Demonstrators and clergy carrying a golden calf in the shape of a Wall Street bull march from Judson Memorial Church to Zuccotti Park on Sunday, October 9, 2011. / Tom Martinez and Dennis Hearn

The local chapter of NSP in Washington, D.C. has been involved in creating an alternative to the standard conservative prayer breakfast that takes place each year, and we are inviting you to do the same in your community. We’ve been working with Occupy Faith D.C. to create “the People’s Prayer Breakfast.” You can do the same in your area of the country. It doesn’t have to be this week – take your time and make sure you do outreach to Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Ba’hai, Sikh, Wicca, Buddhist, Quaker, Unitarian, Religious Science, and all other possible communities of faith to get them involved in the planning.

Image by Chisda Magid, 1/27/2012

“How would a Republican administration help bring peace to Palestine and Israel when most candidates barely recognize the existence of Palestine or its people? As a Palestinian American Republican, I’m here to tell you we do exist.”

Abraham Hassan, a self identified Palestinian-American Republican, asked a question in Thursday night’s Republican debate, raising an interesting issue of Republican credibility in the Palestinian community domestically and abroad. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in typical fashion characterized the Palestinian population as “Hamas and others who think like Hamas,” as Romney said. Both candidates were emphatic that American and Israeli interests, especially when it comes to the Palestinians, are exactly the same. Gingrich attempted to defend past suggestions that Palestinians are an “invented people” by arguing that “[the term Palestinian was] an invention of the late 1970s…prior to that [Palestinians] were Arabs.”

In his book, Palestinian Identity, Columbia University professor of history Rashid Khalidi extensively chronicles the emergence of a Palestinian national consciousness as early as the late 19^th century, like modern Zionism, belies Gingrich’s proposition (ironically, Gingrich fashions himself a professional historian yet seems unaware of Khalidi’s historical work). All national movements are imagined communities, to use Benedict Anderson phrase, but that does not mean they are meaningless, as the word “invented” seems to suggest. By denying the origins of Palestinian peoplehood, and hence much of its history, Gingrich is rejecting precisely what it means to be a Palestinian. Hassan’s statement that Republicans “barely recognize” the Palestinian identity appears to be a gross understatement.

Courtesy of SoulAviv

.As Administrative Director for Sounds Write Productions, a major publisher and distributor of contemporary Jewish music, a lot of CDs comes across my desk. Most of them are very nice, a few I really like – but most don’t stand out from the crowd in any way and after a quick listen it’s on to the next, with no significant lasting impressions. When I first popped SoulAviv’s third recording, “Soul Service,” into my player, though, I knew right away that we were in completely different territory.

SoulAviv is staking out new ground in spiritual Jewish music. Their unique blend of folk, Motown, gospel, Memphis soul, and world-music grooves is different, fun, inspirational, and engaging. Singing in Hebrew, English, and Yiddish, SoulAviv blends Jewish heritage, spirituality, and celebration with a little California sunshine for a musical experience that is contemporary, yet timeless. It’s different than anything else I’ve heard – and I’ve heard a lot – and it’s working.

Some of the real-life people featured in the television series, "All American Muslim." / Photo Courtesy of TLC

Next Sunday is the last installment of All American Muslim, the reality television series on TLC that was the target of fringe, anti-Muslim hate rhetoric. The show introduced five Muslim-American families to the reality TV audience– two groups who would not, in all likelihood, have otherwise met. As it turns out, these five families are not shills for radical extremists. They are not hiding sinister plots, surreptitiously trying to turn American law into Sharia law, lulling America into a false sense of security by showing a few “good Muslims.”

These families are the real Muslims. They are folks from Dearborn, Michigan, where the show takes place, who struggle to raise their families to the best of their abilities. Some wear headscarves; others wear tattoos. They suffered through 9/11 alongside us, and they decry those who hijack Islam in the name of terrorism. They, it turns out, are just like us, and that is the reality that the fringe groups who called for advertisers to boycott the program, cannot tolerate.

Early morning on Monday, November 14^th, the Oakland Police once again evacuated the OccupyOakland camp. That was the day I was planning to attend the facilitation committee meeting. Being unsure about whether or not a meeting would take place, and knowing how long it would be before I could attend a meeting again, I decide to take a chance and go.

The plaza is barricaded on all sides, with only employees being allowed to enter. Some restaurants are openly displaying their menus in an empty plaza full of sanitation workers. Who would be buying food when no one can enter, I wonder. Later I see police allowing some people – I imagine only those looking “respectable” – to walk into the plaza to order food out. Something ironic about closing off the entire plaza when one of the reasons for evacuating it was to support local businesses. I ask the policeman how he feels about the whole thing. He shrugs his shoulders and says he’s just doing his job, doesn’t have an opinion. I offer my reflection that it’s tough to be there and do what he does. He says that being a cop is tough, period.

At the 14^th and Broadway intersection, which has become identified with the movement, a small crowd has gathered. More police are standing in a line behind the barricades, some of them in riot gear, others more loosely guarding the place. Their faces are generally blank, except when no one is standing in front of them and they talk with each other, rather casually. What is it like on the inside to be each person I see? This question haunts me always, especially on a day like today, when I look at people, the police, and imagine them to be doing things that are difficult for at least some of them to do.

Herman Cain and Ron Paul at the August 11, 2011 GOP/FOX News debate. flickr / iowapolitics.com

In 2010 Julian Sanchez set off a debate amongst conservatives when he argued that the movement suffered from “epistemic closure” – getting all of their ideas only from each other. This suggests a particularly ideological and rigidly conservative movement unwilling to challenge its principles despite contravening facts. Bruce Bartlett, a former economic advisor for the George H.W. Bush administration and outspoken critic of the second Bush administration, made a similar claim when he said, “conservatives have sort of reached a position of intellectual closure [italics added].” He means that the conservative intellectualism of the 70s and 80s precipitated an era of complacency and stagnation in the conservative movement. Modern conservatives debate how to implement the ideas of their ideological forbearers, but are reluctant to examine the ideas themselves. John Huntsman Jr. seems to imply this idea when he chastises other Republican candidates for their dismissal and derision of the scientific community when the science contradicts their preexisting conservative beliefs.

Steve Benen offers a particularly pertinent anecdote drawn from the writings of Herman Cain in which the presidential candidate suggests that his awareness of national issues comes primarily, if not entirely, from conservative talk radio shows. The conservative talk show hosts of today are not trained in public policy and do not develop their political ideologies. Instead, these entertainers simplify complex ideas developed by earlier thinkers in their movement. These radio shows provide talking points that assume conservative orthodoxy is fact. The scientific community is viewed with derision by hosts who believe that ideology is better suited to address these issues then the scientific process. These talk hosts are only interested in promoting, rather then examining, their ideological principles.

Herman Cain is not an outlier in terms of his dogmatic approach to national issues. The fact that these talk shows have informed his public policy positions, rather than the academic or scientific communities, on matters as dire as climate change is troubling. Are American voters going to tolerate an uncritical application of conservative ideology? Or will they demand a president who respects scholarly experts and is willing to find compromises between the competing governing ideologies of this nation?

Nader, Nawal, and baby Naseem of the Aoude family in their Dearborn, Michigan home. / Courtesy of TLC Network

The new TLC series “All-American Muslim” hasn’t even aired yet, and it’s already come under fierce and prejudiced criticism.

The reality show follows the everyday lives of five Muslim families living in Dearborn, Michigan, whose population has the largest proportion of Arab Americans for a city of its size. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 33.4 percent of residents said they were of Arab ancestry.

The issues they face are similar to everyone else’s – some are trying to start a family, getting married, and venturing to open a new business. They disagree with each other. They deal with rowdy children and guilt-tripping parents. The characters talk, act, and look like average Midwesterners. Because they are.

This article was co-authored by Matthew L. Skinner.

Picture this: an Iraqi reporter becomes interested in the work of a Jewish student in Israel after reading an article about Jewish-Muslim relations in medieval Spain that the student published online. The reporter contacts the student and interviews him about future prospects for Jewish-Muslim coexistence.

As the student in this story and co-author of this article, Joshua Stanton knows first-hand how technology is reshaping the way people of different religions interact. To start with, he and the Iraqi reporter would never have connected without the Internet, which enabled them to bypass regional politics and borders.

Yet the Internet’s potential can yield various outcomes. Despite our increased connectivity, people of different faith traditions remain all too likely to talk past one another. Just look at the comments section of any online news article.

Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen, October 2008. wikimedia commons / Muhammad ud-Deen

On September 30, 2011 a U.S. drone in Yemen assassinated Anwar Al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen accused of participation in terrorist activities against the United States. While there is a legitimate debate to be had about the justification and legality of targeted killings as a matter of policy, President Obama should not be permitted to assume this authority unchallenged.

Al-Awlaki’s killing is the first instance of a U.S. administration openly targeting an American citizen for assassination and comes amid a rapid increase in the use of targeted killings abroad. This issue was last raised in 2002 when Kamal Derwish, also a U.S. citizen, was killed in a similar operation. The Bush administration denied that he was an intended targeted, thereby avoiding the constitutional question, but Condoleezza Rice argued that targeting Derwish would have been “well within the balance of…[Bush's] constitutional authority.” In early 2009 Admiral Dennis Blair reaffirmed that the president has the right to assassinate an American citizen that is believed to be “working with terrorists.” The Bush administration avoided a constitutional confrontation while creating the legal framework for a 2010 Obama memorandum that justified the targeted killing of Al-Awlaki.

The Houston Chronicle reports that the ubiquitous hacktivist (dis)organization Anonymous is celebrating Halloween by threatening to expose the members of Zetas, one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico.

My little county, Rio Arriba, in northern New Mexico, has long been overrun by drugs because of this cartel. The guys on the left are not drug kingpins. They are ranchers. And they are seriously put out with the cartels.

Rio Arriba County suffers the highest heroin and polydrug overdose death rates in the US. A few months ago, a beautiful local mountain lake was befouled when a plane flying low to avoid being detected by radar crashed into it, spewing cocaine, fuel, and bodyparts into the water. Nobody knows who was in the plane.

Our rural Hispanic and Native American youth are being systematically plied with drugs by Mexican and Californian gangs to entice them to become mules. We have watched our teen drinking rate creep upward. Children as young as 12 are now addicted to heroin.

I couldn’t be happier that Anonymous has taken on the cartel. However, I wonder if bloggers everywhere will suddenly find themselves targets in a new kind of war. I know how quickly those kinds of wars can sneak up on you.

CROSS-POSTED AT Native American Netroots

The developed industrial nations of the world cannot remain secure islands of prosperity in a seething sea of poverty. The storm is rising against the privileged minority of the earth, from which there is no shelter in isolation or armament. The storm will not abate until a just distribution of the fruits of the earth enables man everywhere to live in dignity and human decency. – Dr. King

In another moment of Great American Irony President Obama inaugurated the Dr. King memorial this week in Washington D.C. He not only invoked the legacy of King but he also spoke favorably of the Occupy Wall Street movement and said King would support it. Yes, of course, King would back the cause. However, despite winning a Nobel Peace Prize, Obama hasn’t shown any willingness to address King’s triple evils of “war, economic exploitation and racism.” These also happen to be similar concerns for many in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Obama should, however, be careful about who and what he praises because the Occupy movement is expanding and Dr. King’s final campaign was going to bring the revolution close to home. He said, “We’ve got to camp in – put our tents in front of the White House…America will have many many days, but they will be full of trouble. There will be no rest, there will be no tranquility in this country until the nation comes to terms with our problem.”

On Dr. King’s birthday, Jan. 15th 1968 – which was sadly to be his last – he was organizing with a multi-racial coalition of Native Americans, Chicanos, Appalachian whites and urban black people to start an encampment in Washington D.C. that would be a massive “nonviolent army” which would “cripple the operation of an oppressive society.” By 1968, King’s earlier emphasis on civil rights had evolved into a revolutionary stance against capitalism, the Vietnam War, U.S. Imperialism and poverty. Leading tens of thousands of poor people, activists, clergy and concerned citizens to camp in D.C. was a “kind of last, desperate demand for the nation to respond to nonviolence.” He even suggested to his staff that after a few days they could call in the peace movements and “try and close down the Pentagon.” King meant business. The encampment would have to be “as dramatic, as dislocative, as attention-getting as the riots without destroying life or property.” He talked about clogging the roads, shutting down bridges and making the “city not function anymore.” The country that he loved so much had strayed so far from its ideals that he said, “We’ve got to go for broke this time…they aren’t going to run me out of Washington.”

Speaking to Jennifer Herszman Capraru in Toronto, Canada, it is impossible not to be warmed by her passion for the work she does and the people it brings her close to. Born in Montréal, Québec, Capraru is the daughter of a mother who was a child survivor of the Holocaust, and a Romanian father, both of whom emphasized the importance of human rights and provided Capraru with the gift of creativity that she exercises with such love and intelligence today.

As an adult, Capraru received an MA in Theatre Studies from York University and also trained as a director in Germany; it has been through the medium of theatre and directing that she has always seen the opportunity to create a whole world – a world where real change could transpire. In her role as Artistic Director of the award-winning Theatre Asylum in Toronto, Capraru premieres thought-provoking plays by and about women and humanist issues. In 2006, Capraru was asked to be 2nd Script Supervisor on the Canadian feature film Shake Hands with the Devil about the experiences of Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire during his tenure as UN Force Commander during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. As Capraru explains, she went to Rwanda at the last minute, and without expectations, but following her work on the film, she found herself prompted to accept an invitation to give script development workshops for the Rwanda Cinema Centre. One connection led to another, and Capraru tumbled into directing for the National University of Rwanda, UNICEF, Kivu Writers and Mashirika arts. In Rwanda, years after the genocide, Capraru saw fertile ground for creativity and for transformation. There, alongside her Rwandan colleagues, she founded ISÔKO, The Theatre Source, a theatre company that blossomed from an inspired seedling of an idea to a full-fledged theatre company that tours, performs in three languages, and has has been the origin of many lengthy discussions on subjects such as genocide and loss as well as transformation and healing. In the Rwandan context, Capraru eloquently describes her view of “theatre as ritual, ritual as catharsis, catharsis as healing, and healing as hope”.

Around the country, people will walk with their neighbors in remembrance of 9/11. Photo by Gordon Bell/Flickr

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, many of us are wondering how best to honor the many victims of that tragedy and its aftermath in a way that does not yield to the militarism, chauvinism, and Islamophobia that have often been linked to or justified as appropriate responses to 9/11. So here is a note we got from one spiritual progressive, Bart Campolo, whose ideas are closely aligned with the NSP:

Here in Cincinnati, my wife Marty’s answer is inviting some of our friends to join us on a walk with some Muslim and Jewish families she invited by simply calling their congregations. She got the idea from me and my friends at Abraham’s Path, who are sponsoring www.911walks.org to help people find or pull together their own 9/11 Walks all over the USA and around the world. The goal of these walks is simple: To help people honor all the victims of 9/11 by walking and talking kindly with neighbors and strangers, in celebration of our common humanity and in defiance of fear, misunderstanding and hatred.

The Western Wall is busy during Tish B'av.

1. “What are you doing here?”

On the last night of Ramadan – the month-long fast observed by Muslims – I pass through the Jordanian-Israeli border at a crossing called the Allenby Bridge. This is the only border crossing open to West Bank Palestinians. It is the only way Palestinians can come and go from their country. This border is patrolled and controlled by Israel.

I am here to renew my visa. But most of the crowd is made up of Palestinian families wheeling enormous suitcases and coming to Palestine for the four-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that immediately follows Ramadan.

At the border, I’m quickly pulled aside by Israeli security. Because I live in the Palestinian West Bank and write – for this website and others – about Palestinians, Israelis, the conflict and the occupation, I’m regularly questioned.

Though I was surprised the first few times, now I’m used to this, to being pulled aside, interrogated and asked to wait.

“Where are you going?” one Israeli official asks me. “Why are you coming to Israel?”

“I’m going to Ramallah,” I say. “That’s where I live.”

He nods and squints at my passport.

“Samuel?” he frowns. “Are you Jewish?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. “I am.”

He pauses.

“What are you doing here?”

The official leafs through my passport and makes a quick phone call. An armed guard appears behind me. “We’re going to ask you some questions.” The guard presses me forward, through a set of doors and to a row of chairs. He doesn’t say anything. I take a seat next to a Palestinian father and his two daughters, who have also been set aside for questioning.

The family next to me – and most of the crowd here – are Muslims. They’re fasting, waiting for sundown to eat, drink and smoke their cigarettes. There are no windows inside and no one can see the sun set, but people glance at their watches. One man unpacks a woven prayer mat and slings it over his shoulder. It’s almost time to pray.

Anyone driving through Madison, Wisconsin in April and May would have recognized those nine beeps of car and truck horns, ubiquitous throughout the city: This is what democracy looks like!

Wisconsin State Capitol

The mainstream media focused on unions, of course, public and private, coming together in unexpected solidarity, but not everyone realized that spiritual and religious groups played a significant role as well. And here’s something that will challenge your prejudices: evangelical groups were among them. Together with the religious organizations that form the usual progressive “suspects,” they chanted their own variation on a theme: This is what religion looks like.

Bruno, Hawkings, Dowling at WCSA

Houses of Worship: the new “public” spaces for political action?

Churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques have an ambivalent history with social justice, but a panel at the Working Class Studies conference in Chicago this June offered evidence of deep and innovative support for justice movements, worker rights in particular, which really inspired me. Not everyone knows, for example, that during the Wisconsin Uprising, a Shabbat service was held in the Capitol with Hebrew songs in which Rabbi Renee Bauer played a key role. Or that four hundred clergy signed a statement of support, and one hundred fifty of them marched in the protests. Robert Bruno, author of Justified by Work, moderated an impressive panel consisting of Father Larry Dowling, a Catholic priest from a 50 percent unemployed, 55 percent ex-incarcerated parish, and Rev. C. J., . Hawking, Executive Director of Arise Chicago, and Minister of Social Justice at the Euclid Avenue Methodist Church. Unfortunately, Rabbi Brant Rosen, leader of an activist Jewish Reconstructionist congregation, and a Muslim Imam were not able to come.

As if we haven’t had enough unexpected twists in the Oslo tragedy, a fascinating op-ed on Islamophobia by none other than Abe Foxman (“Norwegian attacks stem from a new ideological hate – The Washington Post“) of the Anti-Defamation League appeared in yesterday’s Washington Post.

I don’t often find myself agreeing with Mr. Foxman on issues involving Muslims – though I certainly share his concerns about the use of anti-Semitism as a political tool by Muslim extremists — but I think he is to be applauded for this principled and thoughtful warning about the growing threat of Islamophobia. Most interestingly, Foxman explitly explores the profound parallels between this new hate and the age-old “Socialism of Fools” that the ADL exists to fight.

Abe Foxman: “Norwegian attacks stem from a new ideological hate” – The Washington Post

One of the global architects of terror responsible for inspiring the 9-11 tragedy was finally killed this week. Osama bin Laden, who violently hijacked the faith of 1.5 billion to rationalize his perverse criminal actions, is permanently seared into our collective consciousness as the 21st century boogeyman.

Sadly, in the eyes of many Americans, bin Laden has also become one of the most visible icons of “Islam” alongside Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. Furthermore, 10 years after the 9-11 tragedy, nearly 60% of Americans say they don’t know a Muslim, and the favorability rating of Islam is at its lowest ebb.

Muslim Americans, like much of the world, still cannot escape the overbearing shadow of the fallen towers. There is a permanent fork in the timeline of the Muslim American narrative: Pre-911 and Post 9-11.

Pre 9-11, I was another awkward, well intentioned, multi-hyphenated Muslim American with exotic dietary habits who prayed 5 times a day and drank chai instead of alcohol during college.

Post 9-11, I received a special screening in front of my fellow passengers who boarded the plane to North Carolina while observing my Muslim security clearance zoo exhibit.

I felt like smoking a cigarette and spouting a witty barb after my intimate encounter with the TSA.

Cinco de Mayo celebration. Photo: Creative Commons/vpickering.

Crossposted from Colorlines.com

by Roberto Lovato

Back in the late 70′s and 80′s, when most white people didn’t feel safe in predominantly Latino neighborhoods like San Francisco’s Mission district (or inner cities, for that matter), summer started with Cinco de Mayo. Tiny, hyper-local street fairs where Mexican restaurants, crowds of happy, loud brown people and lamb chop-sideburned Santana-wannabe garage bands filled the air with cultural and political electricity. It went largely unnoticed outside of the Latino neighborhood, what used to be called El Barrio.

Cinco de Mayo’s mix – live salsa, mariachi and rock Latino music; sometimes-inspired English and Spanish-language political speeches and volanteando (flyering) – provided the soft cultural cushion for generations of citizens and non-citizens dropped by the American Dream. And none but the cigarette smoking Marxista even knew or spoke about May Day, the International Workers Day rallies that filled cities around the country this past weekend.

Thirty years, millions of mobile devices and a massive wave of migration later, Latinos have largely forgotten the meaning of Cinco de Mayo. There’s still considerable color, music and even some inspiration among attendees at Cinco de Mayo events, but the electricity of the events has been heavily doused by beer promoters trying to capture Latina hearts and minds and by military recruiters desperate for young Latino bodies. With notable exceptions among the more thoughtful Cinco de Mayo organizers around the country, event organizers no longer tell us that we’re celebrating the victory of the badly-equipped, but inspired Mexican guerrilla army that fought and defeated the far better-equipped forces of Napoleon III’s decaying French Empire. Cinco de Mayo’s loss of electricity has itself become a Latino-”American” sign of imperial malaise.

Instead, our electricidad has migrated to Primero de Mayo (May Day). Born in the U.S., after immigrant and other workers protesting in Chicago’s Haymarket Square were killed by police in the late 19th century, Primero de Mayo was, until very recently, a largely forgotten commie affair. Today, Latino workers, specifically immigrant workers, march against the militarized immigration forces of President Obama, and these workers are powering May Day back to relevance in a decaying empire that tries to border itself off from the rest of the working world by celebrating “Labor Day” in September. The day connects us to people marching throughout the hemisphere and the entire world; it previews and makes palpable the bottom-up borderlessness that is the only salvation for this extremely troubled planet.

A few days ago, I came across a wonderful op-ed by a journalist and Middle East commentator in the Danish newspaper Politiken – which one might call Denmark’s answer to The New York Times – that I think admirably sums up how the last few months’ events in the Middle East have exposed the abject superficiality and thinly-veiled prejudice that often infects Western and especially American MSM analysis of Middle Eastern politics.

For far too long, it’s been customary to dismiss the Arab masses with this offensive, meaningless shorthand — the “Arab Street” — that casts them as mindless herds of animals ever on the verge of violence and in thrall to extremists.

What follows is my (no doubt imperfect) translation of the article in its entirety.

By Carla Sameth

At age 23, my mom was allowed to leave home in the Bronx to go help her sister, my aunt Charlotte, with her new baby in Seattle. But the Jewish guys in Seattle met all the new girls “fresh off the boat” and she was quickly snatched up by my dad. When my mom decided to marry him soon afterwards and stay in Seattle, her father, my Grandpa Sam, put a curse on her saying her children would “scatter across the globe.”

The author's son, Gabe, at a Haitian Refugee Camp in the Dominican Republic (Global Leadership Adventures, 12/2010). See the end of this article for how to win a scholarship to go on one of these programs.

This was strangely prophetic because my siblings and I somehow ended up living in countries as diverse as Israel, France, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Japan. Like so many other Jewish youth, we also sought out international travel and community service trips as young adults. For me this was combined with a deep interest in Jewish culture abroad and a fascination for those stories involving Jewish families starting in one country with one generation, say Iraq, then the family moving to India and ending up in Berkeley or going from Syria to Argentina to Israel and ending up with names like Yoko Birnbaum, Ester Rabkin or Uri Santos. Clearly the phrase “Wandering Jew” did not apply only to a plant species.

While we were “cursed” (or “blessed”) to wander, also in our destiny was political awareness and activism, sniffing out injustice in the world and giving to the community. The obligation, as a previously oppressed people to fight injustice as opposed to contribute to it, was intrinsically part of the values I grew up with and certainly the brand of Judaism I was exposed to at Habonim Camp – Machaneh Miriam on Gabriola Island in Canada. I was part of a Chavarah heading for Kibbutz and following a set trajectory: camp, leadership-training and then “workshop”– a year on Kibbutz. Learning to “give what you can and take what you need” and the belief in a kind of socialism went hand-in-hand with the protest marches I went on with my parents. I was not surprised, therefore, to find that international programs for high school students, emphasizing community service and leadership training, such as the one we went on this winter break in the Dominican Republic with Global Leadership Adventures (GLA) are heavily attended by Jewish youth.

My son, Gabe and I traveled to the Dominican Republic to assist with rebuilding a home in one of the worst slums in the area and visited a Haitian refugee camp, playing soccer with the kids there.