Christianity

"This is What Religion Looks Like!"

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Anyone driving through Madison, Wisconsin in April and May would have recognized those nine beeps of car and truck horns, ubiquitous throughout the city: This is what democracy looks like! The mainstream media focused on unions, of course, public and private, coming together in unexpected solidarity, but not everyone realized that spiritual and religious groups played a significant role as well. And here’s something that will challenge your prejudices: evangelical groups were among them. Together with the religious organizations that form the usual progressive “suspects,” they chanted their own variation on a theme: This is what religion looks like. Houses of Worship: the new “public” spaces for political action?

Inter-Culturalism

A Salvo at Islamophobia from Unlikely Quarters

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As if we haven’t had enough unexpected twists in the Oslo tragedy, a fascinating op-ed on Islamophobia by none other than Abe Foxman (“Norwegian attacks stem from a new ideological hate – The Washington Post”) of the Anti-Defamation League appeared in yesterday’s Washington Post. I don’t often find myself agreeing with Mr. Foxman on issues involving Muslims – though I certainly share his concerns about the use of anti-Semitism as a political tool by Muslim extremists — but I think he is to be applauded for this principled and thoughtful warning about the growing threat of Islamophobia. Most interestingly, Foxman explitly explores the profound parallels between this new hate and the age-old “Socialism of Fools” that the ADL exists to fight. Abe Foxman: “Norwegian attacks stem from a new ideological hate” – The Washington Post
It is especially heartening to see one of the most prominent fighters against anti-Semitism call out hate-spewing Islamophobes for what they are, an in language that makes their deep affinities with traditional anti-Semites crystal clear. Foxman writes of hardline Islamophobia:
These ideas are no longer geographically isolated.

Inter-Culturalism

The Post-Osama Muslim American

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One of the global architects of terror responsible for inspiring the 9-11 tragedy was finally killed this week. Osama bin Laden, who violently hijacked the faith of 1.5 billion to rationalize his perverse criminal actions, is permanently seared into our collective consciousness as the 21st century boogeyman. Sadly, in the eyes of many Americans, bin Laden has also become one of the most visible icons of “Islam” alongside Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. Furthermore, 10 years after the 9-11 tragedy, nearly 60% of Americans say they don’t know a Muslim, and the favorability rating of Islam is at its lowest ebb. Muslim Americans, like much of the world, still cannot escape the overbearing shadow of the fallen towers. There is a permanent fork in the timeline of the Muslim American narrative: Pre-911 and Post 9-11.

Culture

Cinco de Mayo, Primero de Mayo, and the Birth of the United States of América

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Crossposted from Colorlines.com
by Roberto Lovato
Back in the late 70’s and 80’s, when most white people didn’t feel safe in predominantly Latino neighborhoods like San Francisco’s Mission district (or inner cities, for that matter), summer started with Cinco de Mayo. Tiny, hyper-local street fairs where Mexican restaurants, crowds of happy, loud brown people and lamb chop-sideburned Santana-wannabe garage bands filled the air with cultural and political electricity. It went largely unnoticed outside of the Latino neighborhood, what used to be called El Barrio. Cinco de Mayo’s mix – live salsa, mariachi and rock Latino music; sometimes-inspired English and Spanish-language political speeches and volanteando (flyering) – provided the soft cultural cushion for generations of citizens and non-citizens dropped by the American Dream. And none but the cigarette smoking Marxista even knew or spoke about May Day, the International Workers Day rallies that filled cities around the country this past weekend.

Inter-Culturalism

Where's the Apology to the "Arab Street"?

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A few days ago, I came across a wonderful op-ed by a journalist and Middle East commentator in the Danish newspaper Politiken – which one might call Denmark’s answer to The New York Times – that I think admirably sums up how the last few months’ events in the Middle East have exposed the abject superficiality and thinly-veiled prejudice that often infects Western and especially American MSM analysis of Middle Eastern politics. For far too long, it’s been customary to dismiss the Arab masses with this offensive, meaningless shorthand — the “Arab Street” — that casts them as mindless herds of animals ever on the verge of violence and in thrall to extremists. What follows is my (no doubt imperfect) translation of the article in its entirety. Anders Jerichow: “Vi skylder araberne en undskyldning” [“We owe the Arabs an apology”] (Politiken – April 21, 2011) [Original in Danish]:
It wasn’t so long ago that Western governments–and, admittedly, Western media–warned of “the Arab Street.” It was code for all the ugliness that would break out should the spirit of the Arab masses be set free.

Inter-Culturalism

Wondering Why We Wander: Jews and Global Community Service

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By Carla Sameth
At age 23, my mom was allowed to leave home in the Bronx to go help her sister, my aunt Charlotte, with her new baby in Seattle. But the Jewish guys in Seattle met all the new girls “fresh off the boat” and she was quickly snatched up by my dad. When my mom decided to marry him soon afterwards and stay in Seattle, her father, my Grandpa Sam, put a curse on her saying her children would “scatter across the globe.” This was strangely prophetic because my siblings and I somehow ended up living in countries as diverse as Israel, France, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Japan. Like so many other Jewish youth, we also sought out international travel and community service trips as young adults.

Education

Meet Mr. G: A Greedy, Grasping Schoolteacher

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Meet Mr. G. He’s been teaching high school in Santa Fe for twenty years. You might ask,”Is that a neck brace he’s wearing?” Now that you mentioned it, yes. Mr. G. is wearing a neck brace. This is the story of how, after an excruciating year of teaching, Mr. G. discovered he’d been standing at the blackboard with multiple neck fractures.

art

Connecting the Dots of History

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. declared that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” In this struggle for justice, Massachusetts-based artist Pamela Chatterton-Purdy sees godliness made manifest. Godliness is reflected in the actions of individuals who protect the weak from the strong, who maintain innocence in an evil world, or who fight for the dignity of being a human being. The arc is bent through the struggle and sacrifice of innumerable individuals, only some of whom will be named in a place of honor in the pages of history. Chatterton-Purdy has devoted the last seven years to a project called “Icons of the Civil Rights Movement …

Inter-Culturalism

Why Jews Around the World are Praying for the Victory of the Egyptian Uprising

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2/1/2011 Note from Dave Belden: we are delighted to see this piece by Rabbi Lerner is prominent on the Al Jazeera English website today (permanent link here). Ever since the victory over the dictator of Tunisia and the subsequent uprising in Egypt, my email has been flooded with messages from Jews around the world hoping and praying for the victory of the Egyptian people over their cruel Mubarak regime. Though a small segment of Jews have responded to right-wing voices from Israel that lament the change and fear that a democratic government would bring to power fundamentalist extremists who wish to destroy Israel and who would abrogate the hard-earned treaty that has kept the peace between Egypt and Israel for the last 30 years, the majority of Jews are more excited and hopeful than worried. Of course, the worriers have a point. Israel has allied itself with repressive regimes in Egypt and used that alliance to ensure that the borders with Gaza would remain closed while Israel attempted to economically deprive the Hamas regime there by denying needed food supplies and equipment to rebuild after Israel’s devastating attack in December 2008 and January 2009.

Healing Israel/Palestine

An Ancient Roadmap for a Challenge of Our Time: how the story of Isaac, Esau, and Jacob applies to Israel and Palestine today

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by Rosemary H. Hayes
How influential an ancient story can be is demonstrated in the State of Israel’s insistence on its right to Palestinian territory as “promised” by their ancestral god and recorded in the Hebrew scriptures. However, in our time, Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, said the opposing Palestinian claim to its own existential homeland meant that here was hot a case of “right and wrong,” but a case of “two rights.” This was substantiated by the British in 1917 with Lord Balfour’s famous declaration: “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people … it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” The roots of this drama lie in archaic tales of the Arab and Jewish peoples, descendants of Ishmael and Isaac, sons of the patriarch Abraham.