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“Using Passover to strengthen our recovery from addictions” Monday & Tuesday Nights — April 18 & 19, 9 pm @ 7325 ELBROOK AVE, AMBERLEY VILLAGE 45237 RSVP: CINCINNATI JEWISH RECOVERY • (513) 733-4400 JEWISHEDUCATE.ORG • RABBI@JEWISHEDUCATE.ORG
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HUC announces Gustav A. and Mamie W. Efroymson Memorial Lectures Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), Cincinnati, will hold a symposium titled “The Biblical World and Its Impact: Precept and Praxis,” honoring Professor Samuel Greengus on Sunday, April 10, at 9 a.m. at Mayerson Hall Auditorium, at HUC-JIR. Dr. Greengus has had a long career of service to the College Institute as the Julian Morgenstern Professor of Semitic Languages (1963-2010). He
served as Dean and Director of Rabbinical School at HUCJIR/Cincinnati (1979-1984), Director of the School of Graduate Studies at HUCJIR/Cincinnati (1985-1990; 20072010), Dean of Faculty for HUCJIR (1987-1996), HUC-JIR VicePresident of Academic Affairs (1990-1996), and Faculty Chair of the Graduate Executive Committee, charged with the oversight of the School of Graduate Studies (1997-2007).
He has served as mentor for over 50 doctoral students during the course of his career. The Gustav A. and Mamie W. Efroymson Memorial Lectures were founded in 1946 by brothers Clarence W. and Robert A. Efroymson in memory of their parents. Since the inaugural lecture in 1975, the Efroymson Lectures have brought many fine scholars to the Cincinnati campus. For any additional information, please contact HUC-JIR.
Israel launching drive to void Goldstone Report By Ron Kampeas and Marcy Oster Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would launch an international campaign to cancel the Goldstone Report after its author, ex-South African Judge Richard Goldstone, wrote in an Op-Ed in the Washington Post that Israel did not intentionally target civilians as a policy during the Gaza War, withdrawing a critical allegation in the report.
Netanyahu said he had asked his security adviser, Ya’akov Amidror, to establish a committee focused on “minimizing the damage caused” by the report. “There are very few instances in which those who disseminate libels retract their libel. This happened in the case of the Goldstone Report,” Netanyahu said Sunday at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting. “Goldstone himself said that all of the things that we have been saying all along are correct — that Israel never intentionally fired at civilians and that our inquiries operated according to the highest international standards. “Of course, this is in complete contrast to Hamas, which intentionally attacked and murdered civilians and, naturally, never carried out any sort of inquiry. This leads us to call for the immediate cancellation of the Goldstone Report.” Goldstone wrote in Saturday’s Washington Post that “We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.” Goldstone withdrew what perhaps was his most damaging conclusion: That there was evidence suggesting Israel had deliberately targeted civilians during its war with Hamas. Referring to a U.N. committee’s recent independent assessment of his report, Goldstone wrote in his Op-Ed that “While the investiga-
tions published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.” Goldstone said he may have drawn different conclusions had Israel cooperated with his inquiry; Israel refused to do so, seeing the U.N. Human Rights Council as irredeemably biased. He also said that it “goes without saying” that Hamas intentionally targeted civilians and noted that unlike Israel, the group did not investigate its own actions. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Saturday that Goldstoness “retreat does not change the fact war crimes had been committed against 1.5 million people in Gaza.” Abu Zuhri said that Hamas cooperated with the Goldstone commission. Senior Fatah Central Committee member Nabil Shaath said Sunday that Goldstone retracted his committee’s report due to pressure. Netanyahu on Saturday night called on the United Nations to “cancel” the report in light of Goldstone’s article, although he did not make clear what this would involve. The American Jewish Committee said Goldstone should ask the United Nations to “revise and update” the report. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), a member of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, called on the U.N. Human Rights Council to “retract” the report, which it had adopted.