It’s bad form to take an apology and look for ulterior motives.

Even if it’s clear that Jimmy Carter smeared Israel by invoking apartheid in his book title just to sell more copies — he acknowledged in interviews that it’s a shoddy analogy — no one forced him to apologize. There are plenty of people, probably more than there are Israel supporters, who will hail him as a hero for trashing Israel. So he’s not looking for love.

Some say he’s trying to fend off the Israel PAC campaign-killers who could target his son (sorry, that is grandson; h/t commenter below) who is running for state Senate in Georgia. Maybe that is part of his thinking.

But Carter is also a religious man, and the fact that he chose the expression “al het” in his letter to JTA asking forgiveness shows he cared enough to consult with Jewish friends about it. Opportunistic Israel-basher with an incomplete view of the peace process he may be, but Mel Gibson he is not.

The risk in casting off an apology is that people will grow to view our community as intransigent and vindictive once offense has been made. The views of this elder statesman of our country, who negotiated the first lasting Arab-Israeli peace agreement (thereby saving thousands of lives on both sides) should be scrutinized, fact-checked and countered, where appropriate.

But the appropriate response should be “Apology accepted.”

This time of the year, radio listeners of all persuasions find ourselves flipping around the dial a bit. Some like the holid …I mean, Christmas, music and are looking for more, and some of us are looking for refuge, perhaps at a news station.

Maybe with the widespread usage of sattelite radio with its genre channels and MP3 playlists easily sent to your car’s speakers, we end up scanning a bit less than we used to, because we can have more control.

But inevitably we are left to wonder at the sponge-like abilities of our mind to absorb, whether we like it or not. I frequently find myself at this time of the year with “Jingle Bell Rock,” that most ubiquitous of seasonal tunes in my head, where it hasn’t been invited, nor is it welcomed.

In a conversation with a colleague the other day, I insisted it wasn’t on any religious or cultural ground that I turn up my nose at the seasonal music, but just as a music lover with specific tastes. The fact is, there has been very little added to the repertoire in the past 60 years. With the exception of John Lennon’s “So This Is Christmas,” now over 30 years old, and that Feed the World jingle from Live Aid (1984) it all goes back to prewar days. And because I happen to loathe cliche, with the exception of the likes of Elvis doing “Blue Christmas” or Sinatra doing “Little Drummer Boy,” it’s all unlistenable to me.

This morning, though, as I caught myself again mentally uttering “giddyap jingle horse pick up your feet” I had to concede it wasn’t just the allergy to cliche that was troubling me, but more resentment at having someone else’s culture rammed down my throat. Sure, this particular song has no religious references (unlike “Little Drummer Boy”), it’s just a winter tune. But it’s never played at the onset of cold weather, or after December, but only between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I feel the same way about Lubavitchers riding through the streets, as some did yesterday in Midtown, blasting Jewish songs from the speakers of a car. While we should all rejoice in who we are and what we celebrate, why force it on others?

In a Jewish Week column a couple of years ago, Walter Ruby recounted how he, admittedly under the influence of alcohol at the time, raised hell with the management of Penn Station because of the endless loop of holi … that is, Christmas music. I wouldn’t go as far as he did, particularly since a train station is generally meant for brief passing through, and not prolonged visits.

But I do have a choice word or two for some radio station programming excecs, particularly those who try to have it both ways. One local station,  I forget which, runs a TV commercial right after Christmas showing a carol-blasting radio crashing through a window to announce that the old format has returned. If it’s enough to drive you crazy, why run it in the first place.

Where’s the Christian Adam Sandler who can come up with something witty and contemporary for holi… I mean, Christmas radio play? That way those of us who find ourselves humming along can smile instead of grinding our teeth and reaching for the nearest Coldplay CD.

There is no more important factor in preserving Jewish identity than full-time education in yeshivas or day schools. But private schools are an expensive business, especially when the costs of both mandatory secular studies and religious instruction are factored in. As parents face layoffs, salary cuts or declining business revenues, their ability to pay tens of thousands of dollars in private tuition is fading, and schools are feeling the crunch. More than ever they are being forced to assess how to cut costs to lower or at least freeze tuition.

I’m no efficiency expert or accountant, and I’m sure much of what follows is already being implemented or considered. But the debate on making Jewish schools more viable needs all the stoking it can get.

1. Consolidate: As memberships dwindle, shuls across the country of similar observance and ideology have been forced to merge, eliminating the building costs of one group and infusing the other with cash, members, energy and ideas. Religious schools should also consider the advantages of merging entire institutions or simply their management, which would allow for more streamlined operations, consolidation of staff and centralized purchasing to save money on everything from textbooks to cleaning supplies.
2. Rethink The Leadership Structure: A principal or headmaster commands a (well-deserved) high salary because of all the various hats he or she wears, from overseer of the budget and curriculum to liaison with parents, local authorities and faculty. These administrators are hired because of their extensive prior experience, often in public school systems. Why not decentralize those responsibilities, delegating to other staff – and to parents who can offer their own expertise in various work fields? When administrators retire, their boards should consider recently accredited, younger people, with their education fresh in their minds, bursting with ideas and energy — and at lower salaries. Fresh perspectives can be just as valuable as experience. At top-heavy schools with multiple administrators, attrition through retirement is an opportunity to phase out positions and redistribute their responsibilities. It’s cheaper to give current staff raises for added work than to replace open spots.
3. More Bartering. Rather than grant blank-check awards for scholarship applications, schools should routinely get something in return, whether it’s a service (book-keeping or legal advice) or simply volunteer time (answering phones or stuffing envelopes). Often many parents volunteer their help but are never taken up on it. Many schools ask but don’t insist on this, recognizing that a volunteering parent may feel shamed.  But when schools are fighting to stay open and parents are considering public school, it’s time for everyone to buckle up and swallow their pride. There is no shame in giving service rather than money.
4. Localize Extra-Curricular Costs: Very few people make the basketball team, but everyone pays for the coach and perhaps the uniforms and other supplies. If there is not enough interest to sustain a club, put it on hold. For the popular ones, let those involved pay the cost, with scholarships available as necessary.
5. Share Facilities: Having a brand new, million-dollar gym or pool may be great to put in your brochure, but bad news will travel much faster than good when the school overextends itself. Schools in the same area can share the maintenance costs of one facility, or arrange to use public facilities, rather than compete.
6. Share Teachers: If the hours are staggered properly, a math, biology or English teacher or even a rebbe can teach morning classes at one school and afternoon classes at another, reasonably close school, with the salary and benefits divided between the two.
7. Hire More Parents: It makes little difference to a parent if tuition money comes out of their bank account or straight off their paycheck. But for overtaxed schools, fewer tuition dollars are less of a net loss than real dollars on the payroll, especially with payroll taxes considered. A qualified teacher with several children in the school, if given an employee discount, will cost the school less and in some cases prevent enrollment loss from families that can no longer afford the full tuition.
8. Inclusion classes: Special education for kids with learning issues is extremely expensive because it requires a very low student to teacher ratio. Inclusion classes allow learning-disabled and other kids to learn alongside fully capable kids, sharing teachers and with special-education trained aides. An inclusion class is cost effective because only one room is occupied, and faculty resources are maximized.
9. Buy used textbooks: Books are extremely expensive and, to the delight of publishers, they are constantly being updated. Outside of works of classic literature, there are very few books that it makes sense to hold onto permanently. There are numerous online textbook exchanges that buy and sell used books, and cooperating schools can even arrange their own exchanges, or work out creative ways to share books from classes that may not meet every day.
10. Lose The Dinners: Lavish fundraising dinners are good for morale and offer an opportunity to honor devoted parents and faculties. But when you consider the amount of work-hours spent planning them, and their diminishing profitability in this economy, more creative ways to fundraise have to be considered. How about an arrangement with local restaurants in which parents are encouraged to dine there on a specific weeknight (perhaps the slowest for that establishment) in exchange for a percentage of the check. Proprietors can not only feel good about helping out, but have the chance to earn regular customers. In these austere times, many organizations are now having Dinners Without Food, which can either be an event or a concept in which people donate what they would ordinarily spend on a lavish dinner. No waiters, no prime rib and no centerpieces means a profit of almost 100 percent, minus some administrative costs. As for honoring the alumni-, parent- and teacher-of-the-year, what could be a better tribute than a donation to the school that is free of overhead?

Why is the American Jewish Congress siding with a Somali leader who has been accused of acts of torture?

The organization has filed a brief in the Supreme Court case that will decide whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act extends to an individual acting in his official capacity on behalf of a foreign state. Also at issue is whether an individual who is no longer an official of a foreign state at the time a suit is filed retains immunity for past action on behalf of that  state.

The AJCongress brief argues that US courts have no jurisdiction in the case against Muhamad Ali Samantar, a former defense minister and later prime minister, who was sued in Virginia by alleged victims for acts committed overseas.

What does this have to do with America? That’s exactly the point. “Enforcement of international legal norms should be left to criminal prosecutions and other diplomatic avenues of recourse,” says the AJC.

What does this have to do with the AJC? You don’t need a degree in international relations to figure out they are worried not about Somalis or ministers of the United Kingdom or India but Israeli political leaders and generals. There is already a movement afoot to try them in American courts or in the Hague for alleged war crimes. (We are confident that once those lawsuits commence, parallel suits against Hamas and Hezbollah will immediately be filed by those altruistic plaintiffs.)

It’s fine to argue that US courts are for US crimes. We’re already the world’s policeman. Do we also need to be its bailiff?

But in taking this stance, the organized American Jewish community may open itself to charges of a double standard since we have applauded recent civil litigation against Iran, Hamas and the PLO for carrying out terrorist attacks acts abroad, and against Arab Bank for allegedly financing them.

There’s one distinction off the bat: The acts named in those suits resulted in the deaths of US citizens. But we haven’t seen lawsuits against every country where Americans die, and the people who killed them, here.

Marc Stern, AJCongress’ legal expert, says there is another distinction: The Somali case and those against Israel involve officials of sovereign nations, as opposed to outcast terror groups.

“In addition, many of the terrorism lawsuits were brought under specific statutes that limit those you can sue. You have to be on the [State Department] list of terrorism-supporting states to be sued. It’s not a general invitation to drag every foreign dispute into the United States.”

Stern added that more is at stake for Israel than money. “Hamas can lose a dozen of these lawsuits and it’s no sweat off their back. But Israel’s moral standing is at stake if they are sued in Washington because of a mistaken attack on a refugee camp.”

Stern says he’s never been a big supporter of the anti-terrorism lawsuits. “They’re an open invitation to counter-lawsuits, which are more trouble than terrorism suits,” he said.

Iran, he added, has already been on the losing end of “hundreds of millions in judgments and it hasn’t deterred them at all.”

Some 15 years ago, while there were still high hopes for the Oslo peace process, I interviewed John Wallach, founder of Seeds for Peace.

His program bringing Arab and Jewish kids together for leadership training retreats and conflict resolution studies, a worthy and laudable undertaking, was a few years old at the time and Wallach was thrilled that a group of his alumni got to sit on the dais as Yitzchak Rabin and Yasir Arafat signed papers and shook hands, raising what would shortly turn out to be false hopes around the world.

Wallach was a well-intentioned philanthropist who will never get to see the fruits of his labor because he died of cancer about a decade after Oslo. It was because of his evident decency that I wondered how he could put his faith in Arafat, the godfather of modern terrorism, as a peace partner.

Looking at a photo of his smiling, innocent kids posing with the PLO founder in his military uniform, I asked how he could put aside the knowledge that this was a man who masterminded the murder of Jewish men, women and not a few children.

His precise answer escapes me, but it had to do with “both sides” putting the past behind them and looking ahead. My follow-up question about Israel never deliberately targeting civilians, while the PLO did nothing else, didn’t change his answer. He believed a killer could could become a statesman, because he believed there was decency in every soul.

I never had a chance to ask Wallach to look back with the benefit of hindsight about the man who proved himself to be a  doubletalker, and a blatant one at that, who couldn’t swallow a real peace treaty and clearly dreamed of biding his time until the tables could be turned on his Jewish enemies.

But I did once ask Hillary Clinton, as she was about to launch her Senate bid in 1999, if she thought her husband’s administration had made a mistake by investing so much political capital and time in Arafat.

“No,” she said, “because that was the process the Israelis wanted at the time.”

History often repeats itself, and now Israel faces yet another conundrum over making peace with killers. Even as he rots in an Israeli jail, Marwan Bhargouti is one of the most popular Palestinian political figures, either irrespective of or because of the fact that he’s been linked to deadly acts of terror against Israelis and sentenced to life behind bars.

Barghouti’s release may be part of a deal to free the long-suffering captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Once he hits the streets Barghouti is the odds-on favorite to succeed the empty suit Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian president.

Ironically, Barghouti is not without his political ties to Israeli leaders, and he may be the only one who can succeed where Arafat (likely deliberately) failed.

If it turns out that even after being burned once by a murderer who couldn’t authentically lay down his arms, Israel is willing to take a second chance, it will highlight to the world how a Jewish state surrounded by enemies is presented with perilous dilemmas faced by no other nation on earth.

And how, typically, it makes the unlikeliest choice.

While taping a recent interview on Jewish poverty for a public affairs TV show, based on an article I wrote about kosher soup kitchens, I was somewhat surprised when the host asked me to comment on the perception that “Jewish and poor don’t usually go together.”

On one hand, it’s generally politically incorrect to acknowledge a stereotype of a group, let alone to ask a member of that group to address it. On the other, maybe it’s a journalist’s job to bring up questions that will strike the audience, no matter how impolitic those questions may be.

I answered gracefully, noting that New Yorkers see a lot of public figures who are both Jewish and wealthy, not least our billionaire mayor and numerous other developers, financiers, publishers, celebrities and elected officials. But the reality is that 21 percent of the Jewish community is living at or below the federal poverty line, according to the last survey taken in 2002, and that number can only have increased in these recession-plagued times. Another 10 percent of the community lives on an average income of $35,000, which means constant struggle.

I don’t know how an estimated 70 percent of Jews who are comfortable or better compare to the ratio in other religious communities, but it shouldn’t obscure the fact that for every Mike Bloomberg and Bruce Ratner there are literally tens of thousands of struggling Jews who need lots of help putting food on the table, most of them elderly and/or immigrants, and that’s why the Metropolitian Council on Jewish Poverty was founded.

Aside from raising enough public and private cash to help those people, Met Council has always faced a second formidable task in battling just the perception the TV host addressed.

“Jewish poverty is an oxymoron to so many people in the general and Jewish community,” says Met Council exec Willlie Rapfogel.

My experience on the TV show reminded him of a conversation he had years ago with Rev. Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on a flight from Washington to New York.

“As we made some small talk, he inquired about the challenges I face in my work,” Willie recalled. “As I filled him in about the housing, hunger, employment and crisis issues among poor Jews, he was incredulous. Rev. Butts smiled an said ‘I am glad there are poor Jews..and that you are doing what you are doing.’  I was puzzled and asked what he meant about being ‘glad.’  He replied that he had always thought that the many Jews who had helped the African American were engaged in a ‘paternalistic’ bit of altruism.

“But hearing that there are poor Jews who need help made him feel better because there was self-interest involved as well.”