Is Israel a Jewish state or the state of the Jewish people?

That’s the question that faced voting representatives at this week’s conference of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Many voted in favor of amending the language of a 2008 JCPA resolution in support of a two-state Mideast solution to remove the words Jewish state. The motion, which was not carried, was sponsored by the JCRC of St. Louis.

While advocates of the change said “state of the Jewish people” is more in line with terminology used by the Israel’s prime minister, David Luchins of the Orthodox Union’s Institute for Public Affairs says it was pretty clear from the debate that they were concerned about the notion of Israel as a theocracy, in light of recent tension there between synagogue and state.

“I told them I’m not happy about the women on the back of the bus either, but that’s no reason to rewrite the title of Theodor Herzl’s book,” said Luchins. Also backing the status quo was the American Jewish Committee and several major city JCRCs.

“It was interesting to listen to the two points of view,” said JCPA executive director Rabbi Steve Gutow, who said the debate was impassioned but civil. “It wasn’t contentious in any way.”

In a compromise during discussion before the vote, the amendment advocates called for including both Jewish state and “the nation state of the Jewish people.” But by then, the point seemed lost. And some noted that, with a Palestinian state, that sounded like a three-state solution.

When the votes were tallied, the nays had it. The measure was defeated 258-229.

And so it’s resolved as a matter of official Jewish community public policy. Israel is still the Jewish state. At least until next year.

“It could easily come up again,” said Rabbi Gutow.

In an op-ed distributed by the Anti-Defamation League this week, the group’s national director, Abraham Foxman makes the case for “Inglourious Basterds” to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Noting the trend of Holocaust films that began with Spielberg’s 1993 “Schindler’s List,” Foxman notes that Quentin Tarantino’s Nazi-killing action film puts “a new twist on the Holocaust genre for a new time and a new audience” and describes the film as “an allegory about good and evil and the no-holds-barred efforts to defeat the evil personified by Hitler, his henchmen and his Nazi regime.”

“Inglorious Basterds” is a good film. Christopher Waltz richly deserves the Best Supporting Actor nod for his brilliant portrayal of Col. Hans Landa, the stone-cold, milk-drinking “Jew Hunter” who seems to fit the bill of most Nazi officers we know about: well-educated, efficient and charming yet stunningly acquiescent to and complicit in evil.

I don’t know how good the film’s chances are, though, of getting the Best Picture statue since it’s up against some serious competition. Films like “Avatar” that combine good performances with the latest special effects and good directing tend to sweep the contest. And 17 years after “Schindler,” it’s not likely the Academy is feeling pressured to encourage production of more Holocaust films — it’s already happening.

Still, Foxman argues that “Basterds” should be rewarded for both its educational and escapist potential. “Hopefully the millions who see it will understand the horrors of the Holocaust and echo my view of “if only it were true!,” he writes.

Absent from Foxman’s assessment is the fact that the squad of Basterds in the film, led by Brad Pitt’s Aldo Raine, make no pretense of being out to rescue Jews. Their unlikely mission is only to engage and capture, then torture and execute Nazis. In doing otherwise, Tarantino would have run the risk of exaggerating the U.S. effort to stop the genocide, which was virtually nonexistent.

In contrast, after seeing Ed Zwick’s 2008 “Defiance,” Foxman wouldn’t have to say “if only it were true.” The film is based on the largely unsung Bielski Brigade, who not only killed Nazis, but rescued thousands of Jews in Belarus.

Foxman doesn’t mention “Defiance” in his run-down of recent noteworthy Holocaust films. But while “Basterds” was more entertaining on many levels, “Defiance” is surely the better film because it reminds us that, while there were many non-Jewish saviors (Nazi-hunting commando leaders not among them) in all too many cases it was left to the Bielskis and other Jewish partisans of Europe to save their own skin.

If “Basterds” were up against “Defiance” for Best Picture, I hope Abe Foxman would root for the true story. Since it isn’t, I’ll join him in his pick, while strongly recommending “Defiance” as a more realistic look at “the horrors of the Holocaust” and the “no holds-barred efforts to defeat the evil personified by Hitler.”

[The measure passed unanimously. Let's see what comes of it]

Among the issues to be debated at the annual plenary of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs next week is what the umbrella group considers a growing loss of common ground and tendency to disagree stridently among groups that ostensibly have the same agenda of concern for Israel and the Jewish people.

The organization, which sets the policy agenda for community relations councils across North America, wants to adopt a resolution that “addresses the issue of civility as a broader mandate and
calls for a Campaign for Civility.”

“Civility is neither the lack of difference nor the squelching of debate,” reads the resolution. “It is the application of care for the dignity of every human being, even those with whom we may sharply disagree.”

Just because of the potential for irony, you can be sure the debate at the plenary for this resolution will be extra-polite, although the journalists who attend may well appreciate a dust-up just for the headline possibilities.

The resolution will have no teeth — Mort Klein won’t be fined for denouncing a member of Americans for Peace Now without calling him sir. But it’s always a good idea to reinforce good principles and to codify them even when they should be obvious, especially when you’re trying to keep diverse people inside an increasingly uncomfortable tent.

Some may say the issue isn’t important enough to address at the conference, or argue that there’s nothing wrong with a bit of passion when dealing with issues that affect Jewish destiny. Hopefully, they’ll do so amiably and take a minute to listen to the other point of view.

An interview with Mel Gibson on a local Chicago station has been getting more than the usual amount of play. It seems reporter Dean Richards of WGN popped a question into a fluffy Mel Gibson movie plug session that made the action hero uncomfortable.

When Richards asked Gibson how he thinks the public perceives him now — a vague, awkward reference to the star’s 2006 drunk driving arrest and anti-Semitic rant — Gibson said “That’s almost four years ago, dude. I mean, I’ve moved on. I guess you haven’t.” When Richards pushed a little, Gibson uttered a cuss word related to the human posterior. (He later said he was referring to his publicist.)

Richards’ question was as rhetorical as it was awkward. Contrary to his assertion while promoting “Passion of the Christ” that he would be frozen out of Hollywood for daring to offend Jews, Mel’s still a hot commodity. After he finished raking in a cool half-billion from “Passion,” he still got to make the stinker “Apocalypto,” and now he’s once again back to his roots with the formulaic action/suspense drama “Edge of Darkness.”

I can see Mel’s point that he has moved on after apologizing for saying Jews are responsible for the wars in the world, and if he hasn’t done anything offensive since it should be let go. The trouble is, his name is still tossed around by late night comedians and others as an anti-Semitism poster boy, probably because he unconvincingly tried to pass of his biases as solely the result of over-imbibing. Clearly he still has some brand rebuilding to do.

A movie plug spot probably wasn’t the best forum. But it would be intriguing to see a seasoned interviewer like Larry King or Barbara Walters probe Gibson — as a service to the consumers who spend money on his movies — on how he really feels about the Jews (there is no known chemical link between alcohol and anti-Semitism). It would also be interesting to ask Mel about being such a devout Christian that he dared no alter an iota of how he views the Crucifixion, but not so devout to be above adulterously fathering a child out of wedlock.

That interview would probably be much more interesting to watch than “Edge of Darkness.”

* * *

The New Jersey Jewish Standard is taking an online poll on whether readers will boycott Gibson’s movie. I’ll check the results later. Meanwhile, you can leave your opinion below or email me at continuumblog@yahoo.com.

It’s probably just a coincidence that the blue-skinned, endangered aliens from the planet Pandora in the mega-hit “Avatar” are called the Na’vi, which is Hebrew for prophet. It couldn’t be that non-Jewish writer and director James Cameron took the term deliberately to make a point that in these victimized, ultimately triumphant underdogs we were to see a glimpse of some conflict in the offing. Could it?

Probably not. But it is one of the things to ponder about a movie that borrows so much of its essence, while leaving so much to interpretation.

As the saying goes, there’s nothing new under the sun, and that’s particularly true of the entertainment world, where the biggest sensation in Hollywood in the pre-Oscar weeks is this CGI-laden reboot of an overused plot device.

The stranger-in-a-strange-land who learns the ways of another culture has appeared on the big screen in such historical fiction as the Disney cartoon “Pocahantas” and the films “Last of the Mohicans,” “Dances With Wolves,” and “The Last Sumarai.” A variation on this theme, with a title that gets right to the point, was “A Stranger Among Us,” in which a gentile cop played by Melanie Griffith goes undercover among chasidim.

Often the transitional element of these films is that the male protagonist turns against his native people to protect his adopted culture, usually motivated by a love interest. That’s precisely what happens in Avatar, although the twist is that only hero Jake Sully’s mind is with the adopted blue-skinned alien people, operating a synthetic avatar body.

The villains in Avatar look, dress and talk like the American military, which was probably mostly a practical consideration for director James Cameron. But it’s easy to speculate about a commentary against U.S. imperialism and adventurism. There are plenty of other analogies to be made, from the destruction of rain forests to the annihilation of Native American culture.

And if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is something that, well, occupies your mind much you will probably see some elements of it in the film, too. That’s what happened when Juliano Mer-Khamis, a Palestinian-born filmmaker and actor saw Avatar. Mer-Khamis, who has a Jewish mother and Arab father, makes no attempt to be objective in the conflict. After seeing the film he caused a ruckus in a California suburb (unidentified in press reports) by loudly comparing the destroyers in the film to the Israelis and the peaceful Na’vi to the Palestinians. The story has been told in Maariv, the LA Times and the Palestine Note blog.

“No one dares to make the real analogy,” Mer-Khamis told Maariv. “’Avatar’ is one of the bravest films made. It portrays the occupation, but people aren’t making the analogy. Many would like to be like the blue people but don’t understand the meaning. This is why people got angry at the movie theater. It is no secret that I think the Israelis are occupiers and the Palestinians occupied. Israel sits forcefully on lands that belong to others and this is exactly what the movie is talking about.”

The analogy wasn’t lost on Israelis either. On the satirical TV show Eretz Nehederet (Wonderful Country), a blue skinned ambassador from Pandora appears to forge an alliance with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. But when the Na’vi diplomat compares his people to the Palestinians, the actor playing the right-wing Lieberman breaks off the talks with the business end of a gun.

Surprisingly, we haven’t heard much from Jewish theologians likening the plight of the Na’vi to our millennial story of triumph over victimization and preservation of culture. And surely the grand battle between overwhelming forces trying to destroy the tiny paradise whose guardians surprise with their ferocity can draw a few analogies to the Six-Day and Yom Kippur wars, too.

It’s precisely because the plot of this film is such a template that people can interpret what they what they wish from it. Much of science fiction is allegory and because everything in it is so far removed from our daily life it’s natural to wonder what inspired the writer or if there’s a point to be made.

Since the definition of avatar, based on the Hindu concept of a deity descended from heaven but lately popularized in video game use, is a template that takes on the characteristics of the user, it seems only fitting that people look at the movie through their own rose-colored 3D glasses.

And if Avatar does end up sweeping the Oscars, our multiple interpretatiions would bolster Cameron’s claim that, despite the lack or originality of the plot, he has truly created art.