Purim continues. Or so it seems.
No great catastrophes to report. For those who thrive on bad news, I am sure you can find something by Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post. If she is not gloomy enough, you might try the web-site of the Anti-Defamation League. Along with a request for donations, you will find the latest abominations against the Jews.
We have problems. But we have also done well. Arguably the Jews have never had it so good since the death of King Solomon.
The doom seers know that much worse is to come. Maybe. But we can enjoy what we have for the time being, which is better than most others.
Modest criticism is always appropriate. One can wish that more Jews knew how to criticize modestly. Too many of them seem to have learned their craft from the Book of Jeremiah. He had more to criticize than moderns who adhere to his style. But modest, temperate, or well balanced he was not.
Here in the Promised Land that is not yet Paradise, there has been a spate of problems. A fair reading is that we and are leaders far from perfect. They could be better.
The Prime Minister and the State Comptroller could begin the improvement. Instead of calling one another nasty names on prime time television, the Prime Minister could answer the State Comptroller's questions about his performance in the recent war and other matters, rather than delaying forever any response. And the State Comptroller could adhere to the norms of audit by giving the people he criticizes a chance to respond to his draft reports before blasting them in the media.
Israeli hospitals might do better in protecting their sicker patients from deadly germs that are resistant to antibiotics. It is impossible for a political scientist to sort out the claims of physicians who say that all hospitals suffer from such problems, against journalists who put elderly people on the screen who say they are afraid of being hospitalized in institutions where people die of infections.
I know that our president has been accused of rape and the Iranians are probably developing nuclear weapons.
Nonetheless, Hebrew University ranked 40 among world universities in social science according to a recent survey, as well as in the first 75 in the science category and in the first 106 in the life science category. Tel Aviv University, the Technion, and the Weizman Institute also made it into the list of ranked universities. (See http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ARWU-FIELD2007/Sta-Institution.htm)
An article in Ha'aretz bemoaned Israeli higher education because Haifa University, Bar Ilan, and Ben Gurion University had not made it into international rankings, and all of the colleges established in recent years were even less qualified. All our students should all have equal opportunities. The critics did not mention that most students in North America, Europe, and Asia, and all of them in South America and the non-Israeli Middle East study in less than prestigious universities.
Do not cry. Send money. It will not solve everything, but it will help.