Israeli Deputy Defense Minister on Tisha B’Av: “We’re not Ashamed. We Will Rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount

August 14, 2016, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)

By Richard Silverstein*

Today was Tisha B’Av, one of the most solemn days of the year for observant Jews.  It marks the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE.  It is the day on which the Book of Lamentations, which commemorates the fall of Jerusalem, is recited in every synagogue in the world.

But in Israel, the firebrands of Israel’s most right-wing government ever aren’t in mourning.

They’re rejoicing at the prospect of rebuilding the Temple.  They have High Priests in training who are learning the ancient sacrificial rites at the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in occupied East Jerusalem.  The Temple Institute, which is

JVP STATEMENT ON ISRAEL'S OPERATION "PILLAR OF DEFENSE"

Jewish Voice for Peace http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org (USA)

Submitted by Alissa Wise on Wed, 11/14/2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Rabbi Alissa Wise, alissa@jvp.org

Jewish Voice for Peace Statement on Israel’s Operation "Pillar of Defense"

As Israel launches operation “Pillar of Defense” in Gaza, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) calls for an immediate cessation of the air strikes and naval bombardment into Gaza and an end to the ongoing siege of Gaza. JVP urges Israel not to exploit its asymmetric power to exacerbate the instability in the region. We urge President Obama to take a stand against these attacks and to use the power of the United States to insist that Israel pursue all diplomatic measures possible for the sake of life, safety and security on all sides. JVP opposes all attacks on civilians, and urges the end of rocket attacks from Gaza into civilian communities in Israel, which only serve to derail efforts for a just resolution to the conflict.

This operation is named in reference to a biblical passage in which a pillar of cloud protects the Israelites as they wandered in the desert after leaving bondage in Egypt.

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; that they might go by day and by night. Exodus 13:21

It is unseemly to invoke the protection afforded the Israelites wandering in the desert when Israel is the dominant military power in the region. JVP rejects the possibility that such a military operation and escalation of violence will be of any protection for Israelis or Palestinians. As Israel continues to control Gaza by air, land and sea, Israel holds responsibility for the well-being and safety of Palestinian civilians in Gaza who will be traumatized, injured and killed through this escalation of violence.

JVP calls on our chapters, members, and supporters to join us in redoubling our efforts to advocate for an end to the U.S.’s unconditional military aid to Israel and to intensify our calls for divestment from all companies that profit from this escalation of violence and Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza.

You can follow live updates from Gaza here: https://twitter.com/theIMEU/watching-gaza

Jewish Voice for Peace is a national organization dedicated to promoting a US foreign policy in the Middle East based on peace, democracy, human rights and respect for international law.

With offices in New York and California, over 100,000 supporters and 30 chapters, a Rabbinic Cabinet, and a youth wing, JVP’s board of advisors includes Tony Kushner, actor Ed Asner, writer Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and other respected rabbis, artists, scholars and activists.
http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

"SPREAD OVER US THE SUKKAH OF SHALOM, THE SIMPLE HUTS OF PEACE"

30 september 2012, The Shalom Center http://www.theshalomcenter.org (USA) 
A Blog by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Tonight Jews begin Sukkot, the Festival of Huts – vulnerable huts with a leafy, leaky roof –- open to the stars, the rain, the Holy Wind that breathes all life.

Traditionally, the people were to live in them, sleep in them for seven days and nights. Live for a week each fall in these most ancient, primordial homes made by early human beings –- just as we are to eat for a week, each springtime, the primordial food of human beings who had learned to manage fire: a flat, unrisen bread of flour and water, baked for eighteen minutes with no yeast, no salt, no flavoring.

Both festivals remind us of the most simple paths of living, remind us that our fancy homes of clever architecture and indoor toilets, our fancy dishes brought from five thousand miles away, may not be as solid, permanent, as these flimsy huts and barely fired foods. Billions of people in our world live in homes as flimsy, eat food as bare. Sukkot and Passover may remind us of them as well as of our earliest ancestors.

Are these the homes wherein we should be dwelling all our days? No, but remembering, experiencing them n our bodies for a moment, is a gift of life.

Every night, Jews pray to YHWH, the Holy Interbreathing of all life: “Spread over us the sukkah of shalom.” Not a fortress of invincibility, a palace of triumph and security, a temple of orderly and muttered prayer – but these huts where anything might happen. From outside, a storm. A robber. From inside, an “O!” of radical amazement at the awesome beauty, awesome terror, of the world around us. A breath of some new way of praising the One Who Breathes us.

The teaching: We, all humankind, live in fact in a sukkah, vulnerable. No great Twin Towers, no Pentacle of Power, is invincible. Only the shared knowledge of that truth can bring us peace.

When such an undefended, vulnerable building as the US consulate in Ben-Ghazi, Libya, was attacked, its officials murdered, what happened to its assailants? The citizens of Libya rallied to destroy their military base, scatter their organization of attackers, terrorists.

Out of love they acted. Love for the Ambassador who was bringing expressive love and practical love –- schools, health clinics –-to the Libyan people.

Not Drones and Bombs, but Love responding to love.

Is it impossible for a President who thinks his power is undergirded by Drones and Bombs to notice and publicly applaud the love that is a different kind of power? To reaffirm in the Ambassador’s memory that his path is the one America intends to walk?

Am I saying that violence as a path of resistance to oppressive violence and murderous attack is NEVER justified, that only nonviolence is ethical? No, I am not, though some people I respect do hold that view. I do think that under extreme circumstances, violence in a society’s self-defense may be necessary. But I think that far more often, the use of what is claimed to be self-defensive violence turns out to spark another round of far more violence, whereas creative, persistent nonviolence –- practical love -- can often, not always, end tyranny and terrorism.

Martin Luther King defined both our goal and the means to get there: The Beloved Community, brought about by a revolution of values. In our generation, he said, “The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence." The closer we can come to embodying that practice in our present, the closer we will come to achieving that vision of the future.

Tonight and every night and every dawning, You Who are the Interbreathing of all life, spread over all of us the sukkah of shalom.

Blessings of shalom, salaam, peace --

Arthur

HATE IS NOT A JEWISH VALUE -- Rabbis for Human Rights-North America

August 17, 2012, Rabbis for Human Rights רבנים למען זכויות האדם http://www.rhr-na.org (USA)

Rabbis for Human Rights-North America Calls on Rabbis, Jewish Leaders to Teach: Hate Is Not a Jewish Value


***For Immediate Release***

In the wake of a violent attack by Israeli teenagers on Palestinian youths, Rabbis for Human Rights-North America calls on rabbis, cantors, Jewish educators, and community leaders to teach our children that hate is not a Jewish value.

Today, a mob dozens of Israeli teens attacked three Palestinian youths in Jerusalem’s Zion Square. One of the victims was beaten so severely that he required resuscitation and remains in critical condition. Witnesses described the scene as a “lynching” and said that the perpetrators shouted “death to Arabs” and other racist epithets.

As rabbis and cantors, we are shocked and embarrassed by the behavior of these teens. Regardless of our political opinions or our desired resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have a responsibility to teach our children that Judaism condemns the shedding of blood, as all people are equal creations in the divine image.

We applaud the swift action of the Acting Jerusalem Police Chief, General Menachem Yitzhaki, in already setting up a special investigative team for the case. We urge the police and prosecutors to thoroughly investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of this horrific hate crime. And we praise the Magen David Adom rescue team who administered first aid, and the doctors and staff at Hadassah Hospital who continue to care for the victims. These medical personnel embody the Torah’s command, “You shall not stand against the blood of your neighbor.”

On this Shabbat, as we enter the reflective period of the month of Elul, we ask rabbis, cantors, and educators to spend a few minutes speaking with our children and our communities about today’s incident in Jerusalem. These conversations should emphasize that political differences are no excuse for bigotry. We pray that our children will help us to realize a world free of hatred or violence.

For more information, contact Joshua Bloom, Rabbis for Human Rights-North America's Director of Israel Programs, at jbloom@rhr-na.org or 718-683-2548

----------------------


From Mondoweiss:

‘TODAY I SAW A LYNCH WITH MY OWN EYES, IN ZION SQUARE, IN THE CENTER OF JERUSALEM’

by Annie Robbins on August 17, 2012

Jerusalem 2012. The account first appeared on Facebook in Hebrew. Translated by Haaretz:
Dozens of Jewish youths attacked three young Palestinians in Jerusalem's Zion Square early on Friday morning, in what one witness described as "a lynch" on Facebook.

.......

The three were allegedly attacked by youths shouting "Death to the Arabs" at them, as well as other racial slurs. One of them fell on the floor, and his attackers continued to beat him until he lost consciousness. They subsequently fled from the scene.

Within a short period of time rescue volunteers and Magen David Adom rescue services arrived on the scene, and found the victim with no pulse and not breathing. After a lengthy resuscitation attempt, he was transferred to hospital.

Writing on her Facebook page, one eye witness decribed the attack as a lynch: "Its late at night, and I can't sleep. My eyes are full of tears for a good few hours now and my stomach is turning inside out with the question of the loss of humanity, the image of God in mankind, a loss that I am not willing to accept."

"But today I saw a lynch with my own eyes, in Zion Square, the center of the city of Jerusalem ….. and shouts of 'A Jew is a soul and Arab is a son of a –,' were shouted loudly and dozens (!!) of youths ran and gathered and started to really beat to death three Arab youths who were walking quietly in the Ben Yehuda street," the witness wrote.

"When one of the Palestinian youths fell to the floor, the youths continued to hit him in the head, he lost consciousness, his eyes rolled, his angled head twitched, and then those who were kicking him fled and the rest gathered in a circle around, with some still shouting with hate in their eyes."

"When two volunteers [from local charities] went into the circle, they tried to perform CPR the mass of youths standing around started to say resentfully that we are resuscitating an Arab, and when they passed near us and saw that the rest of the volunteers were shocked, they asked why we were so in shock, he is an Arab.

About Annie Robbins:
Annie Robbins is Writer at Large for Mondoweiss, a mother, a human rights activist and a ceramic artist. She lives in the SF bay area.

Senior Rabbi: Zionism to Collapse

14August 2012, Fars News Agency http://english.farsnews.com (Iran)

TEHRAN (FNA)- Senior Rabbi Mashallah Golestaninejad underlined the importance of this year's International Quds Day rallies against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, and said Zionism will collapse soon.

"Based on the righteous divine tradition, Zionism will collapse," Golestaninejad told FNA on Tuesday, adding that historicalrecords show that no cruel regime will remain and Zionists are also taking their last breaths.

He described the International Quds Day rallies as a symbol of defending the innocent Palestinian nation, and said, "The Iranian Jews attend the glorious rallies every year along with other Iranian citizens and we will participate in this ceremony this year too."

The last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan is dubbed as 'the international Qods Day' during which worldwide Muslims stage demonstrations to voice theirstrong protest and outrage at the occupying regime of Israel.

The International Qods Day was started by the late Founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, as a way of expressing solidarity with the Palestinians and underscoring importance of Qods to Muslims.

FROM SINAI TO "THE THUNDER" AT NAG HAMMADI

22 may 2012, The Shalom Center http://www.theshalomcenter.org (USA)
A Blog by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Dear friends,

Yesterday I shared with you some thoughts about the Book of Ruth, traditionally read on the festival of Shavuot (which begins Saturday evening). (If you missed yesterday’s letter, it is on our Website Home Page: click here.) Since one aspect of Shavuot is that it celebrates the Revelation at Mount Sinai, we continue our exploration of its meanings with two documents that focus on Anokhi, I– the supernal I that speaks at Sinai.

Recently, Phyllis & I and Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kremer took part along with about 15 Christians in a discussion of a number of religious texts written in the first two centuries of the Common Era. Most were clearly Christian, but the early Church had not included them in what became known to Christians as the “New Testament.” Should they have been? Should they, even now?

One of the texts, found in the Nag Hammadi collection, was not in any clear sense Christian. It did not mention Jesus, or Christ, or the apostles. It was called “The Thunder: Perfect Mind,” but one of the scholars present said this title had been appended much later, and that it had no connection with the content.

When I read it, however, I felt and said that its title, “The Thunder,” was precisely about its content – for the whole text felt like The Thunder that spoke at Sinai. Someone asked whether I meant it was/ is a midrash on Sinai. “No!” I said, “It IS Sinai.”

Here is “The Thunder.” Perhaps you will find Her as holy, as awe-inspiring, as I did. Perhaps not. Reading Her for Shavuot, do you hear Her teaching us how to live? To think, to feel, to commune, to be silent? If so, how? I welcome your responses.

With blessings of sharing and caring, shalom and salaam, healing and wholeness -- Arthur

Excerpts from The Thunder: Perfect Mind
(Translated by Rev. Hal Taussig and others from a text
in Coptic from the Nag Hammadi library,
1st 2 centuries of the Common Era.)

I [in Coptic, Anokh] am the first and the last
I am she who is honored and she who is mocked
I am the whore and the holy woman
I am the wife and the virgin
I am the mother and the daughter
I am the limbs of my mother
I am the sterile woman and she has many children
I am she whose wedding is extravagant and I didn’t have a husband
I am the midwife and she who hasn’t given birth
I am the comfort of labor pains
I am the bride and the bridegroom
And it is my husband who gave birth to me
I am my father’s mother,
My husband’s sister, and he is my child
I am the slave-woman of him who served me
I am she, the lord of my child

But it is he who gave birth to me at the wrong time
And he is my child born at the right time
And my power is from within him
I am the staff of his youthful power
And he is the baton of my old womanhood

Whatever he wants happens to me
I am the silence never found
And the idea infinitely recalled
I am the voice with countless sounds
And the thousand guises of the word
I am the speaking of my name

You who loathe me, why do you love me and loathe the ones who love me?
You who deny me, confess me
You who confess me, deny me
You who speak the truth about me, lie about me
You who lie about me, speak the truth about me
You who know me, ignore me
You who ignore me, know me

I am both awareness and obliviousness
I am humiliation and pride
I am without shame
I am ashamed
I am security and I am fear
I am war and peace

…

Why do you despise my fear and curse my pride?
I am she who exists in all fears and in trembling boldness
I am she who is timid
And I am safe in a comfortable place
I am witless, and I am wise
Why did you hate me with your schemes?
I shall shut my mouth among those whose mouths are shut and then I will show up and speak

Why then did you hate me, you Greeks?
Because I am a barbarian among barbarians?

I am the wisdom of the Greeks and the knowledge of the barbarians
I am the deliberation of both the Greeks and barbarians
I am he whose image is multiple in Egypt
And she who is without an image among the barbarians
I am she who was hated in every place
And she who was loved in every place

I am she whom they call life
And you all called death
I am she whom they call law
And you all called lawlessness

I am she whom you chased and she whom you captured
I am she whom you scattered
And you have gathered me together
I am she before whom you were ashamed
And you have been shameless to me
I am she who does not celebrate festivals
And I am she whose festivals are spectacular

I, I am without God
And I am she whose God is magnificent
I am the one you thought about and you detested me
I am not learned, and they learn from me
I am she whom you detested and yet you think about me
I am he from whom you hid
And you appear to me

Whenever you hide yourselves, I myself will appear

…

Blame the part of me within yourselves
Come toward me, you who know me
and you who know the parts of me
Assemble the great among the small and earliest creatures

Advance toward childhood
Do not hate it because it is small and insignificant
Don’t reject the small parts of greatness because they are small
since smallness is recognized from within greatness

I am the learning from my search
And the discovery of those seeking me
The command of those who ask about me
And the power of powers
In my understanding of the angels
Who were sent on my word
And the Gods in God, according to my design? …

I am being
I am she who is nothing
Those who do not participate in my presence, don’t know me
Those who share in my being know me

Those who are close to me, did not know me
Those who are far from me, knew me
I am the coming together and the falling apart
I am the enduring and the disintegration
I am down in the dirt and they come up to me
I am judgment and acquittal

I myself am without sin, and the root of sin is from within me
I appear to be lust but inside is self-control
I am what anyone can hear but no one can say
I am a mute that does not speak and my words are endless

…

Since what is your inside is your outside
And the one who shapes your outside is he who shaped your inside
And what you see on the outside, you see revealed on the inside
It is your clothing

Hear me, audience, and learn from my words, you who know me
I am what everyone can hear and no one can say
I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name

2,000 PALESTINIANS ARE ON HUNGER STRIKE – TELL HILARY TO BREAK HER SILENCE!

May 13, 2012 Shalom Rav http://rabbibrant.com (USA)
A Blog by Rabbi Brant Rosen

Protest tent, Nablus, May 11, 2012. (Photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz/ActiveStills)

Did you know that two thousand plus imprisoned Palestinians have been on an hunger strike for months demanding basic human rights and an end to detention without trial? Did you know that two of them have not eaten since February 28 and are hovering between life and death? Did you know that thousands of Palestinians have been protesting in support of the strikers in growing demonstrations throughout the West Bank?

Alas, while it’s been reported fairly regularly via the world media, there’s been a near-total silence from the American government on the matter. Actually, that’s not quite correct – at a recent press briefing, spokesperson Victoria Nuland remarked that the State Department doesn’t “have anything to say (about it) one way or the other.”

As journalist Robert Naiman recently observed, the State Department did manage to speak out in support of Bahrainian Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, also on hunger strike to oppose his unjust detention. Yet 2,000 Palestinian hunger strikers do not rate even an official acknowledgement?

At present, Egypt is attempting to broker a solution – and as Naiman rightly points out, “a few words from the State Department could help tip the balance toward a more positive resolution.” I encourage you to join me in signing this petition urging Hilary Clinton to end her silence and use her good offices to help save the lives of these nonviolent Palestinian protesters.

For a deeply moving meditation on the hunger strikers campaign, I commend to you this post by Vicky at Bethlehem Blogger:

Through the hunger strike, the prisoners have demonstrated that there are some things that can never be taken from them – dignity first of all. Maher Halahleh, whose brother Thaer is in a critical condition after seventy-four days without food, said today, “This is a new weapon that is stronger than a nuclear bomb. Israel is fighting people who have no weapons, only their will.”

My Latest Tweets:

• New on Palestinian Talmud: "Administrative Detention is Not Judaism" wp.me/p22JUE-3Z by @velveteenrabbi 4 hours ago

• I stand w 1000s of Palestinians on hunger strike against detention w/o charge. #Palhunger bit.ly/HungerSolidari… via @jvplive 6 hours ago

• New on Palestinian Talmud! Rabbi Alissa Wise on Pal Hunger Strikers and "Sacred Decisiveness" wp.me/p22JUE-3N 6 hours ago

• 2,000 Palestinians are on Hunger Strike - Tell Hilary to Break Her Silence! wp.me/p1Xax-33q 1 day ago

COMING SOON: 5 BROKEN CAMERAS

7 May 2012, Shalom Rav http://rabbibrant.com (USA)
A Blog by Rabbi Brant Rosen

http://vimeo.com/15843191

If you haven't heard about the documentary "5 Broken Cameras," you will very soon. It was the talk of the 2012 Sundance Festival (winning the World Cinema Directing Award) and it's going to be hitting theaters this summer.

Click here for a NY Times feature on the film. Here's a description, according to the distributor's website:

An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, 5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit. Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Burnat's cameras, the filmmakers' collaboration follows one family's evolution over five years of village turmoil. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost. "I feel like the camera protects me," he says, "but it's an illusion".

LEADING SETTLER RABBI TELLS BARAK, BIBI: ‘NO TO IRAN WAR’

22 March 2012, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)

It’s not every day you read an article like this (Hebrew) in the Israeli press. Leading settler Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, one of the most senior of the religious Zionist rabbis, attacks the idea of an Israeli assault on Iran and rejects the notion that a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel. In fact, he says, it is only one of many threats Israel faces and not necessarily the most dangerous. Because of that, the rabbi rejects the notion that a military attack on that nation is warranted.

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, leading settler rabbi, opposes Iran strike (Nisim Lev)

He calls Ehud Barak and Bibi Netanyahu leaders with “inflated egos” and says ego and other personal motivations are propelling an attack. Melamed recommends that all other ministers voting on this issue should act in a calm, deliberate manner and not get carried away by the defense and prime minister’s fervor for war. He argues that Netanyahu suffers from a “trust gap,” and that the latter believes a successful attack against Iran will transform him into one of the great leaders of Israel on a par with Ben Gurion or Begin. For that reason, Bibi’s desire for personal glory and his motives must be distrusted.

Barak’s career, Melamed argues, is in free fall in contrast to his dreams of being a great leader, security expert, and figure capable of resolving international crises. The defense minister’s only opportunity to return to political leadership and become a winner in the eyes of the populace is through a successful assault on Iran.

Rabbi Melamed argues that while the impulse by nations to gain nuclear capability is undesirable, it appears impossible to prevent. He writes that even if Israel succeeded in destroying Iran’s nuclear program it would only delay that country gaining a weapon. In the rabbi’s view, Israel’s efforts should be directed not at attacking Iran, but at creating anti-missile defenses that could stop any Iranian attack on Israel. He favors deterrence over attack.

What’s especially important here is that Melamed is a settler rabbi, beloved of the nationalist camp. He favors all the things that my readers and I oppose in the Territories. But he carries great sway with those MKs and ministers who share his views. Therefore, he may carry weight in the debate over attacking Iran. As I’ve written before, I don’t care about the motivation for opposing an Iran strike. Taking the right position is more important than ideological purity. We can always oppose Rabbi Melamed on those issues that divide us at a later time.

PURIM: WAR OR SPRING FEVER?

3 March 2012, The Shalom Center http://www.theshalomcenter.org (USA)
office@theshalomcenter.org

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Topsy-turvy Purim & the Fast of Esther: A world of contradictions

PURIM, the Jewish festival of Topsy-turvy and Spring Fever, begins this coming Wednesday evening. Is it also a festival of war and massacre? Can it -- this very week -- feed a thirst for fear and rage, revenge and war?

Immediately preceding it is the Fast of Esther, from sunrise to sunset this Wednesday. Though today few Jews observe this Fast, its teaching may be as important as the teaching of Purim itself – and in this letter, I want to examine what it means. Together, they make Purim the most complex and self-contradictory of all the festivals – the deepest in teaching the inner contradictions of our world.

Woven into Purim is a story about Persia, which today is called Iran. It is a made-up story, not history –-- a parody on power, a hilarious poking-fun at domineering arrogance. Yet it is often misunderstood by many Jews as factual history, and in our generation that misunderstanding can turn the meaning of the story upside down. Topsy-turvy.

One aspect of the story is about the threat of a Persian leader to obliterate the Jews, and it ends with the Jews killing 75,000 Persians. In 1994, on Purim a Jew named Baruch [“Blessed”] Goldstein mislearned the story so thoroughly that to carry out its denoument, he murdered 29 Muslims prostrate in prayer at the Tomb of Abraham.

It is an ill omen that this very week, the week of Purim, the prime minister of a Jewish state is coming to pressure an American President to permit Israel to make war against these modern “Persians,” whose leaders have spoken deep hostility against that Jewish state.

The rationale for such a war is that Iran may be seeking to make nuclear weapons, even though its government denies any such intent and even though –- even if its government is lying -- the process of turning nuclear research into a weapon would take years.
During those years, diplomatic efforts, carrots alongside sticks, could try to ensure that neither Israel nor Iran is a threat to its neighbors..

But on its surface, the Scroll of Esther seems to glorify bloody revenge, not the restoration of peace. When Jews had little power in the world, the fantasy of bloody revenge upon enemies was perhaps a release from fear and rage. But in an era when Jews have very great power, it is deeply dangerous to take the story’s tale of revenge as a description of what to do.

I am suggesting that the story of Esther should be understood to teach precisely that the overreaching, domineering use of power by anyone will bring disaster on the dominator’s head.

The entire teaching of the Scroll is the telling of two jokes with the same structure. In Joke 1, an anti-Semitic tyrant, Haman, plots to kill the Jews, and is himself hanged on the gallows he intended for the Jewish leader, Mordechai.

And here’s Joke 2: The king begins the story by dethroning his own recalcitrant queen, saying as he does that men must be in charge of the household lest women tell them what to do –-- and then ends the story by doing exactly what his new queen, Esther, tells him to do.

Both these threads of the story are a classic joke: the joke of the pratfall comic who tosses a banana peel on the floor and then slips on his own banana peel –-- “hoist by his own petard.” Here the joke is applied in a much more serious way to the arrogant in power.

The ancient rabbis who shaped the observance of Purim intensified this upside-down version of what Purim is about. The rabbis taught that one should recognize the deep topsy-turviness and ultimate absurdity of the world by getting so drunk on Purim as not to know the difference between “Blesssed ["Baruch"] Mordechai” and “Accursed ["Aror"] Haman.” And for centuries Purim has brought with it skits (“Purimshpiels”) that make fun of rabbis, rulers, even the Torah; masks and costumes, even gender-bending cross-dressing otherwise forbidden.

Even the process of reading aloud the Scroll of Esther teaches the world’s absurdity: According to tradition, we are obligated to hear on Purim every word of the reading of the Scroll. Yet we are also commanded to blot out the name of the tyrannical Haman, who is the anti-hero of the story –-- and every time his name appears, the whole congregation does indeed make noise that drowns it out.

There is no way to obey both commands. Together they teach that there is something self-contradictory about the world.

And yet –-- and yet: Purim is traditionally immediately preceded by the Fast of Esther -- when from sunrise to sunset, one refrains from eating, drinking, sex, and other pleasures. This practice precedes the day of hilarious spring fever with a day of inwardness and contemplation.

We can imagine the rabbis affirming the importance of absurdity, but also concerned lest it get out of hand.

Lest it lead to a Baruch Goldstein’s getting so drunk on the story of Mordechai’s Revenge, as to become drunk on blood, not wine. Unable to know the difference in his own soul between being “Baruch, Blessed,” and becoming “Aror, Accursed.”

Lest it lead to an arrogant ruler initiating a “preventive” war against a hostile Iran –-- Persia – not because of anything it has yet done but out of fear of what it might do, If ----

Indeed, the Fast of Esther on the day before Purim – the 13th of Adar – has a powerfully instructive history,. During the Maccabeean uprising against the Empire of Antiocheus, a Syrian-Hellenistic general, Nicanor, was defeated on the 13th of Adar by the Maccabeean guerilla army. To celebrate this military victory, the Jews instituted the festive Nicanor Day on the 13th of Adar.

By turning this day into a fast day, the rabbis shattered this nationalist celebration of a military victory. They tried to teach us to take the contradictions of Purim as a profound meditation on our world, not as an incitement to murder, a permission to kill, an encouragement for war.

And they assigned Isaiah 55:6-56:8 as the prophetic reading for the afternoon of the Fast of Esther. That passage reaches far beyond ethnocentric or nationalist fear, rage, and war: “My House,” says YHWH [the Interbreathing of all life], “shall be a house of prayer for all peoples.”

For several years after Baruch/Aror Goldstein’s Purim massacre, some Jews set aside the Fast of Esther as a day when Jews, Christians, and Muslims could in each other’s presence speak honestly about the bloody streaks in the broader fabric of their own tradition. And seek forgiveness from each other.

But in our generation, few Jews observe this Fast of Esther.

Blessings of shalom, salaam, healing, wholeness -- Arthur

I SUPPORT THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA) DIVESTMENT RESOLUTION -- Rabbi Brant Rosen

22 February 2012, Shalom Rav http://rabbibrant.com (USA)

A Blog by Rabbi Brant Rosen

As a Jew, a rabbi and a person of conscience, I am voicing my support of the divestment resolution being brought to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) this June.

This resolution, which has been a point of divisive contention between the PC (USA) and some American Jewish organizations for many years, endorses a recommendation of divestment from Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard. It was put forth by the church's committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment that recommended divestment of companies engaged in "non-peaceful pursuits in Israel/Palestine."

There is a long and tumultuous history to this resolution - here's a basic outline:

- In 1971 and 1976 the Presbyterian Church stated that it had a responsibility to ensure that its funds be invested responsibly and consistent with the church's mission.

- In 1986, the PC (USA) formed the Committee for Mission Responsibility Through Investing (MRTI) in 1986. The MRTI Committee carried out the General Assembly's wish to engage in shareholder activism and as a last resort, divest itself of companies which contravened the GA's position. Divestment would follow a phased process starting with attempted dialogue and shareholder resolutions and ultimately the total sale of and future ban on the church's holdings in a company.

- In June 2004, the PC (USA) General Assembly adopted by a vote of 431-62 a resolution that called on the MRTI Committee "to initiate a process of phased, selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel." The resolution expressed the church's support of the Geneva Accord, said that "the occupation . . . has proven to be at the root of evil acts committed against innocent people on both sides of the conflict," that "the security of Israel and the Israeli people is inexorably dependent on making peace with their Palestinian neighbors", that "horrific acts of violence and deadly attacks on innocent people, whether carried out by Palestinian suicide bombers or by the Israeli military, are abhorrent and inexcusable by all measures, and are a dead-end alternative to a negotiated settlement," and that the United States government needed to be "honest, even-handed broker for peace."

- In 2005, MRTI Committee named five US-based companies - Caterpillar Inc., Citigroup, ITT Industries, Motorola and United Technologies - for initial focus and that it would engage in "progressive engagement" with the companies' management.

- In 2006, following an uproar of criticism from American Jewish organizations, the PC (USA) General Assembly overwhelmingly (483-28) replaced language adopted in 2004 that focused the "phased, selective divestment" specifically on companies working in Israel. It now called for investment in Israel, the Gaza Strip, eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank "in only peaceful pursuits." The new resolution also required the consideration of "practical realities," a "commitment to positive outcomes" and an awareness of the potential impact of strategies on "both the Israeli and Palestinian economies." The 2006 resolution also recognized Israel’s right to build a security barrier along its pre-1967 boundaries. The GA acknowledged the "hurt and misunderstanding among many members of the Jewish community and within our Presbyterian communion" that resulted from the 2004 resolution and stated that the Assembly was "grieved by the pain that this has caused, accept responsibility for the flaws in our process, and ask for a new season of mutual understanding and dialogue."

The most recent resolution is the result of this new process and now focuses on three of the original six companies under consideration. From the PC (USA) website:

The General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC) is recommending that the upcoming 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) divest the church of its stock in three companies “until they have ceased profiting from non-peaceful activities in Israel-Palestine.”

The three companies are Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett-Packard.

At issue are their participation in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the construction of the “security barrier” between Israel and Palestinian territory, and the destruction of Palestinian homes, roads and fields to make way for the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have been declared illegal under international law.

“We have run out of hope that these companies are willing to change their corporate practices [in Israel-Palestine],” said the Rev. Brian Ellison, a Kansas City pastor and chair of the denomination’s Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI). “We have made diligent effort to engage in conversation. We’d like to do more, to make progress, but substantial change does not seem possible.”

As stated above, I support this resolution without reservation and urge other Jewish leaders and community members to do so as well. I am deeply dismayed that along every step of this process, Jewish community organizations (among them, the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs) that purport to speak for the consensus of a diverse constituency have been intimidating and emotionally blackmailing the Presbyterian Church as they attempt to forge their ethical investment strategy in good faith.

It is extremely important to be clear about what is at stake here. First of all, this is not a resolution that seeks to boycott or single out Israel. Divestment does not target countries - it targets companies. In this regard speaking, the PC (USA)'s ethical investment process seeks to divest from specific "military-related companies" it deems are engaged in "non-peaceful" pursuits.

We'd be hard-pressed indeed to make the case that the Israeli government is engaged in "non-peaceful pursuits" in the Occupied Territories and East Jerusalem. I won't go into detail here because I've been writing about this tragic issue for many years: the increasing of illegal Jewish settlements with impunity, the forced evictions and home demolitions, the uprooting of Palestinian orchards, the separation wall that chokes off Palestinians from their lands, the arbitrary administrative detentions, the brutal crushing of non-violent protest, etc, etc.

All of us - Jews and non-Jews alike - have cause for deep moral concern over these issues. Moreover, we have cause for dismay that own government tacitly supports these actions. At the very least, we certainly have the right to make sure that our own investments do not support companies that profit from what we believe to be immoral acts committed in furtherance of Israel's occupation.

As the co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, I am proud that JVP has initiated its own divestment campaign which targets the TIAA-CREF pension fund, urging it to divest from companies that profit from Israel's occupation. Among these are two of the three companies currently under consideration by PC (USA): Motorola and Caterpillar.

Why the concern over these specific companies? Because they are indisputably and directing aiding and profiting the oppression of Palestinians on the ground. Caterpillar profits from the destruction of Palestinian homes and the uprooting of Palestinian orchards by supplying the armor-plated and weaponized bulldozers that are used for such demolition work. Motorola profits from Israel’s control of the Palestinian population by providing surveillance systems around Israeli settlements, checkpoints, and military camps in the West Bank, as well as communication systems to the Israeli army and West Bank settlers.

And why is Hewlett-Packard under consideration for divestment by the PC (USA)? HP owns Electronic Data Systems, which heads a consortium providing monitoring of checkpoints, including several built inside the West Bank in violation of international law. The Israeli Navy, which regularly attacks Gaza’s fishermen within Gaza’s own territorial waters and has often shelled civilian areas in the Gaza Strip, has chosen HP Israel to implement the outsourcing of its IT infrastructure. In addition, Hewlett Packard subsidiary HP Invent outsources IT services to a company called Matrix, which employs settlers in the illegal settlement of Modi’in Illit to do much of its IT work at low wages.

I repeat: by seeking to divest from these companies the PC (USA) is not singling out Israel as a nation. The Presbyterian has every right to - and in fact does - divest its funds from any number of companies that enable non-peaceful pursuits around the world. In this case specifically, the PC (USA) has reasonably determined it considers these particular "pursuits" aid a highly militarized, brutal and oppressive occupation - and it simply does not want to be complicit in supporting companies that enable it.

I am fully aware that there are several organizations in the Jewish community that are already gearing up a full court press to intimidate the PC (USA) from passing this resolution in June. JCPA President Rabbi Steve Gutow recently accused national Presbyterian leaders of "making the delegitimization of Israel a public witness of their church." The Simon Wiesenthal Center has called the resolution" poisonous," and that by considering it the PC (USA) is "showing its moral bankruptcy."

The sorts of statements do not speak for me nor, I am sure, do they speak for the wide, diverse spectrum of opinion on the issue in the American Jewish community. There is no place for public bullying in interfaith relations - I believe this kind of browbeating is decidedly counter to principles of honest, good faith dialogue. To our Presbyterian friends: please know there are many Jewish leaders who stand with you as you seek the cause of peace and justice in Israel/Palestine.

In a recent open letter to the PC (USA), Rabbi Margaret Holub, my colleague on the JVP Rabbinical Council expressed this sentiment eloquently with the following words:

Your Church has long been active in pursuing justice and peace by nonviolent means, including divestment, in many places around the world. As Christians, you have your own particular stake in the land to which both our traditions have long attachments of faith and history. We particularly acknowledge the oppression of Palestinian Christians under Israeli occupation and the justice of your efforts to relieve the oppression directed against your fellows.

To advocate for an end to an unjust policy is not anti-Semitic. To criticize Israel is not anti-Semitic. To invest your own resources in corporations which pursue your vision of a just and peaceful world, and to withdraw your resources from those which contradict this vision, is not anti-Semitic. There is a terrible history of actual anti-Semitism perpetrated by Christians at different times throughout the millennia and conscientious Christians today do bear a burden of conscience on that account. We can understand that, with your commitment to paths of peace and justice, it must be terribly painful and inhibiting to be accused of anti-Semitism.

In fact, many of us in the Jewish community recognize that the continuing occupation of Palestine itself presents a great danger to the safety of the Jewish people, not to mention oppressing our spirits and diminishing our honor in the world community. We appreciate the solidarity of people of conscience in pursuing conscientious nonviolent strategies, such as phased selective divestment, to end the occupation.

I am proud my name is under this letter, alongside many other members of our Rabbinical Council. If you stand with us, please join us in supporting the PC (USA) divestment resolution at their GA in Pittsburgh this summer.

HUNGER STRIKER KHADER ADNAN IS NEAR DEATH

14 February 2012, Shalom Rav http://rabbibrant.com (USA)

by Rabbi Brant Rosen

Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan is near death.

Adnan, a 33-year-old Palestinian, has been on a hunger strike since December 18 after he was arrested in a nighttime IDF raid on his home in the village of Arraba, Jenin. Khader is has been held without trial and charged, without any evidence presented, of affiliation with Islamic Jihad.

Yesterday, an Israeli military court rejected Khader's appeal. In his decision, Judge Moshe Tirosh disregarded Khader’s lawyers’ numerous arguments, including the lack of evidence that Khader Adnan has carried out any activities providing grounds for detention; that administrative detention is used in an arbitrary manner; and that affiliation to a political party is aligned with the right to freedom of expression, assembly and political association.

Judge Tirosh further disregarded Khader's claim that he was subjected to the torture, inhuman and degrading treatment while in custody, adding that only Khader is to blame for his physical health deterioration and that his grave medical condition will not influence the court's administrative detention decision.

Khader Adnan is but one of thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel's practice of arbitrary imprisonment According to a January 1 report by Addameer, a Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights NGO, there are currently 4417 Palestinians (including 132 children) held in "administrative detention" without trial or formal charge.

In a recent op-ed, Ali Abunimah notes the appalling silence of the international community over Khader Adnan's hunger strike - and Israel's egregious practice of administrative detention in the West Bank:

Khader Adnan's struggle reminds us that nonviolence is not the easy choice. It is often the harder one.

Yet the world is still failing to act. The Palestinian prisoner's group Addameer undoubtedly spoke for many when it declared that it "holds the international community responsible for not taking action to save Khader’s life." It demanded "that the European Union, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross intervene with Israel immediately before it is too late."

And there has been silence too from prominent voices such Nick Kristof, the New York Times columnist famous for using individual stories to draw attention to human rights abuses around the world. In a 2010 column titled "Waiting for Gandhi," Kristof scolded Palestinians for not adopting nonviolent tactics.

Of course Kristof was ignoring or simply ignorant of the rich history and present of such popular resistance in Palestine... Last Autumn hundreds of Palestinian prisoners spent weeks on hunger strike against punitive Israeli prison conditions, and many are on hunger strike now in solidarity with Adnan.

But if Kristof and others claim to be "waiting for Gandhi" why haven't they spoken up for Adnan? After all it was Mahatma Gandhi himself who when repeatedly imprisoned by the British famously used hunger strikes to draw international attention to his people's cause.

BTW: readers of this blog may remember the heartbreaking post I shared last December by Palestinian businessman Sam Bahour, who described the plight of his dear friend Walid Abu Rass. Abu Rass, Finance and Administration Manager for Health Work Committees (HRW) - one of the largest community health service providers in the occupied Palestinian territory - was taken from his home in front of his wife and two daughters at 1:30 am on November 22.

Here's Addameer's update on Walid's situation:

Walid’s administrative detention (hearing) took place in two phases. In the first session, the military judge allowed Walid and his lawyer to be present in court with the prosecution. The second session was a closed session, during which Walid and his lawyer were not allowed to be present while the judge read the classified material on which his administrative detention is supposedly based. The judge claimed that this material contains trusted information that Walid is an activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and that administrative detention is the “only way to prevent the danger posed by the detainee.”

When the judge confirmed his administrative detention order on 1 December, Walid’s lawyer filed an appeal, emphasizing that Walid is an employee in a humanitarian institution providing necessary medical services to many individuals and that his detention negatively affects his work and beneficiaries. He noted that Walid’s previous arrests were also all based on classified material and vague reasoning and that there was never any proof or official charges made regarding his alleged PFLP activity. The appeal was rejected by the judge on 15 January 2012.

Addameer believes that Walid’s detention is also connected to his work with the HWC and their support of the prisoners’ hunger strike launched on 27 September. The HWC actively coordinated solidarity events and other support of the prisoners during their 22-day hunger strike. Furthermore, as the hunger strike was initially launched by PFLP members in prison, this affiliation may cast light on why Walid has been accused by the military judge of being active in the PFLP.

Click here to sign a petition urging the International Committee of the Red Cross to take active steps to save Khader Adnan's life "by applying pressure on the Israeli government to release him."

Jewish rescue group builds interfaith cooperation

13 February 2012, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)

ZAKA, an Israeli medical and rescue organization of ultra-Orthodox Jews, initiates program to work with Muslim, Christian counterparts.

By Nathan Jeffay

Leaders of ZAKA, an Israeli medical and rescue organization best known for its work in the aftermath of suicide bombings, has launched a program that seeks to work with Muslim and Christian counterparts on emergency rescues.

ZAKA - who signed a declaration of its interfaith program on January 4 in Zichron Yaakov - reasons that because man is created in God’s image, people of all religions are obliged to “respect each and every person as he is, and to educate and transmit values and messages of peace.” On a practical level, this means that ZAKA will increase minority involvement — with outreach programs like a first aid course for Arab women — and increase the number of volunteers from Israel’s non-Jewish communities.

ZAKA’s chairman, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, who himself was once a leader in the anti-Zionist fringes of the Haredi world, told the Forward that this new initiative represents a more sustainable form of interfaith relations than dialogue. “Every dialogue without actual action doesn’t have a future,” he said. Greek Melkite priest Touma Haddad, a signatory to the declaration, commented, “Sometimes talking is just not enough.”

With its new declaration, ZAKA resolves to capitalize on the interfaith aspect of its work and “have ZAKA volunteers as opinion formers within their communities, working to encourage co-existence, helping and assisting others and instilling values of peace and co-existence.”

Read more at the Forward.

ETHIOPIAN ISRAELIS FACE INCREASING DISCRIMINATION

9 February 2012, Alternative Information Center (AIC) http://www.alternativenews.org (Israel)

Racism is on the rise in Israel and it is sometimes directed towards Ethiopian Jews, citizens of the state who face discrimination and rejection on the basis of their skin color.

An Ethiopian Jewish boy at an absorption center in Israel (photo: flickr/Vadim Lavrusik)

1500 Israelis of Ethiopian origin demonstrated recently against Israeli racism and discrimination outside the parliament in Jerusalem. The protest took place after some landlords in Kiryat Malachi, which is home to a large Ethiopian Israeli population, refused to rent to Ethiopian Jews.

“Israelis don’t want to have Ethiopians around,” says Shoko, an Israeli woman who provides counselling to Ethiopian youths in Haifa. “Their excuse to not rent flats to Ethiopians is that they are noisy...and they eat injera, which is a ‘stinky’ bread, and its strong smell spreads all over the neighbouring area. In reality, Israelis don’t like Ethiopians because they are black...”

Chava Weiss, fundraiser for the Israeli Association of the Ethiopian Jewish (IAEJ), states that, “this is a case of pure unfortunate discrimination and stereotyping,..”
There are approximately 130,000 Ethiopian Jews living in Israel. Citizens of the state, they entered the country during two covert Israeli military operations – in 1984 and 1991 – aimed to bring Ethiopians to Israel to bolster the Jewish majority

“But even if the largest part of Ethiopians living here is Jewish, some rabbis and ordinary Israeli residents discriminate them because their Jewish roots are not alike the ones of the Eastern European Jews,” Muju, a young Ethiopian man who lives in Jerusalem, explains. Ethiopians observe some different holy festivities and don’t observe the Talmud. Muju adds that, “some Jewish people even claim that we Ethiopians made up our Jewry just to enter Israel.”

Many of the Ethiopians who immigrated to Israel came from small and neglected villages and were not equipped for life in Israel. Back in the 1980s, when the first wave of Ethiopian immigrants arrived, the Jewish Agency became responsible for their absorption into the country and it stated that the process of integration would last five years.
In reality, Shoko says that “people can stay in the absorption centres – where they learn Hebrew, the ‘proper’ mainstream Judaism, some tips about the modern world – for two years after their arrival in Israel but than they are left completely on their own...”

He adds that many Ethiopians have a hard time integrating into Israeli society.

The discrimination towards Ethiopians affects all areas of their lives: from housing, to education, to job employment. As the IAEJ says, “their collective standard of living continues to fall behind the mainstream Israeli population and the Ethiopian community is at risk of becoming a permanent underclass in Israeli society.”

Many Ethiopian men have difficulties finding work in Israel – in part because they are African – and so they end up staying at home. Some fall into alcoholism. Women have a few more opportunities to enter the job market, especially as housekeepers or cleaners, and, as they do, they become more financially influential than their husbands, hence turning upside down the traditional Ethiopian patriarchal system and creating problems within the family harmony. The children are often disrespectful towards their ‘useless’ fathers and rebellious towards their Ethiopian roots.

As an Ethiopian 23-year-old boy who asks to not be named says, “I have so many friends that are trying to cancel their real identity... There are those who want to be more and more like 2Pac [African-American rapper] and those that are absorbing the Iraqi and Moroccan culture...”

Although in the past the Jewish Agency had explicitly opposed the establishment of any formal “Ethiopian ghettos,” places like Rehovot, Beer Sheva, Kiryat Malachi and Haifa have neighbourhoods that are “Ethiopian only.”

There are programs meant to integrate Ethiopian people into the Israeli society but there is no program to make Israelis more familiar with the Ethiopian culture. “Israeli people don’t care at all about the long Ethiopian tradition,” Shoko states. “They believe in what Ben Gurion stated a long time ago, which [was something] like ‘leave your culture behind and build up a new common culture here in Israel.’”

The past ten years have seen some modest improvements. Ethiopian employment rates have gone up a bit as have the number of teenagers going on for higher education – but these percentages are still much below the Israeli average.

And there is growing awareness of the trouble Ethiopian Jews face in Israel. The international media has started to be dealing with the Ethiopian Jews as “a minority facing big problems of discrimination in Israel,” Shoko says, “and not anymore as a bunch of cute exotic African people.”

More importantly, Weiss says, “Ethiopians are not hiding anymore but are coming out to protest against the injustice they face [on a daily basis].”

“Home Front” – Just Vision Chronicles the Struggle in Sheikh Jarrah

21 December 2011, Shalom Rav http://rabbibrant.com (USA)

by Rabbi Brant Rosen

Just Vision (the folks behind the documentary films "Encounter Point" and "Budrus") has just released "Home Front" - a new series of four video portraits that profiles Palestinians fighting Israeli settler takeover of their homes in Sheikh Jarrah as well as Israeli solidarity activists who are standing with them in their struggle.

If you 're unfamiliar with the situation in Sheikh Jarrah (and similar circumstances in other parts of E. Jerusalem and the West Bank) this film will provide you with a powerful and expertly documented introduction. Click above to see the first clip. Click here for to see all four.

Highly recommended.


A Palestinian teenager whose family is forced to give up part of their
home and live under the same roof as a family of settlers. He comes of
age in the face of unrelenting tension with his neighbors and unexpected
cooperation with Israeli allies in his backyard.


An American-born Israeli mother who to her own surprise becomes
involved in the demonstrations after her children are arrested for
protesting.


A Palestinian community organizer from Sheikh Jarrah who spearheads the involvement of local women in the movement while facing the risk of losing her own home to the settlers.


A former Israeli soldier from a religious background who only several years after his combat service in the West Bank finds himself taking on a leading role in the protests.

THE SACRED HANDIWORK OF POETRY PALS

9 December 2011, Shalom Rav http://rabbibrant.com (USA)

By Rabbi Brant Rosen

This past week I had the pleasure of visiting the Muslim Community Center school (MCC) in Morton Grove, IL to witness an inspiring session of Poetry Pals in action.

PP is a non-profit that brings children together from diverse and interfaith communities for partnership, expression and friendship through poetry, spoken word, music and art. At this particular workshop, fourth graders from MCC, Solomon Schecter Jewish Day School and Sacred Heart Catholic School gathered together in the MCC gym. After a brief learning session and tour from the principal, they came back together to get to know one another by engaging in a variety of creative poetry writing exercises.

So simple and yet so very powerful. With news about religious intolerance blaring at us from every corner, I wish I could start every day this way: watching children wearing hijabs, kippot and Catholic school uniforms talking, playing, laughing and writing poetry together. I am so grateful to PP founder (and JRC member) Donna Yates for inviting me to witness their sacred handiwork.

Local efforts such as Poetry Pals are eminently worthy of our support. Click here to do so.

Jerusalem: Hundreds rally against women's discrimination

8 December 2011, Communist Party of Israel המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית http://maki.org.il

Hundreds of people gathered in the center of West Jerusalem yesterday (Wednesday) in protest of religious elements' demands to limit women's role in Israel public life. Various female performers who took part in the rally said they were there "to cry out for the Israeli women, who are pushed to society's sidelines by extremist religious leaders."

This is the third event to take place in the Capital following a number of incidents in which women were shunned from the public eye, including the removal of women figures from ad campaigns and separation of sexes during the Simchat Torah celebrations in Mea Shearim.

Singers Achinoam Nini, Ania Bukstein, Aya Korem, Yael Deckelbaum and several female bands performed during the protest rally, while members of the Tarantina band appeared on stage with head covers.

Israel given one week to reply to petition against segregation at ultra-Orthodox schools

9 december 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)

Petitioners seek to stop 'apartheid-like' ethnic segregation at ultra-Orthodox girls high schools.

By Talila Nesher

The High Court of Justice Thursday instructed Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, the Education Ministry and mayors of Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Modi'in Ilit and Betar Ilit to reply in a week to a petition demanding an end to quotas restricting Sephardi girls' admission to state-funded ultra-Orthodox girls high schools.

The petitioners, Noar Kahalacha organization and social activist Yoav Laloum, sought to stop the "apartheid-like" ethnic segregation at ultra-Orthodox girls high schools. They also asked the court to issue an interim injunction forbidding the schools to start registration for the next school year until the court hears the petition.

The petitioners, who headed the fight against ethnic segregation at the Beit Yaakov school in the West Bank settlement Immanuel in 2008, are also demanding to revoke the licenses and state funding of all the schools that discriminate against Sephardi girls.

Justice Edna Arbel said in her ruling yesterday the court will hear the petition soon.

MK Chaim Amsellem (Shas ) commended the petition. "The Education Ministry is collaborating with the schools' principals and Haredi parties to silence the problem and perpetuate the discrimination. Shas, which was formed to uproot this problem, does nothing...its leaders are afraid their children will be taken out of the Ashkenazi schools," he said.

Shas chairman MK Eli Yishai said "Shas acted and is acting to establish more high schools and other schools. Only this week the Knesset held a debate we initiated on a proposal to prevent discrimination in schools."

"The main problem is not the state funding but the moral turpitude this discriminative policy brands our society with," said prominent educator and public figure Rabbi Shai Piron, Director-General of Hakol Hinuch, the Movement for the Advancement of Education in Israel.

THE ZIONIST ULTRA-ORTHODOX ARE CASHING IN THEIR I.O.U.

30 November 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)

Those spending their Saturdays having fun rather than defending shepherds and farmers should not be surprised if the day after, Jewish fundamentalism even invades their bedrooms.

By Amira Hass

The Haredim and Hardalim, as the non-Zionist and Zionist ultra-Orthodox are respectively known, are now cashing in their promissory note from Israeli society. Their bitterness at an ungrateful secular-nationalist public is certainly justified. For what is doing without women's singing in comparison to the direct line to God they offer us? And what are advertisements featuring men only compared to the blank check God gave all of us to be the masters of the entire Promised Land?

Haredi and Hardali Judaism sold three assets on credit to the Israel that desecrates the Sabbath and loves the charming, Arab-free views from the Galilee kibbutzim and the West Bank outposts. These are the assets that enable Israel to be indifferent to both the history that was and the history now in the making, and to live as an armed, gilded ghetto, a beloved outpost of the "developed" and "civilized" Christian West in the Muslim East.

We could have clung to the historical, secular explanations for our ingathering in this land (briefly, the "final solution" of that same civilized Christian West, which also expelled us from the countries of the Diaspora ). This would have committed us to the humanitarian and earthly values and perceptions that have emerged from every struggle against ethnic persecution and oppression. But the historical explanation would also have obliged us to admit our similarity to other colonialist movements, and to understand that what was possible in the 18th and 19th centuries in America and Australia is not possible here and now.

To escape the contradictions created by history and its lessons, we chose to buy the meta-historical explanation of our armed, fortified presence here: no more and no less than God's promise to Abraham, from whom all of us are directly descended. This promise is what permits us, in our view, to do whatever we please to the people that dwells here, the natives of this land: to expel, to concentrate, to divide, to blockade, to impoverish, to dry out, to bomb, to uproot, to dispossess.

This same divine promise grants all Jews everywhere - even those who have never set foot in Israel - more rights in this land than any Palestinian who was born here. This land is ruled by a state that refuses to be a state of its actual citizens and thinks only of potential citizens from the Diaspora.

Ethnic head-counting is second nature to this state. Thus the Haredim and Hardalim know that the second asset they are selling is beyond price: their high birthrate. In the Haredi view, this high birthrate is worth more than any military service or tax payment could ever be.

The Hardalim, in contrast, combine this with a third asset for sale: lust for battle, and for ascending the military ranks, and a willingness to "die for our country" - all of which have been on the wane, relatively speaking, among other sectors of the population. In a state that has done everything in its power over the last several decades to miss any opportunity for peace, this military enthusiasm is a vital asset - especially as good neighborly relations in this region now seem more unachievable than ever before.

Hardalim and Haredim see that most of the Israeli Jewish public has eagerly bought these inexhaustible assets, so now they are continuing down the same consistent path. The Haredim and Hardalim simply long for wholeness: the divine promise and the laws of kashrut. They are offering soldiers in the demographic warfare in exchange for the non-mixing of women and men in the army.

The problem then is not the sellers but the buyers. The secular Jews who allow or even encourage the expulsion of Arab residents of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, Al-Arakib and Safed, should not complain if tomorrow, theaters and concert halls are required to set up separate sections for the female portion of the audience. And those who spend their holy Saturdays having fun rather than going out to defend shepherds and farmers from skullcap-wearing Salafists should not be surprised if the day after, Jewish fundamentalism even invades their bedrooms.

Read this article in Hebrew: לגרש פלסטינים, ולהדיר נשים

IN ISRAEL, CIVIL LAW SHOULD RULE OVER JEWISH LAW

Those who oppose racism can be satisfied with the first part of the decision, while advocates of anti-Arab racism can enjoy the legal canopy the attorney general spread over Jewish law.

24 November 2011, Haaretz EDITORAIL הארץ (Israel)

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein decided to make things easy for himself. On the one hand, he ordered police to investigate Safed chief rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu on suspicion of making statements that constitute racial incitement. On the other hand, he refrained from ordering that Eliyahu be investigated for halakhic rulings he issued that were also allegedly of a racist nature.

In theory, there was something here for everyone. Those who oppose racism can be satisfied with the first part of the decision, while advocates of anti-Arab racism can enjoy the legal canopy the attorney general spread over Jewish law.

The practical result should not surprise anyone: From now, every racist and person who hurls invective can formulate his opinions as a halakhic ruling, sprinkling it liberally with the relevant biblical verses, and thus protect himself from a police investigation.

This is not a new invention; one can find such formulations on hundreds of websites run by radical Islamic organizations, who know well how to adapt religious law to their ambitions and hatred.

Meanwhile, when left-wing groups are accused of racism, let alone of "forgetting what it is to be Jews," they aren't subject to investigation, but rather to brutal laws hastily legislated against them.

Beyond Weinstein's legal judgment regarding the difficulty of proving incitement to racism based on Jewish law, the attorney general has given a wide opening to all kinds of crimes that are committed in the name of Jewish law. If halakha exempts one from punishment when it supports racism, why prosecute soldiers who refuse orders at the instruction of their rabbis operating in the name of Jewish law?

Prosecuting for incitement is indeed controversial. It's simple enough to claim "incitement" in an effort to silence opponents and stifle public discourse.

But when incitement against Arabs is part of the culture of public discourse and is accepted as a measure of one's loyalty to the state, it is liable to become - and in many instances has become - a type of legitimate mode of operation. The burning of mosques, acts of terror by Jews against Arabs and the prohibition against renting apartments to Arabs are only some of the products of this culture of incitement - as is the attorney general's capitulation out of seeming awe of Jewish law.

It is incumbent for the attorney general to give state law its proper due, and subjugate halakha to it.