By MORDECAI SPECKTOR

Growing up in Boca Raton, Fla., Danny Valencia says he was “a huge baseball fan.” He recalls cheering for the hometown team, the Florida Marlins, when they played against Cleveland in the 1997 World Series. In the fall classic that year, Jim Thome was a star for the Marlins’ American League rivals.

Flash forward 13 years, and Valencia, 25, third baseman for the Twins and one of the few Jews now playing in Major League Baseball, was on deck in the bottom of the 10th inning of the Aug. 17 home game against the Chicago White Sox.

The Twins had blown a 4-0 lead, and regained it in the fifth inning. Then newly acquired closer Matt Capps blew the save in the ninth, and Jon Rauch gave up the go-ahead run to the Sox in the top of the 10th.

In the bottom of the 10th, with the Twins trailing 6-5, Delmon Young led off with a single; and then Thome, the Twins’ designated hitter this year, smacked a Matt Thornton pitch into the right field seats, giving the Twins a 7-6 win, and entered the Target Field records book with the first walk-off hit in the new ballpark. (Valencia hit two doubles in the game; but the story, of course, was the veteran Thome’s big blast.)

Sitting in the Twins dugout at Target Field the following day, Valencia said that he had followed Thome’s long career in the Big Leagues, “and to be on the same team with him, and watch him go about his business, and do things like he did last night — being as I was on deck, so I would say that I had the best view in the house — it’s unbelievable, and I’m just really happy to be part of it.”

The Twins called up Valencia on June 2, from their AAA team in Rochester, N.Y. He flew out to Seattle, and played now and then, until regular third baseman Nick Punto got injured. Valencia was called on to fill the gap.

“Recently, I’ve been in the lineup every day,” he told the AJW before the Aug. 18 night game between the Twins and the White Sox. “It’s been great for me; it’s been a learning experience. And it’s just been a roller coaster ride, being that we’re in a playoff race. It’s a great feeling — I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

Valencia, of course, is not your stereotypical Jewish family name. His mother, Mindy, is Jewish; his father, Michael, is from Cuba, which explains the Spanish surname.

At the outset of the interview, Valencia let me know that he was not religious, which seems to be the case with most Jewish professional athletes.

“When I was younger, we always kept up with the holidays, celebrated Hanuka,” he recalled. “My parents were really adamant about me going to temple when I was young; but that stopped when I was a teenager.”

The Twins rookie standout said that Judaism is important to his mother. “She always wants me to remember where I come from and her beliefs. So it’s good.”

Although Mindy Valencia talked about Sandy Koufax, her son says that he didn’t think about Jewish ballplayers, but rather was a “fan of the game” and followed his favorite players with no thought to their religious persuasion.

After a stellar diamond career at Spanish River High School, Valencia played freshman college ball at UNC-Greensboro, then transferred to the University of Miami (Fla.). He left college to play pro ball, and has worked his way up steadily in the Twins minor league system, culminating in his call up to the Big Show in June.

The Twins organization is high on Valencia, who has been hitting the ball hard, batting .320, and contributing on both offense and defense. He is the first player in the Twins’ 49-year history to hit a grand slam home run for his first homer; and he is the first Twins rookie to have back-to-back four-hit games.

“Danny’s a wonderful kid,” remarked Jim Thome, who seemed still aglow from the hubbub attending his 581st career homer the previous night. “He’s a guy that, I think, has improved every step of the way. Getting to know him in spring training, and watching him progress as a player, and as a person it’s been a real pleasure to watch him grow as he’s gone through his first major league season. It’s been a lot of fun…. I think he’s done a tremendous job. He’s stepped in, he’s played tremendous third base for us; he’s gotten big hits.”

And what does the boss think of the rookie?

“He’s doing great,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said emphatically. “He’s been one of our top prospects… and you always wait for that opportunity to get a shot in the Big Leagues, and he’s taking full advantage of it. He’s come up and played fantastic.”

Gardy, like other knowledgeable observers I talked to at Target Field, mentioned that Valencia has worked hard to hone his defensive skills at the hot corner.

“I like him out there,” said the skipper. “You never know what’s going to happen day to day, but as long as he continues to play well, he’ll be third base.”

Just before returning to the clubhouse to suit up for the game, Valencia paused to talk with Paul Molitor in the dugout. The Hall of Famer said that he has “spent a lot of time” with Valencia over the past four years, in his role as a Twins minor league coordinator, handling base running and infield play.

“As well as he’s hit, I’ve been most impressed that he’s played a solid third base for the Twins since he’s been called up,” Molitor commented. “Hopefully, he’ll be the answer for the team for many years to come. Danny’s a good kid, and I’m glad he’s finally got an opportunity.”

The Twins information book lists Valencia at 6 foot 2 and 210 pounds. He wallops the ball; and many of his outs come on hard-to-handle liners and wicked shots snared on the warning path.

“He always had a special sound to his bat,” added Molitor. “It was a matter of him learning and understanding hitting — not just mechanics, but the mental side of hitting, and dealing with frustration and failure. He kind of was a little up and down in his mood… and it was just a matter of maturing a little and understanding the day to day grind.”

In just two months with the Twins, the player wearing the No. 19 jersey has become a valuable part of an extremely confident baseball team. The trick will be to keep it going at this pace for another five or 10 years.

Valencia does understand that he’s playing a “game predicated on failure,” in his words. “It’s really hard to stay mentally sane,” amid the failures that even the best players experience. “The people who deal with the ups and downs the best are the most successful,” Valencia said.

On Aug. 18, against the White Sox, Twins pitcher Francisco Liriano struggled from one jam to the next. He squandered a two-run lead in the second inning, giving up a three-run homer to Andruw Jones. The Twins kept battling, and in the sixth, Valencia knocked in the go-ahead run on an infield hit to the shortstop, whose throw home sailed up the first base line, allowing Thome to score. The Twins finally edged Chicago, 7-6.

Getting dressed in the clubhouse after the game, Valencia was happy to have played a crucial part “in a big win for the team.”

It seemed kind of quiet in the clubhouse, in the aftermath of the second consecutive victory over Chicago.

“We’re pretty chilled out right now,” Valencia explained. “It’s late, the game was long, everybody’s a little tired. But, trust me, the team’s really happy right now; we’re really excited.”

By DORIS RUBENSTEIN

As a professor of biochemistry at the University of Minnesota, Victor Bloomfield explored the properties of DNA using sophisticated laboratory equipment and theoretical insight. Now that he’s retired, Bloomfield is exploring the building blocks of Ashkenazi Jewish culture using modern digital photography and artistic insight.

Bloomfield took more than 1,400 photographs during a two-week tour of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania last year and distilled them until he was left with 28 images that best illustrateKaddish for a World Destroyed: Remnants of Jewish Communities in Lithuania and Latvia, a photo essay on display at the St. Paul JCC through Oct. 17.

Kaddish for a World Destroyed was inspired by the interest of Bloomfield’s wife, Dr. Elsa Shapiro (herself a distinguished U of M professor), in her own Jewish genealogy. While Shapiro is of mixed ancestry — maternal Turkish and southern European, and paternal Lithuanian — the show had its genesis while the team was exploring this latter part of her background.

The Baltic States were central to the development of the Ashkenazic Jewish culture that predominates for U.S. Jews today. Judaism was vibrant there for more than three centuries, then crushed by both the Nazis and Russian Communist rule. While that Jewish world was destroyed, this exhibition shows both its remnants and memorials to the glory of what was, if not a Golden Age of Judaism, at least a beautiful, fragile crystal age.

Opening with a scene from Estonia, the show is optimistic — there is a new synagogue in Tallinn with delicate carvings of the Tree of Life that allow in a light of hope for renewal of the Jewish community there.

The Riga Synagogue in Latvia survived the Nazis due to its strategic location between two buildings, one a church. It suffered greatly, nonetheless. Bloomfield catches its breathtaking art deco art and architecture in restoration; it takes a second and then third glance to catch the spot on the wall that remains dull and dirty, a reminder of the wounds that lie beneath the fresh coats of paint.

Bloomfield and Shapiro acknowledge the government of Latvia for its efforts at recognizing what was lost in terms of lives and culture. Particularly moving are two images of the Rumbula Memorial — twisted metal bars twine to form a menora (or is it a tree with seven branches?) — set among a garden of stones etched with the names of Jewish families who lived in Riga.

Not all the photos are so uplifting and optimistic. The reality is that, particularly in Lithuania, little has been done to preserve or memorialize the remainders of Jewish life that once thrived there. Bloomfield’s testamentary photos to this fact show today’s life in the once vibrant Jewish sections of Shapiro’s ancestral town of Pasvalys in all its bleakness, emptiness and lack of color.

The Jewish communities of the Baltic States are mere shadows of what had been. What does remain has a proud heritage. Nothing captures that better than the photo of the only remaining synagogue in Vilnius. While it is nearly always empty, it holds its head up high and allows the spirits of all who prayed there for so many years to have ample space to soar and welcome those who wish to remember, or say Kaddish.

***

An artist reception, slide show and gallery tour for Kaddish for a World Destroyed: Remnants of Jewish Communities in Lithuania and Latvia, a photo essay by Dr. Victor Bloomfield, will take place 7:30 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 14 at the St. Paul JCC, 1375 St. Paul Ave. Photographs will be on sale with proceeds benefiting Jewish Community Action.

The exhibit is on display through Oct. 17. For information, call 651-698-0751 or visit: www.stpauljcc.org.

By ERIN ELLIOTT BRYAN / Community News Editor

On a train bound for Auschwitz, a mother throws her 9-year-old son into the woods. He wanders into a small Polish village, where he is taken in by a Christian woman and hidden for 18 months.

In 1950, the boy makes his way to Israel, where he eventually becomes a doctor. Years later his second son, Ofer, follows in his footsteps — and earlier this year directed surgical activities at the Israeli field hospital in Haiti in the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake.

As it is written in the Talmud, “Whoever saves a life, it is as if he has saved an entire world.”

Dr. Ofer Merin, a cardiothoracic surgeon, is the deputy director general and director of the trauma unit at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. He is also a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces’ Medical Corps, where he serves as chief of army field hospitals.

Haiti was Merin’s first delegation. He spoke about his experience there at a recent briefing and update for Twin Cities Maimonides Society members and communal leaders. Merin was in Minneapolis under the auspices of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas (JCRC), a partner agency of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation.

“It does change… your perspective on things in life,” Merin told the AJW. “Everyone is always very busy with their intimate, close issues of themselves and these [events] open your mind, when you really see the magnitude of disasters in other parts of the world. It changed my life in different ways.”

The Jan. 12 earthquake, which measured at a magnitude of about 7.0, lasted only 40 seconds, but its force devastated the small island country of 9 million people. Approximately 230,000 people died and 1 million people were left homeless.

But the number that mattered most to the medics who were mobilizing to help was that of the injured: 300,000.

“That number was beyond anyone’s imagination,” Merin said.

As they do each year, Merin’s entire unit — nearly 500 people — had performed a mass casualty drill in Israel just one month prior to the earthquake. Less than 48 hours after the earthquake hit, Merin’s unit put that training to the test, leaving their jobs and families behind, and boarding a plane for Haiti.

With the consent of the Israeli government and some true chutzpa, the delegation — 121 IDF nurses, physicians and medics, and 109 members of the Israeli Home Front Command — landed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and began setting up a field hospital in a soccer field owned by a Jewish man. Six hours later, on the morning of Jan. 16, the hospital started to see its first patients.

One news report referred to the IDF site as the “Rolls Royce of emergency medical care.” The 80-bed field hospital was fully functional and was the only place that provided X-rays and other imaging services.

“We were also the only hospital to have a synagogue,” Merin said, showing a photograph of a small tent in which two doctors davened.

The field hospital employed bar code technology to keep track of patients and have an “exact knowledge of what’s going on,” according to Merin. The “very simple, efficient” system also allowed family members to search for loved ones.

But the team faced a variety of issues, from no air-conditioning and running out of supplies to ethical dilemmas and dealing with their own emotions.

“You can’t treat all of them, so how do you make those decisions?” Merin asked. “As a physician, you’re always sidetracked by the patient that you cannot treat and you wonder, Did I do the right thing?”

Merin’s team established ethical committees so that one doctor was not responsible for making the sole life-or-death decision about a patient, and developed criteria for which patients they would accept. Out of their first 500 patients, only 13 died.

“We knew we picked up the right patients,” Merin said.

Patients were also discharged as soon as they were able to leave, in an effort to treat others with more severe injuries.

“I’m sure we made mistakes, but we were trying to do the right thing for the maximum number of people over there,” Merin said.

After more than a week in Haiti, Merin’s trauma unit began seeing fewer patients with traumatic injuries. And, with the arrival of the USS Comfort, the United States Navy hospital ship, and the reopening of the main hospital in Port-au-Prince, the Israeli delegation went home.

The IDF field hospital was operational for 10 days. In that time, the team saw 1,111 patients, performed 242 surgeries and delivered 16 babies. Only 17 patients died.

Dr. Merle Hillman is an emergency physician at United Hospital in St. Paul and a team commander of the Minnesota chapter of the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS). He attended Merin’s talk.

“We should be proud of what they did,” he said of the Israeli delegation. “They are really good at it.”

Merin said he was proud to represent the Jewish state.

“It was a privilege, it was an honor to go and assist other people in need, and we were very proud that we were going in the IDF uniforms,” Merin said. “It was an extremely meaningful time in my life… [We came back] with the knowledge that we did some good.”

In May, Merin received the Medal of Valor from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles on behalf of the IDF. Upon accepting the award, he spoke of the Polish woman who had saved his father and enabled his family to be rebuilt in Israel.

“From this woman’s example, I learned the power of what it means to save a life,” Merin said. “In the magnitude of the disaster, [the IDF personnel] were merely a drop in the ocean. But for the 1,100 people we had the privilege to treat, this represents the true spirit of medicine. That no matter the race, religion or ethnicity of the patient, we will always treat them to the best of our abilities.”

By MAX JOHNSON

Traveling in Israel with a knowledgeable guide is an essential part of any Holy Land trip — there’s too much history and politics to depend solely on a guidebook. One can only hope to find a guide who will make the trip halfway around the world both educational and fun. And that’s where Baruch Frank comes in.

Born in Golden Valley to Dr. Mason and Raleigh Frank, he made aliya (moved to Israel) with his family when he was eight years old. The Franks immediately settled in the Ein Harod kibbutz, where Dr. Frank continued to practice dentistry. Frank left the kibbutz when he was 27 to study mechanical engineering, a profession he later took up in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Frank served 19 years in the IDF, part of which he spent in Israeli military intelligence researching weapon designs of enemy nations. All of this gives Frank a unique perspective on Israel’s military endeavors.

Eventually, Frank left the IDF for a new profession: Israeli tour guide with his own company, Touring with Baruch.

“It was better to retire at the age of 43 and not wait until I’m 50, 55, when I’ll never be able to find another job,” Frank said in an interview with the AJW. “I wanted to do something that [wasn’t] in an office all day. I wanted to be outdoors, I wanted a flexible job, I love the country and nature, and I thought I would be good at guiding not only tourists but Israelis as well.”

Frank leads all kinds of tours — from families and couples to Bar Mitzva groups, and even corporate tours for companies such as Minneapolis-based Medtronic.

He calls his tours “tailor-made,” as he bases them entirely on the ages, interests and physical abilities of the tourists. He’ll do whatever it takes to make everyone happy, especially his younger tourists.

“If the kids enjoy it, the parents will enjoy it. And if the kids are bored, the parents will suffer. So to tour with a family, you have to plan according to the kids,” Frank said. “The kids need to learn and see things, but also experience the fun attractions like jeep or camel rides. For adults, meeting with people here in Israel, meeting with minorities, seeing the life of minorities, understanding the politics of Israel, and understanding the Palestinian situation are all important things for visitors to experience.”

Frank tries to make trips to Israel highly educational and informative.

“I look at myself as an educator more than anything else. Usually when people come here, their point of view is through what they saw on CNN or read in the newspaper. And it can be through Thomas Friedman’s eyes or someone else, but it never covers the full picture,” Frank said. “When you come to Israel, you get to see it… When you’re reading in the newspaper that they are shooting from here to there, you don’t relate to the distances. When you’re standing in the city of Sderot and looking right beyond the last houses and you see that that’s already Gaza and you understand the proximity — you get a better feeling about what Israel is.”

Last summer, I traveled with my parents, younger brother (then 14) and another family of four with two kids, ages 11 and seven, on a two-week trip in Israel with Frank. We traveled extensively throughout the country from the northernmost tip of the Golan Heights to Eilat and everything in between.

Frank made the trip both fun and educational for everyone, mixing lectures about Israeli history with beautiful sights like Caesarea and Masada. Frank was able to answer all of our questions with rich detail and historical perspective. Our trip would not have been as rewarding and truly life-changing without him.

“One of the reasons I became a tour guide is because I know that at the end of a tour, my tourists have a better feeling of Israel and they saw Israel through my eyes and not through the CNN eyes,” he said.

Frank says the best time to travel to Israel is during the springtime, with April being the ideal month to visit. He recommends that first-time travelers plan on spending at least 10 days in Israel to have a complete tour of the country.

To learn more about Frank’s private tours in Israel, visit his Web site at: www.BaruchFrank.com or e-mail him at: touring@BaruchFrank.com.

***

Max Johnson is an editorial intern at the American Jewish World.

By DORIS RUBENSTEIN

We’ve all experienced it. If it isn’t the last seder with Dad or Zaide, it’s the last Thanksgiving with Mom or Auntie Freda. We dread it, knowing that the next time around, there will be an empty place in our hearts, if not at our tables. But we also savor it.

Playwright Jennifer Maisel’s award-winning play, The Last Seder, opens Sept. 17 at the Park Square Theatre in St. Paul, a venue that has treated Twin Cities audiences to many Jewish-themed plays over its 35-year history. And directing The Last Seder is one of Park Square and the Twin Cities’ favorite directors: Peter Moore.

While the play takes place at the start of Passover and a seder is part of the story, Moore’s participation in real seders came late in his life.

“My favorite seder memories take place in the last few years when I’ve enjoyed several with Susan and Joe Vass,” he admitted. “It’s fun just getting through the ritual so that we can get down to some great eating!”

Joe Vass is providing original music for this production. His wife, Susan, is a popular comedienne.

What Moore enjoys most about The Last Seder is working with its large cast: 11 players are on the stage together most of the time, working in ensemble. He finds the experience very cinematic, with lots of simultaneous action that’s been fun to choreograph.

The fact that many of these actors — including Gabe Angieri who plays the father who is dying from Alzheimer’s disease, Karen Langly as mother Lily, and three elder daughters of the Price family, played by Maggie Chestovich, Shannon Jankowski and Mo Perry — have worked with one another at some point or another in their stage careers makes creating the ensemble a bit easier.

Even the youngest daughter, Angel, played by St. Louis Park native Ali Dachis, has worked with others in the cast before. At age 23 and just a year out of the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater B.F.A. program, Dachis has a résumé that many veterans would envy. Egged on by her friend Sarah Routman at age 9, Dachis snagged a role in an Ordway theater production of The Music Man and she’s been rising higher with each new role.

Dachis and Moore had a good laugh remembering their experience together at the University of Minnesota Theater Department, where Dachis took Moore’s annual class in theatrical combat. In rehearsals for The Last Seder, though, the teaching tables have been turned from time to time.

Dachis is the only practicing Jew in the cast and she, along with Joe Vass, have been the “technical advisors” on traditions and practices relating to the seder. Dachis is a graduate of what is now the Amos and Celia Heilicher Minneapolis Jewish Day School and had her Bat Mitzva at Adath Jeshurun Congregation.

“I even brought our family’s old Silverman haggadas to rehearsal to explain and show what the real book looks like,” she said. “I come from a very large and close extended family, and when we all gather around the seder table, there are between 20 and 35 people squashed together. But we love it.”

Dachis identifies to a great extent with her character. Not only are they the same age, but they share some personality traits. Both have a wanderlust. Among many places, Dachis’ urge has twice taken her to Tanzania — once with her mother, artist Toni Dachis (see below) — and she extended a Birthright Israel trip to spend time with her St. Louis Park cousin David Glotter, who is studying in Jerusalem.

Moore, too, finds himself identifying with members of the Price family, recalling the months he spent at his father’s bedside in an intensive care unit before the Twin Cities television news great Dave Moore passed away.

According to Moore, The Last Seder is “an enlightening take on how we connect — and fail to connect — as family these days. Like [his previous direction in] Becky’s New Car, I think this is a show for our times. And it’s very smart writing. Audiences should come away feeling ‘That’s my family up there,’ even though most of us aren’t related to people quite this dramatic or hilarious.”

***

The Last Seder runs Sept. 17 through Oct. 3 at Park Square Theatre, 20 W. Seventh Pl., St. Paul. For tickets, call 651-291-7005 or visit: www.parksquaretheatre.org.

Park Square to exhibit work by Toni Dachis

Local Jewish artist Toni Dachis will exhibit new work at Park Square Theatre in conjunction with The Last Seder, which features Dachis’ daughter, local actor Ali Dachis. Dachis’ work will be displayed in the lobby of the theater, 20 W. Seventh Pl., St. Paul.

In addition to being an artist, Dachis volunteers and raises funds for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network and Elimu Africa.

For information, visit: www.tonidachis.com.

Gritty war film follows journey of a tank crew blasting its way through southern Lebanon in 1982

By MICHAEL FOX

Even if one did not know going in that Samuel Maoz’s stunning war movie, Lebanon, was based on his own chaotic, harrowing experience inside a tank in 1982, the attention to detail clearly conveys first-hand knowledge.

By the last reel, the emotional wounds that Maoz was unable to confront and depict onscreen for 25 years are just as palpable. What we can’t see, or fully extrapolate, is his prewar mindset and postwar shock.

“I can remember my teacher, in the class with the number on her arm, shouting hysterically that we need to fight for our country and we need to die for it if necessary because everybody wants to terminate us,” Maoz recalls. “I didn’t feel that everybody wants to terminate me. All that was in my head when I was 18 was the Tel Aviv beach and girls. But in a way we were brainwashed.”

Lebanon opens Sept. 3 at the Lagoon Cinema in Uptown.

Maoz, whose mother is a Holocaust survivor, can’t forget the disorientation and alienation he felt when he returned from Lebanon.

“To come back from war in the beginning of the ‘80s with your two hands, two legs, 10 fingers, without any burn marks on your skin and to complain that you had problems inside you, it was almost unforgivable,” he said. “They told us, ‘Say thank you that you are alive. We were in the camps.’ I remember that we hated the camps less because of what happened there but more because they used them against us all the time. It was so strong that even now when I’m talking, and after talking [about the movie] for six, seven months, I still feel like I’m a bad boy.”

The 48-year-old Maoz has been continuously in the limelight, with even Hollywood pursuing him, since Lebanon won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival last fall. In an interview at a Nob Hill hotel during his May visit to the San Francisco International Film Festival, the tall, lanky director explained how conflict defines each generation of Israelis — and vice versa.

“Our parents, our teachers, many of them came from Europe, and when they had their wars they thought that this was their only choice,” Maoz says. “They thought that everybody wanted to terminate them, so they had all the motivation that someone needs. And they won, against all [odds]. When my generation had its war, the war was so-so. We didn’t win, but we didn’t lose; we just made a total mess.”

A quarter of a century later, the attitude of Israeli youth has evolved dramatically, he observes without judgment.

“When the new generation — the YouTube, the iPhone, the global generation — had their war in 2006 with the best army [in terms of] technology and equipment, they lost. Because they don’t have any more motivation to fight. They feel a bit that they are fighting for their parents’ ideas, [but] it’s an Internet world and they can see normal life everywhere, and they also want normal life, without fear.”

Maoz relates that some older Israelis worry that recent homegrown movies that expose the cost and pointlessness of war, notably Lebanon, Beaufort and Waltz with Bashir, will dissuade teenagers from going into the army. But younger Israelis are demanding the truth, he says, even as their positive reactions to Lebanon suggest they respond to it as a personal, rather than a political, film.

“Every antiwar film is in a way a politically correct film,” Maoz asserts, “because even if you want to change people’s opinions or way of thought, you can’t do it just by talking to their heads. If Lebanon speaks to one mother’s heart, that is more important than to please one hundred intellectual journalists sitting in Europe and expecting me to say the right slogans. And you know what, in the end, this is realpolitik. Realpolitik is not slogans. Realpolitik is trying to achieve a kind of progress.”

***

Lebanon opens Sept. 3 at the Lagoon Cinema in Uptown.

Michael Fox is a film critic based in San Francisco.

The trailer is below. (CAUTION: Viewer discretion is advised.)

By MARCY OSTER

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Four Jewish Israelis were killed when gunmen opened fire on the car they were riding in at the entrance to Kiryat Arba, near Hebron.

Tuesday night’s attack in the West Bank comes on the eve of the opening of peace talks in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

More than one gunman approached the car and shot the victims — two men ages 25 and 40, and two women of about the same ages — at point blank range, according to preliminary reports, Haaretz reported. One of the women was pregnant. The car was sprayed with dozens of bullets, according to reports.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley was briefing reporters on the upcoming peace talks when news of the attack came in.

“We are cognizant that there could be external events that can have an impact on the environment” at the peace talks, he said. “There may well be actors in the region who are deliberately making these kind of attacks to sabotage the process.”

The Northwest Jewish Community will hold an Erev Shabbat service 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 27 in the community room of Lunds, 3455 Vicksburg Ln., Plymouth. The family-friendly service is open to the public and will feature a High Holidays themed story reading for children.

The service is the second in a series of events to gauge interest and build membership of a Jewish community in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis. This group is open to all Jewish people in the Twin Cities area and is reaching out to singles, couples, young families, mixed families, the unaffiliated, and anyone looking to reconnect with their Jewish faith.

For information and to make a reservation, call Mike at 763-464-4872 or e-mail: NWSJG18@gmail.com.

Obama administration invites Israelis and Palestinians to resume direct talks on Sept. 2 in Washington, D.C.

By RON KAMPEAS

WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s a peace conference where nothing is off the table — or on it, for that matter.

The Obama administration’s invitation to Palestinian and Israeli leaders to launch direct talks on Sept. 2 attempts to reconcile Israeli demands for no preconditions with Palestinian demands that the talks address all the core issues: final borders, the fate of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

The administration does this by calling on the sides to “resolve final-status issues” without saying when and how these issues should come up, if at all.

The vagueness of the invitation issued Aug. 20 underscored the distance between the two sides, as well as the immediate political and regional pressures that have lit a fire under U.S. efforts to restart the peace process. Whether or not the peace talks will be able to move from vague outlines to concrete resolutions remains to be seen. For now, merely having direct talks is an achievement, particularly for the United States and Israel.

For the United States, having the talks gives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a reason to continue a partial settlement moratorium, thereby sustaining Arab support for U.S. policies. This support is seen as important as Washington attempts to juggle emerging crises in the region, including Iraq’s vexed attempts to set up a government and Iran’s accelerating nuclear ambitions. President Obama also wants a process under way before November, when his Democratic Party is likely to face a tough battle at the ballot boxes during midterm congressional elections.

For Netanyahu, the talks are a way to demonstrate that his government is interested in pursuing peace with the Palestinians.

Among the Palestinian leadership, however, there are deep concerns that Washington and Jerusalem are more interested in the appearance of talks than in getting down to the nitty-gritty of the final-status issues. Israel has resisted Palestinian demands to discuss final-status issues and opposes any deadline for a resolution.

The discrepancies between the two sides were evident in the delicate way U.S. officials tried to treat the issue of preconditions to the talks.

“Only the parties can determine terms of reference and basis for negotiations, and they will do so when they meet and discuss these matters,” George Mitchell, the top U.S. envoy to the region, said in the news conference announcing the invitations. “As you know, both we and the Quartet have previously said that the negotiations should be without preconditions.”

The Quartet is the grouping that guides the Middle East peace process: the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

Yet in launching the news conference, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to say that both of the elements Israel is resisting indeed would be on the table: Final-status issues and a deadline.

“On behalf of the United States government, I’ve invited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Abbas to meet on Sept. 2 in Washington, D.C. to re-launch direct negotiations to resolve all final-status issues, which we believe can be completed within one year,” Clinton said.

Was that a deadline, a reporter asked Mitchell? Not quite, he said, adding. “We believe it can be done within a year and that is our objective.”

Then there is the matter of U.S. involvement. Mitchell insisted that the talks would be bilateral, ostensibly diminishing the U.S. role. He said the United States was ready to offer “bridging proposals” — the formulations that negotiating sides request from a moderator when talks hit a snag. But the way he put it suggested that the United States might offer such proposals even if the sides do not request them.

“This is a direct bilateral negotiation with the active and sustained support of the United States,” he said. “And we will make bridging proposals at such time as we deem necessary and appropriate.”

The determined, active voice he used was not unintentional: Mitchell later repeated the phrase.

The Palestinians have been pressing for a more active U.S. role, saying that it would help balance Israel’s stronger hand as an established state with a powerful military. Israel would rather deal directly with the Palestinians, preferring not to countenance an active U.S. role that conceivably could exacerbate already delicate Israeli relations with the United States.

Not surprisingly, then, the statement from Netanyahu’s office welcoming the renewed talks — which came immediately after the announcement — did not mention final-status issues, deadlines or U.S. intervention.

“The prime minister has been calling for direct negotiations for the past year and a half,” the statement said. “He was pleased with the American clarification that the talks would be without preconditions.”

The Palestinian Authority’s response to the announcement of the talks was less than enthusiastic. It took till the end of last Friday for them to welcome the invitation to talks, and Palestinian leaders later warned that if Israel’s 10-month settlement freeze is allowed to expire in late September, the talks are off.

Netanyahu’s statement did not say what he intends to do about the freeze. Israeli officials reportedly have told their U.S. counterparts that Netanyahu would not be able to sustain the moratorium on settlement building without the cover of peace talks. Similarly, the Arab League, which this summer provided much needed cover to Mahmoud Abbas in approving the peace talks, needs the negotiations as cover to maintain its support of the United States.

Both Mitchell and the Quartet made it clear that they expected the settlement moratorium to be extended.

“Our position on settlements is well-known and remains unchanged,” Mitchell said. “We’ve always made clear that the parties should promote an environment that is conducive to negotiations.”