General News

POWER TO THE PEOPLE: Israel's Social Justice Protests Are Back as Thousands Block Main Highway and Confront Police

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Daphni Leef — who last summer sparked the largest social protests in Israel’s history when she set up a tent along Rothschild Boulevard — attempted to reignite those historic protests on Friday by again setting up camp (along with hundreds of fellow protesters). However, in stark contrast to the relatively accommodating stance police took toward the tent protests last summer, the authorities yesterday responded violently and with intentional symbolism as a mass of riot police beat and dragged Leef across the boulevard before arresting her.  They also forcefully prevented demonstrators from occupying the site where Israel’s protests began in 2011. Saturday evening, approximately 7,000 Israelis took to the streets to protest Leef’s brutal arrest and to begin anew last summer’s massive protests which, at their peak, drew nearly 500,000 Israelis into the streets. The tone was markedly confrontational, with protesters chanting “Returning Power to the People” as they swarmed city hall, blocked one of Israel’s main highways and at times overwhelmed police, some of which were joined by elite Special Forces units. Haaretz interviewed Barak Cohen, one of the protesters injured by police, whose anger was shared by many in the streets:
“We came to create a confrontation, not to stand across from them,” Cohen said.

General News

Alice Walker Called a Terrorist-supporting Bigot in Jerusalem Post for Boycotting Israeli Publisher

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As one who occasionally publishes opinion pieces in The Jerusalem Post — countering the paper’s normative conservatism with a progressive perspective — I often come across pieces with which I either disagree politically or find distasteful. However, I have never encountered a more morally offensive piece in Israel’s largest English-language paper than one posted today by a regular contributor entitled “Alice Walker’s Bigotry.” Before exploring this unhinged piece, and the motivations behind its publication, a bit of context is in order. Alice Walker, Pulitzer-Prize winner and literary hero, has in recent years been invested in Palestinian human rights, and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement aimed at pressuring Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories. Recently, it was reported that Walker has refused translation rights of her book, The Color Purple, to the Israeli publisher Yediot Books.

Christianity

Jewish-Christian Dialogue: The Nuns Versus the Bishops

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Much has been written about the ongoing assault by the male Catholic hierarchy on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, as well as individual women religious whose writings have been deemed “erroneous.” Non-Catholics might be inclined to dismiss this as merely an internal church issue. However, there are important implications for interfaith conversation between Jews and Christians that have not been as widely considered. In its most stark terms, the women religious have largely embodied what I call the “religion of creation” while the bishops speak from within the “religion of empire.” These labels point to what I’ve shown in my recent book, Come Out, My People!: God’s Call Out of Empire In the Bible and Beyond, to be the two, competing religions in the Hebrew Bible.

Culture

The Audacity of Our Ancestors

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Chutzpa. That’s the word that described all three ancestral change-makers whose stories were told at “Reclaiming Jewish Activism,” a panel discussion held at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav last Thursday, May 24th, that brought together three Jewish activists, including me, to speak about our ancestors who inspire us to action. But while our ancestors had chutzpa – as in, they were audacious, and had the nerve to speak up for justice – the original event host’s withdrawal of its invitation to hold the panel illustrated the negative chutzpah in our own Jewish community: the audacity to silence dissent and meaningful dialogue. Speaking to a packed audience at Sha’ar Zahav, the three of us panelists brought our ancestors into the room through presentations of anecdotes, pictures and chronological narratives. Author and Jeremiah Fellow Julie Gilgoff wove her own family history into that of Red Diaper babies who witnessed their parents’ persecution during the McCarthy era.

General News

Racist Mob, Incited by Israeli Leaders, Attacks African Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Tel Aviv

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Southern Tel Aviv is home to a number of blighted and struggling neighborhoods – areas where Israel’s income inequalities and economic disparities are acutely on display in the shadow of the city’s high rises. And it is here – in the neighborhood of Shapira – where large numbers of African refugees and asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea have sought shelter from forces much more dire than poverty. On Wednesday evening, that shelter was shattered by a 1,000-strong protest which turned violent and, ultimately, into a race riot targeting those seeking relief from violence. How did this happen? The short answer begins by examining the protest, which was organized by Likud activists and attended by several Knesset members, who (for obvious political reasons) stood before the masses and blamed their hardships on African refugees with incendiary catch phrases.

General News

Torah Commentary: Perashat Bamidbar

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I have just been notified that my mother has passed away, so I am reposting an essay I wrote previously as is. Interesting that the subject matter is appropriate. I. Come In Under the Shadow of This Red Rock (or, Shelter in the Wasteland)
Bamidbar 1:1- And Gd spoke to Moshe in the Sinai Desert within the Ohel Moed (the Appointed Tent) on the First of the Second Month in the Second year from the Exodus from Egypt saying… This week we begin the fourth of the books which comprise the Torah. This book, known most commonly as “Bamidbar”, “In the desert”, is also known as “Homesh Hapequdim” or as it is conveniently translated, as “Numbers”.

General News

Social Justice as a Unifying Issue for Dharmic Communities

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Religious communities are never the same once they reach America. In my view, they often become even more remarkable. As a third-generation American Jew, it is at times even challenging for me to think of Judaism apart from the American experience. In spite of hardships early on for our community, the search for common threads between the disparate Jewish groups that came in droves to America two (and more) generations ago forced us to reexamine and hone our religious beliefs. What actually bound us together?

General News

Paul Krugman Enters the [Israel] Fray

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Nobel-Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, a regular Op-Ed columnist and blogger for The New York Times, is one of America’s leading progressive voices on a host of political and fiscal issues. However, as a liberal American Jew, one subject Krugman intentionally refrains from treating is that of Israel, and not because he isn’t invested in the country’s success or highly critical of its current political directions. No, Krugman typically refrains from critiquing Israel because – as he wrote yesterday in a rare moment on the subject – to do so “is to bring yourself under intense attack from organized groups that try to make any criticism of Israeli policies tantamount to anti-Semitism.” And yet, Krugman was moved to do just that for a brief moment yesterday – offer up a few brutally honest words on Israel. What was his motivation for doing so?

General News

Thoughts About Losing Hope and Checking Out

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I came across something unusual yesterday on one of the Christian Right websites I visit regularly. On the American Family Association (AFA) homepage, there was a link to an article that sounded intriguing: “25 Signs That Middle Class Families Have Been Targeted for Extinction.” At first the article sounded progressive, then populist. As it turns out, however, it was a Christian survivalist article. The article linked to a Christian survivalist website that recommends that people pay off their debt, plant a garden, and stockpile a cache of weapons and canned goods in preparation for the oncoming collapse of government.

Culture

A Letter to Anne Frank on Holocaust Remembrance Day

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“In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.” – Anne Frank
Dear Anne,
What would you make of it all? What would you think of what has become of the world? What would you feel about how we still behave? Would you be surprised at what has happened to the Jewish people since your death and how the Jewish story is unfolding in the 21st century?