Monthly Archives: April 2017

The Bright Side of Job-Killing Automation – Fortune

Posted: April 7, 2017 at 8:54 pm

Fears that automation will kill more jobs continues to grow. An estimated 5 million U.S. factory jobs have evaporated since 2000 and most of those (88%) were lost to increased productivity due to automation, according to a study by Ball State University.

But opinions about what, if anything, can be done to reverse the trend differ greatly.

Real estate billionaire Jeff Greene, who hosted his second Managing the Disruption conference on the topic of job destruction and what to do about it in Palm Beach, Fla., this week, has some ideas. Last year, he raised a ruckus by saying that robotics and artificial intelligence would kill not just blue-collar factory jobs but also many white-collar careers. Paralegals, journalists, airline pilots, even surgeons could be impacted, for example.

Greene continued the drumbeat last week in a Washington Post article , warning that automation will kill jobs much faster than Steven Mnuchin , President Donald Trump's Treasury secretary, expects. Last week Mnuchin said, controversially, that he didn't think major automation-related job losses would kick in for another 50 to 100 years.

In contrast, a recent report by consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that 38% of U.S. jobs have a "high risk" of being wiped out by automation by 2030.

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Greene's take is that automation isn't entirely bad if it can be perfected and deployed to lower the cost of living for the middle class so that they wouldn't need to earn as much money to get by. For example, using 3-D printers to build homes could cut the cost of housing to a more manageable level so that families wouldn't have to devote most of their income to mortgage payments, Greene told Fortune on Wednesday.

If machines could 3-D print homes using high-density resins, a structure that now costs $200,000 might cost $50,000, Greene said. That would take a big chunk of debt off the table for most families, he said.

Another huge drain on family budgets is energy. Part of that problem could be solved by using alternative energy. Families could save money if the U.S. used solar energy to power electric cars and heat homes. Of course that assumes that the cost of alternatives goes lower than the cost of oil.

The net impact, in his opinion, is that a couple would no longer have to work 80 to 90 hours a week to pay the bills. And if they can live on less money, the need for a two-income household is lessened, allowing one parent to stay home with any children. That, in turn, reduces the risk of children turning to drugs or getting pregnant.

Greene acknowledges that his ideas are "possibly Utopian" in that he's seeing the use of automation that poses risks to workers across the spectrum in the best possible light.

Many who worry about automation also tout universal basic income as a way to make up for lost jobs. In this scenario, all citizens who are too young for Social Security would receive a flat annual payment from the federal government. It's a trendy idea in Silicon Valley and other tech enclaves, where it's seen as a way to hedge against automation-induced job losses.

One small problem: It is unaffordable, according to former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who spoke at this week's event. It would cost about $5 trillion annually, or about $4 trillion more than the country's annual income tax revenue, to pay each American adult $25,000 a year.

"It's almost impossible to make the arithmetic work," Summers said, according to The Palm Beach Post.

Others see hope in smaller, more tactical steps, like improving tech education for students and re-training current workers. Last week, General Electric contributed $50 million to the Boston Public Schools to improve science technology engineering and math (STEM) education to train students to help fill what the company sees as a gaping skills gap.

That's a step in the right direction, but retraining people on a much broader scale is needed to address skills gap nation-wide. There does not seem to be much desire in the Republican-controlled Congress to boost funding on education.

Others say technologies like augmented reality, which layers information onto the real world through connected eye glasses or goggles, could help. For example, field repair technicians could get diagrams and instructions, even video, projected into their goggles so that they can work faster and better without having to stop to consult manuals. That's technology that Upskill, a Herndon, Va.-based tech company, already provides to customers like GE ( ge ) and Boeing ( ba ) , which just invested in the company.

"This technology can augment the skills of less specialized workers and help expert workers work faster," Upskill executive chairman Dr. Magid Abraham told Fortune at a GE event last week.

But back to the conference: Greene says he was struck about how optimistic most of the speakers werethe roster also included former British Prime Minister David Cameron and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. "If I were optimistic, I wouldn't spend all this time and energy on this conference," he said.

The difference between the industrial revolution of the 19th century and the current situation, he said, is that back then machines replaced physical labor but also created many retail, bookkeeping, machine repair, and accounting jobs related to the goods produced. Now, however, the world is dealing not only with robots that do physical labor but with AI that does mental labor as well.

Says Greene: "We can't compete with both physical machines and thinking machines."

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The Bright Side of Job-Killing Automation - Fortune

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AI and automation will take jobs but how and where? – TechRadar

Posted: at 8:54 pm

Every week there's a story in a tabloid newspaper that contains the phrase 'rise of the robots'. Journalists trot out shock headlines like 'robot job invasion' and 'robots will destroy our jobs' as if this is something society should, and can, prevent.

Does a perfect storm of cloud, AI, mobile, IoT, chatbots and machine learning being applied to business processes mean jobs are really at risk from automation? Or is this merely the latest chapter in a story about a skills shortage in an increasingly information-based society?

Robotics already dominate the shop floors of car plants and industrial facilities; this next wave of automation is about the office. "It differs from the previous purely mechanical and industrial wave in that it is powered by data and our ability to analyse with more powerful techniques," says Ian Hughes, Analyst, Internet of Things, 451 Research, who thinks that now the dangerous jobs have been given to robots, it's time to automate mundane tasks. "Whether its software or hardware, these are advanced tools best suited to assist us and let us move on to more interesting things."

So it's not really about unskilled labour at all. "A better starting point is to view AI as a way of dealing with predictable, non-personal work, where lots of data exists," says Matt Jones, Analytics Strategist at Tessella, explaining that this helps us understand its potential impact not only in manufacturing, but also on legal research, drilling for commodities, and even diagnosing diseases. "AI will affect different industries in very different ways," he observes.

Robots already rule manufacturing (Image Credit: Thyssenkrupp)

The reality of AIs impact is somewhat different to what we have been reading about in the papers," says Harrick Vin, VP and Chief Scientist at Tata Consultancy Service, whose Global Trends Study of 835 decision makers in 13 different industry sectors found that 84% view AI as essential. And thats particularly the case in Europe and North America, where the average spend has hit around $80 million (around 65 million, AU$105 million) per region over recent years.

"The opportunities and challenges this technology presents are still not yet fully understood, but what is clear is the impact is going to be big," says Vin. "From Apple investing in face recognition through Emotient, to Shell, the oil and gas giant, launching an online virtual assistant to respond to customer enquiries, there are already major investments and belief in AI."

However, this isn't just from IT departments. "Despite 68% of companies using AI for IT functions, by 2020, 70% believe AIs greatest impact will be in admin, back office, sales, marketing and finance."

Some jobs could disappear almost completely. "Jobs in call centres, routine machine operation and stock taking are probably not long for this world," says Jones. "Industries like manufacturing will indeed be heavily affected at the lower skilled end."

However, he thinks that industries already accustomed to automation will actually be better prepared for the effects of AI. "Perhaps a bigger shock will come to industries that rely heavily on manually collecting, processing and interpreting data, tasks that have long relied on highly paid, highly skilled people," he says, which means the end of report writing jobs in legal, accountancy, finance, insurance and management consultancy industries.

Does that means horrendous job losses in white collar businesses? Not necessarily this is about eliminating the lower value work that clients hate paying for, so staff can concentrate on higher value tasks. "Whether this means companies deliver more value for less, or employ fewer people, will depend on how they approach this new world," says Jones.

Folks arent likely to be clamouring for robot judges

Not only will jobs that rely solely on human interaction not change, but there will doubtless be a renaissance if automation is pushed too far.

"Highly emotive experiences training, counselling, medical advice, restaurant service will probably never be delivered predominantly by AI, even if they become technically possible," says Jones. "Equally, situations requiring human judgement or empathy, from managing a team, to deciding a court case, to operating a bulldozer, will need humans for the foreseeable future."

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AI and automation will take jobs but how and where? - TechRadar

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Justin Trudeau Has a Plan to Save Jobs From Automation – Fortune

Posted: at 8:54 pm

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is preparing his country to deal with the challenges new technologies place on the workforce.

The rise of artificial intelligence technologies has made it easier for companies like Google ( goog ) to automatically identify cats in photos. But as cutting-edge AI technologies amplify automation, people are increasingly worried that powerful software will replace the need for human workers .

Earlier this week, Trudeau addressed the subject of automation and labor on the question-and-answer website Quora and explained some of his ideas to help Canadian citizens keep their jobs in light of rapid technological advances.

Trudeau concedes that the job market is changing but instead of resisting in vain, Canada is going to fund research in the areas that are directly causing the change, like artificial intelligence.

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The prime minister didnt point to any examples of government AI funding, but Canada has recently invested in several big AI policy projects. In March, Canada said it would spend $125 million on a new initiative designed to attract and retain top academic talent in Canada and boost the number of graduate students and researchers studying AI.

Canada is currently a hotbed of AI research , with some of the worlds leading experts in the AI technique of deep learning residing in the country and researching at various universities like the University of Montreal and the McGill University. Several big tech companies like Microsoft ( msft ) and Google have also recently invested in AI research projects in Canada involving the countrys top academics.

For Canadas unemployed, Trudeau said the government is proposing a plan that would allow citizens to pursue self-funded training while still receiving unemployment benefits. This unemployment plan would cost $132.4 million over four years, beginning next year, and $37.9 million per year thereafter, he wrote.

For unemployed workers receiving [Employment Insurance], this will mean that they can return to school to get the training they need to find a new jobwithout fear of losing the EI benefits they need to support themselves and their families, Trudeau wrote.

As for Canadas current workforce, Trudeau said that the country is expanding access to grants and access to interest-free student loans for adults, although he did not say how much it would cost.

This initiative, Trudeau said, will help make it cheaper for adults with children to go back to school on a part-time basis to keep their job skills up to date. He also said that Canada is going to invest in an initiative that would help students find jobs after they finish their education.

Trudeaus comments about how Canada is preparing for automation technologies contrast with recent statements made by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Steve Mnuchin. Mnuchin told news outlet Axios in March that he does not believe artificial intelligence would significantly impact jobs for around 50 to 100 years.

Besides increased government spending on education, several analysts also recommend that companies spend money on employee training projects as well for their own workers.

For example, a recent Accenture report on technological trends in the workplace recommends that business leaders instill a life-long" culture among their employees, reawarding those who seek outside training to increase their skills.

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Justin Trudeau Has a Plan to Save Jobs From Automation - Fortune

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96 Percent of Accountants Feel Positively About Automation, Study … – Small Business Trends

Posted: at 8:54 pm

The topic seems to strike fear in the hearts of employees in every industry: artificially intelligent, robots, automated systems and the threat of them taking over the world. But not every industry is dreading their presence.

With the annual tax season in full swing, accountants couldnt be happier with the thought of automation. Accounting and tax preparation is by its very nature, repetitive work. Once the differing figures are taken into account, the procedures are pretty much standard.

A global independent survey of 700 accountants by Sage, a cloud accounting provider, revealedthat systems automation is welcomed and considered a strategic asset to their business. The companys full 2017 Practice of Now Report is available here.

According to the report, a whopping 96 percent of those surveyed are positive about the role that automation will play in their day-to-day process.

The ability to get rid of a frustration, number-crunching, while freeing up time to focus on client acquisition is a great thing. Automated accounting systems allow firmsto increase their scope of services, providing their clients with a broader range of financial services.

The combination of a highly accurate automated system and a human-driven service is something every accounting office is eager to implement. Ultimately this type of hybrid system means growth and more meaningful client relationships.

89 percent of U.S. accountants view automating data entry and reporting as a way to create more value add service for clients. The Practice Of Now Sage (LON:SGE)

Automated document processing and especially document transfer may carry an inherent risk although this practice is already in place. The automation and digitization of documents is by far more secure than their manual counterparts.

AI driven automation eliminates human error while increasing speed beyond the capabilities of a human accountant. Its safe to say that automation provides a measurable increase in security and efficiency for accountants: factors that will increase the bottom line during tax seasons.

A looming deadline, coupled with not enough hours in the day is a hectic recipe. By freeing up an accountants workload, artificial intelligence has the potential to take the pain out of tax season.

The unbillable hours of shuffling papers and manual work increases during tax season and detracts from the bottom line of the accounting business. By drastically cutting the amount of time required to process returns, accountants are able to take on more clients and in turn, increase their profitability.

What automation promises is less time calculating figures and filling in spreadsheets and more time providing insight and consultancy based services.

In an industry moving towards automation, 99 percent of U.S. accountants surveyed voiced confidence about the future of accountancy and your role in it, while 58 percent see their role becoming more strategic and allow them to provide more financial advice to customers. The Practice Of Now Sage

Its no longer enough for accountants to just do taxes. CPAs are continuously held to a higher level of expectations and clients are demanding a greater level of service.

Intelligent automated accountingsystems provide firmswith a technology-driven component that allows them to keep pace with the market and stay relevant. Its for these very reasons that accountants are welcoming AI with open arms.

Accounting Photo via Shutterstock

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The Right Side:Automation and job losses – Porterville Recorder

Posted: at 8:54 pm

The 24th of March was a disaster, politically speaking, for the President of the United States, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and, more importantly, for huge cohorts of future and present American workers.

Florida officially lost 5,000 jobs in February; from the District of Columbia came more bad news new President Trumps second huge political loss occurred when the House of Representatives didnt vote on Trumpcare. It did not have enough support by Paul Ryan-led Republican congressmen.

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The Right Side:Automation and job losses - Porterville Recorder

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Finally, Automation in the Art Market – Huffington Post

Posted: at 8:54 pm

From driving your car to investing your pension, automation is becoming the status quo across industries. Last year, TechCrunch exclaimed that we were on the precipice of an automation revolution. Many economists term this transition the fourth industrial revolution, or industry 4.0, where automation and robotics perform professional tasks with more precision and efficiency. Skeptics fear machines ability to perform high-risk operations, like landing an aircraft. But when it comes to investing, robots are responsible for trillions of dollars. According to Business Insider, robo-advisors are expected to manage $8 trillion globally by 2020.

Robotic process automation or RPA is leading the frontier in FinTech innovations. A publication by Ernst & Young explains RPA can significantly enhance capabilities of finance in providing analysis and insights. For instance, it can substantially increase scope of data available to the organization. Cognitive RPA can extract and combine data from various sources. It can also provide initial analysis and conclusions. Automated investing strategies curve the risks of volatile markets in ways humans cannot. It didn't take industry leaders long to roll out their own automated services.Forbes reported that JP Morgan has devoted $600 million to the emerging FinTech solution.

On the surface, automated robo-advisors may seem identical, but a closer look reveals the unique fingerprints of each program. Wealthfronts robo advisor asks clients their preferred risk, then constructs a portfolio to fit those parameters. The underlying operations are created by finance professionals and while multiple companies offer similar robo advisors, they are each unique to their creators. Automated processes are most useful when there are clear parameters of input and output that are relevant to each other. In order to mitigate risk, automated investing processes must analyze pertinent dimensions of a market. Take the art market for instance.

Traditionally, investors use art advisors and instinct to speculate prices and determine opportunities. While this strategy can be successful, it operates on a narrow view of the market. Even the most experienced advisors are unable to detect the most growth opportunity, which is why many remain undiscovered. Further, art assets have a tendency to materialize in extreme competition. In his book The $12 Million Stuffed Shark, Don Thompson examines the auction that set records for a work by Damien Hirst. Thompson points to battling egos on the auction floor for the works high price.

The Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind of Someone Livingby Damien Hirst (1991)

Applying robotic automation processes to the art market curbs the risk of pursuing unsupported acquisitions. At Arthena, computers execute analyses on nearly 40,000 data points from the art market to effectively assess an art works price and value. This process goes further to identify opportunities in the market that traditional techniques ignore. Applying our analysis to last years art market indicates that Arthena could have deployed up to $500M in capital, given our investment parameters (price, asset value) and our requirements for expected asset growth, volatility and liquidity.

Art world experts set the parameters for optimal investments and examine auction costs to complement the quantitative analytics. All an investor has to do is choose a fund. Automation in the art market introduces opportunities and maximizes value by determining real-time peaks and lows in the market.

RPA in art investing is yet another example of the power of automation. According to The National Direction of Corporate Directions, it is not uncommon for todays powerful RPA technology to reduce the number of humans needed on a data-intensive process from 50 people to five. For the the FinTech industry, automation allows innovative managers to focus their resources on crafting new products that expose unique asset classes. To learn how Arthena managers are doing just that in the art market, visit our How It Works page.

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Finally, Automation in the Art Market - Huffington Post

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Can a robot do your job? – Financial Times

Posted: at 8:54 pm


Financial Times
Can a robot do your job?
Financial Times
This interactive calculator, based on data from the McKinsey Global Institute, gives an indication of how the future of work will change: instead of destroying entire jobs and creating completely new occupations, for the most part AI and automation ...

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Can a robot do your job? - Financial Times

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Small World: Ranking the rank – The Bridgton News

Posted: at 8:53 pm

Henry Precht

By Henry Precht

BN Columnist

A historian friend of mine has listed the men he deems the ten worse American presidents. He didnt leave a vacant slot for the incumbent, but I wonder whether Mr. Trump might not soon fit in based on this countrys experience of the past two and a half months of his 48-month term of office.

Categorizing roughly, I would say that five of the historians ten baddies were listed because of their wrong-headed positions on slavery; two because of their toleration of corruption; two because of lying or criminal policy; and one because of ineptitude in dealing with a national crisis. Lets see how Mr. Trump makes it through this sieve. Chattel slavery is no longer on the agenda but we might easily substitute how the incumbent treats the middle and lower classes sometimes called wage slaves.

On that score, I would say Mr. Trump shows every sign of becoming a modern day Buchanan. After his campaign appeal for better treatment of educationally poorly prepared and economically threatened whites, he turned on them in proposing health care legislation which would leave them worse off than with Obamacare. Programs that benefit them Meals on Wheels, regional development funds, etc. are slated to be cut back. Its early to say, but I doubt that Trump tax proposals will treat them as generously as they will the traditional big money folks in the Republican ranks the kind that have been named to fill Cabinet slots. So much for favoring the little guy against the elites.

There is one bit of business where Mr. Trump gives equal treatment to wage slaves and elites: both will suffer from his destruction of Obamas measures to limit the pace of global warming. They and their descendants will suffer equally.

The next failing among past leaders for which two are held culpable is corruption: Grant and Harding are listed as the major malefactors. Neither, however, dipped his own hands into the till; they simply turned a blind eye when cronies ripped off the public purse. Something like that may be starting under the present regime: the assets of our billionaire president have been turned over to his kin to manage. We may see court cases challenging these and other arrangements on conflict of interest grounds. Another source of foul aroma may be found when a billionaire investor profits from his closeness to the bunch in Washington and successfully advises the elimination of regulations that harm his business interests.

Two scorned ex-presidents (Nixon and the second Bush) have been reasonably accused of lying and putting or keeping us in disastrous wars. The latter was also been accused of wrecking the economy. Its too soon to accuse our president of pushing us into deeper conflicts, but there are signs in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen that a drift in that direction is building momentum. The economy is doing well during his brief tenure thanks in good part to inherited momentum and high hopes among investors, which may prove to be ill-founded. When it comes to lack of respect for truth, however, Mr. Trump may establish a new national record. Roll over, Mr. Nixon.

Finally, how might Mr. Trump rank compared to Herbert Hoover and his bungled efforts to deal with the Great Depression? Happily, he hasnt had to face that kind of severe test. But can anyone vouch for his interest in the mechanisms of government, his knowledge of foreign relations, his skill in persuading recalcitrant members of Congress, or talents for generating sound ideas and reassuring the panicky public? Mr. Trump has faced severe difficulties in the past. Unfortunately there is no bankruptcy court to rescue him if the national economy tanks.

Roosevelt came to the nations rescue in the Depression in large part because he picked a staff rich in creative talents. Trumps staff is just plain rich.

To wrap up this evaluation, I would say that Mr. Trump is headed down the trail to low or lowest ranking. In all fairness we should allow him some more months to manifest his true fitness and qualities for the job if, in fact, he can scrape up a few.

Henry Precht is a retired Foreign Service Officer.

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Small World: Ranking the rank - The Bridgton News

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Is Passover Broken Beyond Repair? – Forward

Posted: at 8:53 pm

Its time to face facts: Passover is broken. Busted. Split in two. Half of us are celebrating one part of the holiday while the other half celebrates the other part. Most of us dont even realize were celebrating only half the holiday.

This shouldnt surprise us. The Jewish community worldwide is broken into pieces. Theres no reason to expect our favorite Jewish holiday will be exempt. The festival mirrors the community that observes it. Right now were a community thats marching in two opposite directions at once.

One side of the community observes Passover to recount the suffering and persistence of Jews in a hostile world, from ancient Egypt up to modern times and, we assume, into the future. For the other side, Passover is about expressing solidarity with victims of modern-day oppression by linking our peoples historic suffering with injustices done to others today.

The first type of Passover, the Jews-in-a-hostile-world version, looks pretty much like the Passover that Jews have celebrated throughout our two millennia of wandering. Theyre not identical, of course. Through most of our history Jews saw the Egyptian bondage as a foreshadowing of their own suffering. Passover expressed our yearning to be liberated as our forebears were. Most of us today havent experienced anything similar. The holiday now serves to remind us of our humble roots. It also reaffirms our sense that were still historys victims, even if we dont look like it lately.

Then again, the Passover of the European exile wasnt the original model either. The original Passover, the one commanded in the Bible, centered on sacrificing livestock at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. It was only after the Babylonians and then the Romans demolished the Temple that the family dinner took center stage.

One unifying element in all traditional Passovers, ancient and modern, is the recitation of the traditional lessons of Passover: In each generation, each of us is obliged to see ourselves as if we personally had come out of Egypt. Liberation happens by divine miracle. In each generation they rise up against us to destroy us. And, as we tell the skeptical son: This happened to me, not to you.

The other Passover, the solidarity-with-the-downtrodden version, is a more recent phenomenon. Its key feature is a revising of the Haggadah text to spotlight modern-day struggles for liberation from bondage. These can range from the agony of the Holocaust and redemptive birth of Israel to civil rights, gender equity and, more recently, Palestinian rights. Sometimes these new narratives are woven into the text of the traditional Haggadah. Sometimes they replace it altogether.

Alternative Haggadahs began appearing about 100 years ago, initially in the labor movement. Diasporist socialists sang of liberating workers from the wage-slavery of Boss Pharaoh. Labor Zionists sang of liberating the Jews from the bondage of diaspora by returning to the redeeming soil of the Land of Israel.

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Among Jews, the upheavals of late 1960s were a watershed, the beginning of our division into two factions. One of the earliest signs of the split was the appearance of two Haggadahs that embodied the two opposing worldviews. One was the Freedom Seder, published in 1970 by left-wing guru Arthur Waskow. It updated the Passover message by putting black Americas freedom struggle at the center of the holiday narrative, drawing parallels between the Exodus from Egypt and the civil rights movement. For the first time, Passovers main message was not the suffering of Jews but of others. It was the message of the Seders skeptical son turned on its head: These things happened to him, not to me.

Two years later, as if in reply to Waskow, came the Soviet Jewry-themed Haggadah Let My People Go. A traditional text with some new commentaries, its most memorable feature was the illustrations by physician Mark Podwal. Like Waskows Freedom Seder, it put modern events front and center. Unlike the Freedom Seder, it kept the holidays focus on Jews.

In the decades since, countless new Haggadahs have appeared, with and without the traditional text, focusing variously on gender equality, hunger, the environment and more. Each one tries explicitly to frame its contemporary cause as a modern version of the Exodus story.

The latest innovation, though, risks turning the Passover tradition on its head by connecting the Jews suffering in Egypt with the suffering of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

Some might see the analogy as a tad overdone. Certainly the Palestinians suffer under Israeli military rule. But its not the agony of Syria or Congo, and its not the suffering of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt.

In a way, though, the strength of the historical comparison is beside the point. Every analogy is imperfect. If juxtaposing our ancestors with modern-day victims helps draw our attention to injustices around us, thats for good.

Whats off-kilter about Palestinian-themed Passover texts is that they put the Jews back in the center of the story but as the oppressor, not the victim. If the Palestinians are todays Hebrew slaves, then the Jewish state is the modern Pharaoh. Where the Freedom Seder and its heirs asked us to see our neighbors as comrades in suffering, Palestinian-themed Passover texts ask us to go a step further and see ourselves and our family as the wicked enemy.

Its important to learn to see through Palestinian eyes. Learning to identify with the Palestinians helps us understand why they view Israel the way they do, and how Israel got into its current plight. It can help us to love Israel more, not less. Jews who love Israel should be trying to help Israel disentangle from its neighbors, not just for their sake but for Israels and ours.

If, however, we carry our solidarity to the point of viewing Israel as Pharaoh, as the enemy, then we undo whatever good we hope to achieve. When we make Israel our enemy, we make ourselves Israels enemy. When that happens, we lose any ability to contribute to peace. And we lose our family. Were left broken holidays, traditions and all.

J.J. Goldberg is the Forwards editor-at-large.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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Is Passover Broken Beyond Repair? - Forward

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European Parliament vote doesn’t mean abolition of visas yet – Poroshenko – Interfax

Posted: at 8:53 pm

2017-04-06T17:21+02:00 17:21 06.04.2017

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that a positive vote in the European Parliament on granting the visa-free regime for Ukrainians by the European Union still does not mean the abolition of visas, but the Ukrainian authorities are working to ensure that the final introduction of the visa-free travel is not postponed to a later date.

"I want to emphasize that this doesn't yet mean the opening of the border. We are still waiting for a decision of the EU Council, we are working hard so that no one postpones it or drags out this process," Poroshenko told journalists on the sidelines of the 10th Kyiv Security Forum, which takes place in Kyiv on Thursday.

According to him, "pro-Putin representatives" in the European Union are trying to prevent Ukraine from receiving the visa-free regime and the latest debate in the European Parliament confirmed this.

"Only the joint work of all political forces within the state and beyond gives us a firm belief that everything will be fine," the Ukrainian president said.

Poroshenko also believes that the presidential elections in France cannot affect the process of granting the visa-free regime to Ukrainians.

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European Parliament vote doesn't mean abolition of visas yet - Poroshenko - Interfax

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