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THE JEWISH CITIZEN
An internationalist makes Israel his cause
By Donald H. Harrison
 LA JOLLA, California—When I saw J.J. Surbeck sitting at a laptop computer he had set up today in the nearly deserted Astor Judaica Library, I jumped to the false conclusion that he was recording book titles for his pro-Israel website, www.mideastbooks.com, which he developed to counteract numerous websites promoting the sale of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel literature.
Although wrong, mine was nearly a logical assumption. Downstairs in the Lawrence Family JCC, the 13th Annual San Diego Jewish Book Fair. Purchase of these books was made ever more tempting by consecutive presentations throughout the week—and beyond—by a variety of Jewish book authors. But Surbeck was there neither to gather material for that website, nor for another one that he operates to benefit the San Diego Jewish community, www.afisandiego.com which seeks to teach people about the Arab-Israeli conflict and turn them into proficient-enough Advocates for Israel to merit their going out to speak to groups on Israel's behalf.
If not for Mideast Books, not for Advocates for Israel—then for what reason was Surbeck in the JCC library hunched over his portable Macintosh computer? Surbeck grinned. To do some work on his commercial website development business before starting an afternoon shift as a bookfair volunteer, he explained. He had been dropped off ahead of shift by his wife, Marjory Kaplan, who was en route to her job in Kearny Mesa as chief executive officer of the Jewish Community Foundation. In that websites can be worked on from anywhere there is access to Internet service (which there is in the Astor Judaica Library), Surbeck had been optimizing his time.
J.J. Surbeck at Astor Judiaca Library
Probably I de-optimized that time by proceeding to interview him, but I have always considered Surbeck to be an interesting person, and he seemed willing to submit to a Q&A session. As others have noted, he is more involved in our community than many people, yet he is not Jewish. He is a lapsed Roman Catholic, who since the age of 15 has been assembling his own eclectic religious belief system. Besides by Marjory, whom he married two years ago (after romancing her long distance from Arizona for nearly a decade), Surbeck said he was drawn to the Jewish community by "how incredibly warmly I was received."
Surbeck developed his website business (www.jjsurbeck.com) in Tucson, during a period of his life which he described as a decompression stage after being on the road constantly for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), for which he had worked as both an attorney and as a spokesman. His specialty in international law was the Geneva Conventions, particularly those that deal with the treatment of enemy combatants and civilians during times of war, but he was often called on to explain Red Cross operations in other important areas, such as emergency relief.
Although he was not focused then on Jewish affairs as he is today, Surbeck said he always was annoyed by the refusal of the International Red Cross's governing body to grant equal recognition to the Magen David Adom (Red Star of David) as it had to the cross and crescent symbols of Christianity and Islam, as well as to the symbol of Persia: a lion with a saber in its paw in front of a rising sun.
"If there is anything that has been a directing principle for me it is the idea that there should be no double standard; that you should apply the same rules to everybody," he said. "So it struck me as unfair."
Surbeck gave the following account: The Red Cross emblem was adopted in 1864 in honor of its founder, Henry Dunant, a citizen of Switzerland. The Swiss flag is the Red Cross emblem in reverse: a white cross against a red background. In 1906, on the insistence of Turkey, the crescent was added as an internationally recognized symbol for humanitarian relief. The Persian symbol came later.
However, when newly established Israel sought to have the six-pointed star recognized, the International Conference of the Red Cross (the governing body) declined by a narrow vote. Thereafter as more and more Arab and third world countries were added to the conference, the margins of rejection became wider. However, last year a compromise was struck. Israel could use the Magen David Adom symbol, provided it was inscribed within a diamond. Surbeck said MDA officials accepted the compromise because it improved the situation from before, although it did not bring the Jewish star to full parity with other symbols.
Surbeck, son of a freelance journalist, was born and raised in the former Belgian Congo, and spent his teen and young adult years in Switzerland, where, after law school, he was offered the Red Cross job. Always fascinated by America, he remembers as a boy in the Congo being well ahead of his school mates in learning English. Later in life, he readily agreed to serve the International Red Cross in the United States, basing at the liaison office the charity kept at the United Nations.
Lecturing about the charitable agency's operations kept Surbeck continuously on the road; his life a succession of airports, hotels, and meeting rooms. Even a youngster can follow such a schedule for only a few years, he said. Deciding that he had enough—that he was suffering from burn out—he settled in Tucson, and went to work for the Tucson Red Cross as a liaison to the International Red Cross and later as a fundraiser. At a conference for people who raise money for charities, he met fellow delegate Marjory Kaplan, with whom he sustained a long-distance dating relationship.
He has traveled twice to Israel: once with the Tucson chapter of the America Israel Friendship League, and once accompanying Kaplan on a Wexner Foundation trip—the trip on which his enthusiasm for Israel "caught fire," he said.
Surbeck said he decided he would try to put his expertise in international affairs and public relations to good use, which was why he volunteered to become the trainer of speakers for the budding Advocates for Israel, an organization started in Oregon by Gary Acheatel, a former San Diego resident, and subsequently modified to local conditions by the San Diego chapter.
"I think a very important reason why a lot of people are shy about defending Israel is because incredible lies are thrown in their face—the bigger the lie, the more difficult it is for people to face it—and they don't know how to respond," Surbeck said. "That is what initimidates people; they dont like to debate or confront liars, so the first thing we have to do is provide people a good solid foundation of information. Once everyone has been through this training; they will do the same thing to help others, and also get out in the field to give lectures."
The first class of spokespersons for Advocates for Israel is about to graduate, and the organization is accepting applications for the second class. "We are looking for people who are not afraid to face the public, who either know a lot or would like to know more about the Middle East and who have some degree of availability, because we are looking at placing speakers in all kinds of environments."
Those interested should visit the Advocates for Israel website, from which they can send an E-mail indicating they would like to be contacted, Surbeck told me.
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Not only enemies, but some would-be friends believe the Jewish stereotypes
By J. Zel Lurie
DELRAY BEACH, Florida—Why is there continued maximum interest in the Israel lobby? Why are professors Mersheimer and Walt, whose book The Israel Lobby is full of slanted truths and outrageous lies, still invited everywhere?
Part of the answer might be found in what happened to me in Morocco.
Many years ago a Boston travel agent, who wanted to develop Jewish tours to Morocco, invited me and a few other Jewish journalists to a Moroccan junket. A day or so after our arrival we were informed by the press attaché of the American embassy that the Prime Minister was “granting us an audience.”
“Why?” I wanted to know. Why was the Prime Minister of this large Arab country going to waste his valuable time on a few Jewish reporters who were here to write about tourism?
“Perhaps,” ventured the American diplomat, “he has read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and he believes this ancient anti-Semitic forgery.”
He was exaggerating of course. But the Prime Minister lectured us on his troubles with Mauritania in the firm belief that we Jewish writers could influence American foreign policy in his favor. None of us wrote a word about Mauritania.
As I wrote in this journal on September 11, one of Mersheimer/Walt’s more outrageous lies is that the Israel lobby pushed the United States into invading Iraq.
The opposite is the truth. Israel and its lobby claimed that the enemy was to the East of Iraq and that it was Iran not Iraq that was making an atomic bomb that would be a dire threat to Israel.
The neo-cons in Washington, many of whom are Jewish and are supporters of the Israeli right, and who were the architects of the invasion of Iraq, told their Israeli friends that Iran was next on their list.
That was four years ago and it is still next on the neo-cons list.
For the Israel lobby Iran is at the top of the list and always has been. A fund-raising letter mailed out by AIPAC last month has IRAN plastered all over the envelope in red ink.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who leads the field of Democratic presidential candidates, stepped away from the Israel lobby last month. She co-sponsored an amendment that would compel the Administration to secure Congressional approval before bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities.
AIPAC lobbied against a similar amendment earlier this year.
Senator Clinton’s objective is to prevent President Bush from making the same mistake in Iran that he did in Iraq.
The Israel lobby might support military action against Iran. That would be a terrible mistake. It would have immediate consequences for Israel. Iran would unleash a flood of missiles on Israel both long-range missiles directly from Iran and short-range from nearby Hezbollah in Lebanon,
Who knows how it would escalate?
The Israel lobby is by no means the richest lobby in Washington. In Tikkun magazine, Professor Stephen Zunes calculated that last year the Israeli PACs plus individual contributors were able to donate to party treasuries and individual Congressional candidates a total of nine million dollars.
While this is a decent sum it doesn’t hold a candle to the $58 million raised by legal PACs and lawyers or the $36 million contributed by the AARP and other retirees or the $38 million raised by the health industry.
Some time after I was waylaid into listening to a dissertation on Mauritania by the Moroccan Prime Minister I met a Moroccan-born social worker at a New York fund-raiser for a human rights organization. She hated the Moroccan king for his violation of the human rights of his subjects and she couldn’t understand why he had the support of President Bill Clinton.
“Why do you liberal American Jews support the foreign policy of your Administration?” she wanted to know.
Her question should be placed alongside the Moroccan Prime Minister who believed that a few Jewish tourist writers had influence in Washington because we were Jewish.
The same question could be asked about our other Arab allies, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman and other oppressive Arab regimes, none of whom have any respect for human rights.
Israel is still the only democracy in the Middle East despite the IDF’s suppression “for security reasons” of the human rights of the Palestinians. All of the evils of the occupation, including the apartheid road system and the 500-odd check points, can be laid at the door of “God’s Warriors,“ the fanatical greedy Jewish settlers and their American supporters, and, on the other side, the suicide bombers.
A last word about the September bombing by Israel of the Syrian reactor being built with North Korean blueprints. No government has admitted that it happened. But satellite photos of the site taken in August and October were plastered across the top of page 10 of the New York Times of October 10. In August the building was clearly defined. In October it had vanished and the ground had been raked over.
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SAN DIEGO JEWISH BOOK FAIR
How Jews became Germans: they didn't
By Joel A Moskowitz, M.D.
and Arlene S. Moskowitz, J.D.
LA JOLLA, California—Attendees of the 13th annual San Diego Jewish Book Fair packed the Astor Library of the Lawrence Family JCC on Monday, November 5, to hear author and UCSD Professor Deborah Hertz talk about her book, How Jews Became Germans (Published by Yale University Press).
Mimicking the AfterWords interview style seen on Book TV, André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name : A Novel, who had just finished a prior book signing presentation, deftly asked Dr. Hertz to describe how she came to write her book and some of her conclusions.
If the purpose of a ‘book signing presentation’ is to whet the appetite of listeners so they will purchase the book, this event should have accomplished its intent. Clearly Professor Hertz is a sensitive, knowledgeable historian who doubtlessly is an artful writer.
The subject as understood by many who came to hear and understand is how Jews who were the most successful at seeming to be accepted into Berlin Society in period from 1600s to the 1930s were ‘deluded’.
For Psychiatrists, the word "deluded" implies a break with reality associated with serious mental illness. Deborah Hertz uses the lay interpretation e.g. fanciful, deceived, in describing Jews who between the 1600s and the early 1930s believed they had successfully integrated into German society.
When in the 1600s the poorer, less accomplished Jews attempted assimilation by converting to Christianity, their motivation might be simple to grasp. They may have sought acceptance. Illustrious and successful families such as the Mendelssohns, who converted their children and then several years later accepted Christ themselves, raise more complex questions of motivation.
For the Nazis, eradication of the Jewish race meant annihilating not only practicing Jews but anyone who had a Jewish parent or grandparent. Prior service to Germany or medals earned for doing the work of the Kaiser and other gestures of loyalty to the State, did little to rescue Jews from the ovens.
Hertz stressed at this book signing event that it was not her intention to use the retrospectoscope to analyze the delusion (her word) of the Jews in Deutschland prior to the 19th century. Instead, having come upon a source of documentation of conversions kept by the Protestant church, she sought to synthesize and humanize stories of individual prominent Jewish families in the society of Berlin and
Europe in that era.
Some blame the Jews of Berlin for failing to see that religious conversion would not rescue them from persecution. Professor Hertz considers them innocent but deluded. The provocative question is "do their stories have any message for our generation?" The reader is encouraged to purchase and read How the Jews Became Germans to decide.
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SAN DIEGO JEWISH WORLD
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
• MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Shoshana Bryen in Washington, D.C.: "Oil prices are so high, it's time to pull out the stops in behalf of alternative fuels"
Cynthia Citron in Los Angeles: "For tsuris like Sheldon and Mrs. Levine's, you can stay home and save your money"
Judith Apter Klinghoffer in Cherry Hill, New Jersey: "Israel's peace dividend could be dwarfed by impact on the Palestinian economy."
Norene Schiff-Shenhav in Fallbrook, California: "Our unforgettable week of fire, stress, separation, love, kindness and relief"
• SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4
Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Shanghai Jews experiences varied greatly depending on their countries of origin"
Joe Naiman in Lakeside, California: "Jewish owners brought pro basketball to San Diego County but couldn't sustain it"
Sheila Orysiek in San Diego: "City Ballet's 15th season in San Diego provides several views of classical ballet"
Ira Sharkansky in Jerusalem: "Olmert's optimism on the eve of the Annapolis conference mystifies 'realists'"
• SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3
Dov Burt Levy in Salem, Massachusetts: "3 wishes from deep inside Red Sox Nation"
Ira Sharkansky in Jerusalem:""Breakthrough in Annapolis? Don't hold your breath that anything will happen"
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson in Mevasseret Zion, Israel: "A trip into my unknown German past"
David Strom in San Diego: "Collection of Chanukah essays stirs memories of family trips and gelt"
• FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2
Shoshana Bryen in Washington, DC: "Convicting the foot soldiers while giving master terrorists virtual immunity."
Judith Apter Klinghoffer in Philadelphia: "Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, a Muslim moderate, inspires Federation"
Rabbi Baruch Lederman in San Diego: "She took a phone to bed with her and saved the lives of her neighbors."
Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal in San Diego: "The best way to reduce your own troubles? Help others!"
• THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1
Shoshana Bryen in Washington, D.C. "A Town Meeting at Foggy Bottom"
Rabbi Wayne Dosick in Carlsbad, California: "Some hints for fire victims and their friends from two who went through it"
Larry Zeiger in San Diego: "Monty Python-style riff on the Bible offered at San Diego Rep"
• WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31
Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Sandy Koufax, Jackie Robinson are role models for this baseball story"
Joe Naiman in El Cajon, California: "Short Track Racecars in Ramona and its owners weather the Witch Creek Fire"
Isaac Yetiv in La Jolla, California: "The fabled Rebbe Hai Tayeb lo-met of Tunisia bests a Jerusalem Talmudist"
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