By JAMES CLEVENSON
with photos by Jade Elizabeth
“We build! We build for the future!”
This was perhaps the main message of Micah Halpern’s Jan. 23 talk about the Palestinians’ propaganda war on Israel. “Israel is here to stay,” he said. The real negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians is not about giving and taking land, “it’s about learning to live together.”
In a talk at Cong. Ohav Shalom in Albany sponsored by the Federation’s three professional affinity groups, Halpern discussed the nature of news as entertainment, journalists having points of view, Israel’s problems responding to fabrications, the “Arab spring,” and the future. Moving around and gesturing, he told jokes and stories to illustrate his points.
In his keynote joke, diplomatic genius and peacemaker Henry Kissinger visits the Jerusalem zoo, where next to each animal is an inscription from the Bible.
Kissinger is astonished at the cage housing a lion and a lamb, ostensibly living together in peace. “How is this possible?” he asks. The old caretaker explains, “It’s no problem: each day we put in a new lamb.”
Apparently using this as a metaphor for the continual self-sacrifice—and sacrifice of truth—that the world expects of Israel, Halpern, who is a political analyst for major television networks, told this story:
CNN had a report from a PLO spokesman showing that the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is on fire, with the implication that the Israelis are to blame. Halpern rises from bed in Jerusalem and drives to Bethlehem where he finds Israel’s checkpoint soldiers lying on a tank, listening to music and smoking—not exactly a sign of trouble or tensions. He is waived in, approaches the church, and can’t find any smoke or fire. He calls in and discovers that the PLO’s man is in Jericho, from which one can not even see Bethlehem.
Being anti-Israel is in vogue, so we have to explain, even to Jewish people, why Israel is important, Halpern said.
“We are who we are today because Israel exists! To not teach that to children is a synapse in our education.”
Halpern described Israel as “an experiment, a laboratory,” imperfect, implying that the work of the Jews is long-range and aimed toward an ultimate Messianic perfection.
Answering a question about “what we’re doing right,” he pointed to Birthright and other programs that enable young Jews to experience Israel.
While acknowledging the distortions and even censorship in the news media—he cited CNN’s refusal to let him discuss Arafat’s corruption—his overall message seemed to be that ultimately Israel will be OK,
Albany attorney Alan Pfeffer, scholarship chairman at Ohav Shalom, raises a question.
implying that in the big picture Israel is on the side of the good and in line with the plans of the Infinite.
He said that in the last 10 years, Israel has improved its media image by responding more quickly to charges. In the past, no matter how absurd, the government’s response often was to investigate—by the time the investigation was completed, it was beyond the “news cycle”—nobody was interested, and the public relations damage was done.
Halpern said, “We are a Jewish community who builds. We don’t build for ourselves, our children, or our children’s children…we build for the future.”
Dinner and dessert sandwiched the talk, Why are the Palestinians winning the media war and what can Israel do about it?”
Halpern’s books are THUGS and What You Need to Know About: Terror. He maintains www.micahhalpern.com.
The chairmen of this event were Joseph Basloe, Esq., Stephen Levy, Esq., and Alan Lobel, of the Brandeis Baruch Society; Chris Carothers, Dr. James Hendler, and Thomas Kligerman, of the Chaim Weizmann Society; and Dr. Eric Moses, Dr. Richard Rubin, and Dr. Joseph Schwartz, of the Maimonides Society.
Corporate sponsors for this event were Bank of America, The Langan Group, Marshall & Sterling Insurance, Israel Bonds, and Teal Becker & Chairamonte, CPAs, P.C.
