Personally, I love it — both the cartoon and the idea of universal health care… But I have been accused of being a socialist. Is that really a bad thing? Why is socialism still a dirty word in America?

More recently, this hate group visited Rutgers University. To learn more about the demonstration, see these links
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2009/10/22/Westboro_Heads_to_NJ_to_Picket_Jews
http://njjewishnews.com/article/statewide/jcc-talks-tolerance-as-a-church-preaches-hate/

So what is the driving force behind a successful person?  What can help people like me, get through the tough times in order to succeed?

The driving force behind a successful person is being able to understand where you belong.  And when you are approached with the question, “Do you really want to be here?”  You need to be able to answer easily, “No, I do not want to be here, but this is what I have to do in order to be successful.”  So, all of the courses and activities that I want to drop in order to have the time to socialize, to sleep, and to relax: I will stay with because of my yearning to succeed and my understanding of the sacrifices I need to make in order to become a successful person.

Ada E. Yonath shared the 2009 Nobel prize for chemistry with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz and for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome. She is the ninth Israeli to win a Nobel, the fourth woman to win the chemistry prize , and the first Israeli female Nobel winner.

Other facts about Yonath, from Reuters:

– She was born in Jerusalem in June 1939 and gained a BA in chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and then an MA in biophysics. She completed her doctoral thesis with distinction at the Weizmann Institute of Science. She later specialized abroad in biological crystallography, and on her return to Israel she founded the first laboratory in this field.

– She has been a professor at the Weizmann Institute since 1988, holding the Kimmel chair. She headed the Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly since 1989. Between 1986 and 2004, alongside her work at the Institute, she served as head of the research unit of the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg.

– She has studied the processes related to the translation of the genetic code into proteins and her unique studies made it possible to determine the detailed three-dimensional structure of the ribosome.

– She has focused on finding ways to improve antibiotics that paralyze the ribosome. The results of the research done in this field have won her a reputation among international pharmaceutical companies.

– She was a co-recipient (with George Feher) of the 2006 Wolf Prize in Chemistry “for ingenious structural discoveries of the ribosomal machinery of peptide-bond formation and the light-driven primary processes in photosynthesis.

– She has received many prizes for her work, including the Israel Prize for chemistry (2002) and the Wolf Foundation Prize

Israel’s Channel 2 has the video of captured soldier Gilad Shalit. The video was released by his captors in Gaza in exchange for the release of 20 female Palestinian prisoners.

Shalit, looking thin but not unhealthy and wearing a green uniform, reads a statement with a wry smile, and holds what appears to be a newspaper from Sept. 14, 2009.

Here’s the full text of his comments:

Hi, I am Gilad Shalit, son of Aviva and Noam Shalit, brother of Hadas and Yoel, from Mitzpe Hilla, ID number 300097029. Today is Monday 14 September 2009.

As you can see, I’m holding in my hand today’s Palestine newspaper, 14th September 2009, which is published in Gaza.

I’m reading the newspaper in order to find information about myself, and I hope to find information about my release and return home soon.

I have been waiting and yearning a long time for the day I will be released.

I hope the current government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu will not waste this opportunity to finalise the deal and that as a result I will finally be able to realise my dream and be released.

I want to send my regards to my family, to tell them that I love them and miss them a lot, and yearn for the day that I will see them.

Father, Yoel and Hadas, do you remember the day when you arrived at my base in Ramat Ha-Golan, on the 31st December 2005, which, if I’m not mistaken, is called Revia Bet? We did a tour around the base. You took a picture of me on top of the Merkava tank, and on top of one of the old tanks at the entrance to the base.

Afterwards, we drove to a restaurant in one of the Druze villages, and on the way we took a picture on the side of the road with the snow-covered Mount Hermon.

I want to tell you that I am well in terms of my health. The mujahideen of the Izzeddine al-Qassam Brigades are treating me fine.

Thank you very much and see you again.

Here’s the first part of Netanyahu’s powerful speech tot he U.N. yesterday. Find the ret on YouTube.

A complete transcript follows after the jump.

25/09/2009

Mr. President,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.

I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth.

Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments.

Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie?

One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife’s grandparents, her father’s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.

But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You’re wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.

This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries.

In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated.

The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death. The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day.

Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially. It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come.

We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances – by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.

But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after a horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind.

That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction, and the most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood?

Will the international community thwart the world’s most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?

Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging.

Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.

For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks.

We heard nothing – absolutely nothing – from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis.

We didn’t get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare.

You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.

Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded?

Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country’s civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II.

During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians – Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances.

Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas. We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave.

Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy’s civilian population from harm’s way. Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel.

A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.

By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth! What a perversion of justice!

Delegates of the United Nations,

Will you accept this farce? Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.

If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity.

And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here’s why. When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense.

What legitimacy? What self-defense?

The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us –my people, my country – of war crimes? And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?

We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow.

Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

All of Israel wants peace. Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein.

And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace.

In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples – a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it. We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state.

Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers.

Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more.” These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city – in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem. We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland.

As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.

But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.

That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don’t want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace.

I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order.

The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the “confirmed unteachability of mankind,” the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the “want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill’s assessment of the “unteachability of mankind” is for once proven wrong.

I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history — that we can prevent danger in time.

In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

We started in the nation’s capital to visit George Washington University and American University, then down to North Carolina, further down to Atlanta, west to Nashville, up to St. Louis, and finally back home to Morristown. We toured five major cities in the course of one week.

To be perfectly honest, I was dreading this college trip.

I wanted to stay home and hang out with my friends, not sit in six college information sessions.

However, the trip became much more than a tour of some of the nation’s top universities. My college tour became a journey of our country like I had never seen it before.

I got to walk the streets of the music capital of Nashville. I saw the giant Coca Cola factory in Atlanta, and loved hearing Southern accents.  I felt the humidity and heat of North Carolina, and was awed by its green, rolling hills. From a stop on my guided tour of GWU, I was able to see the Lincoln Memorial.

In addition to all the “classic” sights and stops, my mother and I experienced the change President Barack Obama is bringing to the U.S.  On most highways and major road, there was roadwork and construction, a result of Obama’s stimulus package.  It was truly unbelievable to see firsthand the positive beginnings of reconstruction of our country’s economy.

I took so much more out of the experiences on this trip than I ever thought I would.

I got to spend some valuable and enjoyable time with my mother. I learned more about the college process, and figured out what it is I want most in a college or university.

Most importantly however, I got to see the beauty of our country firsthand, and witness Obama’s start to improving America today.

Elana Widmann, 17, attends Newark Academy and is a member of Nu’s teen board.

Well, turns out it wasn’t all that easy.

Senior year was almost too much to juggle — hard classes, SATs (for the third and final time), applications…and the maintenance of a social life.

Some weeks were worse than others, but what nearly put me over the edge was the waiting that ensued once my visits had been completed, applications had been submitted, and supplemental material had been sent. By January 1, my work was done, but somehow, I didn’t feel like I was off the hook.

Fast forward to May 1, 2009: a decision has been made, and Emory University and I have determined that we’re meant for each other.

By this time, senior year is coming to a close, and everything seems to have fallen into place. My mind shifts from extreme tenseness to an overwhelming sense of relaxation and nostalgia.

The college process was a stressful way to end an extraordinary four years; but once I regained the emotional strength that it had drained out of me, I became engaged in graduation preparations, prom plans, my senior project, and everything that signified summer.

It was startling.

The transition from college process to planning for college ambushed me in a way — I was so mixed up in the former that I didn’t even get a chance to prepare myself for the latter.

So soon enough, the thrills of leaving high school became quickly entwined with sadness for what I now realized I was leaving behind: I wouldn’t miss the drama, but I’d miss the memories that came from it.

I wouldn’t miss the boring lectures I’d endured for so long, but I’d miss the teachers who gave them.

I wouldn’t miss doing homework each night, but I’d miss my mom telling me to get off the computer as my “work” kept me up past midnight.

I wouldn’t miss waking up at 6:30 every day, but I’d miss spending those ten minutes of my morning commute in the car with my little brother.

I tried to get over these sappy sentiments as quickly as I could and focus on what was just a few months away: the glorious college life.

It was what I had worked for, slaved over, and dreamt about for four years, and it was finally here.

But even now, with less than one month remaining until I fly off to Atlanta, there’s still a sense of disbelief.

It seems surreal that such a large chapter of my life has closed, and that the next one is just beginning.

I always say that I don’t feel like this process changed me — the whole getting-into-college-while-trying-to-survive-high-school thing — but I’ve heard it said before. Maybe my maturity has reached new heights, my appearance has changed a little bit, and my capacity for learning has broadened significantly, but I really do feel like the same person.

I’m the same person who entered high school with an open mind, enjoyed it with a sense of passion, and left it behind feeling accomplished — and that same person will proceed to do it all over again in college.

Because I’ve invested so much time and effort in my high school career, it only makes sense to believe that I’ve emerged a relatively different person. But it’s still difficult for me to identify the changes in myself — they all just feel natural and like part of what made up my being all along. I guess I’ll just have to take their word for it.

So, I might “change” in college, but hopefully nothing too severe…maybe a little like how I felt about high school, not taking notice of it at all, but still acknowledging its presence.

I’ve had plenty of new experiences before — ones that have offered change — but it seems like this one offers a little more: a new city, new living arrangements, new teachers, and new classmates. Though it’s intimidating, I can’t wait for all of this “new” to begin.

At times, I know I’ll miss some of the old, but perhaps I’ll become consumed once again by college, though in a very different way.

Lauren Kaplan, one of Nu’s founding members, graduated from Newark Academy and attends Emory University.

Most of them live in Toronto; Hashomer Hatzair, meaning “the youth guard,” is a socialist-Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 with summer camps in some countries and social centers in others. Mine, Camp Shomria, is in Perth, Ontario.

A little far to live without a piece of your soul, don’t you think? But two lovely boys live right here with me, go to my very school. We are the “South Orange Kids” to our Toronto crowd.

Last summer I didn’t treat my kvutza as they deserved. The residue from my inconsiderateness never quite wore off.

This summer, I became hyper aware of this group of people that were always together, had to be together, were brought up that way. I became hyper aware of the contract we have with each other; the code of respect that exists between all of us. I unintentionally broke that. Maybe some of them forgot about it, but I know at least one person didn’t and that means I can’t either.

Lahav is a kibbutz founded in Israel and the name given to my kvutza; we went through a lot this summer. We felt overtired, unsure of ourselves, confused in a new job as counselors, isolated, pushed out by the rest of hadracha, the counselor body. We also missed each other in the first four weeks because we were all so busy with our respective jobs.

When I made my decision and went home after the first four weeks of camp last summer, I thought it would never be the same between the rest of the group and me, but this was the year it turned out it was, a delayed reaction.

I couldn’t have gone on Yedid last summer, a counselor-in-training program for grade 10 in Israel. I was not ready. The thought of meeting with 30 Lahav compatriots from Liberty, N.Y., was overwhelming.

I was unfocused and unhappy and my mind couldn’t be changed. I’m really sorry I couldn’t; in theory I would have loved Yedid. If the trip were this year I would have gone.

Now, I feel like I’m on overdrive; so ready to be with my kvutza. I want to move to Toronto and start a communa, an urban kibbutz in a home environment with the Israeli model of kibbutzim. I miss having a family that leads in a way I understand, youth leading youth, and all that.

I miss friends who talk about feelings, have ideas, want to change the world, or at least change their own realities!

I guess, what I’m saying (other than giving you all the explanation you deserve) is I’m grateful for you, and I love you, and this is me shouting it from the rooftops.

Julia Wolkoff, attends Columbia High School and is a member of Nu’s teen board.