Levitt Letter Extra News

Zola’s favorite author Oriana Fallaci loses her battle with breast cancer
June 29, 1929 - September 15, 2006

Zola loved the writings of Oriana Fallaci. He agreed not only with her ideas, but with her straightforward and fearless style. —Ed.

Though she wrote novels and memoirs, Italian author Oriana Fallaci remains best known as an uncompromising political interviewer, a journalist to whom virtually no world figure would say no. She was a tough nut. Known for her abrasive interviewing tactics, Fallaci often goaded her subjects into revelations, taking on—and besting—some of the most prominent politicians of the last third of the 20th century.

Her subjects include Henry Kissinger, Willy Brandt, the Ayatollah Khomeini, and the late Pakistani leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, from whom she extracted such criticism of India’s Indira Gandhi that a 1972 peace treaty between the two countries almost went unsigned. As famous as many of the figures she interviewed, Fallaci was a freethinker passionately committed to her craft. “I do not feel myself to be a cold recorder of what I see and hear. On every professional experience I leave shreds of my heart and soul; and I participate in what I see or hear as though the matter concerned me personally and were one on which I ought to take a stand (in fact I always take one, based on a specific moral choice).”

According to New York Times Book Review contributor Francine du Plessix Gray, Fallaci combined “the psychological insight of a great novelist and the irreverence of a bratty quiz kid.”

Henry Kissinger, who later wrote that his 1972 interview with her was “the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press,” said that he had been flattered into granting it by the company he’d be keeping as part of Fallaci’s “journalistic pantheon.” It was more like a collection of pelts: Fallaci never left her subjects unskinned.

Forced to wear a chador while interviewing the Ayotollah Khomeini, Fallaci asked a more insolent question: “How do you swim in a chador?” Khomeini snapped, “Our customs are none of your business. If you do not like Islamic dress you are not obliged to wear it. Because Islamic dress is for good and proper young women.” Fallaci saw an opening, and charged in. “That’s very kind of you, Imam. And since you said so, I’m going to take off this stupid, medieval rag right now.” She yanked off her chador.

Fallaci saw the threat of Islamic fundamentalism as a revival of the Fascism that she and her sisters grew up fighting. She said, “I am convinced that the situation is politically substantially the same as in 1938, with the pact in Munich, when England and France did not understand a thing. With the Muslims, we have done the same thing.”

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she appalled many with her hostile assessment of Islam in articles and two best-selling books. She denigrated Muslims who immigrated to Western nations for their unwillingness to adapt to new cultural practices.

She saw a lack of political willpower in the West to resist the new immigrants, and she wrote that the result would be a continent called Eurabia in which “instead of church bells, there will be the muezzins; instead of miniskirts, chadors; instead of cognac, camel’s milk.”

She wrote among others:

• The Useless Sex: Voyage around the Woman, Horizon Press (New York City), 1964.
• Penelope at War, M. Joseph (London), 1966.
• The Egotists: Sixteen Surprising Interviews, Regnery (Chicago),1968.
• Interview with History, Liveright, 1976.
• A Man, Simon & Schuster, 1980.
• Inshallah, Doubleday, 1992.
• Rage and Pride, Rizzoli, 2001.
• The Force of Reason, Rizzoli, Nov 2005.
• articles to periodicals, including New Republic, New York Times Magazine, Life, La Nouvelle Observateur, Washington Post, Look, Der Stern, and Corriere della Sera.

Even as Oriana Fallaci breathed her last, protests rumbled in the Muslim world over an utterance by Pope Benedict XVI in which he faulted the prophet, Mohammed, for exhorting his followers to spread Islam by the sword. Effigies of the pope were torched by mobs, although the irruption also included unintended drollery; a spokeswoman in Pakistan observed that “anyone who describes Islam as intolerant encourages violence.”

Once more, the West collided with the Muslim world; and once more, the West scrambled to soothe “the hurt.” The Vatican issued a statement that “it was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to… offend the sensibilities of Muslim faithful,” and everyone, on tenterhooks, waited to see if the pope himself would apologize. So it is tempting to believe that, on the September night she died, Ms. Fallaci—peering through her hospital window at that circus of pieties and outrage—simply said to herself, “I really can’t take this any longer. I’m outta here.”

by Rabbi Noson Weisz

The State of Israel may be 58 years old, but we are still fighting for our existence. We do not need the experts to tell us that this ceasefire is merely a respite; experience has taught us that lasting peace in the Middle East is a chimera.

The Declaration of Independence in 1948 defines the State of Israel as a Jewish country. No other country on earth is defined in terms of its religion. There are many countries where the majority of the population is Moslem or Christian, but a Christian has no right of return to England or France or the United States, nor will Egypt or Iran accept every Moslem. Every Jew, however, has the right of return and can become an Israeli citizen on demand. Why? Because Israel is the Jewish homeland and a place of refuge for world Jewry.

This is an inspiring concept, but it presents the Jewish people with an extremely challenging issue; how to define a Jew. It is absurd to call yourself a Jewish country if you have no clear idea of what being Jewish means, and yet that is precisely our situation.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

To appreciate the problem from a Torah standpoint, we need some historical perspective.

At the time of the Exodus over 3,000 years ago, the world Jewish population stood at well over a million. All things being equal, the Jewish population today should be roughly equivalent to the Chinese; yet there are only 14 million Jews worldwide.

No doubt this enormous discrepancy is partially attributable to our blood drenched history, but most of the attrition in our numbers is the result of fallout. It took a lot of self-sacrifice to be Jewish throughout most of recorded history, and many Jews elected to drop out under compulsion or when the opportunity presented itself.

For example, in 1492 when the Jews of Spain were faced with the choice of conversion or expulsion, two thirds elected to convert rather than face exile. As the creation of the Inquisition attests, this conversion was no more than lip service, but over the course of generations these Jews disappeared entirely. Five hundred years down the road it is impossible to distinguish between the descendants of these conversos and ordinary Spaniards.

We owe the survival of the Jewish people to the Jews who chose to pay the cost of being Jewish in a hostile world.

We owe the survival of the Jewish people and therefore by extension, the existence of the modern Jewish state, to the Jews who elected to remain in the fold throughout the ages and pay the cost of being Jewish in a hostile world. The most recent evidence of the enormous cost of being Jewish is the Holocaust, an unprecedented phenomenon in human history. Not that genocide is rare, but systematic genocide on such an enormous scale when there is no territorial dispute between the contending racial groups to trigger the violence has no historic parallel.

The Holocaust in particular has a special connection with the establishment of the modern State of Israel. The collective guilt and horror of the nations of the world at the immensity of the atrocity perpetrated against the Jewish people was the major factor behind the recognition granted by the international community to the nascent Jewish state. For a brief moment, the peoples of the world recognized the necessity of a Jewish refuge. The State of Israel was paid for with Jewish blood — the blood of the six million victims of the Holocaust as well as all the Jewish blood spilled over the last 2,000 years.

MODERN ISRAEL

The majority of Israelis are secular and perceive themselves as members of the developed world; the aspirations of the modern Israeli are more or less the same as the aspirations of Western Europeans or Americans. Walking around Haifa or Tel Aviv feels little different than walking around Manhattan, Los Angeles or Toronto. The cars and buildings are not as big, but the people look and feel the same except that the language is Hebrew instead of English.

We have a long, long way to go before reaching end of Jewish history.

Is this what all the bloodshed, suffering and self-sacrifice of the past 2,000 years were about? Is this an appropriate culmination of the mighty heritage of the Jewish people? Did the heroic Jews of history surrender their lives to preserve their faith and stubbornly cling to their unique Sinaic covenant so that their descendants could enjoy the “good life” in the Holy Land and recreate a Hebrew speaking version of New York?

Modern Israel is not the culmination of Jewish history. It may be a step toward the fulfillment of our destiny, but given the fact that there is nothing particularly Jewish about happily pursuing the “good life” sheltered and protected by the might of the Israeli army, it is clear that we have a long, long way to go before reaching end of Jewish history.

THE DIVINE RESPONSE

The Almighty has made a covenant and He will not allow Jewish destiny to slip into oblivion. If the present situation in Israel fails to justify the existence of a Jewish state, Divine Providence will by necessity react with a tailor-made response designed to deliver the clear message that the Jewish nation requires. Israel will not be allowed to simply live peacefully here in the Holy Land when a wake up call is in order.

World Jewry and in particular Israeli Jews will be forced to confront the issue of their Jewishness and to reflect on the significance of living in a Jewish country. We are compelled to face these issues existentially when we are forced to pay a price for being Jewish in a Jewish country.

Jews are an extraordinary people. When I encounter non-Jews, I always attempt to enquire if they have any idea how many Jews there are in the world. The general response is hundreds of millions. This makes sense to me. Who could really believe that a people who are less than one percent of the world population could accomplish so much? Jews have won 30 percent of the Nobel prizes in science since they were awarded. Much of the intellectual progress made in the 20th century was fueled by the ideas of three Jewish thinkers: Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx.

Jews are an appreciable percentage of the intelligentsia of the developed world; they are doctors, lawyers, professors, writers etc. out of all proportion to their numbers. In prestigious universities they are a large percentage of the student body. Jews are at the forefront of all movements for social justice, and despite their relatively tiny numbers are responsible for a lot of the philanthropy in the Western world. They have managed to rebuild the Jewish state after a 2,000 year hiatus and to revive a dead language, both unprecedented accomplishments in the annals of human history.

Jews themselves are the only people in the world who do not realize how special they are. The desire to fit in and be like everyone else prevents them from focusing on the significance of their Jewishness and reaching clarity about what being a Jew means. There is little urgency in defining a Jew if Jews are identical to other people anyway. They need to be reminded that they have a unique historic mission which sets them apart, and it is essential to their security and well being to understand this mission and define it clearly. Divine Providence will present them with thought-provoking stimuli whenever they show signs of ignoring their Jewishness and abandoning their mission.

CONFRONTAION

There is no question that a terrorist is fully accountable for his evil acts. It goes without saying that anyone who commits indiscriminate horrors in God’s name will ultimately suffer due retribution. In addition to this fact, let us touch on the behind-the-scenes workings of Divine Providence that transcend the willing agents of destruction.

God will not let us ignore the question.

The suicide bomber who blows up a bus and the Hezbollah terrorist who aims his Katyusha rockets at innocent people with the declared intent of killing as many Jews as possible are powerful spiritual stimuli. They force Israelis to confront the existential issue of their Judaism. Why us? Why is it our fate to suffer bloodshed no matter how reasonable we try to be and no matter how many withdrawals we make? Why is it necessary in today’s world, where civil rights have finally become entrenched in all developed countries, to maintain a Jewish enclave in the Middle East at such great cost? If we are really no different than other people, why is it worth sacrificing our children’s lives to maintain a Jewish State? Perhaps we would be better off in the U.S. or Europe?

God will not let us ignore the question. The Jewish people signed a solemn agreement with God to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation”. This undertaking is our social contract; it defines our place in the world as God’s representatives. And this is especially true about the Land of Israel. The Almighty’s promise to Abraham to deliver the land to his children is clearly conditional on their observance of their covenant with God. For I have loved him, because he commands his children and his household after him that they keep the way of God, doing charity and justice, in order that God might then bring upon Abraham that which he had spoken about (Genesis 18, 19).

Peace in Israel is possible, but ultimately not through the force of arms. Our forefathers who were driven out of Israel twice knew this well, and Divine Providence treated them with greater severity than it treats us. Instead of sending them a wake-up call, Divine Providence banished them altogether.

In contrast, the typical modern Israeli is ignorant of the need to hold on to the Covenant of Abraham in order to hold on to his country. Providence will not banish him; it will provide him with stimuli to prompt a series of soul-searching questions that if taken to heart, could provoke genuine change.

This is no doubt painful, but the thrust is entirely benevolent. In Jewish thought ignorance is never bliss and the acquisition of knowledge is always painful. But through the workings of Providence, the Jewish people are learning. When the lesson is fully internalized there will be lasting peace.

“When someone has to die for his worldview, what he may have done wrong is no longer the issue. That’s when we have to stand up for our basic rights.” — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

2006 DER SPIEGEL Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch politician forced to go into hiding after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, responds to the 2006 Danish cartoon scandal, arguing that if Europe doesn’t stand up to extremists, a culture of self-censorship of criticism of Islam that pervades in Holland will spread in Europe. Auf Wiedersehen, free speech.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the most sharp-tongued critics of political Islam — and a target of radical fanatics. Her provocative film “Submission” led to the assassination of director Theo van Gogh in November 2004. The attackers left a death threat against Hirsi Ali stuck to his corpse with a knife. After a brief period in hiding, the 36-year-old member of Dutch parliament from the neo-liberal VVD party has returned to parliament and is continuing her fight against Islamism. She recently published a book, “I Accuse,” and is working on a sequel to “Submission.”

Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia where she experienced the oppression of Muslim women first hand. When her father attempted to force her into an arranged marriage, she fled to Holland in 1992. Later, she renounced the Muslim religion.

SPIEGEL: Hirsi Ali, you have called the Prophet Muhammad a tyrant and a pervert. Theo van Gogh, the director of your film “Submission,” which is critical of Islam, was murdered by Islamists. You yourself are under police protection. Can you understand how the Danish cartoonists feel at this point?

Hirsi Ali: They probably feel numb. On the one hand, a voice in their heads is encouraging them not to sell out their freedom of speech. At the same time, they’re experiencing the shocking sensation of what it’s like to lose your own personal freedom. One mustn’t forget that they’re part of the postwar generation, and that all they’ve experienced is peace and prosperity. And now they suddenly have to fight for their own human rights once again.

SPIEGEL: Why have the protests escalated to such an extent?

Hirsi Ali: There is no freedom of speech in those Arab countries where the demonstrations and public outrage are being staged. The reason many people flee to Europe from these places is precisely because they have criticized religion, the political establishment and society. Totalitarian Islamic regimes are in a deep crisis. Globalization means that they’re exposed to considerable change, and they also fear the reformist forces developing among émigrés in the West. They’ll use threatening gestures against the West, and the success they achieve with their threats, to intimidate these people.

SPIEGEL: Was apologizing for the cartoons the wrong thing to do?

Hirsi Ali: Once again, the West pursued the principle of turning first one cheek, then the other. In fact, it’s already a tradition. In 1980, privately owned British broadcaster ITV aired a documentary about the stoning of a Saudi Arabian princess who had allegedly committed adultery. The government in Riyadh intervened and the British government issued an apology. We saw the same kowtowing response in 1987 when (Dutch comedian) Rudi Carrell derided (Iranian revolutionary leader) Ayatollah Khomeini in a comedy skit (that was aired on German television). In 2000, a play about the youngest wife of the Prophet Mohammed, titled “Aisha,” was cancelled before it ever opened in Rotterdam. Then there was the van Gogh murder and now the cartoons. We are constantly apologizing, and we don’t notice how much abuse we’re taking. Meanwhile, the other side doesn’t give an inch.

SPIEGEL: What should the appropriate European response look like?

Hirsi Ali: There should be solidarity. The cartoons should be displayed everywhere. After all, the Arabs can’t boycott goods from every country. They’re far too dependent on imports. And Scandinavian companies should be compensated for their losses. Freedom of speech should at least be worth that much to us.

SPIEGEL: But Muslims, like any religious community, should also be able to protect themselves against slander and insult.

Hirsi Ali: That’s exactly the reflex I was just talking about: offering the other cheek. Not a day passes, in Europe and elsewhere, when radical imams aren’t preaching hatred in their mosques. They call Jews and Christians inferior, and we say they’re just exercising their freedom of speech. When will the Europeans realize that the Islamists don’t allow their critics the same right? After the West prostrates itself, they’ll be more than happy to say that Allah has made the infidels spineless.

SPIEGEL: What will be the upshot of the storm of protests against the cartoons?

Hirsi Ali: We could see the same thing happening that has happened in the Netherlands, where writers, journalists and artists have felt intimidated ever since the van Gogh murder. Everyone is afraid to criticize Islam. Significantly, “Submission” still isn’t being shown in theaters.

SPIEGEL: Many have criticized the film as being too radical and too offensive.

Hirsi Ali: The criticism of van Gogh was legitimate. But when someone has to die for his world view, what he may have done wrong is no longer the issue. That’s when we have to stand up for our basic rights. Otherwise we are just reinforcing the killer and conceding that there was a good reason to kill this person.

SPIEGEL: You too have been accused for your dogged criticism of Islam.

Hirsi Ali: Oddly enough, my critics never specify how far I can go. How can you address problems if you’re not even allowed to clearly define them? Like the fact that Muslim women at home are kept locked up, are raped and are married off against their will — and that in a country in which our far too passive intellectuals are so proud of their freedom!

SPIEGEL: The debate over speaking Dutch on the streets and the integration programs for potentially violent Moroccan youth — do these things also represent the fruits of your provocations?

Hirsi Ali: The sharp criticism has finally triggered an open debate over our relationship with Muslim immigrants. We have become more conscious of things. For example, we are now classifying honor killings by the victims’ countries of origin. And we’re finally turning our attention to young girls who are sent against their wills from Morocco to Holland as brides, and adopting legislation to make this practice more difficult.

SPIEGEL: You’re working on a sequel to “Submission.” Will you stick to your uncompromising approach?

Hirsi Ali: Yes, of course. We want to continue the debate over the Koran’s claim to absoluteness, the infallibility of the Prophet and sexual morality. In the first part, we portrayed a woman who speaks to her god, complaining that despite the fact that she has abided by his rules and subjugated herself, she is still being abused by her uncle. The second part deals with the dilemma into which the Muslim faith plunges four different men. One hates Jews, the second one is gay, the third is a bon vivant who wants to be a good Muslim but repeatedly succumbs to life’s temptations, and the fourth is a martyr. They all feel abandoned by their god and decide to stop worshipping him.

SPIEGEL: Will recent events make it more difficult to screen the film?

Hirsi Ali: The conditions couldn’t be more difficult. We’re forced to produce the film under complete anonymity. Everyone involved in the film, from actors to technicians, will be unrecognizable. But we are determined to complete the project. The director didn’t really like van Gogh, but he believes that, for the sake of free speech, shooting the sequel is critical. I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to premier the film this year.

SPIEGEL: Is the Koran’s claim to absoluteness, which you criticize in “Submission,” the central obstacle to reforming Islam?

Hirsi Ali: The doctrine stating that the faith is inalterable because the Koran was dictated by God must be replaced. Muslims must realize that it was human beings who wrote the holy scriptures. After all, most Christians don’t believe in hell, in the angels or in the earth having been created in six days. They now see these things as symbolic stories, but they still remain true to their faith.

Interview: Gerald Traufetter
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

by an Israeli woman

I am not the least afraid to go any place, By bus or to a mall.

I didn’t change or stop doing anything I used to do before this mess began!

People tend to forget that twice the casualties from terror get killed on the roads!
More people still die from heart attack, cancer, and other things; They just don’t show them on TV.

Don’t misunderstand me, there is a war going on; It’s not pleasant, but, lets face it:

WE HAVE NEVER BEEN BETTER OFF!

It’s only TV and the media that make people think that the end of the world is coming.

Only 60 years ago, they were leading Jews to their death like sheep to the slaughter!

No Country, No Army.

55 years ago!!
Seven Arab countries declared war on the small Jewish State, only a few hours old!!

We were then 650,000 Jews! Against the rest of the Arab world!
No IDF [Israel Defense Force]. No mighty Air Force; just tough people with nowhere to go.

Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, attacked all at once.
The country the U.N. “gave us” was 65% desert.
The country started from scratch!

35 years ago!!
We fought the three strongest armies in the Middle East, and wiped them out in six days.

We fought against different coalitions of Arab countries, with modern armies, and masses of Soviet Russian weapons, and we still won!

We have today a country, an army, a strong Air Force, a Hi-Tech Economy, exporting millions. Intel — Microsoft — IBM develop their stuff here.

Our doctors win world prizes for medical developments.
We made the desert flourish, selling oranges and vegetables to the world.

Israel has sent its own satellite into Space!! Three satellites all together!!.

We sit proudly with the only countries in the world to shoot something into space!!

Israel is today in the world nuclear power family.

To think that only 60 years ago we were led shameful, with no hope, to our death!!

We crawled out of the burning ashes of Europe; We won our wars here with less than nothing in our hands. We built an “empire” out of nothing.

Who the hell was Mr. Arafat to make me Scared? To make me be Terrified? You make me laugh!

Passover was celebrated;
Let’s not forget what the story is all about.
We overcame Pharaoh,
We overcame the Egyptian Empire,
We overcame the Chaldean Empire,
We overcame the Babylonian Empire,
We overcame the Greek Empire,
We overcame the Roman Empire,
We overcame the Byzantine Empire,
We overcame the Spanish Empire,
We overcame the Ottoman Turkish Empire,
We overcame the British Empire,
We overcame the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
We overcame the German Empire,
We overcame the French Empire,
We overcame the Russia Empire,
We overcame the Soviet Empire,
We overcame Hitler,
We overcame the Germans,
We overcame the Holocaust,
We overcame the armies of the seven Arab countries,
We overcame Saddam.

Take it easy, folks; we will overcome the present enemies too.

No matter which part of human history you try! Think of it, for us, the Jewish people, our situation has never been better!!!

So, Let’s Lift our Heads High; Let’s Remember:

Any nation or culture that tried to mess around with us was destroyed — while we kept going!

Egypt? Anyone know where their empire disappeared to?

The Greeks? Alexander of Macedonia? The Romans? Does anyone today speak Latin?

The Third Reich? Anyone heard any news about it lately?

And look at us: the Nation from the Bible, from Slavery in Egypt.
We are still here, speaking the same language! Right here, right now.

The Arabs don’t know it yet, but they will learn that there is one God.

As long as we keep our identity, we are eternal.
So, sorry for not worrying… Not complaining… Not crying… Not being scared.
Things are O.K. here. They surely can be better, but still:

Don’t fall for the media junk; they won’t tell you that there are festivals going on, that people keep on living, that people are going out, that people are seeing friends.

Yes, our morale is low, so what? It’s only because we weep for our dead while they enjoy the blood. This is the same reason why we will win, after all.

Spread this to the whole Jewish community, and to people throughout the world.

They are part of our strength. It might help some of them to keep their heads up high.
Tell them that there is nothing to worry about. Tell them to think BIG, and to see the whole picture.

“See You Next Year in Jerusalem.”