In this Blog Issue:
A. Yoram Ettinger on the history of the word “Palestine”
B. So much to do in the next month in Santa Fe:
- Karen Grumberg on Amos Oz, November 9
- Amiel Bakehila, November 14-16
- Eva Schloss, November 17
- “The Unorthodox” – Jewish Film Festival, November 24
- Lannan Foundation speaker Noura Erakat, December 4
C. Be sure to watch the video of Israeli Amb. Ron Dermer at the Jewish Federation.
D. SFMEW is looking for a part-time administrator.
1. The History of the Word “Palestine”
You may recall that two years ago this month we brought Yoram Ettinger to Santa Fe to discuss the myths around demographics in Israel and the disputed territories, especially related to Jewish and Arab fertility rates and population growth patterns. You can still view his talk here.
Yoram recently published a newsletter issue of the Ettinger Report entitled, “Clarifying the Palestine Saga,” in which he details the origin of the history of the use of the terms Palaistine, Palaestina, and Philistines. You can view the issue here.
One could argue that the historical origin of “Palestine” is not that relevant to the current Palestinian conflict with Israel; narratives and meanings of words change over time. However, the relevance comes with the contemporary propaganda espoused by anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian spokespersons and Palestinian leadership, who claim that the Land of Israel has been Arab/Muslim from time immemorial. As Ettinger notes, such a claim is inconsistent with historic documentation.
2. Karen Grumberg speaking on Israeli author Amos Oz (z”l)
3. Amiel Bakehila
This is an excellent opportunity to learn in so many different ways, sponsored by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs of the State of Israel, and coordinated by Kol BeRamah. The entire program can be found here.
Of particular interest to pro-Israel advocates will be the talk co-sponsored by SFMEW on Friday, November 15,
11am-12pm – “Israel Advocacy Through Social Media” with Laura Ben David. You might also be interested in the talk at the Community Shabbat Dinner by the same speaker, “Confessions of a Nuanced Settler.” Both of these will be held at Kol BeRamah. Kudos to Naomi Israel for the hard work she does on these programs.
4. Eva Schloss, Stepsister of Anne Frank
On Sunday, November 17 at 1:00 pm at the Lensic Auditorium Santa Fe Chabad sponsors Eva Schloss for an exclusive presentation. Schloss is the childhood friend and stepsister of Anne Frank and a survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death 
camp. The 90-year-old has recounted her experiences in more than one thousand speaking engagements and three books and had a play written about her life.
Buy tickets by clicking here.
Join us for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear from one of the individuals who survived the horror of that dark period in history. Thanks to Richard and Carol LIeberman and Marcia Torobin, who have helped to underwrite this presentation.
5. “The Unorthodox” – November 24, 11:00 am, Center for Contemporary Arts
Following Matti Friedman’s September talk about Mizrahi Jews in Israel, this film is the “barely fictionalized” story of the rise of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, the first political party in Israel to represent the Sephardic and Mizrahi communities. Previously marginalized by the ruling Ashkenazi elite, Shas gave voice to the voiceless in a tale of the power of the people. Nominated for nine Israeli Academy Awards and winner of four, actor Shuli Rand delivers what has been described as a “galvanizing performance”. Buy tickets here.
6. Lannan Foundation speaker Noura Erakat, December 4, Lensic
The Lannan Foundation continues its annual bashing of Israel with an anti-Semitic speaker from George Mason University, assistant professor of law Noura Erakat. She is a self-described political and human rights lawyer, a “movement attorney” claiming “law is politics” to be wielded to bash Israel in pseudo-human rights jargon. Google her name and watch one of her videos and you can see how she thrashes about with hyperbolic rhetoric against Israel in the most deceptive way, using the standard trash terms of “colonialism, apartheid, illegal” without ever defining or supporting her claims except through half-baked legal theories not taken seriously by international law experts.
According to Times of Israel columnist Dexter Van Niles, in an article entitled, “Noura Erakat’s Sordid Cynicism,” Erakat spoke recently, declaring
…that ‘the law itself is indeterminate, and that ‘it doesn’t even have a core meaning’ because ‘it’s going to be interpreted by lawyers who are going to shape it according to their clients needs.'[…] Erakat hearkens back to theorists working for the colonial powers who established a system of international law that justified the murder and plunder of indigenous people living in the colonized territories of the great European powers before World War II. These theorists set up a system that the colonized were eventually able to use to advance their own interests in places like the United Nations.
Now that it’s her turn at the helm, Erakat is using legal theory to serve the interests of Palestinian elites who have deployed terrorists into Israel in an attempt to force Israeli Jews to abandon their status as a sovereign people. The target of Erakat’s lawyering is Israeli Jews who refuse to live as a minority in a Muslim or Arab society.
To legitimize her assault on Jewish sovereignty, Erakat falsely portrays Israeli Jews as interlopers in the Levant, asking rhetorically in her book, “Do Jews have a right to self-determination in a territory which they did not reside, but settled?”
Unfortunately, as usual, it will be unlikely that the audience will be able to ask questions of this speaker in order to expose her underlying deception. If you have further interest in exposing the fraudulent claims of Erakat, read CAMERA’s column here. There will be more on this in a later blog posting.
If you missed his presentation, you missed one of the most articulate speakers for the State of Israel today, Ambassador Ron Dermer. Watch it today:
SFMEW needs a part-time administrator.
As we ramp up with more activities in the Santa Fe community we are now recruiting for a part-time (5-10 hours per week) administrator. Desirable skill sets include working with blogs and websites, maintaining mailing lists (MailChimp) interacting on social media, and arranging logistics for speakers and other SFMEW-sponsored events. Being an unabashed, unapologetic Zionist is important. If you know of someone looking to do this kind of work, please refer them to Halley Faust at info@sfmew.org, or call 505-501-8181.
SFMEW is a beneficiary organization of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.