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Sundown: Delusions Down Under

Plus nukes for all, an ambivalent Egypt, and more

by
Hadara Graubart
October 26, 2009

• Some high school students in New South Wales, Australia, use a textbook that says, among other things, that “polygamy is ‘commonly practiced’ in Israel” and that Jews “’choose sophisticated professions such as law, medicine and scholarship’ because of a focus on ‘family togetherness.’” [Australian Jewish News]
• Perhaps they’d be better off watching the Australian TV show Race Relations, in which the host sneaks his sperm into a Palestinian sperm bank to create a “Jewlestinian” and uses an allegedly traditional process to ask his dead mother whether he should marry a fellow Jew: “you dig a hole next to the grave, lie in it, say kabbalah prayers and then the spirit comes inside of you.” [JTA]
• Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi says that if Israel can have nuclear weapons (which is widely believed to be the case), then “the Palestinians should have the same.” [AFP]
• As Egypt’s relationship with Israel cools, some there are ambivalent about restoration of the many Jewish sites in the country, although, says the Associated Press, they are “more than monuments just to the Jews, they are reminders of a more cosmopolitan Middle East, when Cairo and other Arab cities housed a jumble of ethnic minorities in the midst of Muslim majorities.” [AP]

Hadara Graubart was formerly a writer and editor for Tablet Magazine.