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Adar 2, 5767, 2/20/2007
Firing Frauds in Israeli Academiaby Steven Plaut
The real news concerning Prof. Ariel Toaff is that Bar-Ilan University has shown that it is unwilling to take disciplinary action against a crackpot professor publishing fraudulent materials and lies about Jews. There are, after all, numerous precedents from all over the democratic world of universities firing tenured professors for both fraud and for open promotion of lunatic, crackpot, obviously-false "theories". Several Holocaust Deniers have been fired from tenured jobs in the democratic world, with France's Robert Faurrison perhaps the most notorious. Professors promoting unacceptable offensive ideas or exhibiting behavior offensive to their employers have been fired in the US. Tenured professors have been stripped of tenure for the mere expression of lunatic ideas in the US and for embarrassing their own employers. Similarly, academics being caught conducting explicit fraud have also been canned. Luk van Parijs was fired from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for fraud. Outside the democratic world, professors engaged in fraudulent research have also been fired. Even people willing to defend the most offensive campus opinions in the name of "academic freedom", such as those of University of Colorado's Ward Churchill, have agreed that he should be fired if he actually committed fraud. Western Professors endorsing or collaborating with terrorism have also been fired. There is some precedence for firing tenured faculty in Israel when fraud has been detected. All of which brings us to the case of Bar-Ilan University professor Ariel Toaff, son of Italian Rabbi Elio Toaff. As every neo-nazi web site on the planet has already publicized in jubilation, this Italian-Israeli "scholar" has published work claiming that Jews in the Middle Ages used Christian blood, including for Passover, and engaged in ritual murders. His "book", called Bloody Passovers, is a complete fraud. It gives credence to medieval "reports" that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood for ritual purposes. It "confirms" that some Ashkenazi Jews indeed engaged in human sacrifices. Bar-Ilan's officials, facing a worldwide explosion of rage, have politely distanced themselves from Toaff. But they have not taken any action against him, have not stripped him of tenure for fraud nor fired him, and in fact have been going out of their way to circle their wagons and defend Toaff's "academic freedom." Suddenly fraud is protected academic scholarship. Toaff has generously offered to pull the book off the shelves for a little while in order to insert some "clarifications". The problem of course is not insufficient clarity but rather anti-Semitic outright fraud. Toaff is sticking to his guns, even if it means "he gets crucified" (in his words). Accusing Jews of being behind crucifixion is of course entirely consistent with his "scholarship." Meanwhile, Toaff's shenanigans illustrate better than any other why Israeli universities are sinking into a quagmire of mediocrity and how the unwillingness to act against crackpots and fraud are destroying Israeli academia.
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Adar 1, 5767, 2/19/2007
Anna Nicole Smith Wipes Israel off the Newsby Jack Engelhard
People outside the United States, mainly people in Israel, actually believe that we’re worried about what goes on beyond Anna Nicole Smith. Let me be the first to inform the world (are you listening?) that, sure, once in a while, we care about foreign affairs, but mainly it’s Anna Nicole Smith.
Anna Nicole Smith, dying as she did several weeks ago, and thus leaving behind an inheritance that everybody wants, did something that even Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad failed to do – she wiped Israel off the map, so far as news. Click on the TV, scroll to any channel, and here’s the latest not on Iraq, not 
Israelis operate on the (dangerous) assumption that their well-being depends on our thumbs up or thumbs down.
 on Sudan, certainly not on Israel, but on Anna Nicole Smith. Wall to wall, this coverage.
This is important information, especially for Israelis, who give up 10 miles of territory whenever they think we, in America, are not happy with their behavior. As soon as they think America is displeased, they say, “Okay, what do you want us to give up next?” Anything to make us (and the rest of the world) happy.
Last time I was in Israel, people asked, “Does America love us?”
I guess my answer wasn’t affirmative enough because a day later Israel they gave away Gaza.
Israelis operate on the (dangerous) assumption that their well-being depends on our thumbs up or thumbs down.
They think we’re paying attention, yes, but to Anna Nicole Smith.
In a moment, I will update the world on what else is hot here in America, on the news front, but meanwhile, let’s get back to Anna Nicole Smith. Anna Nicole Smith was an actress. No, wait. Not exactly. Anna Nicole Smith was a TV star. Well, not that, either. I give up. I really don’t know what she was.
Trust me, though. Nearly everybody claims to be the father of her baby – because of the inheritance. Did I mention that she once married a 90-year-old billionaire?
Now everybody claims to be the father. Barack Obama claims to be the father, as does Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards and John McCain and even Hillary Clinton.
Mitt Romney is the latest to claim fathership. Oh dear, my mistake. These are people running for president.
Never mind. That’s what happens when all the news is about Anna Nicole Smith, but not totally. There’s been other news.
Before Anna Nicole Smith, we were obsessed round-the-clock and round-the-dials with a jealous lady astronaut who wanted to send a romantic rival to the moon with one punch. This story was big at the time but it’s old now so there’s no sense in recapping, except that there’s always more on this if you tune in Greta or Geraldo, both of whom, incidentally, are also on top of the Anna Nicole Smith saga, naturally.
Before all that? Are you kidding me? Before all that we had the Super Bowl. For weeks leading up to this we had experts, across all the dials, discussing the commercials, the half-time show, and even the game. Like everyone else in America, I watched the game. Please don’t ask me who played. All I remember is that one team won, the other team lost.
But now, all that’s done, so we can really concentrate on Anna Nicole Smith.
To my friends in Israel, listen, please don’t be so quick to give up any more territory. You’re not doing us any favors and we have more important business.
We’ll get back to you after we’re done with Anna Nicole Smith, if that ever happens.
One more quick note. Canvass any street in America and, I’ll bet, only one person in 10 can name the prime minister of Israel – you know, what’s his name.
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Shevat 28, 5767, 2/16/2007
A Child Understandsby Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
Do I tell him or not? Will he hear about it from some other source or not? And if I do tell him, what do I say? Do we discuss his feelings?
That was part of my internal debate when I heard about Arabs (and perhaps non-Arab supporters) uprooting thousands of trees planted by children from the B'nei Akiva youth movement in honor of Tu B'Shevat. My son, you see, had been part of that nationwide B'nei Akiva tree-planting campaign. I realized that the trees that were targeted by the anti-Semitic vandals were not those my son had planted, for they were in a different part of the country, but they may as well have been. The Arabs who uprooted trees planted by Jews in the Hevron Hills would just as easily have uprooted trees planted by Jews in the Sharon Plain or in the Galilee, if they had the opportunity.
To the Arabs, those trees represent Jewish sovereignty, Jewish attachment to the land and Jewish continuity - especially when the tree saplings are themselves placed in the earth by young Jewish "saplings" growing free in the Land of Israel.
And you know what? They're right. That is exactly what they represent.
In my son's school and in B'nei Akiva, the kids learn about the origin of Tu B'Shevat in Jewish agricultural practices and Jewish law from the period of the First and Second Temples. Aside from the technical legal aspects gleaned studying the Mishnaic and Talmudic sources, there is a more subtly derived lesson: if Jews were discussing agricultural religious laws some 2,000 years ago, then that means that Jews were (and are) integral to this land.
Those trees represent Jewish sovereignty, Jewish attachment to the land and Jewish continuity.
A child educated in our ancient Jewish sources doesn't ask "why would they do that" when he hears about Arabs ripping up trees planted in the Hevron Hills; rather, he asks, "How dare they do that?"
A child educated in our ancient Jewish sources isn't fooled by imaginary "green lines" of relatively recent vintage.
So, I decided to let my son read the news reports on the incident. I believe that he already understands the situation much better than our current government ministers.
(But how do I explain to him that Jewish leaders are calmly planning - with Arab and American chieftains - the uprooting not of trees, but of thousands of our people from over that imaginary line?)
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