Jeffrey Weiss

Website : www.iammybrotherskeeper.com
Residence : Potomac, Maryland (a suburb of Washington, D.C.)

Biographical information

Jeffrey Weiss is the co-author of I Am My Brother's Keeper: American Volunteers in Israel's War for Independence, with a foreword by former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Brother's Keeper tells the story of 1,000 Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers from North America who fought for Israel in 1948. Jeffrey has spoken throughout the country about Brother's Keeper, including speeches in New York, California, Texas, Florida, the District of Columbia, Michigan and Arizona. He also consulted for and appeared in "Israel's Forgotten Heroes," an Emmy-nominated documentary about the North American volunteers.

Jeffrey is also the author of "India and Pakistan: A Cautionary Tale for Israel and Palestine," which appeared in the Connecticut Journal of International Law. It analyzes the remarkable historic parallels between the India/Pakistan and Israel/Palestinian experiences, and warns against the creation of a Palestinian state in light of this blood-stained history. His article on democracy and Iraq will soon appear in the Journal of International Security Affairs, published by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

Jeffrey has a Masters in International and Comparative Law from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is fluent in Hebrew, and completed a year of law school at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. He is 42 years old, married, and the father of four children. He practices law in Washington, D.C.

• 1. "The Israeli Army's American Roots" - A discussion about the 1,000 Americans who played a critical role in Israel's fight for independence. Notable volunteers include Rudy Augarten, a Harvard student who was the leading ace of the war; Paul Shulman, a Naval Academy graduate and the first commander of the Israeli Navy; and Ray Kurtz, a Brooklyn firefighter who led an historic bombing raid on Cairo. Many of the volunteers were non-Jews, including Chris Magee, a member of Pappy Boyington's famous Black Sheep Squadron; and Jesse Slade an American Indian who told Life Magazine that fighting for Israel was "the Christian thing to do." The discussion can be accompanied by photographic images of notable volunteers and events from the war.
• 2. "Cutting Off the Head is not the Way to Cure a Headache" - The idea has firmly taken hold that creation of a Palestinian state is the only way to bring peace to the Middle East. Yet in 1947, the West believed that creation of the Muslim state of Pakistan would end Intifada-like violence embroiling Hindu and Muslim communities in India. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reluctantly agreed to partition, quipping that by cutting off the head (excising Indian territory to create Pakistan), he would cure the headache (the violence associated with Hindu-Muslim communal tension). The result has been three wars, millions of war dead, tens of millions of refugees, and a nuclear confrontation. The extraordinary parallels between the Indian and Israeli experiences argue strongly that the creation of a Palestinian state will bring war, not peace.

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