[audio:http://www.ajcarchives.org/ajchomepage/audio/tishabav072307.mp3]
Steven Bayme, AJC’s director of Contemporary Jewish Life, discusses Tisha B’Av, the holiday commemorating the destruction of the two temples in Jerusalem and other major tragedies in Jewish history. Bayme reviews the holiday’s origins, how it has been observed over the centuries, as well as how memory reinforces commitment to Jewish continuity. “Tisha B’Av is a permanent reminder to us of the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish people,” says Bayme.
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Download: mp3 of discussion.
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Free Trade in the Americas is a major AJC concern because we firmly believe they impact the immediate and long-term well being of our Hemisphere, as well policies that will determine the quality and scope of relations between the United States and some of its closest partners. Pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Peru and Panama, to be voted on by the U.S. Congress, represent a singular opportunity to reinforce ties and bring to the fore our country’s ongoing commitment to the welfare of our neighbors. Failure to approve them would certainly undermine friendly governments and trading partners, not to mention American interests abroad.
Continue reading ‘Free Trade Agreements Hinder Unrest, and Terror’
A seasoned observer of the British trade union scene put it to me in stark terms. “You’d be hard put,” he said, “to find a union in the UK that isn’t sympathetic to the boycott of Israel.”
His observation was made in a conversation which took place a few days before the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) voted, at its conference, to back the boycott of Israel. That vote, on July 4th, brings the number of British unions supporting the boycott campaign to four: journalists, academics, public and voluntary service workers and now the union representing those working in an array of industries from transportation to food.
The TGWU’s debate reproduced the same themes which emerged at the other union conferences. Firstly, the portrayal of Israel as country forged in colonial sin and therefore solely responsible for all the conflicts in the area, including the recent bout of intra-Palestinian bloodletting in the Gaza Strip. Secondly, the indignant protest that a boycott of Israel can never be, by any stretch of the imagination, antisemitic.
Continue reading ‘Laboring the Boycott’