The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO maintains a list of significant cultural sites worldwide in its World Heritage List. While the purpose of this list is to “catalogue, name, and preserve sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humankind.”
The current issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine reviews the conditions of some of these sites, at least how they fare in respect to tourism.
Of particular note, Masada rates a 69/100 (minor difficulties):

“As a historic site away from an urban center, its cultural integrity has been preserved. The site is well-maintained, and the signage is adequate. It offers vistas of the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley rock formations of unprecedented beauty. The risk for commercial overdevelopment is high and needs to be addressed before it spoils the site.”
“Breathtaking and well worth the visit. Sunrises at Masada are especially beautiful. It benefits the local population both as an economic development tool and as a reminder of the population’s connection with its past.”
“Over the past decade management has improved enormously. The interpretation center and the parking areas at the base of the rock have now been rebuilt in a better style and relocated so as to be largely invisible from the top of the rock, whilst the cable car is now far less obtrusive.”
“Tourist volume and cable cars – which allow much greater access – are minor problems. The evaporation of the Dead Sea presents more major long-term concerns to the area.”

On the downside, “Jerusalem: Old city and its walls“1 does not hold up as well rating a score of 54/100 (In moderate trouble: all criteria medium-negative or a mix of negatives and positives).

“Most beautiful light of any city, and a unique place. Building codes in new city requiring Jerusalem stone exterior was a great idea. Barrier fence and TV towers intrude on old city. Archaeology is amazing in the tunnel along the wall.”

“Confusing as to what is history and what is now a modern Israeli interpretation. Guides do not provide accurate historical information – highly politicized. Local community has little benefit other than employment and shop revenue.”
“The impact for any visitor is still strong, and restoration seems to be in good hands, but crowds are a nuisance and the high security is obtrusive.”

“Disastrous. A political football. The way the authorities are developing it is killing the multi-religious nature of the city as well as robbing it of meaning.”

“History is politics here, so hugely important Islamic heritage is not given sufficient emphasis (e.g., destruction of area around Wailing Wall to make piazza).”

The magazine’s singular focus on tourism is apparent in these comments, first by discounting any religious benefit Jerusalem might have to the local community. But what is most disingenuous is the predisposed cynicism to the Israeli government. No mention is made of which “authorities” are killing the multi-religious nature of the city, but I doubt they are including the controversial developments on the Temple Mount. And while Jerusalem is indeed highly politicized, the moderators could have just as easily toured through the Armenian, Christian, and Arab quarters to counter the “modern Israeli interpretation.” If they chose not to, then we could easily conclude that there might just be advantages to obtrusively high security.

Considering how much the Israeli economy depends on tourism dollars such a review in a prominent travelling magazine cannot be encouraging. However, Israel has larger concerns at the moment in maintaining its own security in both the short and long term. This of course includes making the country as safe as possible such that travel journalists are free to explore the country and return safely to write myopically critical reviews.

1. Notably, and not surprisingly, not listed as being in Israel.

Remember the Swiss banks’ billion dollar settlement to Holocaust survivors back in 2000? Turns out things are far from settled. New York Magazine has an excellent article detailing the battle over legal fees, currently at $4,760,000.

The short version is that Burt Neuborne, and NYU law professor, took the case pro bono for the litigation. However, after the settlement was reached the question became how to distribute more than $1 billion to hundreds of thousands of people, understandably, not a minor undertaking. According to the article, “Neuborne declared that he had worked 8,178 hours since 1999, at $700 an hour. After applying a 25 percent discount, he staked out his bottom line: $4,088,500.” When word got out and people complained, “he removed 1,600 disputed hours from his bill, but he also removed his discount, raising his fee by $671,500 in the process. The bill now comes to $4.76 million.”
And that’s just Neuborne’s side of the story, and we’re not even giong to get into how he calculated those 8,178 (or the 6,578 adjusted) hours.

The article does an excellent job covering the murkier sides of legal wrangling and deal-making. For one juicy example:

Then Judge Korman (largely following the proposal of a special master tasked with devising a plan) decided that the looted-assets survivors would get nothing at all. There were just too many of them, he reasoned, and how could anyone prove which looted assets ended up in Switzerland? Korman ruled that using their $100 million share of the settlement to help destitute survivors would be the “next best thing.” He ordered that 75 percent of the aid for Jewish survivors be spent in the former Soviet Union, where he considered the needs overwhelming; 21 percent would go to other foreign nations. Only 4 percent would be used to help survivors in the U.S. And that’s the root of the trouble.

While the whole saga is completely understandable, it is no less simultaneously disturbing on many levels, just what you’d expect when you mix the legal system with Jewish cultural politics.

I had initially posted this a few days ago, but Josh Waxman pointed out a very careless grammatical error on my part which has since been corrected. Thanks Josh!

Anyone who has spent time in Yeshiva or Seminary during the asseret yemei teshuva has likely played The Mehilla Game, played simply by asking everyone for generic forgiveness and reciprocating with a comprehensive absolution of your own. Given that forgiveness should ostensibly be something personal and individualized it seems contradictory that asking forgiveness has been ritualized to the point of reciting the encompassing tefillah zakkah on Erev Yom Kippur.

In an excellent shiur over Rosh Hashanna, R. Adam Starr of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale questioned efficacy of such sweeping acts of forgiveness.1 On one hand M. Yoma 8:9 states that Yom Kippur does not absolve interpersonal transgressions until the offended party forgives the offender. However, R. Starr also noted M. Bava Kamma 8:9 in which mehilla is not contingent on being forgiven, but on the very act of asking for forgiveness. R. Starr argued that being forgiven is only a part of the process repentance, but to achieve a full teshuva one must work to reestablish the fractured relationship. Consequently, even if there is a complete forgiveness granted, there is no mehillah until there is a confrontation and the offender requests it.

While I agree with essence R. Starr’s shiur I see the two sources slightly differently in that neither Mishna presents a superior model of interpersonal teshuva but must be taken together to be fully appreciated. According to M. Yoma 8:7, Yom Kippur is “mechaper” for personal sins only when the offended party is sufficiently appeased.

עבירות שבין אדם למקום יום הכפורים מכפר עבירות שבין אדם לחבירו אין יום הכפורים מכפר עד שירצה את חברו

M. Bava Kamma 8:7 discusses that even if someone pays restitution for damages, he does not receive mehillah until he asks for it. However, this Mishnah also adds that the one who is being asked of forgiveness should not be an “achzari” – i.e. he should not be stubborn in refusing to forgive.

The difference between the mehillah in Bava Kamma and the kappara in Yoma is that the mehillah could be given out of a sense of obligation or guilt – not to be considered an achzari. Kappara on the other hand takes place “ad sheyeratzeh et chaveiro” – only until there is a genuine appeasement.

We previously discussed the phenomenon where people are expected to forgive. In these cases, the hurt is still there and often the person asking for forgiveness simply wishes to mollify a guilty conscience. According to this reading of the two Mishnayot, while there could be mehilla if it is induced through guilt there would still not be a full kapparah if deep down the other does not wish to forgive.

As R. Starr argued, the complete teshuva for bein adam l’haveiro is really in the restitution of a relationship between people. Simply asking for forgiveness is itself insufficient. To achieve a full kapparah we cannot simply rely on the other person to give mehillah, but we must work to rebuild the relationship, to the point where the other person genuinely wants us to be forgiven. This of course entails more than the conventional lip service of “do you mohel me” but requires thinking outside of ourselves toward the needs and feelings of the people we have harmed.
Granted it’s not as easy, but no one said spiritual improvement would be.

1. Indeed, if this sort of teshuva was in fact effective, then we would be solving the problem of sin’at hinam. This would not just result in a kapparah on an individual level, but in the complete national geulah.