they were all too happy to leave behind.

We need to explore models by which Russian-speaking Jews do not feel threatened but rather empowered to innovate, and where there is flexibility for them to direct their philanthropy in accordance with their own ideas as Jews.

At The Jewish Agency for Israel, we’ve found that the high-profile visibility of Israel’s struggle can be a powerful window of opportunity for mobilizing their support. A recent Brandeis University study of Birthright Israel applicants and alumni, focusing on those with at least one Russian-born parent, showed their emotional attachment to Israel and global Jewry to be much higher than that of their American peers, despite a weaker knowledge of Judaism. Given the positive backdrop with which to work, but cognizant of the dangers looming if these Jews are not brought into the broader communal framework, this is indeed the time to act.

But this is not just the work of The Jewish Agency. There is too much to do; the entire Jewish community must make up for lost time. Today, with the assimilation rates in the Jewish community in general reaching alarming levels, and given the high percentage of Russian-speaking Jews in the overall Jewish population, we must recognize that a strong Jewish future requires that they be a significant part of it.

(Misha Galperin is the president and CEO of international development at the Jewish Agency for Israel.)

First, thank you to Melissa Hamilton, a caring, soft-spoken violist with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, who went through much soul-searching before reaching the decision to bring the music of Leo Smit, a Dutch Jewish composer who perished in Sobibor, to the attention of Bryan Davis at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona.

Although not Jewish, Ms. Hamilton has long been sensitive to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. I don’t know how she managed to bring a German maestro — he came especially to participate in the event — to conduct her fellow symphony musicians, how she managed to get those musicians to participate, nor how she got the chair of the Dutch Composer’s Guild to come as well.

Thank you to Mr. Davis for bringing the idea to the Yom HaShoah committee; we embraced the idea immediately. And last, but certainly not least, much gratitude to Professor Beth Nakhai and Rabbi Thomas Louchheim who have co-chaired the committee for many years with devotion and strong leadership.

—Billie Kozolchyk

A few years ago I was one of many cultural Jews in Tucson keeping up with traditions in a secular humanist way on my own. Then a bunch of us formed the Secular Humanist Jewish Circle, which is a growing community, now one of 27 such groups (and more on the way) affiliated with the national Society for Humanistic Judaism.

Many Jews are not “looking for God in their lives,” as Rabbi Ain says in the AJP article. Many of us are looking for a sense of community and Jewish identity without God in our lives. Rabbi Miriam Jerris, president of the Association of Humanistic Rabbis said, “People who belong to Humanistic Judaism put human concerns at the center; whether or not a god exists is not relevant to how we relate to the world. We relate through observation and scientific inquiry. There is no way to prove the existence of God. Absent proof, we live our lives with what we know.” And what we know is that a life of dignity requires us to do the right thing because it is the right thing, not because a supernatural being said so.

Fortunately, the umbrella known as “Judaism” is large enough to include us Humanistic Jews. Obviously rabbis such as those quoted in the article who see no future for Judaism without God have a vested interest in the success of their beliefs. However, we feel that groups such as the local Secular Humanist Jewish Circle actually bring inactive Jews back to the fold and thereby strengthen Jewish ties in the community.

For more information, see shj.org.

—Becky Schulman

The great Jewish historian, Salo W. Baron, famously criticized the “lachrymose” conception of Jewish history, by which he meant the reduction of the Jewish experience to a series of gory persecutions. This view of the Jewish past often colors our sense of the Jewish present, with the result that we see ourselves as having few friends, or even none at all, in a hostile world that resents the re-

establishment of Jewish sovereignty after centuries when Jews were at the mercy of others.

Thinking this way can be dangerous. I say this not because I make light of the threat posed to Israel by Iran, say, or because I don’t regard anti-Semitism in Europe and in the Islamic world as a major problem. I say this because we shouldn’t allow the fixations of enemies to divert us from the reality that we do have friends — and that we owe these friends our support when they fall upon dark times.

Last month, the Islamist regime that has ruled Sudan since coming to power through a military coup in 1989 declared a new war against the neighboring state of South Sudan. The newest member of the United Nations, South Sudan declared its independence in July 2011, following a referendum in which almost 100 percent of participants opted to separate from the predominantly Arab and Muslim north. For nearly 30 years, Sudan waged a brutal war against the largely Christian, African south, in which around 2 million people lost their lives.

Jewish communities around the world, and especially here in North America, need to flex their muscles in support of South Sudan. The ethical imperative is clear, as anyone following the brutal campaign waged by the Sudanese regime in the Nuba mountains in recent weeks would be aware.

But there is also a political imperative. Israel was one of the first states to recognize South Sudan. At the end of 2011, Salva Kiir, South Sudan’s combative president, visited Israel and spoke of his wish to move his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. Israeli aid and development agencies, often assisted by Jewish organizations like the American Jewish Committee’s Africa Institute, have, over the years, played a major role in building up the South’s economy and infrastructure.

Hence, the bottom line is this: in a region filled to the brim with hateful enemies and fair-weather allies, South Sudan is the only state that can truly be called a friend of Israel. The origins of this friendship stretch back to the early years of the State of Israel, when David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, articulated a strategy known as the “Alliance of the Periphery,” whereby the non-Arab and non-Muslim populations in the Middle East — Kurds, Iranians, Lebanese Christians and so forth — were regarded as natural partners in countering the Arab campaign against the Jewish state.

Jewish communities in the diaspora should also be advocating for a renewed “Alliance of the Periphery.” After all, when we hear the blood-curdling declamations of Sudan’s dictator, the indicted war criminal Omar al Bashir, against the “insects” running South Sudan, how can we not be stirred by the parallels with the Iranian regime’s anti-Israel rhetoric, or the fulminations against the “sons of pigs and monkeys” across the Islamic world, or even the dehumanizing verbal assaults by the Nazis upon the Jews?

Throughout much of the conflict over the last decade in the Darfur region of western Sudan, American Jews were a vital base of support and awareness. Synagogues and community centers across the country were draped in “Save Darfur” banners. When 100,000 people turned out for an April 2006 rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a huge number of the participants were drawn from Jewish communities. There is no reason why this impressive solidarity should not be reignited for the people of South Sudan.

Only this time, we should be explicit that we support South Sudan because we are Jews. Their foes are also ours; for example, many of the organizations that traipse around American university campuses preaching hatred of Israel have also portrayed the Darfur campaign as a nefarious tool of Zionist influence, much to the glee of Sudan’s rulers, who quickly jumped on the bandwagon by claiming that talk of a genocide was a Zionist myth.

Sadly, Jews have a tendency to become nervous in such situations. Rather than celebrating our political influence, we seek to bury it behind inter-group and inter-faith coalitions. It is not that such coalitions are unwelcome; the problem is that many Jews apparently believe that the more universal a campaign is, the more acceptable it will be in the court of public opinion, and the less selfish we will look.

If we want to boost the pride of our friends, we need to boost the pride in ourselves. For the best coalition of all is still to be formed: one in which Jews, Kurds, Southern Sudanese, Lebanese Christians, Iranian democrats and others seeking to combat the malign influences of Islamism and Arab chauvinism gather under one roof, supporting each other as equals. As Herzl said, “If you will it, it is no dream.”

Ben Cohen is a senior columnist for JointMedia News Service. His commentaries have also appeared in The New York Post, Fox News,PJ Media and other media outlets. Cohen is president of The Ladder Group, a communications consultancy based in New York City.

The ZOA led the campaign to have discrimination against Jewish students recognized as a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, originally passed in 1964 to remedy racial discrimination in programs that receive federal funding. But in its charge to circle the Jewish communal wagons, the ZOA has overreached.

ZOA President Morton Klein and Susan Tuchman, director of the group’s Center for Law and Justice, wrote in a JTA op-ed that Jewish college students today face “harassment and discrimination at schools receiving federal funding” (see azjewishpost. com/?p=14596). The ZOA pitched a six-year fit about it, which the group credits with this triumph: “The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, finally clarified in October 2010 that Jewish students finally would be afforded the same protection” other minorities have under Title VI.

The ZOA campaign capitalizes on and needlessly exacerbates the Jewish community’s already unwarranted paranoia about what’s happening to our young men and women on campus. As a member of the class of 2011, and as the editor of New Voices, I can say with confidence that there’s never been a better time to walk the halls and lawns of American academia as a Jew.

Thankfully, the response from leading groups like the Anti-Defamation League to the ZOA’s call to steamroll colleges into submission with Title VI has been tepid at best.

It’s good that Jews are covered by Title VI, but let’s make sure we use the coverage to protect ourselves from true hatemongers, not mere political opponents. That the ZOA is at the vanguard on this issue — instead of, say, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which has been unfairly pilloried by Title VI’s Jewish cheering section for cautioning restraint — should be the first clue that this push to sue universities under civil rights legislation is not just about protecting Jews.

In the race to ferret out Israel’s on-campus detractors, ZOA leaders have conflated two unlike things: They wrongly act as though opposition to Zionism is always anti-Semitism. It’s not so simple.

As much as our rightmost flank would like for Zionism to be codified into the Jewish faith — perhaps a 14th for Maimonides’ 13 principles? — it is neither universal nor central. Rather it is a political movement, one that gives expression to an ancient Jewish hope, but a political movement nonetheless. Zionism itself is no more at the essence of Jewish belief than is membership in large suburban synagogues.

Klein and Tuchman are right that there have been Jewish Title VI victories, but in their rush to stoke our anxiety about Jewish life on campus they skip over the real wins, which have involved high schools, not colleges. Instead they cite statements issued by University of California President Mark Yudof and Rutgers University President Richard McCormick condemning behavior on campus that was downright nasty and might be seen as anti-Semitic as well.

But Title VI is a federal law. Shouldn’t the real wins come in court or official rulings by the OCR? In fact, such outcomes have been mixed, at best. A case against the University of California, Berkeley, was dismissed by a federal court. One complaint at the University of California, Irvine, was tossed out before Title VI covered Jews but is now being reconsidered. At Barnard College in New York, one was tossed out this year when it became clear that there was nothing more than dubious he said/she said evidence.

The real successes have come at the high school level. A case regarding a bullied Virginia high school student was ruled in the complainant’s favor. The Forward recently reported that this is the only case so far to result in such a ruling. Most important, the incident did not involve Israel but

classic swastika-laden, anti-Semitic tropes. When less confrontational means fail, true anti-Semitism like this should certainly be fought under Title VI — wherever this filth rears its head, be it on a college campus, in a high school or, God forbid, in younger grades.

Meanwhile, the ZOA-backed college cases — attempts to use Title VI as a bludgeon to advance the ZOA’s far-right political viewpoints — aren’t going anywhere. In at least one example, it has even led to the despicable targeting of fellow Jews. As Shani Chabansky, a Jewish student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote in February in New Voices and the Forward, a Title VI complaint at UCSC has sparked a witch hunt within the Jewish community, hurting more than helping many Jewish students. These students, Jews of the political left, have been shamefully accused of being anti-Israel.

The ZOA’s intent is now clear: Its use of Title VI is a political tactic that targets valid, albeit distasteful and wrongheaded, political debate. Even as a transparent attempt to stifle legitimate discourse, the ZOA’s Title VI campaign is hardly the success that Klein and Tuchman make it out to be.

David A.M. Wilensky is the editor of New Voices Magazine and executive director of the Jewish Student Press Service.

In fact, the NAACP fought for Title VI’s passage and has vigorously sought to enforce it to uphold the right of African Americans to be free from discrimination.

Jewish students are facing their own serious problems of harassment and discrimination at schools receiving federal funding. After a six-year campaign by the Zionist Organization of America, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, finally clarified in October 2010 that Jewish students finally would be afforded the same protection from harassment and discrimination under Title VI that other minorities have enjoyed for close to 50 years.

Yet instead of embracing the new legal protection, some in the Jewish community have been strangely critical of it.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs describes itself as “the representative voice of the organized American Jewish community” in the Jewish community relations field. Its national member agencies include the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and more than 100 Jewish community relations councils throughout the country.

A year after the Office for Civil Rights’ policy clarification, the JCPA proposed a resolution regarding Title VI. Instead of praising the new policy and committing to a nationwide campaign to educate Jewish students and university officials about students’ right to be protected from anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination under Title VI, the JCPA resolution tried to impose unreasonably harsh standards on when Jewish students should use the law to rectify a hostile anti-Semitic school environment — stricter even than the standards that the Office for Civil Rights applies.

Critics of the new Title VI policy have paid little attention to the fact that the policy has already shown its value. University of California President Mark Yudof recently issued a public statement in which he condemned anti-Semitic harassment on the UC campuses. This month, Rutgers University President Richard McCormick issued a statement publicly condemning a student paper, The Medium, for falsely claiming that an article mocking the Holocaust had been written by a vocal Jewish, pro-Israel student. McCormick said that “no individual student should be subject to such a vicious, provocative, and hurtful piece, regardless of whether First Amendment protections apply to such expression.”

Significantly, McCormick had failed to condemn previous anti-Semitic incidents on campus. It is likely that OCR’s Title VI policy, which recommends that university leaders label certain incidents as anti-Semitic, played a role in the decisions of both McCormick and Yudof to speak out. Surely also at play was the fact that there are Title VI investigations pending against their schools.

The David Project recently issued a report about rethinking Israel advocacy on campus. Curiously, the report cautions that “legitimate efforts to combat campus anti-Semitism could be complicated by overly aggressive complaints” under Title VI.  But what are “legitimate efforts”? And what does the David Project mean by “overly aggressive”?

Only weeks after the Office for Civil Rights issued its new Title VI policy, the ZOA was able to use it effectively without even filing a complaint with the OCR. We contacted officials at a Maine high school where there was longstanding anti-Semitic harassment and informed them of their Title VI obligations. The school acted on nearly all our recommendations and rectified the situation.

Would the David Project consider our actions legitimate or overly aggressive? What if school officials had refused to fix the problems? Would a Title VI complaint then have been legitimate?

It is difficult to understand why members of the Jewish community are skeptical of a critical new legal tool under Title VI or why they are sending a cautious message about using it. We should be fully supportive of Jewish students and holding schools accountable when they don’t respond to campus anti-Semitism.

It’s time for us to stop being “shah-still” frightened Jews of the previous generation and start strongly speaking out on behalf of our Jewish brethren when necessary.

(Morton A. Klein is the national president of the Zionist Organization of America. Susan B. Tuchman is the director of the ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice.)
 

I am straight, and I initially attended mainly because of a (lesbian) friend who is new to town and wanted to go to a Seder with her partner. However, it turned out to be one of the best Seders I have ever attended. Rabbi Miri Fleming and Marc Paley did a great job making the Passover story relevant to today.

Additionally, it turned out to be a very positive first Jewish experience for both my friend’s partner and my girlfriend (who is very much an athiest but thought it was great). I plan on making it a second Seder tradition in the future.

—Tony Zinman

One key omission, how to pay for the huge cost of “Obamacare”?

Jews have been in the forefront of giving throughout the ages; it’s “tikkun olam” multiplied ten-fold. Our liberal bent tells us we must help all, and paraphrasing Omar Khayyam, “live fully while you may, and reckon not the cost.”

Does Kaufman have any idea of what the Federal government has spent starting with LBJ’s “war on poverty” in 1965? How about mass funding for education? Or helping welfare recipients with guidelines to gainful employment?

It’s trillions of dollars, with dismal results. More poverty exists today, our educational standards are below that of many countries, and welfare is running wild. Food stamps are at an all-time high.

The U.S. is broke! Our debt has recently eclipsed our GDP (Gross Domestic Product). We keep printing money we don’t have and the day of reckoning will be down the road for our children and grandchildren. Can the U.S. become another Greece in the immediate future? Yes!

I’d like to see the private sector work toward a health care program encompassing some of the points made by Kaufman. It can be done with good will by all parties. Class warfare, gender warfare and race warfare should not be in the equation.

Liberal Democrats like Nancy Kaufman turn a blind eye to reality, and the Obama administration continues on its cycle of reckless spending.

I fear for our country.

God bless the U.S.A.!

—Sid Brodkin