Some Good News Items

With most recent Jewish news being worrisome – to say the least – we should take good news where we can.

• The Jewish Agency has finally decided to stop discriminating against Israeli Arabs. Its about time! Lets hope they keep their word and keep it up.(Now if only the JNF would let Israel Arabs live on its land holdings – more than 50% of all land in Israel – and if the Israeli government would spend the same per capita on Arab schools and Jewish ones – currently its 1:7 in favour of the Jews – we would have real progress.)
  

• The next Sandy Koufax has been found! And, better yet, he is Benjamin Rubin a budding Canadian Jewish hockey star. (Eat your heart out Shawn Green!) The good news in this story is both Benjamin Rubin's commitment to Judaism, but also his team's acceptance of that.

• The new rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Bennington Vermont is the great grandson of FDR. Not only is this just weird and neat, it proves that the Jewish people can gain from intermarriage as much as lose. It just depend on how compelling we make Judaism.

• Fatah is gaining popularity according to latest Palestinian poll. This is good news because it comes at the expense of Hamas. (Remember when we refused to talk to Fatah? Now we long for those days.)