Some people insist that America has lost all moral credibility. In my view, those who judge America (and Israel) by higher and different standards are the ones whose credibility and perhaps sanity remain highly questionable. Yes, I am talking about the western intelligentsia, international human rights organizations, Islamic world despots, Islamist terrorists, the United Nations, and the non-governmental organizations which have attached themselves to the allegedly crumbling edifice on the East River of Manhattan known as the United Nations. All these groups view “the international community,” as a sacred deity whose wisdom and benevolence is merciful and all-encompassing.

I kid you not. Yes, the same “international community” which refuses to stop the genocide and mass gang-rapes in Sudan is still viewed as humanity’s Savior. Only America and Israel are singled out for condemnation. PRESS HERE.

Look: neither America nor Israel are perfect and although I disagree with 50%-80% of the decisions made by their leaders, I would never negatively compare them with most Third World countries which openly practice ethnic cleansing, gender and religious apartheid, and slavery.

The same United Nations which hosted a well choreographed program against Jews at a conference ostensibly to end racism (in the year 2001, in Durban, South Africa) is now up to its old tricks. One day this week, (I am told this vote is imminent), the UN General Assembly will vote to fund or not to fund the preparation of Durban ll.

Under Ambassador John Bolton’s watchful eye, America held tough for a short while on the uses of the UN regular budget (22% of which comes from American taxpayers.) Under Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who knows? He may wish to please and appease the very state sponsors of terrorism who routinely persecute their own people and blame the Zionists for it–and he may wish to do so on America’s behalf. Actually, the same State and Intelligence Departments which have sprung a thousand leaks and defections, and which have endangered us all with questionable judgments about the Iranian danger may now be preparing to pay for another UN-sponsored path of dhimmitude and appeasement.

Please recall: The United Nations held a World Conference on racism in Durban, South Africa in August/September 2001. The Conference became a global platform for egregious forms of Anti-Semitism and discrimination against Israel. It was so bad that the United States Government walked out of the conference in disgust. Ever since, the US has opposed a resolution on follow-up to the Durban Conference outcome-document (which singles out Israel) in the General Assembly.

Last year the General Assembly decided to hold a Durban II conference - formally a “Durban Review Conference” - to take place in the first half of 2009. (The actual venue is as yet undetermined.) It has become clear that the conference will again be appropriated by those promising to turn an anti-racism conference into a platform for racism. If anything, Durban II will be worse because it promises to deliver both Israel-bashing and hysterical allegations of Western “Islamophobia” with the U.S. cast as the primary perpetrator of anti-Muslim discrimination resulting from a phony war to combat terrorism.

In this year’s Third Committee of the General Assembly, the United States Government voted against the resolutions on “Durban follow-up” and the preparation of the Durban Review Conference. This year, for the first time, the U.S. was joined not only by Israel but by the European Union, other European states, Canada and Australia.

All these Western states were outvoted, however, and the resolution was adopted. Having been adopted on the merits, the budgetary consequences of the resolution or the actual funding of the preparation of Durban II now moves inexorably on to another set of UN Committees.

It is crucial that the U.S. now follow through with its opposition to the Durban Review Conference and vote NO on funding it. This will require three steps:

1) Signaling American opposition to the program budget implications of the funding resolution in an executive UN budget committee known as the ACABQ,

2) Calling for a vote on those budget implications in the next stage UN Committee - the Fifth or Budget Committee, and

3) Voting against that funding resolution in the Fifth/Budget Committee.

UN etiquette dictates that the Fifth/Budget Committee operates by consensus. It, therefore, requires a degree of fortitude to maintain strong opposition to funding any part of Durban II.

Nonetheless, such a statement of principle is extremely important. The message must be sent that the UN was founded on equality of peoples and of nations and anti-racism, and our country will not tolerate the abuse of the UN as a platform for undermining those goals via anti-semitism and discrimination against Israel.

Americans said no to Durban I. Consistently, Americans must not agree that the regular budget of the UN (and hence U.S. tax dollars) are to be spent on a conference intended to “implement” Durban I.

Anne Bayefsky, of the Hudson Institute asks: “Are these states now going to approve the costs of Durban II from the regular budget of the UN – a cost which rebounds directly onto the backs of their own taxpayers? In Bayefsky’s opinion, the United States should “object to the funding of Durban II from the UN’s regular budget. Doing so will “send a clear and consistent message about the pernicious nature of Durban, its aftermath and its reincarnation. It would also set the stage for a concerted effort to resist the hijacking of the anti-racism agenda of the UN by the least tolerant members of the human family.”

Americans: Contact your congresspeople and senators. SECRETARY RICE AND AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD: America will not fund a racist conference under the Orwellian guise of its being “anti-racist.”

Seemingly sturdy people are also quite fragile. Serious illnesses can utterly transform their personalities. The death of a beloved intimate can render strong and cheerful people unfit for life-as-usual for a very long time. Some are never the same again.

The pain people suffer (and inflict) when their spouses leave them cannot be underestimated. I live with a divorce lawyer and the stories I get to hear make The War of the Roses look tame by comparison. The person (male or female) with the most money usually “wins.” But, for every divorcing woman who falsely accuses her husband of sexually abusing his children and battering his wife–I will show you a divorcing, openly adulterous husband who “matches and raises” such tactics by embarking on a scorched earth policy to impoverish and destroy the mother of his children in every conceivable way. Some divorce and custody battles rage on for a decade or more.

Although I published the definitive feminist work Women and Madness in 1972, I still understood that men also suffer. However, I chose to focus on women whose suffering was either overlooked or punitively pathologized.

Nevertheless, over the years, I also met, interviewed, and taught men who had been the victims of horrific violence in childhood, who had struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, who were themselves violent, and/or who had been psychiatrically hospitalized. I also had male students who shared their problems with me: Excessive shyness, unbeareable loneliness, fears that they were “losers” or gay.

In 1978, I even published a book titled About Men. I really wanted to understand the “other” gender. But in truth, Women and Madness sold nearly three million copies and therefore more women than men reached out to me to bear witness to their stories and to help them in some way.

That is now changing.

For example, a good friend of mine (a sophisticated and charming man) recently turned to me for help. He was devastated when his wife of many years left him. He lost the job he prized, had fallen into a depression and had begun to take anti-depressants. His wife left him in a particularly callous way. After maxing out their credit cards (for which he, not she, was responsible), she told him she wanted “out” and left. Within weeks, she said she’d changed her mind, wanted to return and asked him to meet her at the airport. Gladly, he did so. And while he waited for her plane, his wife’s friends busily removed almost everything from their home, including his computer and his dog. (She had another computer and several other dogs).

“Why didn’t I see this coming? What does this say about my judgment?”

My friend is very sad. The earth upon which he thought he was standing was only an illusion.

Yesterday, another dear friend, “K,” unexpectedly called me. “K” is a successful artist and world traveler. Together with his wife, he is also the co-owner of several businesses.

“I’m in the cuckoo house” he said.

“Are you joking?” I asked.

“No, I tried to kill myself. My wife just left me for a richer man. She said that she doesn’t love me anymore. I’m not as rich as she needs me to be. She threw me out. Now, I want to die. And I am homeless.”

“No you’re not. You co-own your lovely home” I said.

“Maybe I don’t. She told me that I don’t co-own any of our businesses. Maybe she found a way of getting my name off the deed to the house too. You know we’ve been married for more than twenty years. What does it say about me that I trusted and loved a person who could betray me? I don’t want to live.”

I do not think that this friend was clinically “depressed.” Although more women than men suffer from depression, men still account for 1 in ten cases of diagnosed depression.

Suicide is something else. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Men in the U.S. are about four times more likely than women to commit suicide. A staggering 75-80% of all people who commit suicide in the U.S. are men. Though more women attempt suicide, more men are successful at actually ending their lives. This may be due to the fact that men tend to use more lethal methods of committing suicide, for example using a gun rather than taking an overdose.” PRESS HERE

My two male friends are the sweetest, nicest men. (Why would I have any other kind?) And yet, they are almost without resources when their intimate lives fall apart. Unlike women, men do not discuss “feelings” with their male friends. In fact, they may confide mainly in their wives. When those wives leave them, they have lost their (sometimes only) best friend.

I am not suggesting that we generalize. Many women never recover from being “left behind” and many men have been having affairs for years when their wives finally leave them. Such men continue having affairs and marry again too.

What I am saying is that, unlike women, men are still ashamed to seek help. Some men may choose to kill themselves rather than admit to another person that they are “falling apart” and in need of help.

Read HERE for a guide to Men’s Health.

People often romanticize outlaws. Ballads galore have been written about Billy the Kid and Jesse James; both a book and a movie portrayed India’s Bandit Queen Phoolan Devi. She was a lower-caste Hindu who had been publicly gang-raped by higher-caste goons and she ran away and literally became their worst nightmare. I must admit, I have always been fond of this true story.

Now, Samina Malik, Britain’s “lyrical terrorist,” has been sentenced to a nine month suspended sentence and 100 hours of volunteer work. She is the British based poet who valorizes be-heading and jihad. The argument she presented is very au courant among western civil libertarians, leftists, and feminists. (Please understand: I am a feminist too but I hold the minority opinion on diverse issues ranging from prostitution to motherhood and religion).

Malik is arguing the equivalent of those who insist that pornography is only a theatrical image, not a criminal rape in progress; or those who proclaim that hate speech in a poem or a novel cannot be subjected to legal penalties since Art and freedom of expression are essential components of a free society.

Thus, just because Malik dreams of “jihadi martyrdom” and describes non-Muslims as “stinking kuffar apes” does not mean that she herself personally believes this or that she is recommending that others “act” on such beliefs. “This is a meaningless poem” says Malik. “To partake of something and to write about something are two different things.”

Take that, western civilization. Islamists will use your vaunted freedoms against you; and you will justify what we do in the name of your precious civil rights.

I suspect that Malik would never have been found guilty in America; that is the genius of our First Amendment. And, Britain, which found her guilty, is also quick to reward libel tourists precisely because Britain does not have an equivalent First Amendment.

So, what are we going to do? Suspend or weaken our First Amendment because we are at war? Expand its power to protect even enemy combatants in order to demonstrate that we are civilized and not barbaric?

Quo Vadis? Which way do we go my friends?

Last week, I attended an evening sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera Guild at Hunter College’s Kaye Playhouse with the opera great, Marilyn Horne. Dressed resplendently in a floor-length red brocade gown and coat (with glittering sequins), Horne slowly swept in as the star she has been and always will be, escorted by her interviewer, F. Paul Driscoll, the editor-in-chief of Opera News. The once dark-haired Horne now has blonde hair and is a wee bit stout.

Seated, she spoke with him about her life’s work and commented upon the video clips of her legendary performances with Leontyne Price, Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti, and Montserrat Caballe which we were all privileged to see.

If you have heard Horne perform, you know she is an opera star’s opera star. If you have never heard or seen her, then words alone cannot do justice to her powerful and disciplined voice and acting skills. (But you can still hear and see her on CDs and DVDs. Do not pass through life without giving yourself this profound pleasure).

Opera may historically be Europe-centered and our most famous stars may, historically, also have been Europeans but Horne is as American as pumpkin pie. Her northern European ancestors actually came over in the Pilgram-era. Horne grew up first in Pennsylvania and then in southern California. Her body mannerisms and verbal colloquialisms, including low whistles, are pure Americana. A priceless home video of herself and Joan Sutherland yukking it up at Horne’s home shows them singing an American folk tune and cracking up over it. Another video shows Horne tap dancing and harmonizing with Carol Burnett on Burnett’s television program.

Horne’s voice has the most thrilling mezzo-alto timbre and when she hits a note: any note, it is invariably a solid line drive down center field and into the bleachers. (This analogy strangely suits her). Horne’s voice does not wobble to the left or to the right and its sheer power and strength is almost a natural wonder, like the Rockies or the Sierras.

What I did not know was that Horne was also Dorothy Dandridge’s “voice” in the movie Carmen Jones, that she sang in The Rose Tattoo (which starred Anna Magnani and Burt Lancaster), was in the chorus for the movie Joan of Arc (which starred Ingrid Bergman), and also sang for the film The King and I.

How much more American can she be? Well, she also sang backup Doowahs for small record records which featured an “imitation” Patty Page or Peggy Lee. And she won a singing competition on the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts.

I am not sure I want to remember the most imperious of Amnerises (Pharoah’s daughter in Aida), the most sultry of Delilahs (in Samson and Delilah), or the most contrite of Adalgisias (in Norma) in this way–but why not?

Her last performance at the Met was in 1996 in Falstaff and she gave her last recital in 1999. However, unlike my beloved Maria Callas, Horne did not disappear into one of her tragic roles nor did she retreat from the field simply because she herself could no longer perform.

Wisely, Horne still continues to teach master classes, give private lessons, and mentor younger singers through her own foundation. Thus, there is something happily and positively American about her that has seen her through several dark nights.

And Horne dished dirt. For opera lovers, the “dirt” consists of who sang higher than whom, who nearly fell off the ledge on stage, who could not remember her next lines, whose pronunciation was hopeless or comical, and which conductor or director refused to allow which opera great to sing.

There must be something in the drinking water or in the air in America to account for someone like Horne. Without blowing her voice out, and without dying of exhaustion, she has performed in an astonishing number of concerts and in fully staged operas by Handel, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Offenbach, Bizet, Meyerbeer, Massenet, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Berg, and Corigliano (whom I am privileged to know and whom I met through the librettist, William Hoffman, who is my good friend).

The evening was extraordinary. F. Paul Driscoll was a tender and appreciative interviewer. At one point, Horne wept and said something to the effect that her career has “come to a close.” Her interviewer quickly stated, “The song continues.”

Driscoll is right and he is also prophetic.

Many opera stars were in the audience, including Dolora Zajick who is currently singing one of Horne’s roles: Adalgisia in Bellini’s Norma. Five days after the evening with Horne, I saw this production of Norma. Although Zajick was her usual wonderful self, she-who-played Norma was not; enough said. Disconsolate, I came home and put on Horne, Sutherland, and Pavarotti performing two of the arias from Norma and was immediately revived.

Try it, you’ll like it.

I have a “secret” life. I study Jewish religious texts and observe the holy days. ‘Twas not always thus. There was a time when I fled from a Judaism that had no place for women in terms of religious learning and ritual. I returned to religion as a feminist and helped create many feminist Jewish, life-cycle and inter-faith rituals.

On December 1st, 1988, in Jerusalem, I was privileged to be among the Jewish women who prayed for the first time in the women’s section at the Western Wall (or Kotel). While there are no exact parallels, this was analogous to Catholic women officiating at an all-female Mass in the Vatican. On that day, I was asked to open the Torah for the women to read from and it wedded me faithfully to the ensuing struggle for Jewish women’s religious rights which involved grassroots activism, consciousness raising, fundraising, and a lawsuit in the Israeli Supreme Court. You may read about some of this in a book I co-authored with Rivka Haut, Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism’s Holy Site.

However, I quickly understood that what I myself really wanted to do was to study Torah (The Old Testament and Commentaries) with learned, feminist women. Thus, I began to study with “Reb” Rivka eighteen years ago. We have studied the Torah, the Megillot (the stories of Ruth and Esther) a number of times; we always see new and unique things and ask questions that have not necessarily been asked before. Rivka brings both Talmudic and midrashic sources to bear on our studies. We are now “walking” through the Prophets. Three other women have joined us. We are currently reading Isaiah and trust me: His sentences about a peaceful and harmonious age are far fewer than are his truly terrible “fire and brimstone” passages which compromise the majority of his extraordinary Book.

Of course, I study with male teachers as well. Many are utterly amazing and welcome women into their classes.

Some questions: Do women see things differently than men do? Does living in a feminist era empower both men and women in new ways? Is there indeed, something new under the sun that the Sages did not contemplate? (The answer, of course, is yes). Does leading a learned and religious life lead to a different way of experiencing both time as well as one’s own life? (Again, the answer is yes).

I really wrestle with questions about religion. Does religion lead to truth or to illusion, to hatred or to love? Is it the path of peace or the path of war? Is it reactionary or liberatory for women to wrestle with tradition? Will the tradition break–or will it hold?

And, if I support a woman’s right to both practice a religion and to safely resist just such practices, where do I stand on Muslim (or Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or Hindu) women who choose to lead what seems to me to be terrifyingly subordinate lives in which their religious and spiritual expression is silenced or non-existent?

Friends: This is my way of introducing you: my secular, non-Jewish, non-learned, non-observant, or perhaps profoundly atheistic readership to an interview that I have just published with Rivka Haut and Adena Berkowitz in the Jewish Press. Please understand: This newspaper is a conservative, Jewish paper where I frequently and proudly write–but not about religious matters. This interview is something of a “breakthrough” in that a new Prayer Book, written by these two wonderfully learned women, is being featured in a prominent way.

Here is the Jewish Press interview: “A Bencher (Mini-Prayer Book) for Our Times.”

Many Orthodox women have graced and inspired us with the most profound and amazing learning and leadership. It is my privilege to interview two such women for the Jewish Press about their important new bencher (mini-prayer book): “Shaarei Simcha” (Gates of Joy) published by K’tav.

Rivka Haut is a long-time agunah activist, a mother and grandmother, and the co-author of two books: Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue and Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism’s Holy Site (Full disclosure: I am the other co-author and we have studied Torah together for eighteen years).

Dr. Adena Berkowitz holds graduate degrees in law and ethics. A popular teacher of Torah, Adena has lectured across the U.S. on Jewish ethics, Rabbinics, women and Judaism and Jewish values. She and her husband, Rabbi Zev Brenner are the parents of five children.

Rivka and Adena will be lecturing about the bencher on erev Shabbat, December 7th, 2007 at Congregation Orach Chayim after a shul dinner. Everyone is welcome.

The Jewish Press: What motivated you to create this bencher?

Rivka: Originally our intention was to prepare a small volume that would include Birkat HaMazon (blessings said after the meal) that would adhere to halacha (Jewish religious law) and be sensitive towards the religious needs of many groups: women, baalei teshuva (newly religious people) as well “frum (religious) from birth” Jews, marrieds and singles, people with children and those without, Ashkenazim and Sephardim. We were inspired by the approach of Rav Hisda in the Talmud (Berachos 49a) who tried to create a version of Birkat HaMazon that would be applicable to everyone saying it including women and slaves. Although his version was not accepted by the Chachamim, (Sages) his emphasis on sensitivity to all inspired us as we engaged in this endeavor.

What challenges did you face in undertaking this project?

Adena: We made a concerted effort to prepare a volume that would have as wide appeal as possible, all within a halakhic (religious) framework. We hope that what we have produced will be a good model for kiruv, ( closeness) allowing people at one table to share in a sense of chavershaft, (camaraderie) greater yiras Shamayim (faith) and an enhanced understanding of the tefilah (prayers) and berachot (blessings) they are saying. Hence we decided to completely transliterate all the prayers, as well as translate them in accordance with the admonition of Rambam. When translating we opted to go with a Sephardic pronunciation as that is the style taught in many yeshivot as well as a way of creating a bridge between Ahsknazim (Jews of European origin) and Sephardim (Jews from Arab and Muslim lands and who originally fled Spain and Portugal) . In addition we made an effort to include different Sephardic prayers which add greater beauty to the texts.

What’s different about this bencher?

Rivka: As we began working on this project, it became evident that we needed to include more material beyond Birkat HaMazon. We were aware that there are many benchers available with beautiful graphics and illustrations. However, our focus was going to be on the text. We wanted to provide scholarly sources along with popular explanations and background discussions of various prayers and blessings connected with Shabbos (the Sabbath) and holidays. We felt it important to reintroduce techinas (women’s Yiddish prayers) and customs that many might be unfamiliar with such as techinas in Yiddish recited before taking challah, lighting candles or at the bris of one’s son or the custom of mayim acharonim.

What prayers for modern occasions have you provided?

Adena: We also included other prayers such as the Hebrew blessing such as a Hebrew blessing that a wife may recite for her husband as a parallel to “Eishes Chayil”. We tried to find a way to help parents have a role under the chuppah (marriage canopy) and included a prayer that either a mother or father could recite at that auspicious moment of their child’s wedding. We also provided ceremonies for naming a baby girl, for a boy at his bris, as well as a unique ceremony for adopted children. We have provided moving prayers for parents to say at their children’s bar and bat mitzvahs, (coming-of-age ceremonies) spiritual meditations to add at holiday times, such as Rosh Hashanah, and Sukkos, prayers to remember agunahs, as well as whimsical poems such as a Dr. Seuss style poem for Sukkos as well as a way of making Hannukah more meaningful.
We also felt it important to have this work reflect our love for Eretz Yisroel (Israel) and thus included a seder for Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Independence Day) that is based on the one prepared by the Rabbanut HaRashit and the Kibbutz Hadati movement.

PRESS HERE TO CONTINUE THE ARTICLE IN THE JEWISH PRESS

Rivka: Our most difficult issue related to zimmun (group prayer after the meal) and women. We began our analysis as to the halakhic appropriateness of three women forming a zimmun, when they eat together. What we discovered was an interesting Rabbinic debate concerning whether women MAY do this or whether they MUST. For example, according to some authorities, (the Rosh and the Vilna Gaon), they are actually OBLIGATED to do so. Other rabbinic authorities agree that women are permitted to do zimmun. Yet, this fact has routinely been forgotten, and overlooked. When large numbers of women eat together, at women’s luncheons, for example, zimmun is not usually recited. At lunchrooms in girls’ yeshivahs it is often not done. Yet, women should recite zimmun as it offers an opportunity to form a group that thanks HaShem (God) together. Instead of thanking HaShem individually, and benching privately, each one to herself, zimmun elevates the meal to a meal eaten together, and adding additional praise to HaShem.
What else did you discover about what might be halakhically permissible for women to do?

Adena: After researching the issue of three women, we asked ourselves: What about ten women? Can they recite zimmun b’Shem, add HaShem’s name, as ten men do? To our surprise and joy, we discovered that there are rabbinic authorities who permitted this. In our introduction, we cite all the major sources on this issue. Yet, we were unsure whether to include them. Adena then remembered having read in a column in The Jewish Press by Rabbi Aharon Zeigler, an authority on the halakhic views of the Rav (Rabbi J.B. Soloveitcheik), (and reprinted in his book on the Rav). According to the Rav, zimmun of ten is not a function of minyan at all. It is a matter of glorifying HaShem’s name when eating in a group. According to Rabbi Zeigler, the Rav would have approved of ten women doing zimmun b’Shem.

Therefore, we provide the sources, including a long quote by Rabbi Zeigler and we advise women to study the sources and make their own informed decision.

PRESS HERE TO CONTINUE THIS INTERVIEW IN THE JEWISH PRESS

Although I knew and admired the late, great Dr. Margaret Mead and other pioneer-anthropologists, (Ruby Rohrlich and Eleanor “Happy” Leacock for starters), my ardor for anthropology gradually dimmed as the discipline became increasingly politicized. Ironically, anthropologists have judged western culture harshly and moralistically as “sexist, racist, class-ist, and anti-gay”–but have refused to judge Third World cultures even slightly by these same standards. Indeed, what began as a valiant attempt to understand the “Other” and the ravages of both poverty and oppression has degenerated into a valorization of barbarism and a demonization of any western attempts to either intervene or to introduce any principles of universal rights.

A minority of anthropologists deem the idea of “universality” as an example of rank, western “colonialism and imperialism.” And yes, they remain blind to Third World colonialism, imperialism, and apartheid. In some ways, anthropologists may be viewed as world-class “slummers” who want to keep the Natural Savage in his place so that they can safely visit the human past and return to the future at will.

Therefore, I strongly suggest that every anthropologist read Ibn Warraq’s new book, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’. PRESS HERE TO READ SOME REVIEWS. More: I suggest that the United States government buy and distribute copies of this book to every United Nations Ambassador, Foreign Minister, and University President.

Ibn Warraq challenges the hijacking and poisoning of the Western intellectual imagination that Edward Said and his cult-followers have perpetrated. Ibn Warraq reminds us that in the past, the West and the East once learned from each other; that Orientalists were not immoral “colonialists” but were, in fact, deeply respectful of the “Orient” which in turn, respectfully received their work. Finally, Ibn Warraq creates a portrait of the West and of our virtues (rationalism, tolerance, self-criticism), that he suggests are universal values worth sharing and defending. For example, slavery has existed in every society. Only the West fought ideological and military wars to abolish it.

But will anthropologists listen to him?

Enter my darling friend, Dr. Barbara Joans, of San Francisco. Dr. Barbara is Chair of the Anthropology Department at Merritt College and the author of Bike Lust: Harley’s Women in America. (Yes, I actually have a friend who rides a Harley-Davidson and who is not a dyke.) She is a long-time married mother and grandmother, a Brooklyn-born Jew, and a relative of the legendary Colonel David “Micky” Marcus.

For those who don’t know or who have forgotten: Marcus was a West Point graduate and advisor to President Roosevelt. He helped organize the Israeli army in the 1940s and was eventually played by Kirk Douglas in the movie “Cast a Giant Shadow.”

But I digress.

Barbara is not a universalist. However, she wrestles with this issue earnestly and soulfully; she is also brave. For example, she just delivered a series of speeches at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Washington D.C. where she publicly characterized much of current anthropology as “hypocritical”.

“How dare tenured anthropologists claim the privileges of poverty and disenfranchisement? Just because we may have grown up poor that does not mean we can identify with Third World poverty today or speak on its behalf. It is hypocritical to do so.”

Barbara also views the “victim culture” among anthropologists with great dismay and is very concerned with the knee-jerk and lethal anti-Zionism that pervades that same anthropological culture. So far–great. Now, here’s the part where we disagree.

“The belief that American intellectual elites have the right to establish a moral foundation for the rest of the world is the grossest kind of colonialism.”

Say I: “So, you don’t think we should judge human rights atrocities in the Third World? What about stoning women to death for alleged adultery, honor killing, forced veiling, and clitoridectomies? Do we support our Muslim and ex-Muslim counterparts who oppose such human rights atrocities and who themselves reject the rule of multi-culturalism?”

Says Barbara: “I am horrified by clitoridectomies, stonings, and honor killings and am very grateful that I do not live in such a culture. Those who come from such cultures and who nevertheless oppose these customs have got to know that their dissent may or will lead to their deaths. They have got to be willing to take this risk. I view those who do so as genuine heroes. This is the only way real change can happen: from within, by group-members, who risk their lives.”

I view this as somewhat heartless, possibly even “racist” since such a view sets the bar much higher for heroism in the Third World and countenances the sacrifice of so many Third World heroes for what is, after all, a western principle–but since I know that Barbara is not heartless, I must wrestle with her principled view and try to find ways to win her over.

What she is saying is that help from the United Nations, the Marines, and from feminist humanitarians is bound to fail, that only indigenous heroes risking all will settle these matters in Africa or Asia and among immigrants from Muslim countries.

What if she is right? If so, then we have to re-double our efforts to have our best anti-totalitarian, feminist, and dissident work translated and made available in Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, Bengali, Dari, etc. And, we have to lobby our western governments to assist in literacy projects, free computers, computer training, and in alternative satellite television programming throughout the Third World. This educational outreach may create the very indigenous heroes that Barbara and others like her believe will be effective.

I challenge America’s anthropologists and all those who share their multi-cultural views to tithe themselves in order to fund projects which will share the “best of the West” without militarily or economically imposing these ideas upon anyone.

They and others may begin by donating to my not-for-profit organization: The Phyllis Chesler Organization. Write to me through my website www.phyllis-chesler.com and earmark your checks “For the Translation Project.”

Think of this as your holiday gift to heroes.