May 04, 2005
[Schwartz] Is/Pal - Beitar Illit
Take It to the (West) Bank by Michael Isikoff. Newsweek, May 2, 2005: "[Jack Abramoff], a legendary lobbyist particularly close to [Tom DeLay], is also a fierce supporter of Israel-'a super-Zionist,' one associate says. That may explain why Abramoff's paramilitary gear ended up in the town of Beitar Illit, a sprawling ultra-Orthodox outpost whose residents have occasionally tangled with their Palestinian neighbors."
I have met residents of Beitar Illit; I even had dinner with one! "Tangled with their Palestinian neighbors" is a nice way of describing the genocidal ideology that established and sustains this village. My dinner mate said to me that "Germany has not suffered enough" (then waved six fingers) and that Palestinians are "dogs." We watched the BBC together. At the time the United States was invading Fallujah. As buildings burned, he pointed a finger and exclaimed joyfully, "Americans: very good soldiers!"
While Beitar Illit's residents are ultraorthodox, they are not opposed to military service; in fact, at least a few of their male residents have enlisted, such as my dinner mate. (On a side note, many residents are also American and Canadian!)
But I must stress, always always, one must never confuse a person or people's beliefs with their humanity. Click on "continue reading" for full article, a map, and more information about Beitar Illit (a vignette about life inside the settlement.) Yet, make no mistake: it is bastions of zealotry like Beitar Illit that fuel the war on and on...
Also, check out this MERIP "Barriers to Peace" article, "The Shrinking Space of Citizenship: Ethnocratic Politics in Israel."
The full article:
Money meant for the inner city went to fight the intifada. What donors to Jack Abramoff's charity didn't know.
The pitch from superlobbyist Jack Abramoff was hard to resist: a good way to get access on Capitol Hill, he told his clients a few years ago, was to contribute to a worthy charity he and his wife had just started up. The charity, called the Capital Athletic Foundation, was supposed to provide sports programs and teach "leadership skills" to city youth. Donating to it also had a side benefit, Abramoff told his clients: it was a favored cause of Rep. Tom DeLay.
The pitch worked especially well among a group of Indian tribes who, having opened up lucrative gaming casinos, had hired Abramoff to protect their interests in Washington. In 2002 alone, records show, three Indian tribes donated nearly $1.1 million to the Capital Athletic Foundation. But now, NEWSWEEK has learned, investigators probing Abramoff's fi nances have found some of the money meant for inner-city kids went instead to fight the Palestinian intifada. More than $140,000 of foundation funds were actually sent to the Israeli West Bank where they were used by a Jewish settler to mobilize against the Palestinian uprising. Among the expenditures: purchases of camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager and other material described in foundation records as "security" equipment. The FBI, sources tell NEWSWEEK, is now examining these payments as part of a larger investigation to determine if Abramoff defrauded his Indian tribe clients. The tribal donors are outraged. "This is almost like outer-limits bizarre," says Henry Buffalo, a lawyer for the Saginaw Chippewa Indians who contributed $25,000 to the Capital Athletic Foundation at Abramoff's urging. "The tribe would never have given money for this."
Abramoff, a legendary lobbyist particularly close to DeLay, is also a fierce supporter of Israel-"a super-Zionist," one associate says. That may explain why Abramoff's paramilitary gear ended up in the town of Beitar Illit, a sprawling ultra-Orthodox outpost whose residents have occasionally tangled with their Palestinian neighbors. Yitzhak Pindrus, the settlement's mayor, says that several years ago the town was confronting mounting security problems. "They [the Palestinians] were throwing stones, they were throwing Molotov cocktails," Pindrus says. Abramoff's connection to the town was Schmuel Ben-Zvi, an American émigré who, the lobbyist told associates, was an old friend he knew from Los Angeles. Capital Athletic Foundation public tax records make no mention of Ben-Zvi. But they do show payments to "Kollel Ohel Tiferet" in Israel, a group for which there is no public listing and which the town's mayor said he never heard of.
Pindrus says Ben-Zvi was an outspoken proponent of beefing up security and even began organizing his own freelance patrols. "He used to bring in this equipment-night-vision goggles, telescopes," says Pindrus. At least some of the equipment appears to have come from Abramoff's law firm. An August 2002 invoice obtained by NEWSWEEK shows that $773 worth of paramilitary gearincluding sniper shooting mats and "hydration tactical tubes"-was shipped to one of Abramoff's aides at the law firm where the lobbyist then worked. Reached last week, Ben-Zvi angrily denied any knowledge of Abramoff or being involved in any efforts to obtain security gear.
The West Bank security payments are not the only foundation expenditure being eyed by investigators. The bulk of the foundation's money, about $4 million, was used for a now-defunct Orthodox Jewish school in suburban Maryland that two of Abramoff's sons attended. Buffalo says his tribe had no idea its donations were being used for this purpose, either. A spokesman for Abramoff vigorously defended all of the expenditures. Abramoff, says spokesman Andrew Blum, "is an especially strong supporter of Israel and has tried to find ways to help Israelis and others to be less susceptible to terrorist attacks." Still, the increasing attention from the news media and investigators is causing even old friends like DeLay to back away. A spokesman last week vigorously disputed that Delay had anything to do with Abramoff's charity. Although he had been scheduled to attend a planned gala fund- raiser for the foundation two years ago, DeLay never went. As for the security shipments to the West Bank, DeLay knew nothing about it, the spokesman said.
Beitar Illit mourns admired youth counselor, killed in last week's bus bomb
by Daphna Berman
Jewish Media Resources
February 6, 2004
Sitting on low chairs in a crowded room in his home in Beitar Illit, friends and family of Yechezkel (Chezi) Goldberg gathered together to remember and honor a man they described as kind, selfless, and devoted to his extended community.
Goldberg was on his way to work last Thursday when bus number 19 exploded on Jerusalem's Gaza Street. Friends say the trained counselor had scheduled therapy sessions throughout the day, and clients began to worry after he missed his first appointment at 9 A.M.
Goldberg, who immigrated from Toronto 10 years ago, was an active member in the 500-family community of Anglos in Beitar Illit. But friends say that his influence went far beyond that population. "This is a close knit community and the loss of Chezi is hard for the English speaking community," said Bradford Hauser, Goldberg's American-born neighbor. "But the people mourning here are not just English speakers."
The mourners, some of whom arrived from the U.S. and Canada, recalled a deeply religious man who was not influenced by established religious norms. "The label Haredi didn't hinder him," longtime friend and fellow Canadian Joe Halpert said. "He did things because he believed in them, not because he should have."
An active participant in Beitar Illit's two Anglo synagogues, Goldberg prayed in the community's "American shul," which was based on a typical North American model, but he frequented the synagogue of Bostoner Hassidim as well, where he served as sexton.
The former resident of Toronto was especially well known for his work with troubled Anglo youth, and was outspoken in revealing the problem to a somewhat reluctant community. A frequent contributor to Orthodox newspapers and a former radio host on the right-wing station Arutz Sheva, Goldberg, 42, was also featured in a Ministry of Absorption publication on immigrant youth. In a section entitled, "Why are Anglo Kids in Trouble: An In-depth Discussion with Chezi Goldberg," Goldberg pointed to the problems facing many ultra-Orthodox immigrant youths.
"They come from places where it is acceptable to learn in yeshiva and go to Yankees games or shoot hoops after studies," he wrote, and suddenly they find themselves in a new Israeli framework in which anything outside of strict Torah study is dismissed as frivolous.
"Chezi worked with special needs children in North America, and he realized that working with immigrant youth is an extension of that," said Avraham Guttmann, Goldberg's neighbor in Beitar Illit and former classmate from Toronto. "He understood that a child who is not comfortable in his own home is also a special [needs] child."
Beitar Illit, a settlement just 10 minutes out of Jerusalem, is known as "The Torah City in the Judean Hills." One of the poorest Jewish cities in Israel with a growing population of 26,000, it is exclusively inhabited by ultra-Orthodox, many of whom are full time yeshiva students. The city has 16,000 children, a third of whom are under the age of five, and has plans to expand to 70,000 residents.
Goldberg, who was a member of the settlement's security committee, was instrumental in lobbying for a regular bus service to and from Jerusalem. The city's English-speaking mayor, Yitzchak Pindrus, described him this week as deeply committed to the development and safety of Beitar Illit.
The community, meanwhile, has already begun fundraising for Goldberg's family - his wife Shifra and seven children, aged one to 16. The Anglo community, roughly 10 percent of the general Beitar Illit population, is hardly immune to the poverty that effects their native-Israeli neighbors, and Anglo leaders like Guttmann have already turned to communities in the U.S. and Canada to garner financial support for the fund. Friends have set up a website, complete with links to his biography, past publications, and the fund in his memory. Goldberg's house, Guttmann adds, has been crowded with friends and family all week. "The community is taking it very hard," says Guttmann. "Chezi touched a lot of people."
