Sheila Decter, Executive Director, JALSA
Several years ago, JALSA members helped to encourage adoption of a new state school curriculum requirement on Genocide. The curriculum adopted by the Dept. of Education allowed teachers to select from a range of historical acts of genocide to meet the interests of different student populations. A resource list of suggested materials was provided. Teachers were left to their own discretion as to what materials within or outside of that list to use for the unit. At the request of Turkish groups, materials were added to the Curriculum Resource list that denied the Armenian Holocaust. Subsequently the Department of Education removed those materials. A classroom (including teacher and parent) challenged the removal of those materials as censorship.
JALSA provided an amicus brief in that lawsuit arguing that the Dept. of Education had a right to determine what materials should be listed as reflecting the core curriculum. The establishment of the resource list did not prevent teachers and students from bringing in a range of materials to the classroom. Lower federal courts agreed and now the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to take up the case; thus a victory for the position argued in the JALSA brief.
See: JALSA Victories for an earlier story on this issue.
Congressman says nation’s problems can’t be solved without cuts to defense budget.
By Peter Shanley | From the Brookline Patch; | January 17, 2011
Link to the original article
The United States needs to carry a smaller stick.
That was the message Rep. Barney Frank delivered to more than 125 people during the ninth annual Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action meeting at Temple Ohabei Shalom on Sunday.
“The time has come for a significant reduction in America’s worldwide military reach,” said Frank, a Democrat in his 16th term as representative for the Fourth Congressional District.
The United States is currently fighting two wars and supporting a Defense Department with a budget of approximately $660 billion in 2009. Without reductions in that spending, Frank said, the country will not have the resources it needs alleviate foreclosures, decrease unemployment and stimulate the economy.
“What we need to do is to reduce what we are trying to do,” the congressman said, referring to the military. “It is not enough to do better what we are now doing. We have to do less. I will be crusading for that.”
Frank argued that the U.S. military has had a habit of overextending itself, citing the war in Iraq and Marines stationed in Okinawa, Japan, as examples. He said Defense Secretary Robert Gates is just now considering removing troops from Okinawa.
“Most people thought the Marines left when John Wayne died,” said Frank. “They have no purpose.”
Despite his objection to having a large military footprint, Frank said he was not promoting isolationism; rather, the congressman wants efficacy in spending.
“If we intervene all over the world, and the intervention was morally useful, if it improved people’s lives, if it dawned democracy, I would be conflicted about saying we can’t afford it,” said Frank. “But in most cases, we do more harm than good.”
Frank asked those in the audience at Sunday’s meeting to urge their lawmakers to join him in pushing for military spending reform.
“Give my liberal colleagues the courage of their conviction that we have got to reduce military spending because it is a good thing in itself and it is a precondition to getting anything else done, and you’ve done a good day’s work,” Frank said.
JALSA joined many throughout the country in a moment of silence Monday morning to mourn the dead in Arizona and to pray for healing for Rep. Gabby Giffords and others hurt in the attack this weekend. Gabby has been widely known as the first Jewish elected congresswoman from Arizona. That she had been targeted by the conservative right — including a listing on Sarah Palin’s “gun-sights” map had been clear. That the young man held for the slayings seems to have been affiliated or at least enamoured with anti-Semitic literature and organizations also seems to be the case.
-Sheila Decter, Executive Director
JALSA – The Jewish Alliance for Law & Social Action
18 Tremont Street, Suite 320
Boston, MA 02108
phone: 617-227-3000
“Sad News: We report the death of Debbie Friedman. This spirited Jewish songwriter gave us beautiful songs these many years bringing many of our traditional prayers into new melodies for our synagogues, camps, and homes. These beautiful melodies will be ours forever.
L’chi lach, Debbie, to a land that I will show you
Lech l’cha to a place you do not know
L’chi lach; on your journey I will bless you,
And you shall be a blessing,
you shall be a blessing,
You shall be a blessing lechi lach
Sheila Decter, Executive Director, JALSA
