Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 58, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 4, 2004 Page: 1 of 32
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Thursday. March 4, 2004
Miriam s cup
i competition continues
I at the JCC.
Important information
as you plan for your
baby.
Section
VOLUME 58 NO 10
NEWS ANALYSIS
Israel may
need Egypt’s
help to leave
Gaza
By Gil Sedan
JERUSALEM (JTA) —After Israel’s
prime minister announced he was
planning to withdraw unilaterally
from the Gaza Strip, several weeks
passed before Israeli officials real-
ized they were neglecting an
important detail: Egypt, Gams
other neighbor.
Now Israeli officials apparently
are beginning to realize that before
making significant changes at
home, it pays to consult with one’s
neighbors.
The southwestern corner of the
Gaza Strip borders Egypt’s Sinai
Desert. Israeli forces currently are
§
deployed along that 12 mile corri-
dor, known as the "Philadelphia
Axis.” Israel retained control of the
corridor after the Palestinian
Authority took over the Gaza Strip
in 1994.
A complete withdrawal from
Gaza would mean giving up that
control, which could be trouble for
Israel.
lime and again, Palestinians
have dug tunnels under this Israeli-
controlled border area, which in
some places is several hundred
yards wide, to smuggle arms into
Gaza from Egypt. Those arms
include rockets with the capability
of reaching Israeli towns and cities.
Every so often, the Israeli army
pushes into the southern Gaza town
of Rafah to destroy the arms smug-
gling tunnels, which appear to run
largely unimpeded on the Egyptian
side.
If this is the case when the Israel
Defense Forces retains ultimate
control over the area, one can only
imagine the scope of arms-smug-
gling operations into Gaza once the
soldiers leave that line.
see GAZA p. 21
Israeli teenagers from the Gaza settlements protest Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate settlements, at a
demonstration near his official residence in Jerusalem, Feb. 18.2004 Photo Brian Handiar/JTA
Purim starts this Saturday night
By Rabbi Adam /. Raskin
The book of Esther and the holi-
day of Purim (celebrated this year
from the evening of March 6
through March 7) have all the ingre-
dients of a great comedy. With a
gullible king, an evil, plotting grand
vizier, a beautiful queen who risks
her life to save her people on the
counsel of her wise uncle; this story
is full of intrigue, excitement, and
even humor. The holiday celebrates
lewish courage and survival in the
face of a genocida! villain, who, in a
fit of egomania, conspired to
destroy the entire Persian Jewish
community. Purim abounds in cel-
ebration, special foods, the sending
of gifts to neighbors and to the poor,
costumes, spoofs, and an uproari-
ous reading of the Megillah (the
Book of Esther), which is inter-
rupted with noisemakers at the
sound of wicked Daman's name.
But beneath this ebullient surface,
Purim teaches a profound spiritual
message.
The inclusion of the book of
Esther within the biblical canon
engendered no shortage of debate.
God’s name is not mentioned even
once in the entire scroll, and God’s
role in the outcome is obscure,
implied at best. Some found this
chronicle suspicious and inconsis-
tent with the miracle wielding (»od
of the rest of the Bible. Although
Queen Esther asks her people to
pray and fast on the eve of her per-
ilous meeting with the king, she
suppresses her Jewish identity until
she is forced to reveal it in order to
save her people. Esther attains
prominence as a result of a beauty
contest, and palace life is embedded
with heavy drinking, sexual innu-
endo, and material decadence. Even
her name smacks of assimilation
with Persian culture (a likely deriv-
ative of Ishtar, an important
Babylonian goddess). While Esther
ultimately displays great courage,
she embodies little of the venerabil-
ity that we tend to associate with
biblical personalities. And that is
what is so extraordinary about this
biblical book...
What pulsates throughout this
story is the role of ordinary human
beings as vehicles of God’s will in
the world. Salvation in the book of
Esther was not affected by a God
who thwarted the laws of nature by
splitting seas or dispatching plagues,
but by imperfect, albeit courageous,
people like you and me! The great-
ness of Purim's theology is that C»od
is still present in the world, even
without the pyrotechnics of mira-
cles past. The rabbis in the Talmud
found biblical premonitions of the
Purim story in Deuteronomy 31:18,
in which God states “1 will surely
hide Myself on that day." Not only is
the Hebrew word for hide (asteer)
linguistically similar to the name
see PURIM p 16
Families flavor
Super Sunday
phonathon
By Steve Israel
Staff Writer
DALLAS — A family-flavored
Super Sunday filled the Jewish
Community Center with children's
laughter and song - and filled 2004
Annual Campaign coffers with
pledges of support from the Jews of
Greater Dallas.
More than 2,300 Super Sunday
donors pledged $353,773 to boost
Annual Campaign donations past
$7 million - well on the way to this
year’s $9.65 million goal, campaign
leaders said.
“Considering we had all our
major events [men’s, women’s,
young adult, and others] before this
year’s Super Sunday, we are very
pleased with the generous pledges
from members of the community,’’
said Carol Aaron, 2004 Annual
Campaign chair.
“I also want to thank all the vol-
unteers who gave up their Sunday
plans to support the important
needs of the Jewish community
locally and around the world,”
Aaron said. “My co-chairs - Angela
Horowitz, Cathy Brook and Abby
and Ron Smith - worked tirelessly
to help make this happen.’’
Through the Annual Campaign,
the lewish Federation of Greater
Dallas raises funds needed to
support quality Jewish life via 14
local and 27 national and overseas
agencies.
For the first time, a Family
Extravaganza was added to Super
Sunday, offering more than 100
children - organized play and
entertainment activities while their
parents worked the 3:30 p.m. to 7
p.m. phonathon shift, said Extrava-
ganza Chair Jordana Bernstein.
The youngsters exuberantly
rotated among singing, sports, sci-
ence, scavenger hunts and pizza,
guided by 100 teachers, coaches,
local entertainers and teenage stu-
dents from youth groups, religious
schools and day schools.
SUPER SUNDAY p 12
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Wisch, Rene & Wisch-Ray, Sharon. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 58, No. 10, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 4, 2004, newspaper, March 4, 2004; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth755510/m1/1/: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .