3.28.2009

this year in jerusalem

passover, which is coming up very soon, is one of my favorite Jewish holiday. it’s got it all. food, family, and great content … it’s the ultimate jewish social justice holiday.

in fact, many things that i know about life, i learned from passover:
  • all who are hungry should enter and eat.
  • every person should see themselves, and then be seen by others, as if he (or she - in my version of the haggadah) had personally come out of egypt.
  • it’s important to ask questions. four is never enough.
  • in business, diversification is key. bonus points if it’s good for the jews. why else would a coffee company, maxwell house, continuously publish haggadot since 1933?
  • one goat is worth two zuzim (very useful for talmud …)
  • there are multiple types of slavery. including, physical, emotional, and spiritual.
  • slavery still exists in our world today.
  • my grandma makes the best matzah ball soup. you could argue with me, but then you’d be wrong.
  • rabbi josé lived in the galilee (at least according to how his name is spelled in the maxwell house haggadah).
  • don’t celebrate the downfall of your enemies.
  • there are way too many products made with high fructose corn syrup.
  • remember to be thankful, dayenu.
  • pay attention to springtime and the cycles of nature.
  • manischewitz is not real wine.
  • you may really like the social justice passover supplements, from tikkun magazine, but your family may not.
  • my father was a wandering aramean.
  • kitniyot. no one’s really sure what they are, and why they’re prohibited, but ashkenazi jews make sure not to eat them (except in israel, where it’s apparently ok).
  • the number of dishes that you can make with matzah meal, matzah farfel and matzah cake meal is only limited by your imagination.
  • ometimes it’s important to taste the bitterness of oppression.
  • matzah pizza is surprisingly not that bad…. my dad often enjoys his with pepperoni…
  • playing games is fun – you’re never too old to search for the afikomen.
  • remember to hope. a better world is always possible.
  • god is on the side of freedom, not oppression.
  • there are thirteen attributes of god, twelve tribes, eleven stars, ten commandments, nine months of pregnancy, eight days until the bris, seven days of the week, six books of mishnah, five books of torah, four mothers, three fathers, two tablets, and one god.
  • it’s never to late in the seder to open the door for elijah.
  • and for some of us, it’s finally going to be … this year in jerusalem.

3.27.2009

the first freedom seder

the shalom center just posted a youtube clip from the freedom seder in 1969, one of the first "alternative" passover seders, explicitly connecting passover to contemporary social justice issues. enjoy... and then take some action.

3.10.2009

purim day 1

here in jerusalem, we have two days of purim... day 1, today, is for the rest of the country, and day 2, is shushan purim, purim a day later for all walled-cities, including jerusalem.

while i'm taking the day easy, and finishing up a paper so i can celebrate later, aileen's off to the big purim parade near tel aviv. (click on the link, and then play the video in the center of the page). this year's theme is the environment, and will feature floats of both noah's ark and barak obama.

3.07.2009

music boxes, victrolas, and hurdy-gurdies

we've just finished a whirlwind-around-the-country-tour with my family, who have now made it back to the states. one of the stops was the antique music box museum in the artist colony of ein hod.

there are lots of photos of the museum online, including youtube videos of nisan cohen, the quirky owner, in action (see below).

Also, take a look at this blog posting, from someone else's trip there:
Clad in shorts, sandals and a French beret, our guide and the museum founder, Nisan Cohen, welcomed us with good humor and warmth as he opened our eyes…and ears… to the musical aspect of a unique period in Western history – the industrial revolution. He took us back in time as we gathered around a 140yr old box anticipating the opening of its handcrafted wood top as if it were a treasure. We were not far off. Nisan explained that when he first came across these amazing inventions over 40 years ago, he knew right away this was something he wanted to collect. During his travels as a documentary film maker for CBS and NBC based in New York, he was able to find scores of these musical gems dating as far back as 1863. When he lifted the silky smooth cover of the first item on the tour, we saw inside a creation so inspired, so unique that it changed the path of music forever. Nisan explained how the nubs on the moving spool pluck at the tiny piano-like prongs to create the delicate sounds of Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven etc. This magical mechanical music box meant that for the first time in the history of the planet one could listen to music without being within hearing range of a live singer or musician.
the first recording of hatikvah, with the original lyrics of the poem written by naftali herz imber:



an antique music box:



playing the hurdy-gurdy barrel organ:



another old music box (which we didn't see):

3.06.2009

green kibbutzim

a recent posting in the nytimes highlights the innovative solar power plans at kibbutz keturah in the arava. i visited there a few weeks ago on a pardes trip.
Spurred by government incentives, ample sunshine and investments from energy companies eager to turn a profit, a growing number of south-Israel kibbutzim — those communal-living enterprises that have traditionally emphasized ideals like collective labor, egalitarianism and natural living — are turning to state-of-the-art energy projects.

The aim: to position their region as the Silicon Valley of renewable energy.

Nudging that effort along this week, Israel’s National Infrastructures Minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, signed the country’s first two solar power licenses.

The first was given to E.D.I.G. Construction Management, Ltd., which has built a thermosolar energy site with a capacity of up to 100 kilowatts at Kibbutz Samar in the Arava Valley. The second licensee, the Arava Power Company, plans to build a photovoltaic facility with a capacity of up to 4.9 megawatts at nearby Kibbutz Ketura.

For its part, Kibbutz Ketura owns a forty percent stake in Arava Power, while the remaining 60 percent of the company is owned by American investors led by former multimedia executive and current president of Arava Power Company, Yosef Abramowitz. Arava Power has also signed a deal with 16 other kibbutzim in the area that is expected to give the company enough land assets to build capacity for another 500 megawatts of solar electricity, at a cost of $2.5 billion — or around $5 dollars a watt.

Last week, Mr. Ben-Eliezer also pledged that by 2020 between 10 to 20 percent of Israel’s energy production would come from solar and other renewable sources. As part of the agreement, the Negev and Arava regions of southern Israel were designated as renewable energy zones by the economic cabinet of the Israeli government.

Other area kibbutzim with a committment to green energy include Kibbutz Neot Smadar and Kibbutz Yotvata, which recently built a 50-kilowatt solar panel rooftop installation. Kibbutz Lotan, meanwhile, maintains a bird reserve, a center for creative ecology and a green apprenticeship program.

One Lotan resident, Noam Ilan, who directs renewable energy efforts for the Eilat-Eilot region of the country and last month helped organize an international renewable energy conference in Eilat, is optimistic about the coupling of renewable energy and kibbutzim.

“We see renewable energy as a catalyst for the region’s development and we have all the natural conditions to implement this new energy here,” Mr. Ilan said in a telephone interview from Israel. “The kibbutzim are the main entities. We hope it will be a new income source for them because these communities only live on agriculture and tourism. This is the biggest opportunity for their future growth.”

2.14.2009

an experiment of learning in the judean hills

recently, i went on a morning field-trip to morasha ein prat, a fascinating israeli yeshiva, that combines jewish and secular studies. their students are an intentional mix of religious and secular israelis, who decide to take a "gap year" between high school and beginning army service, or after they complete their 2-3 years in the army.
ONE OF THEM is gestating in the Judean desert, down the road plunging from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. A mile or so off that road, I recently drove along a winding track from the village of Alon to a cluster of caravanim. In the semi-permanent prefabs, housing a dining room and kitchen, a study hall and separate sleeping/living quarters for men and women, about 25 young Israelis were spending five months in exquisite isolation at the Midrasha.

They came from secular kibbutzim where children don't know what a Shabbat kiddush is or ever go to synagogue or see a mezuza on doorways; from Orthodox Zionist families; from Israel's Reform and Conservative movements. Ages 20-29, most of them had completed at least two years of army or national service and were taking a breath - not to space out on Goa beaches, but to build their inner selves before heading to university. Some were officers from elite IDF units.

Strangely devoid of self-consciousness or cynicism, these young men and women, some of whom had already experienced social and military responsibilities beyond their years, spoke about holes in their learning, about what they might contribute to society, and about wanting to know more about the meaning of being Jews and Israelis.
the head of the program, micah goodman, has compared the student body at ein prat with the student body at pardes (one of the places where i study in jerusalem). in both places, the students tend to be in an "in-between" moment of their lives, interested in growing spiritually and jewishly, in a non-coercive environment, and often aren't sure what they want to be doing next.

goodman is especially intrigued about the possibilities about bringing these two groups of students - the israelis at ein prat and the mostly americans at pardes - together in some type of sustained way.

in some ways, morasha ein prat, where secular israelis engage in jewish learning in a non-coercive way, is an example of the same phenomenon that produced bina's secular yeshiva (hayeshiva hachilonit) and alma in tel aviv.

although in this case, there is a stronger sense of community - the students live together and have to figure out communal norms (such as how to respect everyone's differing shabbat practices). keep in mind, though, that the framework of religiousity, is an orthodox one, and some aspects of jewish creativity seem to be outside the box.
At the beginning of the year, the students set the rules for themselves, and every week gather for a plenary session lasting into the night in order to discuss their lives, at the program and in general, and to make new decisions. Because this is a group that includes religious and secular students, they have to set the rules for themselves in this area as well. The status quo dictates that there will be no violation of Shabbat and that kashrut (the Jewish dietary laws) will be observed in public places (the dining room, the classrooms, et al), while in the rooms, which are also shared by religious and nonreligious students (but not by men and women), everyone will do as he wishes. It turns out that when things are not imposed by force, there is maximum consideration of the religious students on the part of the secular ones, even in their private rooms.
there's one other important issue. the yeshiva is located in a west bank settlement, in allon. This settlement, is located near kfar adumim, on the road from jerusalem to the dead sea. unfortunately, most israelis, and the students who i spoke to at ein prat, don't really consider this to be a settlement. for them, a settlement is defined relatively, as a bunch of trailers on top of hill, with crazy right wing, long-bearded immigrants from brooklyn, near nablus of hebron. not by the 1948 armistice lines. these "settlements" are really just suburbs of jerusalem. they'll be ceded to israel as part of a land swap in any future peace deal, so why all the concern?

but, if you ask the palestinians about the ma'ale adumim corridor, they'll tell you a much different story.

in addition to the learning and discussions, we also did some hiking (which in israel usually involves climbing up or down some really steep cliff face with questionable footing).



in this case, we climbed down into the wadi prat, which once was part of the biblical border between the israelite tribes of judah and benjamin. we also saw the maboa spring:
an artesian fountain, or karstic fountain, emanating from a cave into a roundish concrete pool. until the six day war, the water was pumped and streamed from ein el-farha to jerusalem, but today it is no longer being used. ein Mabu'a supplies its water today into a concrete aqueduct that was built on the face of an existing aqueduct from the time of the second Temple and had brought water to the city of kipris. the round pool water's height is changed constantly (like heartbeat) due to a subterranean movement of water that fills an inner room until it is full and then the water would be let outside en masse into the external pool.

2.08.2009

voting for satan, and a february surprise?

first, i wake up this morning to find out that olmert, livni and barak might just be able to pull off a february surprise before tuesday's elections.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ehud Barak confirmed that "supreme efforts" are being made to secure Shalit's release in the near future.

Last night, Israel's "troika" - composed of Prime Minister Olmert, Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni - held an unusual meeting at the Defense Ministry to discuss the negotiations for a cease-fire deal in the Gaza Strip, along the lines proposed by Egypt
.
and then, good old ovadia yosef of shas, has confirmed my suspicions, that avigdor lieberman, is not just a demagogue-like politician, but is in fact the devil.
Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef once again lashed out at voters who plan on casting their ballots Tuesday for Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu faction. "Whoever votes for Lieberman gives strength to Satan," Yosef said in his weekly sermon late Saturday.

"Whoever sits inside his home and does nothing [will] suffer a huge punishment," Yosef said. In an address that was televised and beamed via satellite to hundreds of Sephardic yeshiva students, he said: "You should know that this is your hour, the time to do for God, they have violated your Torah, go from house to house."
will this be more effective than robocalls for get-out-the-vote efforts? only time will tell ...

2.07.2009

more israeli election ads ... in english!

here's links to some more israeli election ads, subtitled into english:
  • shas - sephardi, religious - advocating welfare payments to the poor - using obama's "yes we can" slogan
  • israel beiteinu (israel is our home) - party led by avigdor lieberman - advocating stripping israeli citizenship from "disloyal" arab members of knesset, and transfering arab areas of israel (and their inhabitants) to the palestinians in exchange for settlements in the west bank
  • da'am - socialist workers' arab-jewish party - probably won't get enough votes to make it into the knesset
  • likud - center-right party led by benjamin "bibi" netanyahu
  • avodah (labor) - center-left party led by ehud barak
for an explanation of how israel's political system works, check out this article in today's nytimes.

2.06.2009

my predictions for the israeli elections

jewschool has a cliffs notes style run-down, with descriptions of the various israeli parties. you can enter their february madness pool, guessing what the knesset results might look like on tuesday evening.

here's my very scientific guesstimate at the results:

balad - 1
gil - 1
green/meimad - 2
habayit hayehudi - 2
hadash - 2
holocaust/green leaf - 1
kadima - 28
labor - 16
likud - 29
meretz - 4
national union - 2
shas - 8
united arab list - 2
united torah judaism - 2
yisrael beiteinu - 20

see where you stand, and figure out which political party may represent your views, by filling out this cool interactive poll...

2.03.2009

2.02.2009

does "oh oh oh oh ... ai yi yi yi" = a political slogan?

apparently it does. see the commercial below for הבית היהודי‎ - ha bayit hayehudi (the jewish home) a new israeli right-wing religious political party competing in the upcoming elections.



if nothing else, you have to admit that the tune is a bit catchy. plus, now it's clear that army boots and teva sandals are just as much jewish israeli symbols, as shabbat candles and jewish stars ...

2.01.2009

if you thought that election ads were only in the states ... think again...

this article from the jerusalem post gives a sampling of some of the many election advertisements that have been springing up everywhere, as we get closer and closer to israel's prime minister and knesset elections on february 10.

below is one interesting commercial from meretz, advocating for a broad, pluralistic israeli society. the ad alludes to the famous "first they came for the commmunists..." holocaust-themed poem by pastor martin niemöller.



its translation, courtesy of jewschool.org, is:
without loyalty, no citizenship
without judaism, no citizenship
without zionism, no citizenship
without [army] service, no citizenship

without arabs
without druze
without gays
without the supreme court
without leftists

unless you pay attention
lieberman will get you too

lieberman must be stopped
only a vote for the new movement / meretz
is a net vote
for a coalition that will not sit
with bibi and lieberman

don’t compromise. vote.

1.30.2009

never again = legalize it?

what happens when aging holocaust survivors and young whipper-snapper marijuana activists get together? they form a new political party, what else?

welcome to the crazy world of israeli election season.

1.23.2009

our jerusalem obama party made the colbert report

check it out:


the two second clip is sandwiched right between the kenyans and the palestinians...

too bad the event was actually sponsored by democrats abroad, and only had americans there, and few, if any israelis.

1.21.2009

if you're jewish... hey, that's not so newish...

rev lowery was my favorite speaker at the inaugeration. in addition to emulating his inspiring biography, maybe i can someday write a sermon like his one day. his benediction:
We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.
beyond rhyming, was actually an allusion to a well-known blues song during the civil rights movement by big bill broonzy about america's jim crow system:
This little song that I'm singin' about,
people you know it's true
If you're black and gotta work for a living,
this is what they will say to you,
they says, "If you was white, should be all right,
if you was brown, stick around,
but as you's black, hmm brother, get back, get back, get back"

I was in a place one night
They was all having fun
They was all buyin' beer and wine,
but they would not sell me none
They said, "If you was white, should be all right,
if you was brown, stick around,
but if you black, hmm brother, get back, get back, get back"

Me and a man was workin' side by side
This is what it meant
They was paying him a dollar an hour,
and they was paying me fifty cent
They said, "If you was white, 't should be all right,
if you was brown, could stick around,
but as you black, hmm boy, get back, get back, get back"

I went to an employment office,
got a number 'n' I got in line
They called everybody's number,
but they never did call mine
They said, "If you was white, should be all right,
if you was brown, could stick around,
but as you black, hmm brother, get back, get back, get back"

I hope when sweet victory,
with my plough and hoe
Now I want you to tell me brother,
what you gonna do about the old Jim Crow?
Now if you was white, should be all right,
if you was brown, could stick around,
but if you black, whoa brother, get back, get back, get back

1.20.2009

ברק אובמה בירושלים

yes we can... כן אנחנו יכולים ... here's some articles on the jerusalem obama festivities that we went to last night here at zolli's pub in jerusalem. there were some camera crews at the pub, too, but i haven't found any footage online yet.

1.19.2009

that crazy king herod...

in times of political transition, we can think of other political leaders who also had their "issues". in the dec 2008 national geographic, there's a great article on king herod, including descriptions of his tomb, recently discovered at herodium, near bethlehem.

the saying "it was better to be herod's pig than his son" alludes to this quasi-jewish roman leader's desire to keep kosher and be accepted by his jewish subjects, but who repeatedly killed off his wives and offspring because he was afraid they would be a threat to his rule.

on the national geographic site, you can test your knowledge of king herod, by taking their eight question quiz, or by playing the herod's lost tomb game! (obviously i have too much free time on my hands...)

1.18.2009

the countdown begins ...

only 1 more day!

1.12.2009

l'hitraot to mike's place

it's a good thing i figured out how to order fox sports on our cable system yesterday, or otherwise, we might have had some problems trying to watch the game.

apparently mike's place in jerusalem is now closed:
With tears in their beer, some 200 loyal revelers packed Mike's Place on Sunday to bid adieu to the legendary downtown Jerusalem watering hole.

Though the Nahalat Shiva bar had 36 months remaining on its eight-year lease, last fall the landlord Darinel Business Inc. invoked a demolition clause in that agreement to force the bar out. The nondescript 19th-century building, which was originally put up by the Ottoman banker Chaim Aharon Valero, will be demolished shortly as part of an eight-story office tower and commercial complex stretching along Jaffa Road to Kikar Zion.
i wonder which bar will now pick up the "anglo" slack?

1.11.2009

life in ashkelon and gaza

anita steiner, a reconstructionist rabbi living in ashkelon, has been living with the effects of constant rocket fire. two of her recent email updates have been posted on the jrf website, here and here. searching online, i also found some sites that provide links for similar-type blogs coming out of gaza.

1.10.2009

depressed by the news and paralyzed by the complexities

this posting, by marty kaplan at huffington post, captures some of what i've been feeling lately:
First I saw a young protester telling a CNN reporter in Trafalgar Square, "Every single day, as soon as we turn on the TV, we see children there die in the hospitals, adults dying, children dying on the floor. Why, why, why? Why do children have to die? Why do innocent children have to die on the floor? Why?"

And I thought, She's right, those children in Gaza are innocent, every human life is precious, civilians aren't combatants. Doesn't everyone deserve basic human rights like food and water and life itself?

But then I thought, Where was she when 80 or 90 Hamas rockets a day were raining down on Israel? Where were all the television cameras when innocent children in Ashkelon and Sderot were being maimed and killed?

But then I saw pictures of massive devastation in Gaza on the front pages of the newspapers, and I thought, What good does it do if Israel appears to act like its enemies?

But then I heard Shimon Peres tell George Stephanopoulos that Hamas "did things which are unprecedented in the history even of terror. They made mosques into headquarters. They put bombs in the kindergartens, in their own homes. They are hiding in hospitals." Where were all the people of Gaza rising up in outrage when Hamas used them as human shields?

Then I heard Palestinian negotiator Hannan Ashwari say that Gaza was a secondary issue, that the real imperative was to reach a lasting political agreement, not a temporary military outcome, and I thought, She's right, there will be no peace and security for Israel unless a viable two-state solution is reached.

But then I read a blog by Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg recounting his interview with Nizzar Rayyan, the Hamas leader who was killed by Israeli bombs last week. "This is what he said when I asked him if he could envision a 50-year hudna (or cease-fire) with Israel: 'The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself for the final battle. We don't need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel.' There is no chance, he said, that true Islam would ever allow a Jewish state to survive in the Muslim Middle East. 'Israel is an impossibility. It is an offense against God... You [Jews] are murderers of the prophets and you have closed your ears to the Messenger of Allah.... Jews tried to kill the Prophet, peace be unto him. All throughout history, you have stood in opposition to the word of God.'"

And I thought, How can you negotiate with people who reject your nation's right to exist, and whose version of religion calls you a murderous race? If someone claimed that the best way for America to deal with Bin Laden is to reach a political agreement with al-Qaeda, I'd say that they're nuts, that there can be no negotiation or accommodation with people lusting for a final battle to rid your people from the earth.

But then I heard an Arab diplomat railing against Israel's continuing tolerance of illegal settlements, and I thought, As long as Knesset coalition governments are dependent on ultra-Orthodox parties who have no respect for the law, how can anyone expect Arab moderates to gain enough political power for Israel to negotiate with them, when Israeli moderates can't muster that clout either?

Then I reminded myself that the people of Gaza overwhelmingly voted for Hamas in a democratic election, and I thought, What good is democracy, if it can put terrorists in charge of governments?

But then I read that tens of thousands of Israeli Arabs in the Israeli town of Sakhnin had rallied against Israel's Gaza offensive, and I thought, What Middle East nation except Israel would ensure that anti-government protesters had the right to hold such a demonstration?

And then I remembered reading that former Israeli army chief Moshe Yaalon warned Israelis not to delude themselves about Israel's Arab population, that Israeli Arabs - a fifth of Israel - constitute a potential fifth column.

Then I saw a Teleseker Institute poll saying that 95 percent of Israeli Jews support Operation Cast Lead against Hamas. But then I saw a Rasmussen poll saying that while 44 percent of Americans think Israel should have taken military action against the Palestinians, 41% say it should have tried to find a diplomatic solution - essentially a tie, within the poll's margin of error. And I wondered, How long does diplomacy have to keep failing, how many bombs have to keep dropping, before self-defense finally trumps talk?

I wish I didn't believe that the events now unfolding in the Middle East are too complicated for unalloyed outrage. I wish the arguments of only one side rang wholly true to me. I am the first to accuse myself of paralyzing moral generosity -- the fatal empathy that terrorists prey on. But ambivalence is not the same as moral equivalence, and holy war, no matter who is waging it, makes my flesh crawl.

In Milton's poem Samson Agonistes, Samson - blinded, in chains -- cries out, "Promise was that I / Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver; / Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him / Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves." But when Samson shows the strength to shun Delilah, God restores his power, enabling him to pull down the temple and kill the Philistines, though along with himself.

What makes Samson Agonistes a tragedy is the self-destruction that victory entails. I passionately assert Israel's right to exist in peace with its neighbors and within secure borders. But I can't help fearing that its military success in Gaza, should it come, will also entail a tragic cost.
i'm tired of the news. i'm tired of reading email accounts from a rabbi i know who lives in ashkelon, of bomb shelters, safe rooms and panic attacks in the grocery store. i'm tired of reading similar accounts on the internet from residents of gaza. I'm tired of being worried, after meeting families whose childen are currently serving in the israeli army. i'm tired of the coverage in haaretz. i'm tired of the coverage in the new york times. i'm tired of wondering why i'm living in israel, and yet have no real connections with my palestinian neighbors in the west bank and gaza. I'm tired of feeling powerless. i'm tired of feeling angry. i'm tired of inaction. i'm tired of going about my daily life while others can't. i'm tired of war.

tomorrow, i hopefully begin a shavua tov - i go back to school, studying talmud in a beit midrash in southern jerusalem. afterwards, instead of watching cnn and channel 10's account of the war in gaza, i'll immerse myself in escapism, watching coverage of a epic battle closer to home - that of the eagles of philadelphia against those pesky giants of new york. fly eagles fly.

amen.

1.07.2009

pluralism in the galilee

during this semester, i've taken part in an intra-faith multilogue (dialogue is for only two voices - far too limiting...) program for rabbinical students studying in jerusalem this year, run by the organization, ta shma. they do a great job of:
providing Hebrew and English-speaking Jews of all ages with educational programming that conveys the excitement and relevance of Jewish texts and tradition.

Recognizing that diversity is one of the Jewish community's greatest assets, Ta Shma offers a model of multi-voiced Jewish learning that emphasizes the importance of constructive disagreement.
participants included reform, orthodox, conservative, trans-denominational and reconstructionist rabbinical students.

one of the reform students has a blog entry up on the huc website about our recent shabbaton in the galilee, and shares some memorable moments.

plus, bonus points if you can find me in the picture below.

1.06.2009

if it were only that easy here...

why can't things be this easy in the middle east?

below is a uplifting article in the philly daily news about a amazing reconstructionist rabbi and teacher of mine:
LINDA HOLTZMAN was appalled when she saw the homemade sign at last Tuesday afternoon's rush-hour Center City rally protesting Israel's attacks on Gaza.

Carried by a foreign-born man in his 20s, the poster depicted both a Star of David and a swastika. Beneath them was printed, "What's the difference."

"It was very upsetting to see, because it didn't capture at all the spirit of the rally," said Holtzman.

"The sign was hateful; the others weren't."

Although attended mostly by Arab-Americans, there were also non-Muslims taking part in the passionate, but peaceful, rally at the Israeli Consulate, at 19th and JFK, including Holtzman, senior rabbi of the
Mishkan Shalom Reconstructionist congregation in Manayunk, and other Jews distraught by the violence being inflicted in response to attacks by Hamas on southern Israel.

"As a Jew, it was a slap in the face to see that sign, when we were there to provide moral support," said Holtzman. "It was offensive."

A few Jews in the crowd warily approached the young man, to tell him that his sign was uncalled for. They weren't sure how he'd respond, but an animated discussion followed, which they relayed to Holtzman, who'd watched from afar.

"They said he was actually a friendly guy," said Holtzman. "His English wasn't very good, but he was talking with them the best he could."

So Holtzman approached him, too....
click here to read the rest of the story. i promise, it's worth it.

1.05.2009

the torah on gaza ...

i often hope that jewish tradition will provide us with useful means with which to understand and interpret our world. today, into my inbox, came this week's d'var tzedek from ajws:
Over the course of the book of Genesis, we witness Jacob’s two different responses to the unjust massacre committed by Simon and Levi against the people of Shechem. After their sister Dinah is raped by the prince of Shechem, the brothers murder and pillage the entire town. While the rape of Dinah is indeed horrific, it does not justify the act of collective punishment her brothers pursue.

When Jacob learns of Simon and Levi’s action, he bemoans:

    You have brought trouble on me, making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perrizites; my men are few in number, so that if they unite against me and attack me, I and my house will be destroyed. [Genesis 34:30]
In Parshat Vayechi, Jacob, on his deathbed, gathers his sons around him to hear his last words. When he reflects again on Simon and Levi, he admonishes them:

    Simon and Levi, the brothers---
    weapons of outrage their trade. […]
    For in their fury they slaughtered men,
    At their pleasure they tore down ramparts.
    Cursed be their fury so fierce,
    And their wrath so remorseless! […]
    [Genesis 49:5-7]
Jacob’s initial response to this injustice is personal. His concern with the deeds of Simon and Levi is that there will be repercussions for him and his community. Only later does he express anger that they have acted wrongly by killing innocent people.

Just as Jacob’s two responses to the same issue are motivated by very different concerns, our activism on social justice issues can also be motivated by different factors. We can take action on these issues because we are personally affected, or we can act because we feel morally compelled.
how should we choose how we should act? when should we act, and when should we refrain from action?

the d'var goes on to wrestle with collective action in community organizing contexts, and regarding darfur.

i'm, of course, thinking of israel and gaza.

the situation here is undeniably complex. no one should have to live under the threat of attack. everyone should be able to go to sleep at night safe and secure in their homes.

i question whether it's appropriate to compare relative amounts of suffering - e.g., is my suffering worse than yours?

i'm also not sure about separating innocent victims from the global-political realities at play.

when is there a difference between a civilian and a soldier? what about between a policeman and a terrorist?

should i be watching al jazeera to see the bodies that aren't being shown on cnn? why is it ok for me to go about my daily business, when others can not? am i a hypocrite for taking advantage of a wall that i feel is unjust? what's my role supposed to be here anyhow?

1.04.2009

hope

today, as part of the social justice class that i'm taking at pardes, we visited the max rayne יד ביד - hand in hand jerusalem school. it's an intential bi-lingual, (hebrew and arabic) and bi-cultural (jewish and arabic/palestinian christian/muslim). there's over 600 students enrolled from grades k-10. all classes are team-taught in hebrew and arabic.



it's the equivalent of a public charter school in the states, funded like all schools by the israeli government (but also supplemented by the governments of germany, switzerland, and lichtenstein). watch the above video. it's a lot better than what's on cnn right now.