Communicated: TefillaChillul Tefila Bifarhesia, as well as halachicly challenged verbiage and dress, are external manifestations of a critical lack of personal yiras shomayim which has lethal consequences.
On March 25, Schnabel and/or director John Kilik or distributor Harvey Weinstein paid for a full-page New York Times ad for the film and for a full-page reprint of the only positive review of the film I have been able to find (at least so far).
The review was written by Danielle Berrin for the Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal and comes to 1,024 words. Berrin perhaps tries to drum up sales by suggesting the film has already earned the “ire” and “condemnation” of the organized Jewish community, which will only impede or delay the “peace process” or, in more hopeful Hollywood terms, lead to controversy, publicity, and ticket sales.
Also on March 25, the Times reviewed the film. A.O. Scott did not much like it, but took more than 900 words to say so. And yes, yet another photo accompanied the review.
Thus, in three days this film and its director received more than 5,000 well-placed words and eight photos in The New York Times. And in roughly the same time period, (mainly negative) reviews and (mainly positive) interviews with the director appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Jewish Week, the New York Post and the Forward.
Despite strong objections from the Israeli deputy ambassador, the film was formally screened on March 14 at the United Nations. (A showing of the film and post-viewing conversation with Schnabel set for the 92nd Street Y on March 31 was canceled due, according to the Y, to a “scheduling conflict.”)
In sum, this is a film that, though far from an artistic masterpiece and filled with lie after lie, may – given its Manhattan-style publicity and politically correct views – enjoy a long and profitable life on campuses, at interfaith, international, and civil rights conferences and at film festivals.
“Miral” may live on to poison the minds of yet another unsuspecting generation.
Dr. Phyllis Chesler, who would like to acknowledge the contribution to this essay of her assistant Nathan Bloom, is co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology and the National Women’s Health Network as well as the author of many works including “Women and Madness” (1972) and “The New Anti-Semitism” (2003). She can be contacted through her website, www.phyllis-chesler.com.
About the Author: Dr. Phyllis Chesler is Professor Emerita of Psychology and the author of fourteen books, including Women and Madness (1972), Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman (2002) and The New Anti-Semitism (2003). Her articles are archived at www.phyllis-chesler.com


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The importance of the caucus on organ harvesting in China, sponsored recently by the Liberal Lobby in the Knesset, cannot be exaggerated. On the surface, the caucus’s topic seems odd. Knesset members and other VIPs were called together to discuss horrors being perpetrated by the Communist regime in China against what the government there calls “regime opponents.”

My mother, the eldest daughter of Reb Yaakov Kamenetsky, zt”l, was niftar last month at the age of 92. She took her last breath in her home in Efrat, Israel, next door to the shul that was my father’s for 24 years before his passing in 2007.

It comes down to his being famous.

Following the Boston Marathon bombing, one crucial point will likely remain overlooked. The most loathsome aspect of this or any other terror bombing attack on civilians will always lie in the inexpressibility of physical pain. While all decent people will abhor the idea of bombs expressly directed at the innocent, whether here or in other countries, none will ever be able to process the very deepest horrors of what has been inflicted.
It’s only natural to see increasing evidence of Jerusalem’s glorious Jewish past being unearthed, quite literally, under modern Israeli sovereignty. The new archaeological finds are also very timely – as the Arab onslaught attempting to detach Jerusalem from its Jewish roots gains steam, the facts on the ground, or “under” the ground, show quite otherwise.
The Talmud (Berachot 26b) says, “tefillot avot tiknum” – “prayer was established by the avot.” The Talmud then uses the following verse (Bereshit 19:27) to prove how Avraham established prayer: “Vayaskem Avraham baboker el hamakom asher amad sham et pnei Hashem” – “And Avraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before God.”
Nearly 13 years ago, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak journeyed to Camp David to end the conflict with the Palestinians. With the approval of President Clinton, he offered Yasir Arafat an independent Palestinian state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza and in part of Jerusalem. Arafat said no.
The news that the Internal Revenue Service unfairly targeted conservative groups has brought renewed spotlight on a 2010 lawsuit filed by the pro-Israel group Z Street, which alleges it was also singled out by the IRS when applying for tax-exempt status.
In an editorial last week (“Circling the Wagons”) we noted the efforts by the administration and its supporters to dismiss allegations that the government’s spin on the Benghazi attack was designed to shield the president and that the IRS was improperly used to stifle opposition to Mr. Obama’s reelection.
As the controversies besetting the Obama administration continue to grow in number and intensity, the prospect that President Obama would seriously consider military action against Iran, should that country continue its drive to become a nuclear power, becomes more and more remote. So we welcome the current enhancement of sanctions against Iran on the federal and New York State levels.
To his parents’ friends, he was “Mrs. Greenberg’s disgrace,” but to sports fans he is one of the greatest – if not the greatest – Jewish baseball players of all time. Long before Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg excited Jewish sports fans with his prowess on the baseball diamond.
To eat is to live – to keep our physical bodies alive. For without the body, there is nothing. No experience. No memory. No joy and no hardship. But man, unlike animals, eats to live and to enjoy. So how should a Jew respond when he is challenged as to why he imposes upon himself not just ceremonies dedicated to the enjoyment of eating but even more to the limiting of what he can eat?
Neither Secretary of State Kerry nor the president he serves seem to understand Russia’s goals in the Middle East.
You might think that six Khamenei followers might split the hardline vote but don’t worry as that will be taken care of in the ballot-counting if necessary.

My good colleague Kay is wrong about the early demise of conspiracy theories and blood libels against the Jews.

“I am surprised those Zionists are not outside protesting,” says one woman.
“Miral” is a film that has garnered an inordinate amount of media attention. In interviews, the director, Julian Schnabel, defends his right to tell the Palestinian “narrative” for what he claims is the first time. He seems not to know that many others before him have specialized in this particular line of work.
Our beloved, miraculous Jewish state is under siege.
It was assumed that the ceaseless persecution of the Jews in exile would cease once we again had our own sovereign homeland, our own army, navy, and air force.
In 1947-1948 I lived in Boro Park where, against parental and rabbinic advice, I joined a Zionist group. By 1950 I was packing machine-gun parts for Israel in a home not far from the Young Israel. But what I did as a child does not compare to what my friend and colleague David Gutmann did for love of Zion at that very time on the dangerous open seas.
One of four Courage in Journalism awards to be presented later this month by Christiane Amanpour and Irshad Manjie, among others, will go to the Israeli journalist Amira Hass, whose unremitting critique of Israel serves as a veritable blood libel against the Jewish people.
Journalist Aaron Klein’s important new book, The Late Great State of Israel: How Enemies Within and Without Threaten the Jewish Nation’s Survival, illuminates, infuriates, saddens, and cries out to both heaven and humanity.
Pierre Rehov, a nom de guerre, is indeed a resistance fighter; he resists the Islamist propaganda wars against Israel, the Jews, and the West by making films that document the truth.
Printed from: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/miral-when-good-publicity-trumps-bad-reviews/2011/04/06/
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