New Complaint Over City's Arab Festival
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CHICAGO’S OLDEST AND MOST WIDELY CIRCULATED INDEPENDENT JEWISH NEWSPAPER FREE THROUGHOUT METRO CHICAGO js VOL. XVII, NO. 397 © Star Media Group, Inc. — “USEFUL INFORMATION FAITHFULLY RECORDED” — By Mail: $30 JULY 13 - 26, 2007 AS BLACK New complaint over WAITS, City’s Arab Festival POST FIRST-TIME “CHICAGO ARABESQUE” RECALLS PAST NEGATIVITY WRITERS CITY CLAIMS A “NON-POLITICAL” EVENT, BUT ANTI-ISRAEL MATERIAL CIRCULATES RECALL JEWISH FEDERATION “AT WIT’S END” DAMAGE By DOUGLAS WERTHEIMER Star, Nov. 21, 2003). EDITOR The trouble had begun af- ter the Second Inti fada of As he strolled around 2000. By November 2003, a CONRAD BLACK, RADLER Daley Plaza in downtown remarkable 26 per cent of all ARE SKEWERED BY WRITERS Chicago on June 29, Jay the Arab Heritage Month AT JERUSALEM POST Tcath thought that every- programs dealt with the thing looked as it Jewish State, a fact By GIL ZOHAR should. Editorial, un rec og nized by City It was not long ago officials. ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT page 4 — ISRANET PHOTO — ISRANET that the City of Chica - Though the City JERUSALEM — As these Micha Taubman, the operating manager of Israel’s desalination plant at Ash ke l on go had lost its grip on refused to publicly words are being written, — the world’s lar gest, most technologically advanced and economical — stands next its Arab Heritage Month acknowledge its failed over- the jury verdict is pending to some of the 40,000 membrane units that are the heart of the purification technology. program. That annual event sight, it quietly took action. in Conrad Black’s trial at seemed to be on cruise con- In the following year, the Chicago’s Dirksen Federal trol until a report in the bashing of, and ob session Courthouse. ISRAELI TECHNOLOGY Jewish Star documented with, Israel taking place “Tubby,” as he was called, how it had been hijacked by under official City aus pices the one-time chair man of mainline Prot estant groups virtually ceased (Jew ish Hollinger In ter national, and Thirst Quencher, Peace Dividend bent on promoting their Star, Nov. 26, 2004). three former subordin ates, anti-Israel ag enda (Jewish gPLEASE TURN TO PAGE 2 are ac cused of looting $60 By EDGAR ASHER day from the sea at the incredibly low cost million from stockholders of ISRANET of just over 50 cents per cubic meter. That’s the newspaper publishing almost 30 cents less than desalination pro- business, which controlled The French environmental services con - jects in other parts of the world. A missing ingredient in scores of dailies, in cluding glomerate Veolia Environnement SA an - The projection is that the desalinated The Jerusalem Post, the nounced in May that it is doubling its water, which is sold to the Israel gov- Chicago Sun-Times and the investment in Israel by adding an addi- Saudi peace plan: Saudis ernment, will soon represent about London Daily Tele graph. tional $1 billion over the next five 20% of all of Is rael’s domestic con- If convicted, he faces up years. sumption. ARAB LEAGUE TRIP ough to bother going along. to 20 years in jail. No wonder. This latest ex pan sion Such is the remarkable quality TO ISRAEL IS A That includes the Sau - Apart from the criminal comes on the heels of one of the most and purity of the product that dis, whose king has taken charges of fraud, racke- significant breakthroughs in water PROFILE IN COWARDICE some of the natural chemicals credit for a proposal the teering and obstruction of desalination tech nology — pion - found in spring water have to be Riyadh royals now say justice — and the accusa- eered and developed in Israel. By DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELD added back to give the water a little they’ve shelved. tions of insatiable greed, The new process allows for the WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT ‘taste’. The king’s top priority is snobbery and extravag - production of fresh water from sea- The Ashkelon plant was developed WASHINGTON, D.C., July making salaam between ance by the international water, or brackish water, by a system of by an Israeli-led consortium consisting of 9 — The Mideast seems in Hamas and Fatah, and re - media — the Can adian- rev erse osmosis. Veolia Water of France, and Elran Infra - for another round of pseu- constituting the short-lived born media tycoon is also Reverse osmosis technology struct ures and IDE Techn ologies (both do-diplomacy as the Arab Palestinian unity gov ern - being pillor ied for chroni- Israeli). IDE is op erating the plant on a BOT League gets set to send a ment he brokered this cally mismanaging The At the Mediterranean port of Ashkelon, (build-operate-transfer) con cept. The delegation to Israel — now spring in Mecca. Jer usalem Post during the next to the Rutenberg Power Station, Israeli company will operate it at a profit postponed to July 25. The failure of other 15 years he controlled Is - Israel is already operating the lar gest, for a 25-year period (which includes three Notwithstanding its “his- Arab diplomats to join the rael’s flagship English-lan- most technologically advanced and eco- years to construct the plant), and then hand toric” bill ing in the media, its delegation undermines the guage daily, and of causing nomical, desalination facility in the world it over to the Israeli government. actually something less than League’s credibility and enduring damage to Jew - producing water through reverse osmosis. IDE Technologies has supplied over that as the U.S. secretary of tells Israelis the new ini- ish journalism, according The plant produces 330,000 cubic met ers of extremely high quality sweet water every g state drops by for one more tiative is not really serious. to several writers here. PLEASE TURN TO BACK PAGE photo-op and pep talk, and The group’s terms re - With acid sarcasm, form - nobody takes any of this very main: No contact with Is - er managing editor Calev SONG MYSTERY SOLVED seriously because they know rael until it accepts the Ben-David wrote a satire nothing will come of it. terms of the all-or-nothing purporting to be a court SECUNDA’S HIT “BAY MIR BISTU SHEYN” CAME FROM 2ND AVE. NEW YORK YIDDISH THEATRE What’s really happening Saudi proposal. transcript of his testimony. is that the Egyptian and When the proposal was Ben-David described By CHANAN TIGAY Second Avenue Yiddish 1990, has un earth ed the Jor danian foreign min isters first tabled five years ago, the imaginary suggestion the ater of the 1930s. back- are making ano ther trip to Israel rejected it, but when it by Black’s co-defendent LOS ANGELES — “Bay Even few er ground to Israel — but this time was revived earlier this year gPLEASE TURN TO PAGE 3 mir bistu sheyn”, written by people knew this ic - they’re saying they repre- Israel’s embattled Prime composer Shol om Sec un da, what the play sent the Arab League. Min ister Ehud Ol mert could- may very well be the most that launch ed They’re ostensibly going n’t say enough good things Germans did it famous of all Yid dish songs. this massive hit was to talk up the League’s about it and practically beg - It was the American ab out. Indeed, many casu- peace proposal, but none of ged the Sau dis to discuss it — NEW NAME FOR AUSCHWITZ Soc iety of Com posers, Au - al lis teners didn’t even on ic the group’s other 20 mem- but they snubbed him. No thors and Pub lishers’ most know that the words of the song and bers takes it seriously en - gPLEASE TURN TO PAGE 3 popular song of 1938. title were anything more many others, A year after it was first Renditions have been than gibberish, Nuw vd tsyb rym Ub announced, UNESCO last recorded by the Andrews or some form INSIDE month officially changed the Sis ters, Ella Fitzgerald, of Americanized Ger man. and has set DEPS ILLUSTRATION name of the “Auschwitz Ju dy Garland, the Barry In fact, the original song it down in ——U—— Concen tration Camp” located Sis ters, Benny Good man, was in Yiddish, and the pop- the liner notes to its three- Editorial: Olmert’s defeatism ....4 in Poland to “Ausch witz- Guy Lombardo, and Rudy ular versions main tain ed CD set of Yiddish theater Israel’s healthcare system ...... 4 Birk enau. German Nazi Con - Vall ee, among other musi- only the Yid dish of the title songs, re leased last year, cen tra tion and Extermi n a - cal luminaries. (Nuw vd tsyb rym Ub), substi- along with a new recording DC: Blair’s new mission..........5 tion Camp (1940-1945)”. Yet until recently, only a tuting English for the rest. of the piece as it might have Will Rogers on Congress........ 6 Poland had lobbied for handful of theater histori- Thanks to the Milken sounded when originally Summer reading......................7 the change, to distance its ans were aware that the Ar chive of American Jew - sung at Brook lyn’s Rolland FrontRow: “Hairspray”............. 8 HOFMAN PHOTO — ETHEL citizens from the master- song — whose title means ish Music, that’s all chang- Theater in 1932. Community Calendar .............10 Djerba is an enchanting minds of the Holo caust. y “In my eyes, you’re beauti- ing. The Los An g eles-based It’s one of more than place, with a thriving, an cient Torah: Tisha B’Av....................11 Jewish community, page 9. —JTA /Jewish Star ful” — originated in the institution, founded in gPLEASE TURN TO PAGE 3 2 JULY 13 - 26, 2007 CHICAGO JEWISH STAR N E W S Chicago Arabesque Chicago’s Arab Festival: Factual confusion “Chicago Arabesque,” sponsored June 27-30 in part by the City of Chicago, maintained a eFROM THE FRONT PAGE rich cultural heritage of website with inaccurate and questionable statements.Some examples are below.