Israeli couscous from Trader Joe's holds a special place in the hearts of the Bay Area's local pro-Israel activists. TJ's, bless them, have gone on stocking Israeli products in the face of considerable pressure from the BDS crowd to get them to stop. They have all kinds of lovely Israeli products. My own personal favorite is the Dorot frozen garlic cubes, but I am aware that many of my friends at one time bought a lifetime supply of Israeli coucous from Trader Joe's, to the extent that local activists were trading Israeli couscous recipes for months, desperate to use it all up.
I confess: I never bought any. The garlic cubes, yes, and matzo in season, but not the product I thought of as the 'fake couscous'. When I first became aware of this stuff, I had no idea what I was looking at. Couscous, to me, means, well, actual couscous, and in my childhood was usually eaten in the form of tabouli. It was also generally cooked and served by Israelis, adding to my bafflement--surely Israeli couscous is no different from normal couscous, I thought, puzzled. This odd stuff from TJ's, made up of little pasta balls like tiny ball bearings was a new substance altogether, and confused me. What made it Israeli? Why wasn't it actually couscous? What the heck was this?
I've learned a little more about it though, now, and I'm fascinated enough to be planning the purchase of a few boxes. It turns out that this peculiar carbohydrate is unique to Israel, and is actually a piece of Jewish history.
Let me take you back to the 1950s, when the newborn State of Israel is struggling to survive, and to feed its exploding population. Food is rationed. Immigrants and refugees from the Arab world are flooding into their ancient homeland and new haven. Rice is a staple food for these new Israelis, but it's not readily available because of the limited food supply and lack of imports.
David Ben Gurion to the rescue! Approaching the Osem company (yes, that same Osem whose tahini and matzo ball mix you still buy today), he asks them to come up with a rice substitute that can be produced in Israel. The result, called in Hebrew 'ptitim', is a baked wheat product, shaped like grains of rice, which can be boiled like pasta and served hot or cold. Dubbed "Ben Gurion's rice", it made its way into Israeli culinary history. The round balls of 'couscous' shortly followed.
Israeli couscous is currently very chic with foodies, to the amusement of Israelis, who seem to think of it as kid food. I am fascinated by its legacy. If matzo is the bread of affliction, this is the rice-substitute of the Ingathering, a tribute to Israeli ingenuity and determination to survive and thrive. I plan to learn to cook with it, and to give it a place in my kitchen, this most Zionist of foodstuffs.
Some reading:
http://www.haaretz.com/ben-gurion-s-rice-1.245490
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptitim
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Harriet Sherwood and the Russians
Remember Harriet Sherwood? The one with the felafel issues? She's back, and over at CIF, they're commenting on a piece she wrote for the Guardian about how the Russians are ruining Israel.
CIF points out, correctly, that Sherwood and her readers would probably be infuriated (and rightly so, in my eyes) at a journalist who broadly slurred a group of immigrants to Britain as damaging the country. Indeed, I've spent some time online myself, since the London riots, dealing with people who blame the whole thing on the West Indians, or the Muslims, or...well, mostly one of those two.
Luckily, we get a rejoinder, from Anastasia Couzminski, one of those unintegrated Russians, who has this to say:
Hello CiF watch,
As a regular reader of your blog and one of those annoying Russians that “integrated little” in Israel, I couldn’t let this article pass. This is personal.
I am beyond furious at [Harriet Sherwood's] article!
[What she says about Russians] couldn’t be any farther from the truth.
As an immigrant who’s been living here most of my life, I consider myself to be 110% ISRAELI and not Russian or Kazakh (I was born in the republic of Kazakhstan).
My mother is Jewish but I have many friends whose mother are in fact non-Jewish but are similarly supremely dedicated to this country.
It is absolute rubbish that immigrants integrated little and live mostly in “Russian enclaves”.
Many such “unintegrated Russians” are married to “Sabras” (Israelis who were born in Israel), give their kids Israeli names and many even refuse to speak Russian anymore.
This LIE [regarding the] lack of integration is evident everywhere.
I, as with most of the “unintegrated Russians”, have served in the army and, in fact, many of these “unintegrated Russian” young men go to become fighters and officers in the army and fight and DIE side by side with Israel-born soldiers!
We study all together in schools and universities and despite there being “Russian” hang-out places, it is SIMPLY NOT TRUE that [non-Russian] Israelis are NOT wanted there. The FIB that Russians created a housing problem is [also simply not true]. Russians did not come to parasite on this country. They finished “Ulpan” (Hebrew classes for immigrants) and right away began searching for jobs. They can now be found in every single workplace including hospitals, courts, and the media (NOT ONLY Russian media).
The fact that Harriet Sherwood makes a point of singling out Russians is a total double standard. And the following quote by the Russian-hating Israeli journalist, whom [Sherwood] must have had to dig out from some very dark place, which claims “…alienation between Russian immigrants and native-born Israelis [exist because] there is not much social interaction” is also simply not true.
Most of my friends are Israelis, many of my friends are married to Israelis, we party, travel and do everything together! And the older generation is the same.
In short, [Sherwood] evidently didn’t have anything to report about and found, in the much maligned Russian community, a convenient target and scapegoat.
Sincerely,
Anastasia
Watching anti-Israel writers deal with the phenomenon of immigration to Israel from the FSU has been rather interesting. They see them as a single group, of course, and the information that not all of the Russians are Ashkenazi, or from Russia, often appears to baffle them. (Jews from Kazhakstan? Huh?) Mostly, though, they appreciate the Russians, even as they bash them, because the Russian olim reinforce what the anti-Israel crowd wants to see, in their own minds, that is. They see the Russians as 'white', and 'intolerant' because of their Soviet background. (Odd, from people who insisted, while it was still standing, that the USSR was a bastion of tolerance.) This saves them, once again, from having to examine the multicultural nature of Israeli society, or from examining other groups in the country too closely. The Mizrahim and Sephardim from Arab countries are a particular problem for the anti-Israel pundit, one they generally solve by being terribly concerned about racism within Israeli society, but not actually giving a damn about the opinions or political leanings of these poor, poor props of theirs.
CIF points out, correctly, that Sherwood and her readers would probably be infuriated (and rightly so, in my eyes) at a journalist who broadly slurred a group of immigrants to Britain as damaging the country. Indeed, I've spent some time online myself, since the London riots, dealing with people who blame the whole thing on the West Indians, or the Muslims, or...well, mostly one of those two.
Yet, Harriet Sherwood – the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, who, no doubt, fancies herself a multiculturalist who is free of such narrow-minded anti-immigrant bias – saw fit in her most recent post, “Israel’s former Soviet immigrants transform adopted country“, Aug. 17, to blame Israeli immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) for moving the country in a dangerous direction.
Sherwood’s piece blames “The million-plus citizens of the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel in the past 20 years” for causing a housing crisis, being resistant to integrating into Israeli society, and bringing with them Russian political values inconsistent with democracy, tolerance and compromise.
Now, just imagine if something similar was written about the injurious effects of immigration to the UK on traditional British culture, and substitute the word “Muslims” for “Russians” to get a sense of the supreme moral hypocrisy at play here.
Luckily, we get a rejoinder, from Anastasia Couzminski, one of those unintegrated Russians, who has this to say:
Hello CiF watch,
As a regular reader of your blog and one of those annoying Russians that “integrated little” in Israel, I couldn’t let this article pass. This is personal.
I am beyond furious at [Harriet Sherwood's] article!
[What she says about Russians] couldn’t be any farther from the truth.
As an immigrant who’s been living here most of my life, I consider myself to be 110% ISRAELI and not Russian or Kazakh (I was born in the republic of Kazakhstan).
My mother is Jewish but I have many friends whose mother are in fact non-Jewish but are similarly supremely dedicated to this country.
It is absolute rubbish that immigrants integrated little and live mostly in “Russian enclaves”.
Many such “unintegrated Russians” are married to “Sabras” (Israelis who were born in Israel), give their kids Israeli names and many even refuse to speak Russian anymore.
This LIE [regarding the] lack of integration is evident everywhere.
I, as with most of the “unintegrated Russians”, have served in the army and, in fact, many of these “unintegrated Russian” young men go to become fighters and officers in the army and fight and DIE side by side with Israel-born soldiers!
We study all together in schools and universities and despite there being “Russian” hang-out places, it is SIMPLY NOT TRUE that [non-Russian] Israelis are NOT wanted there. The FIB that Russians created a housing problem is [also simply not true]. Russians did not come to parasite on this country. They finished “Ulpan” (Hebrew classes for immigrants) and right away began searching for jobs. They can now be found in every single workplace including hospitals, courts, and the media (NOT ONLY Russian media).
The fact that Harriet Sherwood makes a point of singling out Russians is a total double standard. And the following quote by the Russian-hating Israeli journalist, whom [Sherwood] must have had to dig out from some very dark place, which claims “…alienation between Russian immigrants and native-born Israelis [exist because] there is not much social interaction” is also simply not true.
Most of my friends are Israelis, many of my friends are married to Israelis, we party, travel and do everything together! And the older generation is the same.
In short, [Sherwood] evidently didn’t have anything to report about and found, in the much maligned Russian community, a convenient target and scapegoat.
Sincerely,
Anastasia
Watching anti-Israel writers deal with the phenomenon of immigration to Israel from the FSU has been rather interesting. They see them as a single group, of course, and the information that not all of the Russians are Ashkenazi, or from Russia, often appears to baffle them. (Jews from Kazhakstan? Huh?) Mostly, though, they appreciate the Russians, even as they bash them, because the Russian olim reinforce what the anti-Israel crowd wants to see, in their own minds, that is. They see the Russians as 'white', and 'intolerant' because of their Soviet background. (Odd, from people who insisted, while it was still standing, that the USSR was a bastion of tolerance.) This saves them, once again, from having to examine the multicultural nature of Israeli society, or from examining other groups in the country too closely. The Mizrahim and Sephardim from Arab countries are a particular problem for the anti-Israel pundit, one they generally solve by being terribly concerned about racism within Israeli society, but not actually giving a damn about the opinions or political leanings of these poor, poor props of theirs.
Sunday, July 03, 2011
From Alice Walker, On Her Latest Star Turn
A portion of Alice Walker's latest arrogant and ahistorical screed, blogged from Greece: Emphasis is mine.
I have never believed in the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks. Whenever I saw the men gathering to talk about peace I was reminded of what the Indians said to the white colonizers of America who came to talk peace with them: ” Where are your women?”
This would make slightly more sense if the Palestinians, whom Alice clearly casts in the role of the Indians, had a tradition of including women in political negotiations. As it is, we have here two traditionally patriarchal groups, and while including the ladies might be an excellent idea, one feels that here the example is used simply to get those Indians in there somehow.
An occasional woman has appeared to take part in the talks, but overwhelmingly the process has been male driven. I like to think if women, in equal numbers to men, had been at the table things might not have turned out so badly. But perhaps, recalling the disrespectful young Israeli women at the check-points, this is naive.
Israeli women aren't the right kind of women, anyway.
In any case, it is when one sees the Israeli settlements, after hearing about them for decades, that the final “Aha” moment arrives. They are colossal, and, like the wall, they are everywhere. It is obvious, looking at them, gigantic, solid, white and towering, that they have been constructed to completely devour the rest of Palestine, and that the peace talks have been a ruse to continue their growth so that Jewish Israelis can claim the land by possession alone. Possession is nine-tenths of the law is one of the dictums I learned from my Jewish lawyer former husband. This belief might even be enshrined in the Torah. In any case it is a very old idea, and Israelis have made good use of it.
So, we a. don't need to worry about the peace talks, because the Israelis don't want peace anyway, and b. her Jewish lawyer former husband, apparently the origin of her nasty streak of anti-Semitism, pops up again. Brief note: "Possession is nine-tenths of the law" is not 'enshrined in the Torah", as Alice could very easily have found out by Googling it, or asking someone with even a slight knowledge of the text. The ugliness of that slap is matched only by the ignorance.
Dispossessed of land and houses, poverty stricken, refugees in their own country since the catastrophe of 1948, when Zionist terrorists drove them from their villages, towns and cities, Palestinian laborers have been forced to build these settlements for the Israeli settlers and, having built them, are rarely permitted inside them, except to service them. This is similar to our own history, in America: the genocide and enslavement of Native people, and the forced black and Indian labor that built so much of America, including The White House. Sometimes one wonders if this greed that devours the very substance of other human beings is part of human DNA. I don’t think it is; and, in any case, I hope not!
And, as usual, one doesn't even know where to begin with this tumble of lies, half-truths, and determined editing of history. Really, it's a mistake to even start trying to undo Alice's tangle of deceit. Elsewhere in the piece, she's still going on about "Jewish-only roads".
Bleah. This nonsense could scramble your brains.
I have never believed in the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks. Whenever I saw the men gathering to talk about peace I was reminded of what the Indians said to the white colonizers of America who came to talk peace with them: ” Where are your women?”
This would make slightly more sense if the Palestinians, whom Alice clearly casts in the role of the Indians, had a tradition of including women in political negotiations. As it is, we have here two traditionally patriarchal groups, and while including the ladies might be an excellent idea, one feels that here the example is used simply to get those Indians in there somehow.
An occasional woman has appeared to take part in the talks, but overwhelmingly the process has been male driven. I like to think if women, in equal numbers to men, had been at the table things might not have turned out so badly. But perhaps, recalling the disrespectful young Israeli women at the check-points, this is naive.
Israeli women aren't the right kind of women, anyway.
In any case, it is when one sees the Israeli settlements, after hearing about them for decades, that the final “Aha” moment arrives. They are colossal, and, like the wall, they are everywhere. It is obvious, looking at them, gigantic, solid, white and towering, that they have been constructed to completely devour the rest of Palestine, and that the peace talks have been a ruse to continue their growth so that Jewish Israelis can claim the land by possession alone. Possession is nine-tenths of the law is one of the dictums I learned from my Jewish lawyer former husband. This belief might even be enshrined in the Torah. In any case it is a very old idea, and Israelis have made good use of it.
So, we a. don't need to worry about the peace talks, because the Israelis don't want peace anyway, and b. her Jewish lawyer former husband, apparently the origin of her nasty streak of anti-Semitism, pops up again. Brief note: "Possession is nine-tenths of the law" is not 'enshrined in the Torah", as Alice could very easily have found out by Googling it, or asking someone with even a slight knowledge of the text. The ugliness of that slap is matched only by the ignorance.
Dispossessed of land and houses, poverty stricken, refugees in their own country since the catastrophe of 1948, when Zionist terrorists drove them from their villages, towns and cities, Palestinian laborers have been forced to build these settlements for the Israeli settlers and, having built them, are rarely permitted inside them, except to service them. This is similar to our own history, in America: the genocide and enslavement of Native people, and the forced black and Indian labor that built so much of America, including The White House. Sometimes one wonders if this greed that devours the very substance of other human beings is part of human DNA. I don’t think it is; and, in any case, I hope not!
And, as usual, one doesn't even know where to begin with this tumble of lies, half-truths, and determined editing of history. Really, it's a mistake to even start trying to undo Alice's tangle of deceit. Elsewhere in the piece, she's still going on about "Jewish-only roads".
Bleah. This nonsense could scramble your brains.
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Israel in the Gardens, 2011--Release Your Inner Camel
The inflatable camel was with Hillel, and I took a picture of it because it said 'Release your inner camel' on the side of it, and I had never considered having an 'inner camel' before. Also, the camel is a Bactrian. Middle Eastern camels are dromedaries. I discussed this with the Hillel guy, who explained that this was the only inflatable camel on the market. We agreed that it was a Bactrian that had made aliyah.
Welcome to Israel in the Gardens, 2011, a cultural fair featuring Israeli rock, face painting, kids making spice blends, folks selling earrings, and approximately a bazillion people in line for The Flying Felafel. Targeted for hate and protest by Bay Area Women In Black and their peace-loving friends. Let the good times roll!
We, the Mighty Morphin' Zionist Defenders were ready to go. We had t-shirts. We had flags. We had Caterpillar hats. We had khaffiyot yisraelit. We were ready to go. All we lacked was a dance partner.
Here is a lady being wanded, prior to entering the event. I've been to a lot of cultural fairs in my day. Let's just say that at the Scottish Games in Santa Rosa they don't wand you and search your bag when you come in. Same way they don't have security guards outside First Methodist on Christmas Day, but they do for Rosh Hashanah services. But I am grateful for our excellent security teams, because while needing them sucks, needing and not having would suck much more.
Anyway, our dance partners began to arrive...
BAWIB is always punctual, dreary, and carrying signs that are correctly spelled, although not always fact-checked.
They had great shopping malls in the Warsaw Ghetto, I remember reading about that. Or perhaps what we have here is sheer denial of reality, combined with the pathetic belief that invoking the Holocaust will make the actual situation on the ground irrelevant.
Meanwhile, things were going nicely on the other side of the barricades:
 |
| Happy Zionists with a banner |
Our waltz with BAWIB was coming to a close. As I've mentioned, BAWIB is quite punctual. If they say noon to one, they show up at noon and leave on the stroke of one. We were not going to be left without dance partners, however. The replacement shift was already getting ready across the plaza, and they were working on...something.
 What it was wasn't entirely clear. At this stage it consisted mostly of red and black balloons. They began to add green ones, but were having trouble controlling them. An occasional balloon drifted up to the sky. |
As BAWIB marched off into the distance, the first members of the replacement shift arrived. Younger. More excitable. Bearing flags and signs printed by International A.N.S.W.E.R.
Perhaps it's just as well they had the signs printed by A.N.S.W.E.R., since it turns out that they can't spell very well. One would almost think these people were members of the Tea Party.
I couldn't get a clear shot of this man's sign, but it reads "Israel: 63 Yrs. of Ethnic Cleansing & APATHEID". The all-caps was important, but apparently the evil West Bank settlers stole the R.
"Paletinian Ethnic Cleansing". What, is spellcheck a Zionist conspiracy? Don't they PROOFREAD these things? (BAWIB may be hateful, but their signs are always spelled correctly.)
Sadly, the third example of spelling issues that I wanted to post did not come out legibly in the photos. The young man below and one of his friends were both wearing jackets with photographs printed on the back, and a heading accusing "Isreal" of horrible crimes.
And then the piece de resistance showed up. You will recall the mysterious balloon item mentioned earlier? Well, this is what it looked like fully assembled.
In case you can't tell, I am pretty sure it was supposed to be a Palestinian flag. It didn't turn out perfectly, but heck, who am I to judge? My side didn't have any balloons at all. We were struck into silence by the sheer threatening force of all those balloons. For a couple of seconds. Then the Israeli guys behind me started screaming, "Balloons! Balloons! Ooooh, can I have a balloon? I want a balloon!"
More yelling. Several people gave us the finger. And then, as the SFPD became politely insistent, the group took their balloons and their signs and their whistle and bullhorns and moved across the street, ultimately leaving behind two young men who wanted to act out. They acted out. They chanted. One of them pulled up his sleeves to show us that he had the words "100% Palestinian" tattooed on his forearms.
It was as this point that the most wonderful thing I had seen all day, inflatable camels included, happened. A young woman detatched from the crew across the street, came back, and grabbed one of the young men (the one shown above), and pushed him in the right direction. The other guy wasn't moving, so she wrapped her ams under his, and hoisted him off his feet.
The cheering from our side (also the hooting) was deafening, and for a moment I thought the young woman was going to put him down and come back to the barricades to yell at us, but she gritted her teeth and carted him off, over the center divider, and across the street.
My inner camel felt good about the whole thing.
Monday, June 06, 2011
Great Hatred, Little Room
Spent today at San Francisco's Israel in the Gardens Independence Day celebration. A lot happened, and I will be blogging about it, and posting pictures (I hope).
While we were there, my father had a conversation with an Irish woman, there to protest Israel's independence. She said the situation in the Middle East was just like the Troubles, and Mr. Bluejeans Sr. told her that Hamas was the Real IRA, the Provos, the UVF and Ian Paisley rolled into one. She said, "I don't support Hamas", while standing next to people who unabashedly do.
Anyway, summoned by my own random associations, the poem started up in my head, and would not leave, because Yeats could put his finger on it sometimes. Something for me to think about as I sort through the day. This is by William Butler Yeats, who could be a bit of a pretentious eejit, really, but the gift was from God. I had always thought this piece was called "Fanatic Heart", like the Black 47 piece that's based on it in part, but it's actually
Remorse For Intemperate Speech
I ranted to the knave and fool,
But outgrew that school,
Would transform the part,
Fit audience found, but cannot rule
My fanatic heart.
I sought my betters: though in each
Fine manners, liberal speech,
Turn hatred into sport,
Nothing said or done can reach
My fanatic heart,
Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart.
I suppose this may sound a bit mournful; it's Yeats, after all. I'm actually in a very good mood tonight. But it fit, so there it is.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Israeli Books Banned In Scotland
Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.
--Heinrich Heine
You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
--Ray Bradbury
Via Virtual Jerusalem: A Scottish municipality has banned from its libraries books by Israeli authors and that were printed or published in Israel.
The West Dunbartonshire Council, consisting of towns and villages west of Glasgow, ordered new books by Israeli authors to be banned from the council's libraries, according to reports.
The ban reportedly was ordered after last year's raid by Israeli commandoes on a ship attempting to break Israel's blockade on Gaza that led to the death of nine Turkish nationals. The ban followed a decision made 2 1/2 years ago following the Gaza war to boycott goods produced in Israel. According to that law, the council and all its public bodies are forbidden to sell goods that originated from Israel.
Read the rest.
Amos Oz, David Grossman, S.Y. Agnon, Batya Gur, Dorit Rabinyan, Sami Michael, Naomi Ragen, Yehuda Amichai, Tom Segev, Orly Castel-Bloom, Dan Pagis, Yoram Kaniuk, Emil Habibi, Michal Govrin...a language, a nation, an entire literature rejected. I'm sure these censors feel themselves quite smugly in the right. I can't begin to express my fury.
We are only just beginning to sound the vile depths to which the delegitimization campaign against Israel is sinking. This sounds fine, now. Books may only be bought from countries with a right to exist...which would be all of them, except for Israel.
I'm making no excuses for the West Dunbartonshire Council. I don't care if they're vicious or well-meaning, ignorant or knowledgeable, they have set out to be part of the mechanism of destroying a nation.
Hat tip to Vicious Babushka, both for being one of the first people to bring this story to my attention, and for the Bradbury quote, which I would have never remembered.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Sabim/Grandfathers
 | |
| Three Jewish men in Jerusalem. 1895. I wonder if they're learning together, or holding the books for the camera so that it may be seen they are men who own books. |
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Ovadia Yosef Tells People To Stop Smoking
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, president of the Shas Council of Torah Sages, has not been my favorite person over the years. I am told on reliable authority that he is a reliable authority--that is, that he is indeed a very great Torah scholar. However, he's also the rabbi most likely to show up in the news saying something deeply alarming about Ashekenazim, sheitels, Arabs, Gentiles, Hurricane Katrina, the Holocaust...it's a long list. Odds are about seventy-five percent that if the president of the Shas Council of Torah Sages is in the news, then I will disagree with what he says. Vehemently.
You can see my Rav Ovadia problem in a variety of ways. You could say, for example, that I am a secular woman who fails to understand the social context and deep Torah learning of a 90-year-old scholar born in Iraq, raised in British Palestine, and formerly serving as chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, who is one of the lights of the generation. Or, you could say that Rav Ovadia is a reactionary elderly man, representing a particularly hardcore philosophy within Judaism, who likes to say inflammatory things to journalists.
Either way, I am pleased to announce that we have found another point of commonality. Rav Ovadia wants everyone to stop smoking.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, president of the Shas Council of Torah Sages, has warned his followers of the dangers of smoking, and stressed the importance and plausibility of quitting if one is already addicted.
“Doctors are against smoking; they say it causes lung cancer. Whoever can refrain from it, all the better; he should take every effort to keep away from it,” the senior Sephardi adjudicator said in his Saturday night televised sermon, which dealt with the laws of Jewish holidays.
“A person who is used to smoking – it’s hard to quit, but [he] should distance himself from it a step at a time,” he continued.
“My father-in-law, Rabbi Avraham of blessed memory, used to smoke two packs a day.
I told him our holy books say it is a danger. He said, ‘What can I do? I’m used to smoking.’ I told him to gradually cut down in the cigarettes. When he reached 10, he said, ‘I can’t go down any more,’” he said.
“I told him to cut each cigarette to two, [so that] he ended up with 20. After that, he got down to five, and again said, ‘I can’t go down any more. I told him to cut the cigarettes to two. Until he totally quit.”
“Little by little, I will drive them out before you,” Yosef said, comparing the Canaanites to cigarettes in a reference from the Book of Exodus.
“Praise the lord, we do not smoke,” Yosef said of himself.
While Yosef has in the past spoken out about taking up smoking, health experts say this is the first time he actually went as far as telling people to quit.
Yosef also suggested a less harmful substitute for social instances where cigarettes are smoked.
“There are those in yeshivas who distribute cigarettes among friends when someone gets engaged,” he said.
“Better to hand out candies than cigarettes. You start by smoking one cigarette, and then it becomes a habit, and then an addiction, and that is very bad,” the senior adjudicator warned.
You can see my Rav Ovadia problem in a variety of ways. You could say, for example, that I am a secular woman who fails to understand the social context and deep Torah learning of a 90-year-old scholar born in Iraq, raised in British Palestine, and formerly serving as chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, who is one of the lights of the generation. Or, you could say that Rav Ovadia is a reactionary elderly man, representing a particularly hardcore philosophy within Judaism, who likes to say inflammatory things to journalists.
Either way, I am pleased to announce that we have found another point of commonality. Rav Ovadia wants everyone to stop smoking.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, president of the Shas Council of Torah Sages, has warned his followers of the dangers of smoking, and stressed the importance and plausibility of quitting if one is already addicted.
“Doctors are against smoking; they say it causes lung cancer. Whoever can refrain from it, all the better; he should take every effort to keep away from it,” the senior Sephardi adjudicator said in his Saturday night televised sermon, which dealt with the laws of Jewish holidays.
“A person who is used to smoking – it’s hard to quit, but [he] should distance himself from it a step at a time,” he continued.
“My father-in-law, Rabbi Avraham of blessed memory, used to smoke two packs a day.
I told him our holy books say it is a danger. He said, ‘What can I do? I’m used to smoking.’ I told him to gradually cut down in the cigarettes. When he reached 10, he said, ‘I can’t go down any more,’” he said.
“I told him to cut each cigarette to two, [so that] he ended up with 20. After that, he got down to five, and again said, ‘I can’t go down any more. I told him to cut the cigarettes to two. Until he totally quit.”
“Little by little, I will drive them out before you,” Yosef said, comparing the Canaanites to cigarettes in a reference from the Book of Exodus.
“Praise the lord, we do not smoke,” Yosef said of himself.
While Yosef has in the past spoken out about taking up smoking, health experts say this is the first time he actually went as far as telling people to quit.
Yosef also suggested a less harmful substitute for social instances where cigarettes are smoked.
“There are those in yeshivas who distribute cigarettes among friends when someone gets engaged,” he said.
“Better to hand out candies than cigarettes. You start by smoking one cigarette, and then it becomes a habit, and then an addiction, and that is very bad,” the senior adjudicator warned.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
We're Not Kidding About Lacking Partners For Peace
I have been looking for a while for a simple pendant shaped like the State of Israel. It's harder than you might imagine. There are a bazillion chais and chamsas and magens david and the like out there, but relatively few Israel-shaped objects, or stylish Israeli flag jewelry.
I wonder if part of the lack might come from our ambivalence, our never-ending debate, about what the borders of the state really are, or will be, or should be. The most aesthetically attractive candidate I have found on my hunt is the piece above, by Israeli jewelry artist Elanit Leder. It's very pretty, I think. Of course, as observant readers will note, it's missing something--two somethings, in fact--all of the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
Look at it. Look, especially, at that vulnerable, breakable-looking little strip of land between the West Bank and the water. Let me think about this. Deep breaths.
The thing is, you see, I'm on record tentatively supporting a two-state solution. I feel that a two-state solution should in an ideal world be entirely unnecessary, since Jordan and Egypt should have provided full citizenship and equality for their nationals displaced from the land they found themselves no longer occupying after '67--but it seems fairly clear that now that they've had a while to think about that, the answer is still "NO," or, as it tends to come out when people are being emphatic in Arabic, "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!" So perhaps a Palestinian state is something we're going to eventually have to have, because this is far from an ideal world.
Elanit Leder, the designer of this piece, has discussed what its borders mean to her. “Practically, it’s Israel,” she said, “because I cannot go to Gaza and Chevron, and I can’t go to Ramallah. This is the safe Israel for me, so to call it. … This is the Israel that we practice.”
Maybe it would be OK for me to wear the Israel that we practice?
But here's the thing--I go looking for the linking piece of this, the Palestine-shaped charm necklaces out there. There are more of them than there are Israeli ones, for whatever reason. And they have an interesting consistency to them, for maps of a still-hypothetical nation:
Oh, yes. They're not kidding, here and at our demonstrations here in San Francisco, and abroad, when they chant "From the river to the sea."
At the discussion of Elanit Leder's piece in the Forward above, "Steve" got a little insistent with some people:
What my left wing friends often fail to recognize is that while they may make a distinction between say Chevron and Tel Aviv, the other side (the enemy, thank you) does not. Ask the Palestinian types which part of the country should be for the Jewish State. Let me know what they say.
people who say enemy must believe in war, and war isnt the solution for the state of israel.
"Steve" responds: So.. whats the answer to my question? What exactly is the map for the Jewish State that the, uhm, other side, has in mind?
I wish I had a snappy answer for Steve. But as an honest left-winger, I think we both know what the answer is.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Arrest In Itamar Murders
The IDF has arrested two men in their late teens in the murders of the Fogel family in Itamar. Six others are being held as accomplices to the crimes.Their faces are all over the Israeli press, but I don't want to waste my bandwidth on them. I want to post the faces of their victims. These are Ehud and Ruth Fogel, and three of their children, Elad, 4, Yoav, 11, and Hadas, who was three months old when she was murdered.
The bodies were discovered by their oldest child, 12-year-old Tamar. Two other children in the home survived the attack.
Reading the coverage of what's been learned about the attack, what stands out most clearly is the support network these men had as they went out to commit murder. They received weapons, help, advice, approval, and the silence of their community as justice came looking for them.
And the silence of the rest of the Israel-obsessed world.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Plant A Tree In Israel!!!!
The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and some of their nastier friends are launching an ugly campaign against Jewish National Fund on March 30.
This is your cue to get involved. Shop for Israeli goods on March 30, and buy trees in Israel through Jewish National Fund, as many as you can. Send the certificates to IJAZN, or Jewish Voice for Peace, and thank them for inspiring your support for Israel and the Jewish National Fund.
(Cross-posted from The Makabit.)
Friday, July 23, 2010
I Am Trying So Hard To Have Patience With Bad History
Alice Walker is trying my last nerve one more time. You may recall that Alice has popped up in this blog in the past, speculating that Israeli sandals are made with prison labor and exchanging racist blessings with little old ladies.
Well, now she's written an introduction to Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation by Saree Makdisi. I will probably never read this book--I imagine that fairly few people will read this book--but the introduction is so very special that I have to share a few passages with you.
Alice begins with what has become a fairly common theme in her writings about Israelis and Palestinians, the analogy that she draws between her childhood in the racist American South, and the situation of the Palestinians. She continues:
After four hundred years of enslavement followed by over a century of brutal harassment and soul thrashing by white supremacists who had all along wanted only our labor or our land (when we, African or Native American people, possessed land) this internalized self-hatred kept people of color in the United States timid and bowed down with feelings of unworthiness and shame. Like the Palestinians of the last Sixty years, since the coming of European Jews to settle in Palestine after Hitler and the Holocaust in the Thirties and Forties, or like the indigenous people of South Africa (or Africa in general) my people (African, Native American and Poor European) could not fathom, for the longest time, what had hit them. After all, who could imagine it?
Please note, once again, that for Alice, Jews living in what is now Israel before the 1930s simply do not exist, despite the fact that in 1914, say, Jews were 7.6% of the population of Palestine, and in 1922, it was over 11%. Once again, also, for Alice, Jews are 'Europeans'. The thought of proud Sephardi families tracing their lineage in Jerusalem back dozens of generations, or of Jews from North Africa and points farther east made refugees from Arab countries simply does not exist in the hypnotic historical fantasy she's engaging in here.
There you are sitting by your own fire, living peacefully with your family and clan, never having harmed anyone (for the most part), praising and worshiping your own peculiar god. In come a trickle, and then a flood of strangers. First, you feed them, offer them a seat by your fire. Let them admire your little ones. Perhaps you generously teach them how to plant whatever grows around your compound. Perhaps you give them a turkey to keep them from starving in what they persist in calling “the wilderness.” Perhaps you lend them a starter set of goats. Living in the lap of generous nature, speaking generally, there is a certain kind of greed and stinginess that is quite beyond your understanding.
And here comes the next part of the fantasy...the simple, tribal, bucolic life assumed to have happened in Palestine before the nasty (not even Poor) European Jews showed up. I think what Alice is presenting here is loosely based on the Thanksgiving story we were taught as children--if she mentioned teaching the Yahud to plant fish in the corn hills, I could be sure--but it does seem to leave out the complex history of the region, in favor of a sort of general sentimentalized fantasy about simple tribal life.
In contrast to that simple, honorable life, of course, is the 'greed and stinginess' of the European Jew, quite beyond the understanding of the innocent and naive Palestinians. Greedy, greedy Jews. Enough said.
And of course, missing from Alice's patronizing portrayal of happy rural Arabs is any understanding that these simple country folk know what Jews are. They have a long history with them. They've banned them from holy sites of their own faith, for example, and occasionally massacred them. Alice refers a few passages back to "being black and living in the United States under American style apartheid. The daily insults to one’s sense of being human. Not just the separate toilets and water fountains with their blatantly unequal lettering and quality of paint, but the apparent determination of the white population, every moment, at every turn, to remind any person of color, no matter how well spoken or well dressed, or how well educated or in what position of authority in the black community, that they were niggers, objects of ridicule, contempt, and possible violent abuse." Yes. That's what it was like to live as a Jew in the Arab world, Alice.
I'm reminded of a seder where I listened as a man told his daughters about growing up Jewish in Baghdad. "We had good friends who weren't Jewish," he said, "but you had to remember all the time that anything could happen." Then he told a story about walking to school while boys threw stones at him and called him a Jew.
But I digress, I digress from Alice's happy ahistorical history of the European Jewish Conquest of the Palestinian Tribal Lands. Let's look at the next paragraph.
Way back in Europe, though, your “guests” have come up with a plan to assuage their hunger for more: more land, more money, more crops, more food, more things to buy and sell, and drawn maps that have your “territory” on it like a large pie, and they are busy dividing up slices of it. You, sitting by your fire, your little ones clamoring for a bedtime story or another mango, date, olive or fig, are not on the map at all.
At this point, please notice, Hitler, who's been so far presumed to be these folks' reason for being here just vanishes, and the Jews morph into full-fledged European imperialist invaders. Please note, also, that I am not actually sure that mangoes were grown in Mandate Palestine. I could be wrong, and Israel does grow mangoes for export now. And this is a dumb thing to focus on. But I'm not sure about the mangoes.
Coming back to your fire, the strangers smile at you, learn your language, as if respecting it, admire your culture. But you notice they’ve brought strange gadgets that they use to measure things. At first you and your neighbors laugh: these crazy people, you say to each other, why, they would measure even the sky! But soon you do not laugh, because they have measured a road that goes right through your living room. They have destroyed all the villages on one side of yours, already. You did not know, because you couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing, and besides, you do not understand their language, though they, many of them now, certainly understand yours. Why should you learn the language of your guests, you think.For a long time it doesn’t make sense to make the effort. And when you begin to understand that your guests are your enemies, it seems horrible to you to try to learn to speak their wicked tongue.
I'm deeply intrigued by the way the whole Israeli War of Independence, especially the part where five peaceful, rustic, innocent Arab nations rolled tanks into the fledgling State of Israel, appears to simply not exist in Alice's narrative.
I'm equally impressed at her portrayal of mid-twentieth-century Palestinians as having, apparently, never seen 'measuring gadgets' before.
But mostly I'm appalled. This woman either knows nothing of the history of this conflict she opines so freely on, or she's lying about it to appeal to a certain audience, and either is shocking. Alice Walker's version of the origins of the Israeli/Palestinian struggle is historically false, bigoted against both Jews and Arabs, and based on a twee, prepackaged narrative of the invasion of indigenous lands. Epic fail.
Well, now she's written an introduction to Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation by Saree Makdisi. I will probably never read this book--I imagine that fairly few people will read this book--but the introduction is so very special that I have to share a few passages with you.
Alice begins with what has become a fairly common theme in her writings about Israelis and Palestinians, the analogy that she draws between her childhood in the racist American South, and the situation of the Palestinians. She continues:
After four hundred years of enslavement followed by over a century of brutal harassment and soul thrashing by white supremacists who had all along wanted only our labor or our land (when we, African or Native American people, possessed land) this internalized self-hatred kept people of color in the United States timid and bowed down with feelings of unworthiness and shame. Like the Palestinians of the last Sixty years, since the coming of European Jews to settle in Palestine after Hitler and the Holocaust in the Thirties and Forties, or like the indigenous people of South Africa (or Africa in general) my people (African, Native American and Poor European) could not fathom, for the longest time, what had hit them. After all, who could imagine it?
Please note, once again, that for Alice, Jews living in what is now Israel before the 1930s simply do not exist, despite the fact that in 1914, say, Jews were 7.6% of the population of Palestine, and in 1922, it was over 11%. Once again, also, for Alice, Jews are 'Europeans'. The thought of proud Sephardi families tracing their lineage in Jerusalem back dozens of generations, or of Jews from North Africa and points farther east made refugees from Arab countries simply does not exist in the hypnotic historical fantasy she's engaging in here.
There you are sitting by your own fire, living peacefully with your family and clan, never having harmed anyone (for the most part), praising and worshiping your own peculiar god. In come a trickle, and then a flood of strangers. First, you feed them, offer them a seat by your fire. Let them admire your little ones. Perhaps you generously teach them how to plant whatever grows around your compound. Perhaps you give them a turkey to keep them from starving in what they persist in calling “the wilderness.” Perhaps you lend them a starter set of goats. Living in the lap of generous nature, speaking generally, there is a certain kind of greed and stinginess that is quite beyond your understanding.
And here comes the next part of the fantasy...the simple, tribal, bucolic life assumed to have happened in Palestine before the nasty (not even Poor) European Jews showed up. I think what Alice is presenting here is loosely based on the Thanksgiving story we were taught as children--if she mentioned teaching the Yahud to plant fish in the corn hills, I could be sure--but it does seem to leave out the complex history of the region, in favor of a sort of general sentimentalized fantasy about simple tribal life.
In contrast to that simple, honorable life, of course, is the 'greed and stinginess' of the European Jew, quite beyond the understanding of the innocent and naive Palestinians. Greedy, greedy Jews. Enough said.
And of course, missing from Alice's patronizing portrayal of happy rural Arabs is any understanding that these simple country folk know what Jews are. They have a long history with them. They've banned them from holy sites of their own faith, for example, and occasionally massacred them. Alice refers a few passages back to "being black and living in the United States under American style apartheid. The daily insults to one’s sense of being human. Not just the separate toilets and water fountains with their blatantly unequal lettering and quality of paint, but the apparent determination of the white population, every moment, at every turn, to remind any person of color, no matter how well spoken or well dressed, or how well educated or in what position of authority in the black community, that they were niggers, objects of ridicule, contempt, and possible violent abuse." Yes. That's what it was like to live as a Jew in the Arab world, Alice.
I'm reminded of a seder where I listened as a man told his daughters about growing up Jewish in Baghdad. "We had good friends who weren't Jewish," he said, "but you had to remember all the time that anything could happen." Then he told a story about walking to school while boys threw stones at him and called him a Jew.
But I digress, I digress from Alice's happy ahistorical history of the European Jewish Conquest of the Palestinian Tribal Lands. Let's look at the next paragraph.
Way back in Europe, though, your “guests” have come up with a plan to assuage their hunger for more: more land, more money, more crops, more food, more things to buy and sell, and drawn maps that have your “territory” on it like a large pie, and they are busy dividing up slices of it. You, sitting by your fire, your little ones clamoring for a bedtime story or another mango, date, olive or fig, are not on the map at all.
At this point, please notice, Hitler, who's been so far presumed to be these folks' reason for being here just vanishes, and the Jews morph into full-fledged European imperialist invaders. Please note, also, that I am not actually sure that mangoes were grown in Mandate Palestine. I could be wrong, and Israel does grow mangoes for export now. And this is a dumb thing to focus on. But I'm not sure about the mangoes.
Coming back to your fire, the strangers smile at you, learn your language, as if respecting it, admire your culture. But you notice they’ve brought strange gadgets that they use to measure things. At first you and your neighbors laugh: these crazy people, you say to each other, why, they would measure even the sky! But soon you do not laugh, because they have measured a road that goes right through your living room. They have destroyed all the villages on one side of yours, already. You did not know, because you couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing, and besides, you do not understand their language, though they, many of them now, certainly understand yours. Why should you learn the language of your guests, you think.For a long time it doesn’t make sense to make the effort. And when you begin to understand that your guests are your enemies, it seems horrible to you to try to learn to speak their wicked tongue.
I'm deeply intrigued by the way the whole Israeli War of Independence, especially the part where five peaceful, rustic, innocent Arab nations rolled tanks into the fledgling State of Israel, appears to simply not exist in Alice's narrative.
I'm equally impressed at her portrayal of mid-twentieth-century Palestinians as having, apparently, never seen 'measuring gadgets' before.
But mostly I'm appalled. This woman either knows nothing of the history of this conflict she opines so freely on, or she's lying about it to appeal to a certain audience, and either is shocking. Alice Walker's version of the origins of the Israeli/Palestinian struggle is historically false, bigoted against both Jews and Arabs, and based on a twee, prepackaged narrative of the invasion of indigenous lands. Epic fail.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
QUIT Turns Out To Protest Gay Israeli Films
Several people came up to me as I stood in front of the Roxie Theater on 16th Street with my Israeli flag and asked for clarification--who were we? And why were we there? And who were the other people?
You have to love San Francisco. Here is what was going on...
The Roxie was showing Eyes Wide Open,a film about an Orthodox man in Jerusalem, struggling with his sexuality. This was part of Out In Israel, a month-long celebration of things LGBT, Jewish and Israeli, organized by the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco.
Now, if this had happened a month earlier, the Westboro Baptists might still have been in town, and they could have come and protested the gayness, but instead they had moved on, and the film was being protested by QUIT. That's Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism. No, I did not make that up.
QUIT was there because they hate the State of Israel. They were there with pink banners, complaints about 'pinkwashing', and very creepy signs. My friends and I were there because they were there. We were showing support for films about closeted gay men in Jerusalem by holding Israeli flags, rainbow flags, and signs that were much more delightful and amusing than those held by QUIT.
I was struck, as always, by the passion and intensity of the people I find myself across the lines from at these events. The jumbled tangle of anti-Semitism and vague left-political platitudes, turned into something so irrational, heartless and strange that I can barely make out what these folks think they're doing.
The question I wanted to ask, and didn't get a chance to, was this: "Is there another country on earth, no matter what its human rights record, that you would protest gay films from?"
The answer, of course, is 'no', as one of my fellow flag-wavers said briskly. But it does highlight the unique place Israel holds in the minds of her haters--the only nation on earth with no right to even make films about its LGBT citizens, reviled by these 'activists' far more than nations that, say, just KILL their LGBT citizens.
Strange world. Queer, even, one might say.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Fun and Games With Hamasniks
On Sunday, having thoroughly rested up, I headed to Union Square, to be a counterprotester against the pro-Hamas demo happening there.
Specifically, it was supposed to be candelight memorial service, to mourn those killed during Operation Cast Lead, and you sort of feel bad counterprotesting a memorial service. Until you show up, and notice the vile anti-Semitic signage, and the chants of "From the river to the sea", and QUIT standing happily out with their banner, and the paper-mache puppets, and you realize that this isn't a memorial service, this is another dang Hamas rally.
The opposition had the steps leading into Union Square, corner closest to the Powell Street BART, so we lined up on the opposite side of the street, streaming past Max Azria, Victoria's Secret, and the Westin St. Francis, which happened that day to be flying the flag of Saudi Arabia, just to make everything completely deranged.
A fairly low-key evening, really. Cold. Me clutching a sign with a message about gay Palestinians in one hand, and one with the faces of children killed in Sderot in the other, singing "Oseh Shalom" and stamping my feet. Assorted Japanese tourists took pictures--I suspect that we have ended up in many a photo album, as an example of real American protestors. We wound up around six o'clock.
One thing I have not entirely worked out is how to deal with the people who drive by in the stalled traffic in SUVs, waving Palestinian flags and screaming at you, when they roll down the back windows and encourage their small ones to do likewise. I am torn, between stony-faced "Am Yisrael Chai!" yelling, and smiling and waving at the children. Hard to do both, especially when both hands are full.
Meanwhile, Code Pink is still stalled in Cairo, although apparently a group of them are to be let through.
Specifically, it was supposed to be candelight memorial service, to mourn those killed during Operation Cast Lead, and you sort of feel bad counterprotesting a memorial service. Until you show up, and notice the vile anti-Semitic signage, and the chants of "From the river to the sea", and QUIT standing happily out with their banner, and the paper-mache puppets, and you realize that this isn't a memorial service, this is another dang Hamas rally.
The opposition had the steps leading into Union Square, corner closest to the Powell Street BART, so we lined up on the opposite side of the street, streaming past Max Azria, Victoria's Secret, and the Westin St. Francis, which happened that day to be flying the flag of Saudi Arabia, just to make everything completely deranged.
A fairly low-key evening, really. Cold. Me clutching a sign with a message about gay Palestinians in one hand, and one with the faces of children killed in Sderot in the other, singing "Oseh Shalom" and stamping my feet. Assorted Japanese tourists took pictures--I suspect that we have ended up in many a photo album, as an example of real American protestors. We wound up around six o'clock.
One thing I have not entirely worked out is how to deal with the people who drive by in the stalled traffic in SUVs, waving Palestinian flags and screaming at you, when they roll down the back windows and encourage their small ones to do likewise. I am torn, between stony-faced "Am Yisrael Chai!" yelling, and smiling and waving at the children. Hard to do both, especially when both hands are full.
Meanwhile, Code Pink is still stalled in Cairo, although apparently a group of them are to be let through.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Overcoming Speechlessness
I notice that Alice Walker has reposted to her blog an essay entitled "Overcoming Speechlessness: a Poet Encounters "the horror" in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel". I had thought to write something about this essay when I first read it, but I put it aside. Other matters were pressing, and, well, I didn't know where to begin. But now it's back, and rather than grinding my teeth, I'm overcoming my own speechlessness and saying something, hardly everything there is to say, about it.
Beginning:
It's hard to know how to begin to tackle this enormous, sprawling, hateful and clueless essay. Maybe at the top, where there is a picture of Walker posing with "Hamas Sister, Huda Naim, Member of Parliament, and Mother of five children". Maybe just a piece at a time, picking out a piece or two that got my Irish up.
Walker begins the essay with an account of meetings and travels in Africa. She begins with the stories of women in Rwanda and Congo who have survived things that make you want to scream to think of them. And then, she brings us to her understanding of Israel:
Does the willful ignorance take away your breath yet? The "holocaust" in quotes, which doesn't reflect past treatment of Jews but 'future' disasters, the European Jews who passively "were settled" there? The ignorance of the history of Zionism, of the thriving communities of Jews already living in the land, working and living on land they owned? The communities of Jews living in what is now Israel, since Ottoman times or before? The people who came during the ninteenth century, and the first half of the twentieth, to build a country? The non-European Jews who came after the war--oh, Alice, tell me why you think they came from countries they had lived in since the Babylonian Empire was a going political power, lands like Iraq and Egypt? That's not to even bring up the Jewish people's connection to and presence on this land going back to the Bronze Age, which I'm sure Alice doesn't take into account at all.
So this woman knows nothing, nothing at all, about Israeli history, and yet she is going to write an essay about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From the heart, one supposes.
So many Jews.
Alice wants you to know about all the Jews, seeking justice, who went to Gaza with her. This includes:
A Jewish man who was born in Palestine? How could that be, Alice? I thought they were resettled after the war by the Brits. Oh, never mind. I am supposed to believe that Israeli customs officials have never seen a passport issued to someone born in British Palestine before, and treat him like an enemy, because he is 'Palestinian'? Alice, sorry, but this is BS. Your ignorance of the country you see as the stronghold of racism and discrimination is leading you to swallow bubbemeisehs.
Let me tell you another story, and ask why you think this man's wife was not on the bus with you. The grandfather of a woman I know used to go every year, by train, to British Palestine, to pray at the Tomb of the Patriarch. It's a long train ride from Baghdad to Hebron, but he went every year, and then he prayed, not at the Tomb itself, because Jews were not allowed inside, but from the outside, as close as he was permitted to the shrine itself. His children and grandchildren now live in Israel and the United States, because within a decade of the founding of the State of Israel, Iraq was no longer a safe place to live as a Jew. Alice, did your guides introduce you to anyone who could tell you a story like this? Why do you think this man's wife, or his daughter, were not on your bus to tell their stories?
Rubble.
And she describes Gaza, and she asks: If children are not safe playing in their schoolyards, where are they safe?
And I think of pictures of children dead in Sderot, and I wonder at this woman's inability to see more than one snapshot of a conflict.
May God Protect You From The Jews
Alice encounters an old woman in Gaza:
What a moment of solidarity, between the Palestinian woman and the leftist American novelist. A racial slur. Beautiful. But of course, Alice has a reason:
I wonder, Alice, if that might be because you've never bothered to learn the true history and the more complicated stories, and when you hear that from him, you turn off your ears and close your heart. But, no, clearly the ethnic slurs are justified.
I'm being mocking here because I don't know how else to respond. The sheer, stupid, self-justifying ugliness in this passage stopped my heart for a moment.
It's the pretension of awareness that gets to me. The self-anointing as struggler in a cause seen out of context, seen with no historical understanding, or knowledge of the broader world. The photographs with the Hamas 'Sister', with no understanding of what Hamas is, what they have done, who they are. The justifications for everything. The unwavering willingness to be the latest poor dumb American to come along and not look for any hidden truth or moral ambiguities.
May I never have to overcome speechlessness when it comes to lies and ignorance like this.
Beginning:
It's hard to know how to begin to tackle this enormous, sprawling, hateful and clueless essay. Maybe at the top, where there is a picture of Walker posing with "Hamas Sister, Huda Naim, Member of Parliament, and Mother of five children". Maybe just a piece at a time, picking out a piece or two that got my Irish up.
Walker begins the essay with an account of meetings and travels in Africa. She begins with the stories of women in Rwanda and Congo who have survived things that make you want to scream to think of them. And then, she brings us to her understanding of Israel:
Like most people on the planet, I have been aware of the Palestinian-Israel conflict almost my whole life. I was four years old in 1948 when, after being
subjected to unspeakable cruelty by the Germans, after a "holocaust" so many future disasters would resemble, thousands of European Jews were resettled in Palestine. They settled in a land that belonged to people already living there, which did not seem to bother the British who, as in India, had occupied Palestine and then, on leaving it, helped put in place a partitioning of the land they thought would work fine for the people, strangers, Palestinians and European Jews, now forced to live together.
Does the willful ignorance take away your breath yet? The "holocaust" in quotes, which doesn't reflect past treatment of Jews but 'future' disasters, the European Jews who passively "were settled" there? The ignorance of the history of Zionism, of the thriving communities of Jews already living in the land, working and living on land they owned? The communities of Jews living in what is now Israel, since Ottoman times or before? The people who came during the ninteenth century, and the first half of the twentieth, to build a country? The non-European Jews who came after the war--oh, Alice, tell me why you think they came from countries they had lived in since the Babylonian Empire was a going political power, lands like Iraq and Egypt? That's not to even bring up the Jewish people's connection to and presence on this land going back to the Bronze Age, which I'm sure Alice doesn't take into account at all.
So this woman knows nothing, nothing at all, about Israeli history, and yet she is going to write an essay about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From the heart, one supposes.
So many Jews.
Alice wants you to know about all the Jews, seeking justice, who went to Gaza with her. This includes:
A woman in her late fifties or early sixties stood at the front of the bus, as we passed donkey carts and Mercedes Benzes, and spoke of traveling to Palestine without her husband, a Jewish man who was born in Palestine. Several times they had come back to Palestine, renamed Israel, to see family. To attend graduations, weddings, and funerals. Each time they were held for hours at the airport as her husband was stripped, searched, interrogated, and threatened when he spoke up for himself. In short, because his passport was stamped with the place of his birth, Palestine, he was treated like a Palestinian. This Jewish husband sent his best wishes, but he could no longer endure travel in so painful a part of the world.
A Jewish man who was born in Palestine? How could that be, Alice? I thought they were resettled after the war by the Brits. Oh, never mind. I am supposed to believe that Israeli customs officials have never seen a passport issued to someone born in British Palestine before, and treat him like an enemy, because he is 'Palestinian'? Alice, sorry, but this is BS. Your ignorance of the country you see as the stronghold of racism and discrimination is leading you to swallow bubbemeisehs.
Let me tell you another story, and ask why you think this man's wife was not on the bus with you. The grandfather of a woman I know used to go every year, by train, to British Palestine, to pray at the Tomb of the Patriarch. It's a long train ride from Baghdad to Hebron, but he went every year, and then he prayed, not at the Tomb itself, because Jews were not allowed inside, but from the outside, as close as he was permitted to the shrine itself. His children and grandchildren now live in Israel and the United States, because within a decade of the founding of the State of Israel, Iraq was no longer a safe place to live as a Jew. Alice, did your guides introduce you to anyone who could tell you a story like this? Why do you think this man's wife, or his daughter, were not on your bus to tell their stories?
Rubble.
And she describes Gaza, and she asks: If children are not safe playing in their schoolyards, where are they safe?
And I think of pictures of children dead in Sderot, and I wonder at this woman's inability to see more than one snapshot of a conflict.
May God Protect You From The Jews
Alice encounters an old woman in Gaza:
I gave her a gift I had brought, and she thanked me. Looking into my eyes she said: May God protect you from the Jews. When the young Palestinian interpreter told me what she’d said, I responded: It’s too late, I already married one.
What a moment of solidarity, between the Palestinian woman and the leftist American novelist. A racial slur. Beautiful. But of course, Alice has a reason:
I said this partly because, like so many Jews in America, my former husband could not tolerate criticism of Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians. Our very different positions on what is happening now in Palestine/Israel and what has been happening for over fifty years, has been perhaps our most severe disagreement. It is a subject we have never been able to rationally discuss. He does not see the racist treatment of Palestinians as the same racist treatment of blacks and some Jews that he fought against so nobly in Mississippi.
I wonder, Alice, if that might be because you've never bothered to learn the true history and the more complicated stories, and when you hear that from him, you turn off your ears and close your heart. But, no, clearly the ethnic slurs are justified.
I'm being mocking here because I don't know how else to respond. The sheer, stupid, self-justifying ugliness in this passage stopped my heart for a moment.
It's the pretension of awareness that gets to me. The self-anointing as struggler in a cause seen out of context, seen with no historical understanding, or knowledge of the broader world. The photographs with the Hamas 'Sister', with no understanding of what Hamas is, what they have done, who they are. The justifications for everything. The unwavering willingness to be the latest poor dumb American to come along and not look for any hidden truth or moral ambiguities.
May I never have to overcome speechlessness when it comes to lies and ignorance like this.
Monday, November 23, 2009
In Which Nofrat Gets Arrested
This is Nofrat Frankel. Nofrat is 25, and she is a medical student. She was arrested, November 18, for the henious crime of wearing a tallis at the Western Wall. Sources say that in addition to this crime, she may also have been praying.She was arrested, detained by Jerusalem police for two hours, and ordered to stay away from the Kotel for fifteen days.
A Jew. In Jerusalem. Was arrested by Israeli police for wearing a tallis, and ordered to stay away from the Wall. No, this is not science fiction.
Nofrat may face charges of 'performing a religious act that offends others'. That may carry a penalty of six months in jail and a $2,000 fine.
Reuters states that Nofrat was "wearing a prayer shawl, which Orthodox Jewish tradition dictates is only for men." This is not true. 'Orthodox Jewish tradition' does not forbid women to wear tallitot. In additional, "Frankel was also holding a Torah, a Jewish biblical scroll, in contravention of Orthodox Jewish tradition." Did you realize it was assur for a woman to hold a Torah scroll? Apparently Reuters does. Hmm. I wonder who told THEM?
Apparently, the management at the Wall are digging their heels in, going once again after women following Jewish customs considered to be invalid by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the man in charge there. He has announced that women praying together at the Wall are a 'desecration' of the site.
Meanwhile, Nofrat asks the question on my mind. "If I cannot wear a religious garment at the Western Wall, where can I?" she asks.
Good question, Nofrat. I think the answer is meant to be pretty clear.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Israel in the Gardens 2009
A lovely day was had by all. Well, by me. My parents decided to stay home, and my husband would rather have a root canal than listen to Israeli pop and watch me do activisty things, so I headed out on my own.
There was food: I ate spinach burekas, and a felafel arrangement the size of my head, and watched as the health inspection people had their annual fight with one of the felafel booths about whether everything was sufficiently refrigerated. Fought my way through the mob at Flying Felafel, where the whole experience is authentically Israeli.
There were vendors: I looked at children's games, and jewelry stands, and interesting tallitot, and stacks of Shalom Sesame DVDs.
There was music: I watched a troupe of teenagers in folk-dance costumes bounce around to Israeli songs, including a Bollywood-inspired number. There was singing. There was a gay Israeli pop star.
There were approximately a bazillion small children running around screaming in English, Russian, Hebrew and Chinese.
I checked in with some organizations. JIMENA was out, so was Hadassah, and BlueStar. BlueStar was very excited because they had a plane coming to fly around overhead with a banner saying WE STAND WITH ISRAEL. This was very nice and cheerful. In past years, the planes have said unpleasant things. (Those planes, obviously, were not chartered by BlueStar.)
And, there were protesters, although not nearly as many as we were fearing. Across the street from Yerba Buena Gardens, on the steps and the sidewalk in front of St. Patrick's Church, were a scattered line of representatives of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, and QUIT. Frankly, I was expecting something grander. After all, they sent out this:
Kind of looks impressive, no? It wasn't.
Best sign over there was a banner that read "Lesbians Support The Palestinian Uprising". This is one of those things that just makes you blink a lot, but there they were. Apparently, the IJAZN people were specifically irritated that Ivri Lider, the singer who was the star of the IitG entertainment, is gay, and per IJAZN, "Queer people reject this exploitation in the service of a racist state." Well, queer people except for Ivri Lider, and all the gay San Franciscan Jews and their loved ones, lounging on the grass listening to him sing. They were, I daresay, having a better time than the IJAZNers. Plus, they got burekas and felafel.
There was food: I ate spinach burekas, and a felafel arrangement the size of my head, and watched as the health inspection people had their annual fight with one of the felafel booths about whether everything was sufficiently refrigerated. Fought my way through the mob at Flying Felafel, where the whole experience is authentically Israeli.
There were vendors: I looked at children's games, and jewelry stands, and interesting tallitot, and stacks of Shalom Sesame DVDs.
There was music: I watched a troupe of teenagers in folk-dance costumes bounce around to Israeli songs, including a Bollywood-inspired number. There was singing. There was a gay Israeli pop star.
There were approximately a bazillion small children running around screaming in English, Russian, Hebrew and Chinese.
I checked in with some organizations. JIMENA was out, so was Hadassah, and BlueStar. BlueStar was very excited because they had a plane coming to fly around overhead with a banner saying WE STAND WITH ISRAEL. This was very nice and cheerful. In past years, the planes have said unpleasant things. (Those planes, obviously, were not chartered by BlueStar.)
And, there were protesters, although not nearly as many as we were fearing. Across the street from Yerba Buena Gardens, on the steps and the sidewalk in front of St. Patrick's Church, were a scattered line of representatives of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, and QUIT. Frankly, I was expecting something grander. After all, they sent out this:
Kind of looks impressive, no? It wasn't.Best sign over there was a banner that read "Lesbians Support The Palestinian Uprising". This is one of those things that just makes you blink a lot, but there they were. Apparently, the IJAZN people were specifically irritated that Ivri Lider, the singer who was the star of the IitG entertainment, is gay, and per IJAZN, "Queer people reject this exploitation in the service of a racist state." Well, queer people except for Ivri Lider, and all the gay San Franciscan Jews and their loved ones, lounging on the grass listening to him sing. They were, I daresay, having a better time than the IJAZNers. Plus, they got burekas and felafel.
I joined the banner line on our side, grabbed an Israeli flag, and waved for a while. The opposition gave up around two-thirty, and wandered away. In the meantime, I got to meet a number of people previously only known through e-mail and blogs, and generally enjoyed myself.
After a felafel break, I decided to head across the plaza and check out the Contemporary Jewish Museum, which I had not previously seen. Very nice place, saw a display on Chagall and the artists of the Russian Yiddish/Hebrew theater, enjoyed myself a great deal. New piece of knowledge: I had been aware that Sholem Asch wrote a play called "God of Vengeance", but I had not been aware that it had a lesbian theme. In 1922. Quite cool. Banned in New York. Gawd I love the Jewish arts.
Headed home, very relaxed. A nice, nice day.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
What is the religious value of 'ick'?
I've been over at Joe Settler's place, makin' a nuisance of myself, and I'm left with some questions from our conversation, namely, what is the religious (or political, for that matter) value of the 'ick' factor?
Apparently the Israeli Tourist Board folks ran some campaign to bring gay travelers to Israel. They included some pictures of gay couples doin' gay couple stuff around Jerusalem. Per Joe, and some other things I've seen on the web, religious MKs and some other people went berserk. These photos seem to include:
This one, featuring two young men in yarmulkes gazing deeply into one another's eyes in a familiar honeymoon-photo location. Joe comments that they 'slapped' yarmulkes on gay models for this, and I have to say, that given the fact the guy with his back to the camera doesn't seem to have bothered to pin his, and may be about to lose it altogether in the passion of the moment, this could be the case. (Also, how does his mother feel about him walking around Jerusalem with a tattoo showing.) (It's also possible that these two models are straight, in which case we have an altogether different kind of deception going on.) Joe tells me that that this photo is the equivalent to a picture of a priest and a nun making out, and asks me to consider how I would feel if I were a devout Christian and saw that.
Unfortunately, I spent a while living in Ireland, a deeply Catholic nation where hiring kissing telegram people dressed as clergy is considered rollicking fun. And equally unfortunately, I think that what Joe is implying is that people like this--boys in kippot who go to Jerusalem for the Jewishness and kiss because they're in love--don't exist--and I know a bunch. Although most of them (I'm thinking of one notable exception, Mrs. Bluejeans knows who he is), they're not that conventionally pretty.
Do I care if the religious MKs were offended? Well, yes, I do. I don't want them to feel bad, but this is the face of Judaism too, and, uh, to modify, they're here, they're gay, they wanna see Eretz Yisrael and they're willing to pay. I'm entirely aware that some people are not comfortable with the existence of religious gay Jews, but they're part of us, (and an incredibly good and strong part too, editorializes the Balabusta). Live, says I, and says the tourist board too.
But apparently some of the lady MKs were not so happy about this picture
, which was sent out by the Israeli Consulate in NYC, to interest straight men of a certain age in Israel. The young lady in the photo, as you can see, is stretched out on a wall, in a bikini and high heels, in a bluntly sexual pose. Apparently Dahlia Itzik and Zahava Gal-On were not so amused.
I'm not so amused either. I'm used to this kind of thing, everything is sold with women's mostly naked bodies, but this is, by me, offensive in a way that the other is not. Why? Couple of things. First, the couple in the gay tourism photos are a couple, being sexual together. This woman is being a virtual stripper. Secondly, this apparently is meant to promote a piece Maxim did on 'Women of the IDF'. Please imagine male soldiers being sexualized like this, and then their consulate happily promoting it, and you get the real-world equivalent to this ad.
Joe feels that the reaction is hypocritical--if Dahlia and Zahava weren't willing to support the religious MKs, their outrage now is worthless. I dunno. Where is the outrage of the religious MKs now? Are they OK with this? Is the sexual exploitation of women something they take for granted, or can't be bothered with?
Joe says that the Maxim ad does not bother him, while he is offended as a religious Jew by the gay couple one. He also sees hypocrisy in MKs objecting to one but not the other. I say that the gay couple ad does not bother me, while I am irritated as both a woman and religious Jew by the Maxim one. So, here's my question. Does the 'ick' factor actually have a religious nature to it, or are Joe and I both responding to our socialization and opinions around homosexuality, tznius, and Judaism, and trying to put some spin on it?
Apparently the Israeli Tourist Board folks ran some campaign to bring gay travelers to Israel. They included some pictures of gay couples doin' gay couple stuff around Jerusalem. Per Joe, and some other things I've seen on the web, religious MKs and some other people went berserk. These photos seem to include:
This one, featuring two young men in yarmulkes gazing deeply into one another's eyes in a familiar honeymoon-photo location. Joe comments that they 'slapped' yarmulkes on gay models for this, and I have to say, that given the fact the guy with his back to the camera doesn't seem to have bothered to pin his, and may be about to lose it altogether in the passion of the moment, this could be the case. (Also, how does his mother feel about him walking around Jerusalem with a tattoo showing.) (It's also possible that these two models are straight, in which case we have an altogether different kind of deception going on.) Joe tells me that that this photo is the equivalent to a picture of a priest and a nun making out, and asks me to consider how I would feel if I were a devout Christian and saw that.Unfortunately, I spent a while living in Ireland, a deeply Catholic nation where hiring kissing telegram people dressed as clergy is considered rollicking fun. And equally unfortunately, I think that what Joe is implying is that people like this--boys in kippot who go to Jerusalem for the Jewishness and kiss because they're in love--don't exist--and I know a bunch. Although most of them (I'm thinking of one notable exception, Mrs. Bluejeans knows who he is), they're not that conventionally pretty.
Do I care if the religious MKs were offended? Well, yes, I do. I don't want them to feel bad, but this is the face of Judaism too, and, uh, to modify, they're here, they're gay, they wanna see Eretz Yisrael and they're willing to pay. I'm entirely aware that some people are not comfortable with the existence of religious gay Jews, but they're part of us, (and an incredibly good and strong part too, editorializes the Balabusta). Live, says I, and says the tourist board too.
But apparently some of the lady MKs were not so happy about this picture
, which was sent out by the Israeli Consulate in NYC, to interest straight men of a certain age in Israel. The young lady in the photo, as you can see, is stretched out on a wall, in a bikini and high heels, in a bluntly sexual pose. Apparently Dahlia Itzik and Zahava Gal-On were not so amused.I'm not so amused either. I'm used to this kind of thing, everything is sold with women's mostly naked bodies, but this is, by me, offensive in a way that the other is not. Why? Couple of things. First, the couple in the gay tourism photos are a couple, being sexual together. This woman is being a virtual stripper. Secondly, this apparently is meant to promote a piece Maxim did on 'Women of the IDF'. Please imagine male soldiers being sexualized like this, and then their consulate happily promoting it, and you get the real-world equivalent to this ad.
Joe feels that the reaction is hypocritical--if Dahlia and Zahava weren't willing to support the religious MKs, their outrage now is worthless. I dunno. Where is the outrage of the religious MKs now? Are they OK with this? Is the sexual exploitation of women something they take for granted, or can't be bothered with?
Joe says that the Maxim ad does not bother him, while he is offended as a religious Jew by the gay couple one. He also sees hypocrisy in MKs objecting to one but not the other. I say that the gay couple ad does not bother me, while I am irritated as both a woman and religious Jew by the Maxim one. So, here's my question. Does the 'ick' factor actually have a religious nature to it, or are Joe and I both responding to our socialization and opinions around homosexuality, tznius, and Judaism, and trying to put some spin on it?
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
The Top Twelve Reasons I Don't Live In Israel
Apparently Nefesh b'Nefesh is hosting some sort of event where people list great reasons to make aliyah. Jameel even made this neat book cover to go with his list.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing inspires the Balabusta to flip out. I'm not sure why. On the face of it, I don't plan to make aliyah--OK, nu, so I don't plan to make aliyah. People who have done seem awfully happy, and I'm happy for them (the Balabusta is a hard-core theoretical Zionist), and maybe I really should make aliyah--but herewith are some of the major reasons I don't.
1. Throughout the past couple thousand years, the Diaspora has produced vibrant, glorious, kickass Jewish cultures. I am still part of one. I believe that it is important. I belong to an old and constantly evolving Jewish community, one that has demonstrated its ability to thrive without being rooted in the auld sod. Jews are like tumbleweeds. We pull up roots easily, but each plant carries with it the potential to create a whole new world of tumbleweeds. (Also, we push over people's fences, and...OK, I am not going any farther with the tumbleweed analogy.)
2. Also, I don't speak much Hebrew, at least not modern-type Hebrew. Tanach I can manage. I realized the flexibility and the limitations of my Chumash-based vocabulary the day I realized I did not know the Hebrew word for 'car' (although 'tank' I could manage), but when one of my father's oddball Lutheran friends asked how to say 'How many camels to make that little girl my wife?' I could answer with ease.
3. I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m freeeeee,
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up, next to you, and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land, God bless the USA.
This reason loses something on the screen, since you cannot hear the Balabusta's gleeful offkey singing in an assumed Southern accent, and you also lose out on her final yell of "PROUD to be an 'Murkin". It is, nevertheless, true. I am so absolutely gone on this country it boggles the mind.
4. I'm not rich enough to make aliyah. Please note Jameel's little jab about 'leaving wealth and luxury', well, as I already whinged at Jameel's site, I don't have enough wealth and luxury to leave it behind.
As I also whinged at Jameel's site, I think I was scarred for life by a column in the JPost a couple of years ago. It was written as a welcome letter to two typical new American olim, and I kind of freaked out badly about it. It burbled on quite a bit about cleaning ladies and 'good' schools.
5. I am not smart enough for Israeli politics. I cannot deal with all these teeny-tiny political parties, and shifting loyalties, and the way Sharon is a big hero to the settlers one day and a big villain the next, and the weird British-inspired thing where you have elections any time a bunch of people get a bug up their nether bits. It's too confusing. I am proud to be an 'Murkin, where at least I remember the name of the two important parties, and when the next election is.
6. I enjoy the intense frustration on new employer's faces when they realize they can't get out of giving me the High Holidays off. I would miss that, if we ALL had yontiff off, and they didn't even think about it.
7. I have an addictive personality. If I give in to the pressure to go live in Israel where the action is, soon I will get pressured into living in the West Bank. And then I will get pressured into moving into a not-quite-legal settlement. And then a not-quite-legal settlement without running water. And then (and all this could happen in just a couple of weeks) I will be living up a hill smack-dab in the middle of Ramallah, in a shelter made out of a couple of shopping carts. Or sleeping on Jameel's couch.
8. If I were a convert, the Israeli rabbinate wouldn't recognize my conversion, and if I married in Israel they wouldn't recognize my marriage, and frankly, I'm just not in the mood for all of that. And if my Conservative shul is to come under attack, frankly, I'd just a soon that Gentiles be behind it.
9. Do you have any idea how long a flight that is to be back in San Francisco for the chagim? I would be a WRECK.
10. When is the last time two ######## whales unexpectedly took a wrong turn into the Gulf of Aqaba? Thought so. Also, the Jerusalem Pride Parade seems to be having trouble getting off the ground, while in San Francisco we line downtown with rainbow flags for weeks in advance.
11. If I leave now, the terrorists win.
12. I do not believe there is a single Trader Joe's in all of Israel. And if you think I am driving to frickin' Amman for my kosher chicken, my Tuscan Italian salad dressing, my organic tomato sauce or my really cheap palm hearts, you have got another think coming.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing inspires the Balabusta to flip out. I'm not sure why. On the face of it, I don't plan to make aliyah--OK, nu, so I don't plan to make aliyah. People who have done seem awfully happy, and I'm happy for them (the Balabusta is a hard-core theoretical Zionist), and maybe I really should make aliyah--but herewith are some of the major reasons I don't.
1. Throughout the past couple thousand years, the Diaspora has produced vibrant, glorious, kickass Jewish cultures. I am still part of one. I believe that it is important. I belong to an old and constantly evolving Jewish community, one that has demonstrated its ability to thrive without being rooted in the auld sod. Jews are like tumbleweeds. We pull up roots easily, but each plant carries with it the potential to create a whole new world of tumbleweeds. (Also, we push over people's fences, and...OK, I am not going any farther with the tumbleweed analogy.)
2. Also, I don't speak much Hebrew, at least not modern-type Hebrew. Tanach I can manage. I realized the flexibility and the limitations of my Chumash-based vocabulary the day I realized I did not know the Hebrew word for 'car' (although 'tank' I could manage), but when one of my father's oddball Lutheran friends asked how to say 'How many camels to make that little girl my wife?' I could answer with ease.
3. I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m freeeeee,
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up, next to you, and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land, God bless the USA.
This reason loses something on the screen, since you cannot hear the Balabusta's gleeful offkey singing in an assumed Southern accent, and you also lose out on her final yell of "PROUD to be an 'Murkin". It is, nevertheless, true. I am so absolutely gone on this country it boggles the mind.
4. I'm not rich enough to make aliyah. Please note Jameel's little jab about 'leaving wealth and luxury', well, as I already whinged at Jameel's site, I don't have enough wealth and luxury to leave it behind.
As I also whinged at Jameel's site, I think I was scarred for life by a column in the JPost a couple of years ago. It was written as a welcome letter to two typical new American olim, and I kind of freaked out badly about it. It burbled on quite a bit about cleaning ladies and 'good' schools.
5. I am not smart enough for Israeli politics. I cannot deal with all these teeny-tiny political parties, and shifting loyalties, and the way Sharon is a big hero to the settlers one day and a big villain the next, and the weird British-inspired thing where you have elections any time a bunch of people get a bug up their nether bits. It's too confusing. I am proud to be an 'Murkin, where at least I remember the name of the two important parties, and when the next election is.
6. I enjoy the intense frustration on new employer's faces when they realize they can't get out of giving me the High Holidays off. I would miss that, if we ALL had yontiff off, and they didn't even think about it.
7. I have an addictive personality. If I give in to the pressure to go live in Israel where the action is, soon I will get pressured into living in the West Bank. And then I will get pressured into moving into a not-quite-legal settlement. And then a not-quite-legal settlement without running water. And then (and all this could happen in just a couple of weeks) I will be living up a hill smack-dab in the middle of Ramallah, in a shelter made out of a couple of shopping carts. Or sleeping on Jameel's couch.
8. If I were a convert, the Israeli rabbinate wouldn't recognize my conversion, and if I married in Israel they wouldn't recognize my marriage, and frankly, I'm just not in the mood for all of that. And if my Conservative shul is to come under attack, frankly, I'd just a soon that Gentiles be behind it.
9. Do you have any idea how long a flight that is to be back in San Francisco for the chagim? I would be a WRECK.
10. When is the last time two ######## whales unexpectedly took a wrong turn into the Gulf of Aqaba? Thought so. Also, the Jerusalem Pride Parade seems to be having trouble getting off the ground, while in San Francisco we line downtown with rainbow flags for weeks in advance.
11. If I leave now, the terrorists win.
12. I do not believe there is a single Trader Joe's in all of Israel. And if you think I am driving to frickin' Amman for my kosher chicken, my Tuscan Italian salad dressing, my organic tomato sauce or my really cheap palm hearts, you have got another think coming.
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