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December 16, 2004 — 4 Tevet, 5765
FBI investigates mysterious death of a young Jewish terrorism expert
By Ron Kampeas - link to web site

WASHINGTON (JTA) – The FBI is investigating the mysterious death of a young American Jewish terrorism expert who worked at a think tank where research into Islamic extremism has drawn death threats, family and friends said.

Jason Korsower, 29, died in his sleep at his father’s Atlanta home on Nov. 26, after Thanksgiving celebrations with his family.

For his 29 years, Korsower had lived a full life, thriving in a Jewish youth group, serving in the Israeli army in a crack infantry unit, studying religion and most recently plunging into terrorism research in Washington. He was about to start law school.

Korsower’s family and friends said that FBI agents had gathered information about the death, but they know little else.

Dr. Randy Hanzlick, the Fulton County medical examiner, said Thursday it looked likely that he would rule out homicide in the case. There was no evidence of physical injury, Hanzlick said, and he was leaning toward concluding that Korsower had a heart-related problem.

“This is preliminary, but at this point we've done extensive testing for a number of agents and nothing has turned up,” Hanzlick said. “We don't have any indication of any toxin related problem at this point.”

Steve Lazarus, an FBI agent in Atlanta, refused to confirm or deny an investigation, citing FBI policy.

However, the agency was at least aware of the case. An FBI spokeswoman in Washington, Debra Weierman, referred JTA to the FBI’s Atlanta bureau, even though JTA had not mentioned Korsower’s hometown in its request for information.

Sources made clear that the FBI is asking questions, and without relating specifically to Korsower’s death, Lazarus said that agents would only ask questions about a death if a full investigation were underway.

Officials at the Investigative Project, where Korsower worked, also would not comment.

The Investigative Project is run by Steve Emerson, whose predictions of a major Islamist attack in the 1990s enhanced his credibility as a terrorism expert after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

It ratcheted up death threats against him and his organization – and drove his organization semi-underground.
Emerson said Korsower would be missed.

“He had smarts, ideals, commitment passion and discipline,” he said. “The world is poorer because of his loss.”

The death of Korsower, who was athletic and believed to be in good health, continued to mystify his family, wracked with grief. An autopsy was inconclusive.

“It wasn’t an aneurysm. It wasn’t a heart attack. It wasn’t the obvious things that could happen to a healthy 29-year-old,” his mother, Karen Grablowsky, said last week.

“I knew he worked for the Investigative Project. But we thought he was safe,” she said, noting that Emerson himself said that it was very unlikely that he would have been targeted.

Grablowsky said she understood from Emerson that FBI agents were asking questions in Washington as well.
FBI investigations into single homicides are very rare, a former agent said.

“The only times they are involved in a homicide is in cases of terrorism, crimes on government reservations – military bases, federal property – or, as in the case of Martin Luther King, when someone is killed while carrying out a constitutionally protected activity,” said Steve Pomerantz, a former FBI investigator who now consults for Jewish organizations.

Friends and family of Korsower recalled a handsome, self-effacing man with a will of steel.

“He was a terrific little athlete ‘for a Jewish kid’,” his mother said, with an affectionate laugh. He was the pitcher on his Little League baseball team, she said, and a star on a flag football team in Israel where he would deflect praise, saying instead, “You should see my little brother.”

After completing his degree at Colgate University, a small liberal arts college in a bucolic setting in upstate New York, where he joined the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, he travelled to Israel in 1998 on the United Jewish Communities’ OTZMA program, a 10-month volunteer program that brings American young adults to Israel to do social service projects and live among Israelis.

He fell in love with the country and decided to make it his home. In May 2000 he broke some stunning news to his mother.

“He sent me an e-mail, ‘Happy Mother’s Day; Don’t freak out I just joined the Israeli army’,” she recalled.

“I was freaking out. If I was ever going to lose him that’s where I was sure I was going to lose him,” she said, noting that there was a lot of violence against Israel going on.

He served in the Nahal unit and during time off lived on Kibbutz Tzora, near Jerusalem. After completing his service, he studied Jewish texts at the modern Orthodox Pardes Institute in Jerusalem.

His best friend since their time together on the OTZMA program and then through Nahal service, Tahg Adler, recalled an enthusiastic soldier and an avid athlete.

“He was the most athletic guy I ever met. He played basketball, he was strong like an ox,” said Adler, a personal fitness trainer who remained in Jerusalem.

Adler posted a PowerPoint tribute to Korsower on his web site (www.tahgsfitness.com).

In it, Korsower poses in his army uniform and automatic rifle and with green war paint on his face. Other photos show him hiking near the Dead Sea, smiling in front of the Western Wall in his army uniform, drinking a beer on Israeli Independence Day, donning his green Nahal beret after completing his basic training.

He returned to the United States two years ago and joined Emerson’s outfit. He co-wrote a number of op-eds on terrorism and Islam with Yonah Alexander, a veteran terrorism expert.

Korsower planned to start law school at Syracuse University in New York in the fall.

Family and friends were left asking questions.

Grablowsky said her ex-husband and Jason’s father, Alan Korsower, a medical doctor, was convinced of foul play, and was pressing hard for answers.

Korsower didn’t seem fearful about the line of work he was in, investigating terror groups, although he once fretted about a web site biography that mentioned his Israeli army service, Adler said.

A former colleague said the work at Investigative Project drew “unwanted attention,” but added that he was doubtful it would result in an actual attack, especially on a relatively low-profile researcher like Korsower.

You’re “going to get people’s attention that you may not want to get,” said Glen Feder, who works at the Investigative Project. “I just have a hard time believing that anyone would go after him due to the work he was doing.”
Korsower did not write anything that would have particularly inflamed passions, Feder said, especially compared to some of the Project’s other output. Feder believed a health complication was likelier than homicide.

Adler said he spoke on the phone with his friend the night before he was found.

“He said he was going to visit me, that he was dating a beautiful girl.” Two days later, Adler got the phone call saying his friend was dead.

Korsower’s girlfriend recalled him as “a beautiful, humble, kind soul.”

“He just made the world a better place, quietly, in his own way,” she said, requesting that her name not be used. “This world is a much sadder place, you know, without him.”
“It’s just a bad dream,” she added.
Friends were planning the traditional 30-day memorial on Dec. 26 at Pardes.

“We had a lot of plans,’’ Adler said.

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Otzma - link to web site

Our community mourns the sudden and untimely death of Jason Korsower, 29, a participant on OTZMA XIII. He passed away Nov. 26.

Jason participated in OTZMA in 1998-1999. Following his OTZMA experience, Jason made aliyah and volunteered for placement in the Israel Defense Force, where he served in the Nahal Brigade. He later studied at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. Most recently Jason worked in Washington, D.C. and was planning on attending law school in New York in the fall.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to Jason's parents and the entire Korsower family. May they be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

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Ulpan Etzion celebrates jubilee - link to web site

PHOTO: From left to right: Jason Korsower from Atlanta, Ga.; Hallie Swichkow from Chicago, Ill.; and Tahg Adler from San Francisco, three of the 190 new immigrants presently studying at Jerusalem’s Ulpan Etzion. WZPS photo by Joe Malcolm.

By SIMON GRIVER
World Zionist Press Service

More Western immigrants than ever are seeking places at Ulpan Etzion, one of the Jewish Agency’s flagship absorption centers, which is now celebrating its jubilee year.
Tahg Adler typifies the vehement and dedicated idealism that motivates the 190 new immigrants, mainly young singles from Western countries, studying Hebrew at the absorption center. After nearly five months as a new immigrant, and having spent the previous year as a volunteer in Israel on the Jewish Agency’s Project Otzma, Adler, 24, still speaks in idealistic clichés.

"Israel is a beautiful young country with a lot of potential and I want to be a part of it," stressed Adler, 24 from San Francisco, who graduated in nutrition and health from the University of California at San Diego in 1998.

Adler follows in the footsteps of more than 20,000 immigrants who have attended Ulpan Etzion, founded in September 1949 by educator Dr. Mordechai Kamerat, who managed the absorption center for 20 years. Today the ulpan teaches new immigrants from 28 countries, though mainly from Western Europe, North America and Latin America, most of them academics aged 21-35. According to ulpan Director Shlomit Pilzer, 90 of the student immigrants live in, while 100 attend daily classes as external students.

"Officially students must have new immigrant status to study here," she emphasized, "but occasionally we are flexible with external students and allow them to retain tourist status if they commit to becoming new immigrants during the five-month ulpan."
With a major drive by the Jewish Agency (a JUF beneficiary) in recent years to recruit Western immigrants through such programs as high-tech employment fairs, the quality of life offered by Ulpan Etzion plays an important part in the campaign. Located in the leafy lanes bordering Jerusalem’s fashionable Baka and Talpiot neighborhoods, the absorption center complex is a mixture of college campus and Jerusalem suburbia. The main building, formerly a Carmelite monastery, has been rented from the Catholic order by the Jewish Agency for 100 years, and is surrounded by smaller buildings, which were added over the years.

"In addition to seven different levels of ulpan," explained Pilzer, "we offer enrichment activities on Jewish and Zionist culture and history. We also do our best to help participants acclimatize to the country, by giving them information regarding health care, banking, army service, etc., and taking them on trips around the country and to special events and festivals. We also help arrange apartments for them when they leave here, and provide them with information about study and job opportunities. And whenever possible we bring former ulpan graduates back to lecture."

Ulpan Etzion has seen all the great waves of aliyah, from Holocaust survivors in 1949 through to the newcomers from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. Graduates have included humorist Ephraim Kishon and the Hebrew University’s expert on demography, Professor Sergio DellaPergola.

In every five-month ulpan, according to Pilzer, at least one wedding takes place.

"During the last ulpan, an English lawyer married a Russian violinist," she said. "Great friendships are also forged, and not only between people from the same countries. Often they may have a profession in common, or just being Jews and Zionists is enough."

Adler is so committed to Israel that he has enlisted in the army beginning July 2000, where he will serve for 14 months in a special immigrant combat unit. "My parents are very sad that I’m so far away," he observed, "but they’re proud that I’m here."

Twenty-four-year-old Jason Korsower from Atlanta, also a student at Ulpan Etzion, met Adler during Project Otzma and will serve in the army together with him. "I came here as a volunteer for the yearlong Jewish Agency program after graduating in philosophy from Colgate University, N.Y.," he explained, "and simply felt at home."

After completing his army service, Korsower plans to do a master’s degree at Tel Aviv University and then try for the diplomatic corps. "I feel that I am part of Jewish history by being here," he said.

Hallie Swichkow, 23, from Buffalo Grove, also immigrated to Israel in January 2000 after graduating in anthropology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. "I’ve always wanted to make aliyah since I was a small kid," she recalled. "It’s more difficult than I thought, but I’m still in love with the country. I also always wanted to settle on a kibbutz. But I’ve adapted that dream. I now see my future on a settlement on the Golan Heights or in Gush Etzion. I have right-wing views but I’m not an extremist. Swichkow now lives in Jerusalem and is working for one of Israel’s TV stations.

With a proven track record, Pilzer is optimistic about Ulpan Etzion’s next 50 years: "Demand from young Western immigrants for places here is higher than ever," she said. "We still have an historic task to fulfill."

Hallie Swichkow is from Buffalo Grove. She was co-chair of the UJA Campaign while in college.

Ulpan Etzion is a project of the Jewish Agency for Israel, a JUF beneficiary.

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