Christopher Hitchens has one of the most beguiling presences I've ever encountered in a media figure. He has that booming tenor that reminds one of Dylan Thomas reciting his mellifluous poetry. I hear he has a similar penchant for the 'hard stuff' as well. The words and ideas flow out of Hitchens mouth smooth as honey. Their power is almost magnetic. The high-toned English accent doesn't hurt either.

But when you step back and really examine what he's saying it's pretty much all bilge. Well, OK, maybe not all. But so much of it is that you feel that smooth, suave delivery is a betrayal or deception of sorts.

So how much does Christopher Hitchens really know about Islam? Apparently, not terribly much. He participated in a panel discussion on Warren Olney's To the Point. Towards the end of the discussion, he responded to a Muslim scholar's claim that Islam derives from the word for "peace." Here is what Hitchens said (audio):

Islam, by the way, does not mean "peace." It means "surrender," "prostration."

As even a Jew who knows any Hebrew can tell you, Islam certainly does derive from the word salaam or shalom in Hebrew. As Svend White, an Islamic studies specialist who writes Akram's Razor tells me:

...One can spin this *somewhat* by emphasizing the fact that the type of "peace" is a kind of surrender...

What is misleading about Hitchens' statement is he neglects that "Islam" connotes the peaceful "surrender" of a believer to the will of God, but not the "surrender" of a non-believer before the force or power of Islam.  Such peaceful surrender, which some see as the essence of faith, is a feature of many of the world's religions.  Hitchens is spinning Islam as a religion of violence and domination. So it's convenient to distort the religion's name as well. We see here the power of a guileful ideologue used to stir the pot of intolerance and Muslim-bashing.

Few will argue that there are not serious issues that need to be addressed between Islam and other world religions and that some Muslims defame their own religion by claiming to embody it as they kill the innocent. But Hitchens is merely a provocateur, rather than someone willing to engage in a serious dialogue on the subject.

My friend, Stefan Merken, has just published Peace, Justice and Jews: Reclaiming Our Tradition, a book that argues that peace is one of the "purest and highest" values in our tradition. If there are any skeptics reading this they will say--been there, done that. How many similar books have already been published on precisely the same subject before? While this is true, I believe that this book comes at a most opportune time. In the period since 9/11, the world has become obsessed with terror as THE only important issue facing us. In this country, all that has been important to our government has been security. Everything else has fallen by the wayside. The neocons, prominent among them many Jews, have ruled the roost for the past six years.

But now that the Bush Administration and its agenda have become discredited by the overreaching and failure of their own policies the pendulum is shifting back. It is time that we reexamine the relevance of the Jewish prophetic tradition to issues of war and peace, environmentalism, and economic justice. In an age when war and hatred are everywhere, it would profit us to study the words of the contributors to this volume who have embraced a peaceful way to resolve such conflicts. If there was nothing else worthwhile in this volume, this comment by the editors about my favorite historic Zionist figure would make the entire venture worth it:

Our chapter on...Israel calls to mind a major--if sadly, largely forgotten--figure of the Jewish past: Ahad Ha'am...whose prescient essay This is Not the Way warned that a future Jewish nation would not succeed if it emulated colonialistic thinking. "The main point, upon which everything depends, is not how much we do but how we do it," he wrote in The Truth from Palestine after he arrived home in Odessa from Palestine in 1891. He also cautioned the Jewish settlers in Palestine to consider the rights of the Arabs living there. "We think...that the Arabs are all savages who live like animals and do not understand what is happening...This is, however, a great error.

A strong dose of Ahad Ha'am is a powerful antidote to the most virulent nationalist views expressed by many on the Israeli right and their Diaspora supporters.

Murray Polner, former editor of the late, lamented Present Tense Magazine, was this book's co-editor.

Last Friday marked the first anniversary of the most traumatic day in the history of Seattle's Jewish community. It was the day that a deranged Naveed Haq barged into the Jewish federation's downtown offices, proclaimed his anger at Israel for its treatment of Arabs, and began shooting everything in sight. At the end of his rampage Pam Waechter, the campaign director was dead and five other female employees were wounded. The hatred and insanity of this massacre are garden variety as far as the world is concerned--this happens every day. But what isn't garden variety is this community's response, including the victims and the family of the perpetrator.

Seattle is a city that prides itself on its openness and tolerance and it proved it in this case. On the day of Pam Waechter's funeral an Arab-American representative of Haq's family hand delivered a letter from Haq's parents expressing profound sorrow and regret to the Jewish community. The victims, in turn, did not shout for vengeance or the death penalty. In fact, several victims families said explicitly and publicly that they did not the DA to file a death penalty charge.

Layla Bush, most seriously injured federation victim (Karen Ducey/Seattle PI)The most severely injured victim was Layla Bush with bullet wounds to her abdomen and shoulders. One bullet barely missed tearing into her heart. She walks with a cane, cannot stand for more than an hour and has nine therapy appointments each week. Yet these are her feelings now:

"I just don't want people to forget how much damage hate can do...Nothing positive comes from hatred." Bush said executing Haq would be "too easy for him." She reiterated that view Thursday, saying she favored life imprisonment.

In the aftermath of the shooting, "what made me mad is not him, but that someone with a mental history like that can get guns..." Growing up in rural Florida, she completed gun-safety classes and shot beer bottles off fence posts. She once owned a 9 mm Beretta. "I feel that handguns are made for killing people," she said. "They're not made for hunting."

Think what an extraordinary attitude it takes to make the following statement about her volunteer work at Harborview Medical Center:

We answer questions and talk with patients who have just been recently injured," she said. "It feels good for me to just give back. I feel like I've taken so much."

Norm Maleng, the recently deceased Republican DA did not file a first degree murder charge. He reviewed ten years of Haq's mental health records and determined that a lesser murder charge was more appropriate.

While one might expect the victims of such a trauma to refuse to return to their jobs almost all have (though several cannot work full time due to their injuries). The federation in turn has raised $1.3 million to entirely redesign the interior of its former offices so that the thoughts of victims or any other community member will not linger on that tragic day and space.

It seems to me that there are many places in the world where hate rages which could learn from Seattle's example. It is true that shootings of this nature are extremely rare here so one might argue that we have the luxury of being able to respond to such tragedy differently. But are we really that different? I don't know. It seems to me that a response to murderous hatred that offers more of the same is the easy way out. A response to hate that offers sober reflection and emotional engagement is much harder.

Everyone knows the internet can be a nasty place. Foul language, hate, invective, inanity, you name it. But what's less known is that the Jewish web can be equally nasty. We Jews have a reputation for being disputatious and the internet is no exception. I've been blogging for nearly five years. People have wished cancer on me, called for me to be raped by Arabs and killed by "righteous Jews," called my children "simian," claimed I taught them to manufacture Palestinian suicide bombs, etc.

And as a recent Jewish Forward article points out, I'm not the only one. There are Jewish cyber-bullies everywhere:

Orthomom.blogspot.com, which covers Long Island’s Orthodox Jewish communities, was the subject of a recent lawsuit brought by a local elected official who charges that she was slandered on the blog. Last February, the official, Pamela Greenbaum, who serves on board of education in Lawrence, N.Y., filed a lawsuit in a New York state court in an attempt to force Google, whose subsidiary hosts the blog, to reveal Orthomom’s identity. Greenbaum claims that she was called a “bigot” and an “antisemite” on the blog.

In response to Greenbaum’s lawsuit, Public Citizen, a national public interest group that has played a lead role in defending free speech on the Internet, rushed in to defend Orthomom and filed a motion to quash. A decision in the case is still pending.

When Chaim Rubin of Life of Rubin defended Orthomom one of his commenters began berating him for his support of her. The going got nasty and Chaim banned him. The commenter decided to get even and created a blog called Ploni Baloney solely devoted to mocking Chaim. While he believes he knows the identity of the anonymous blogger he has no solid proof. That's precisely the problem with cyber-bullies. They are obsessed to the point of mania. But they prefer to lurk in dark, slimy places.

Steven Plaut is another Jewish cyber-bully who sees it as his role in life to protect the Jewish people from anyone who's ever voiced any criticism of Israel. As Rebecca Spence wrote in The Forward:

In 2006, Neve Gordon, a dovish politics professor at Ben-Gurion University, launched a civil suit against Steven Plaut, a hawkish professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Haifa, for referring to him in an article published online as a “fanatic anti-Semite” and a “Judenrat wannabe,” among other slurs. Plaut lost and had to pay more than $18,000 in fines to Gordon. Plaut is now appealing the case.

Sharon in drag under the caption: "America's bitch whore"But there is one website that is the sine qua non of Jewish cyber-bullydom. Masada2000 has everything: naked men, dildos, Ariel Sharon in drag, Michael Lerner half-naked in a bath tub, and 7,000 Jews on the S.H.I.T. list. Who could ask for more? What is Masada20000 you ask? It's a strange beast run by someone who conceals his identity behind the moniker Big Al. Big Al is angry in the same way Meir Kahane was angry. Angry at Jewish peaceniks, the Fifth Column of the Jewish people. And doubly angry at perfidious Arabs. Masada2000 has a fetish for what I call Jewish porn. It's obssessed by homosexuality and Nazism. Jews on the S.H.I.T. (Self-Hating and Israel-Threatening Jews) are 'fags,' kapos' and 'Judenrats.' It's as if the site owner absorbed the poison the Nazis spewed against Jews and become what he hates--a Jewish Nazis.

If you're an enemy of the Jewish people in their book, you clearly deserve no privacy and the List often displays images of victims and their private e mail addresses.

I have a personal confession to make. I am on the S.H.I.T. List. In fact, when one of the site's 'friends' or perhaps the owner himself notified me of my "membership" I began a campaign to get the site taken down. Besides the fact that it featured an image of me that I owned and thus violated my copyright, I thought that any site that said that Jewish female peace activists "deserved a good reaming" deserved to be reamed itself. When their webhost took the site down they moved it to a Mormon webhost who didn't seem to mind nudity and lots of F-words directed at "sand niggers" and the like.

Ultimately I failed. No matter how many examples I provided to Bluehost of multiple blatant violations of their Terms of Service, they preferred Masada2000's loot to common decency. But I'm pleased to say that where I failed, someone else succeeded. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you how Masada2000 was brought down since I don't want to let any of its friends in on the secret.

No doubt, you'll read in the comment section below some Kahanewannabe pledging that 'Masada2000 will live forever' and such like. Perhaps. But making life tougher for those who spew hate is truly a mitzvah. And to the site's supporters I say, please don't talk to me about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not allow you to violate the law or invade the privacy of thousands of victims by printing their e mail addresses. Besides, when the site has been taken down it has not been because of its political speech, but rather because it violated the host's Terms of Service or violated other provisions that regulate websites (sorry for being so vague). There are many other websites that present a Jewish nationalist perspective without breaking laws and invading privacy.

Miriam Felton Dansky also wrote about Masada2000 in Flack-Listed at New Voices.

Blue Angels in formation at Seafair (Richard Silverstein)

We Jews know about tribes and tribal gatherings. But what happens when you live among a tribe but don't feel yourself a full fledged member? Then tribal gatherings can be alternately strange and fascinating. Take Seattle's Seafair. Fifty years ago, Seattle was a real burg. Once known for its lumber and fishing industries, it did have Boeing and several large military bases as mainstays of the local economy, but little else. This was before Microsoft; before Amazon; before Starbucks; before biotechnology.

Remember when Richard Nixon killed the huge Supersonic Transport (SST) project in 1972, which Boeing had counted on as its production mainstay? The company responded by laying off thousands of workers. And there were no other major industries to take up the slack. The joke going the rounds was: "Will the last person to leave Seattle turn off the lights." That was then. Though Seafair predated the death of the SST, it was created in a similar context.

The city fathers felt they needed to dream up a way to put Seattle on the map. Why not take advantage of one of Seattle's prime attractions: the water. Thus began Seafair, Seattle's summertime festival.

Here's how the Seafair website describes it:

In the half century since Seafair was launched, the city that Seafair helped put on the map has matured from adolescence to adulthood. When Seafair debuted, the Seattle area was without major league sports teams, a symphony or the Seattle Center. Seattle was hungry for national recognition and attention and Seafair filled the bill with Thunderboats racing on Lake Washington and parades which featured the likes of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

Over the years, Seafair built pride among the community which still resonates today. The Puget Sound of today is a robust, economically and ethnically diverse community and Seafair has become more important than ever. As major cities melt and become the same, Seafair is the fabric of our community that represents the Northwest lifestyle and keeps us unique.

Seafair has become a home town jewel that reaches nearly 2 million Puget Sound residents each summer. In fact, if you live in the Northwest, you look forward to Seafair and all the simple joys that it brings.

Seafair pirates land at Alki beach (JIm Bryant/Seattle PI)

You can hear the breathless boosterism in the copy. It's as if Seattleites still need to prove they are an interesting town, worthy enough for people to go out of their way to visit. It's sort of embarrassing to the cosmopolitan Jew in me who's been all over the world and lived in many places. It makes you feel you are in Seattle but not of it. Does a modern metropolis on the cutting edge of technology and Pacific Rim trade really need a Milk Carton Derby, pirates landing at Alki beach, gas-guzzling hydroplane races, and Blue Angels flyovers? And speaking of Blue Angels, you don't know dread or terror till you've heard an F-16 screaming a mere 200 feet or so over your head. Imagine the sound of a locomotive roaring through your bedroom while you're in the midst of a deep sleep. Or as a friend said to me: "Is this how I want my tax dollars spent??" Does Seattle really need this to create a unique urban identity?

But who can argue with the hoopla and excitement? Many thousands of tourists actually fly long distances to witness the spectacle. What they see in it I couldn't precisely tell you. I view it something like Christmas. The goyim love this thing. It's loud, annoying, in your face, and the music makes you want to tear your hair out; but they seem to be having fun and part of you doesn't want to deprive them of their pleasure. But another part wants to scratch your head in wonderment at all the foolishness.

I guess Seattle is a number of major ways remains a small town. You can feel it in the crazy fan allegiance to every hometown sports team from Huskies football to the Mariners. And that is the charm of the place and the bane of it as well. I've lived in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, New York, Dublin and Jerusalem. I truly love living in this city. But despite it's cultural offerings, it simply lacks the sizzle of a few of the above cities. There is no Koreatown, no Symphony Space, no Knitting Factory, no Carnegie Hall, no MOMA, not even LACMA. On the other hand, none of these places have the Cascades, a 20 minute commute from a home in the woods to downtown, or one of the best places in the world to bring up young children.