Non-Violent Communication (NVC)

Musings on Choice and Children

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When I was twelve my family moved from Israel to Mexico for two years. This decision happened immediately following the first year in my young life, and one of the only times in my life overall, that I had a sense of belonging and acceptance in a group of peers. The decision was made by my parents without consulting with any of us: my seventeen-year-old sister, myself, or my younger sister who was then five. More than that: it was made against my vociferous opposition, which was so strong that I was semi-seriously contemplating jumping off the ship and swimming back to Israel. Not only did my parents have the legal right to take me against my will.

art

Recipe for a Revolution with Chipped Turquoise Nails: A Review of Love Cake: Poems by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

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I am not sure how to convey the power of this poetry collection. I can tell you that once I picked up Love Cake, I could not put it down until I finished every poem, even though I sometimes had to read through my tears. Upon finishing, I immediately had to call a femme friend to read her a poem that reminded me of her. Relocating from my couch to my bed, I sank in and re-read the entire collection. I want to say that the poems tore out my heart.

Culture

Prof. Mearsheimer endorses anti-Jewish book

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When Profs. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt co-authored their book on the “Israel Lobby,” they drew back from their original formulation that it had manipulated the US to invade Iraq on behalf of Israel. Their more carefully worded thesis was that it was a “necessary but insufficient cause” for the Iraq war. Still, many (including myself) took this amiss because:
1. It discounts a fuller explanation for the US warring on Iraq, e.g.: W. Bush’s animus at Saddam Hussein for attempting to assassinate his family while visiting Kuwait after the first Iraq war, the importance of oil (Noam Chomsky’s view), frustration that Saddam Hussein continued to oppress his people and to bluster against the US — even though he could have been easily overthrown in 1991, and finally the influence of neocons and some liberals who saw Saddam’s rule as both a threat to peace in the region and the source of an ongoing human rights crisis.

art

Rosh Hashanah in Quetzaltenango

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Mount Tajumulco, Guatemala. tonight i gather with my tribe
to welcomea new year with life & laughter
&the biggest bottle of cheapwine
we could find in Guatemala. we are not at shul
in Crown Heights or Skokie. we are at socialist,
Spanish-language school
in the reddest heart of this highland city
called Quetzaltenango. of the twenty-five students here,
at least ten are of the Hebrew persuasion.

Non-Violent Communication (NVC)

Occupy Wall Street Comes to San Francisco – How You Can Help

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[youtube: video=”4SUdPe-X7b4″]
On Thursday, Sept. 29th over 1,000 people marched in San Francisco to voice their frustration against the corrupt financial institutions that have been harming the lives of millions. It was the latest effort in what is a quickly spreading movement. While New York is the largest, there are Occupy movements cropping up in every city – Chicago, Miami, Seattle, LA, Boston and Reno just to name a few. For those who missed it, the SF march was energetic and filled with passionate, yet frustrated voices.

Non-Violent Communication (NVC)

Peace Day 2011 and Two Executions

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There are times in life when a soul needs to hear Barbra Streisand singing “Avinu Malkeinu.” It needs to hear Verdi’s Requiem. It needs to hear John Coltrane’s saxophone screaming A Love Supreme. Peace Day 2011 was such a day. Peace Day, the UN International Day of Peace and Global Ceasefire falls on September 21 every year.

Culture

One Moment or Many: The Wall Street Occupation

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Now in its eleventh day, there has only just begun to be reports and discussion about the occupation of Wall Street in mainstream media. The reasons are related not to the organizational efforts of the occupiers or their lack of conviction or numbers, but to the relationship between our channels of information, our business and corporate sector and our politically empowered. This begs the question of if instead of Wall Street, the occupiers were gathered in Tehran or Sana, would the news of their demands and challenge of the status quo be included in our mainstream news headlines? The answer is yes. Although the American media did not create the protests or uprisings that comprised The Arab Spring, their attention to the social unrest in the Middle East undoubtedly stoked the determination and numbers of those participating in the protests that irrevocably changed the social and political landscape of the region.

art

Film on Olympic Anti-Semitism Hints at Intersex Reality

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As preparations begin for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Nazis are in a quandary because their best female athlete in the high jump, Gretel Bergmann, is a Jew. In the 2009 German-language feature film, “Berlin ’36,” (commercially released in New York and LA in September 2011) the Nazis force Gretel’s father to fetch her back from England, where she has won a championship. To avoid a boycott of the Olympics by the American team, the Nazis engage in an elaborate scheme to have about 20 Jewish athletes, such as Bergmann, train but then be uniformly disqualified from the team.

Education

Torah Games? Bringing Torah to Life Through Game Design

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For many Jews, the Torah seems inaccessible. It is distant historically, culturally and linguistically. The Biblical figures seem far removed and unapproachable and the scenes and vignettes do not seem applicable to everyday life. Yet this sense of distance from the Torah may be as much a function of religious education as it is of the ancient nature of the text itself. Hebrew schools face structural problems in engaging students, since many classes are convened on evenings and weekends, when already over-programmed young people are either tired or less receptive to further learning opportunities.