A letter from JSPAN President Jeff Pasek urged State Senator Connie Williams and Deputy Speaker of the House Josh Shapiro to introduce legislation to amend the state crimes code to restore protections from intimidation due to ancestry, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity

Those protections were added to the law in December of 2003, but the State Supreme Court ruled that the legislation was invalid because the final bill had strayed too far from its original purpose. According to JSPAN, the legislature can easily solve this problem by adopting a clean, single purpose bill to address the same issues that were contained in the earlier, procedurally flawed statute.

To learn more about the details of this decision, click here to read "Law on crimes of hate hobbled," which appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on July 26, 2008.

Reproduced below is the text of the letter sent by JSPAN to Senator Williams.

To view a copy of JSPAN's suggested language for the new bill, click here.

Some years ago I read a brief article by Dennis Prager, the well-known writer and radio talk-show host, in which he reported that a listener called into his program asking why, after 50-odd years, the Jews were still bemoaning what happened to their people in the Holocaust. Prager's reply was in effect, "Madam, we Jews are still mourning the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem that happened over 2,500 years ago!"

Dennis Prager's comment was right on the mark, for it was a much-needed reminder to the non-Jewish world and marginal Jews alike, that the Jewish people possesses a deep sense of history, and that just as we have celebrated milestone events on major holidays such as Pesach for countless centuries, so we continue to commemorate the overwhelming tragedies that befell our people. Tisha B'Av (the ninth day of the Hebrew month Av) is perhaps the most significant of such occasions. In contrast to Yom Kippur, which is known as the White Fast, Tisha B'Av is called the Black Fast because of the mourning over the destruction of Solomon's Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the razing of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE.

According to tradition, both calamities occurred on the Ninth of Av. Indeed, the dark character of the day is highlighted by the practice in some Sephardic synagogues of draping the sanctuary in black bunting. The central ritual of the eve of Tisha B'Av is the reading of the Biblical book called Eikhah (Lamentations), which describes in horrifying detail the suffering of the people of Jerusalem during the siege by the Babylonian army and the subsequent destruction of the city and its Temple, leading to a prolonged exile. This dolorous exercise is accompanied by the chanting of dirges called Kinot in Hebrew.

Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, many religious leaders have questioned the necessity of such mourning and the need for a fast lasting more than 24 hours. There are many rabbis, especially in Conservative Judaism, who maintain that now that an independent Jewish state exists and, particularly since 1967, Jerusalem is a re-united city, and, furthermore, Jews need no longer live in Galut (exile), we should tone down the expressions of grief and curtail the period of fasting. Teshuvot (Responsa), in fact, have been issued over the years advocating such positions, and the minority of our people who are motivated to observe Tisha B'Av in the first place, in many instances have accepted these teshuvot.

It is important to note that, to my knowledge, no religious authority has advocated the complete abolition of Tisha B'Av from the calendar of Jewish fast days and holidays. Tisha B'Av still has a place in the modern context as long as Israel's well-being and very existence are threatened and as long as Israelis and Jews elsewhere continue to lose their lives because they are Jews. While the scene of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers being exchanged for living terrorists is still fresh in our minds, we need no reminder that tragedies remain a constant factor in Jewish life and we must set aside fixed times to mourn those tragedies.

There is a messianic hope in Jewish tradition that some day Tisha B'Av will be transformed into a day of rejoicing. May we be privileged to witness the fulfillment of that hope.

Tisha B'Av begins on Sat. night, Aug. 9 and continues into Sun., Aug. 10.

For many low-income children in communities across America, summertime can be fraught with uncertainty. Too often, empty classrooms mean empty stomachs for those youngsters who normally receive subsidized school meals through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).

During the school year, 16.3 million low-income children benefit from federally-subsidized free or reduced-price lunches. During summer vacation months, however, only 2.85 million of these children eat a free summer lunch.

"Some drop-off from school year to summertime can be expected, but far too many children are falling through the cracks," said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), which issued its annual summer food report, "Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation", on July 30. FRAC is the leading national organization working to improve public policies and public-private partnerships in order to eradicate hunger and undernutrition in the United States.

In July of 2007, the most recent statistics available, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania fed 124,611 children in its summer food program at 2,033 sites, compared with 482,420 who had participated in the previous school year's National School Lunch Program. These numbers show that the state ranked eleventh in the nation in the percentage of those participants in summer programs as compared to school year programs.

In the Greater Philadelphia region, which includes the surrounding suburban counties, the summer food programs provide healthy meals free of charge for children 18 and younger at program sites in local neighborhoods, while at the same time supporting high quality activities that keep children learning and safe while their parents are working. Many programs offer educational enrichment, recreational activities, nutrition information and mentoring.

The Nutritional Development Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the School District of Philadelphia and the city's Department of Recreation are the major sponsors of these food programs. On July 29, for example, the program delivered 20,709 lunches to 471 sites.

This summer, with the rising prices of food and fuel, low-income communities are particularly vulnerable to the effects of childhood hunger. During the summer vacation, it is especially important to remember that millions of children in the U.S. suffer from food insecurity while their parents or guardians struggle to make ends meet in a worsening economy.

JSPAN applauds the important work that is being done in this region to address the needs of low-income children. We also recognize that without ongoing engagement on the part of our legislators in state and federal government, the over-arching question of how to eradicate hunger insecurity in this nation cannot be dealt with in a meaningful way. We urge all of our readers to help keep this question alive in the halls of Harrisburg and Washington!

The 2006 study had found that the United States was not achieving "benchmarks for ..... key measures of health system performance. The 2008 edition of the scorecard paints an even bleaker picture .... (and) confirms that the U.S. health system continues to fall far short of what is attainable, especially given the resources invested."

Overall, the National Scorecard 2008 finds that the U.S. is "losing ground in providing access to care and has uneven health care quality. The Scorecard also finds broad evidence of inefficient and inequitable care. Average U.S. performance would have to improve by more than 50 percent across multiple indicators to reach benchmark levels of performance." The study also documents "the human and economic costs of failing to address the problems in our health system."

In conclusion, the report states that "new national policies that take a coherent, whole-system, population view are essential for the nation's future health and economic security."

According to Reed Abelson, medical reporter of The New York Times, the Commonwealth Fund "findings are likely to provide supporting evidence for the political notion that the nation's health care system needs to be fixed."

To learn more about the data in the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance 2008, click here.

To read "While the U.S. Spends Heavily on Health Care, a Study Faults the Quality" by Reed Abelson, which appeared in The New York Times on July 17, 2008, click here.

by Alan Tuttle

Thomas Jefferson, Meet Abbott and Costello

Have Jews at last found a permanently safe haven after 2,000 years of exile? Is it possible that the experiment in democracy in the United States, anchored in the Bill of Rights, has forever rendered our experience in the world as "post-exilic?"

There has been an ongoing debate about these questions in the Jewish community. Some believe that with the exception of occasional visible acts of anti-Semitism, such as vandalism of a synagogue or the painting of swastikas on public buildings, there is no real threat to Jews in this country. Others believe that as a minority group, even in a relatively liberal democracy, there is never real security.

Perhaps a third position is exemplified by the online publication, Jews On First, a serious website with a name that plays on the old Abbott and Costello routine and also refers to the First Amendment. Its position could be summed up as: "Yes, our country and constitution protect us from threats as we have never been protected before. But to remain safe, we must be vigilant in enforcing the First Amendment, which pronounces the need to separate ‘church’ and State."

It is no secret that "peace negotiations between Israeli and Syrian diplomats are taking place through Turkish mediation." At the same time, spokespersons for the Israeli government have been quietly "urging the Bush administration .... to abandon its policy of isolating Syria, to stop trying to induce regime-change in Damascus, to try to bring Syria back into the family of nations and to offer President Bashar Assad an alternative to his alliance with Iran. .... Israeli diplomats warn that isolating Syria is pushing it deeper into Iran's embrace."

Mr. Nir concludes that "Bush's stubborn refusal to join Israel and Syria at the peace table is wrong. It must change for the sake of America's national security interests and for the sake of Israel's."

To read "Negotiating With Syria Good for Israel, U.S.'" by Ori Nir, click here.

In early July, 2008, J Street commissioned a new survey of American Jewish opinion on issues ranging from 2008 electoral politics to views on what America's role should be in the Middle East. According to the survey, American Jews support an aggressive American posture towards peace efforts and understand that resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict is critically important to Americans.

87% said that the United States should play an active role in helping the parties resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Support for an active American role remained high – at 70% – when respondents were asked about the U.S. “exerting pressure” in order to help resolve the conflict.

By a margin of 55% to 30%, American Jews believe that the Middle East is a core American interest. By a similar margin of 56% to 25% American Jews view settlement activity as damaging to American interests and posing “a real obstacle to peace.”

Pollster Jim Gerstein noted that “instead of holding the hawkish or hard line positions often expressed by many established Jewish organizations and leaders, American Jews overwhelmingly favor assertive peace efforts and support an active U.S. role in helping Israelis and Arabs to resolve their conflict – even if it means publicly stating American disagreements with the parties or exerting pressure on both parties to make the compromises necessary to achieve peace.”

The study demonstrates that poor ballot design and confusing instructions "have resulted in far more lost votes than software glitches, programming errors or machine breakdowns. .... While all groups of voters are affected by poorly designed ballots and badly drafted instructions, these problems disproportionately affect low-income voters, new voters, and elderly voters."

The Brennan Center report concludes: "Candidates should win or lose elections based upon whether or not they are preferred by a majority of voters, not on whether they have the largest number of supporters who - as a result of education and experience - have greater facility navigating unnecessarily complicated interfaces or complex instructions, or because fewer of their supporters are elderly or have reading disabilities. Nor should candidates win elections because ballot designs happened to make it more difficult for voters supporting their opponents to accurately cast their votes."

To read the Brennan Center for Justice study, "Better Ballots", click here.

To read The New York Times editorial of July 24, 2008, "A Lesson Not Learned", click here.

The objectives of "Fighting Poverty With Faith: A Week of Action" include:

• Getting specific commitments from candidates and elected officials as to what they will do in their first 100 days in office to address poverty in America;
• Building and strengthening our interfaith relationships and mobilization capacity in order to hold the candidates accountable to those commitments once they are elected;
• Marshaling the political and public will to seriously tackle poverty in this country by showing that confronting poverty is an interfaith advocacy priority.

Twenty national faith-based organizations, including 8 Jewish agencies, have signed onto the effort.

To read the official endorsement letter that includes all of the interfaith partners in this effort, click here. (scroll down after clicking the link)

WE NEED YOU to be part of the membership team --- spread the word about our

accomplishments to your progressive friends, family and colleagues.

WE NEED YOU to send us names, mailing addresses, phone numbers and emails of prospective members.

We will do the work. WE NEED YOU !!!

Deanne Comer
Ruth Schultz
Membership Co-Chairs
bubbubdoc@comcast.net

Please note: the next JSPAN e-newsletter will be released on August 22, 2008.

Please remember that JSPAN welcomes your donations to help us continue our important and effective work in Tikkun Olam. You may send gifts via PayPal on www.jspan.org. or to JSPAN, 1735 Market Street, Suite #A417, Philadelphia, PA 19103