Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Israel of increasing its arbitrary repression of Palestinian non-violent activism lately. Abdullah Abu Rahma’s arrest — which I reported on in the second segment of my interview with Starhawk — is part of this crack-down in Bil’in, Nil’in, and Ramallah, where grassroots demonstrations have begun to mobilize Palestinians, Israelis, and international solidarity against the wall being built between the occupied territories and Israel. According to HRW,
Israel is building most of the barrier inside the West Bank rather than along the Green Line, in violation of international humanitarian law. In recent months, Israeli military authorities have arbitrarily arrested and denied due process rights to several dozen Palestinian anti-wall protesters.
Starhawk believes that the Israeli government fears this non-violent resistance more than the violent action they’ve contended with for years. Why? Because the government knows the movement’s power to shift public opinion and mobilize people against Israeli injustice. These grassroots efforts undermine several pillars of Israeli control in the occupied territories, according to Starhawk, and start to shatter the story that Palestinians are all evil terrorists.
Like most Jewish kids in postwar America, Starhawk grew up believing that Israel was the salvation of the Jewish people. She collected pennnies to plant trees in the Holy Land, learned Israeli folk songs and Israeli dances, and dreamed of going to Israel. At 15 she finally attended a Zionist program in Israel.
Star believes that she was raised with a compelling story — that Jews were kicked around for 2,000 years, almost exterminated in the Holocaust, and out of those ashes, finally got their own land again. “And by God,” she adds, “nobody’s going to take an inch of it away from us.” This is a persuasive story for many people, according to Starhawk. But unfortunately, the Palestinians aren’t in it.
For Starhawk, as for many American Jews of her age, it was painful to face the injustice that Israel was carrying out against the Palestinian people. Star senses that much of this injustice stems on a deep psychological level from an inability to see the Palestinian people as people — with their own humanity, their own rights, their own desires and flaws. Denying Palestinians that full range of humanity — and acknowledging that their ranks include the good, the bad, the vicious, the kind, the compassionate — is at the root of the unjust treatment they receive. Seeing every Palestinian as a suicide bomber who wants to kill an Israeli will not resolve this conflict. Nor will denying the existence of the Palestinians.
Starhawk hopes that another compelling narrative will begin to take the place of the one that she grew up with. This is a tale that’s very familiar to readers of Tikkun. It’s the story that Judaism stands for justice, for the regneration of the world, for tikkun olam. This, too, is a powerful story. And Star believes that if we can call people back to that story — as painful as it is to face the truth of what Israel has done to Palestine — then we can actually stop this injustice.
For those of you who don’t know her, Starhawk is the best-known Wiccan author alive today. She’s published eleven books, including The Spiral Dance, which introduced many of us to Wicca. And from the beginning of her career, she’s been very involved as an activist, most recently supporting Palestinians in the occupied territories.
After spending last week with Starhawk, I realized that she’s a “meta-activist,” a node of many different types of activism, and a font of knowledge about how to act most effectively when demonstrating, educating, and building a new world. She’s been active in the women’s movement, the anti-nuclear movement, the anti-globalization movement, in creating greater sustainability and a permaculture for the Earth, as well as in supporting Palestinian non-violence for the creation of a Palestinian state. Fortunately for all of us, as an active workshop presenter, Star has been passing along what she’s learned in all these areas. I interviewed her about two of those movements, the two p’s: Palestine and permaculture, and want to share those interviews over the next few days, beginning with her thoughts about Palestine.
This past December, Star planned to participate in the Gaza Freedom March, a demonstration of 1,400 people from 38 different countries that included a large contingent from France. The purpose of this gathering was to bring in much-needed humanitarian supplies as well as to call attention to the inhumane conditions in Gaza after the yearlong Israeli blockade that followed their bombing of Gaza.
As you may recall, Israel attacked about a year ago in response to rockets that Hamas shot into Israeli settlements. As Star reiterated in her comments, the international demonstrators came to support Palestinian non-violent resistance to Israel, and in no way condoned Hamas’ hostility. But Israeli aggression a year ago worsened an already difficult situation in Gaza, killing 1400 people, destroying 4,000 homes and 88 public buildings. Since then the Israeli blockade has kept needed supplies from reaching Palestinians in Gaza, resulting in abject poverty, malnutrition, and bad drinking water, as well as a lack of building materials and equipment to rebuild the devastated area. The state of affairs has deteriorated to the point where Gaza has become essentially an open-air prison with little to keep it going.
This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr.:
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads to the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
In the months before my mother suffered her first obvious psychotic break and my family shattered like glass, I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that my brother, sisters and I had been left alone. At six, I was the oldest. My siblings were four, three and one.
It was the first time I was called to political action. It was the moment I realized something in our home was terribly, irretrievably wrong.
Nearly everyone I met while living in Israel last year was politically apathetic — with the notable exception of right-wing ideologues. What had happened to the strong left-wing that had built the country? Where had the once-dominant Labor Party gone? Where were the peace activists? The hippies? The reformers? The answer, to my relief, was that there was still a strong left-wing. But its adherents shunned politics. Disaffected by a stagnant and ineffective political system, they flocked to human rights organizations, the arts scene, high tech companies, and universities.
Everywhere members of the Israeli left seemed to go, success followed — to a stunning degree. Take for example high-tech industries. New York Times Columnist David Brooks recently wrote an article on “The Tel Aviv Cluster,” which notes that:
Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurial hot spots. Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth, by far. It leads the world in civilian research-and-development spending per capita. It ranks second behind the U.S. in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq. Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined.
These high-tech startups have been founded and run disproportionately by highly educated, liberal Israelis. Just go to Tel Aviv (or Herzliya or Haifa or Qiryat Gat) and have a look around.
At a meeting in the Israeli city of Acre, Osnat Aram-Daphna and Najeeba Sirhan, two school principals, one Jewish and one Muslim, looked across a table and became friends. It was during the Second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising that began in September 2000. Both were attending a principals’ co-existence workshop, and there they discovered a shared vision: Through education and cross-cultural contact, Arabs and Jews can learn to respect one another; and respect can ultimately become acceptance, trust and even friendship. Osnat described Najeeba. “Like me, she is a doing woman, not a talking woman.”
Their paths to Acre could not have been more different.
Najeeba, the oldest of eight children, was born into a working-class family in the religiously mixed village of Kafr Yasif. Her father, a farmer, had recently returned to Israel from Lebanon. Poorly schooled, he believed in education and worked to ensure that all his children attended university. After finishing her Master’s degree at the University of Haifa, Najeeba taught for 15 years before making an unusual transition: she became a female Arab school principal at the Al Salaam school in Majd Al Kurum.
In contrast, Osnat was born in 1955 into a very liberal, and proudly Zionist, family in Tel Aviv. In the 1940s, her father was a member of the Palyam, tasked with escorting illegal Jewish immigrants from Europe to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, she attended university in Tel Aviv, became a teacher, moved to the Galilee and, later, was selected as principal of the Kalanit school in Karmiel.
Last Saturday, my son Benjamin became a Bar Mitzvah. His Torah portion is Yitro. I would like to share his D’Var Torah which was packed with insight about participatory government as well as the taking and giving of good advice.
My parsha is Yitro. It comes right after B’shallach, in which the Israelits left Egypt by the Reed (Red) Sea. In a nutshell, during Yitro, Moses’ Father-in-Law says, “Oy! What the heck are ya doin’?” and tells Moses to correct himself by appointing judges. “Sheesh. Dumb kids!” After that, God apparently thought that Moses should beef up, because God sent Moses up and down Mt. Sinai three times. Finally, God gives Moses and the Israelites the Ten Commandments.
Most normal people with this parsha would choose to talk about the Ten Commandments; but then again, my family is far from normal (although apparently we rank only 5th most eccentric by Ellen’s standard [Ellen is his Hebrew tutor]). I chose to focus on the creation of the judicial system and God’s apparent need to repeat Himself.
1969 was a year that changed the lives ofLen and Libby Traubman. Their first child, Eleanor, was born. And like millions of other people, they saw the first photos of Earth taken from space. The image of our planet “embedded itself in us,” notes Len, and “emphasized the idea of echad, of wahad,” as “oneness” is known in Hebrew and Arabic. While it was a particularly formative year for the Traubmans, their life’s work to promote dialogue had not yet begun.
After years of volunteer work, in 1984 the Traubmans went to the Soviet Union as part of the Beyond War movement to find out whom these “enemies” actually were. In meeting face to face with many Soviet citizens who were assumed “ready to extinguish us at a moment’s notice,” they “found a way to connect through the telling of personal narratives.” The two had come to the table of dialogue with one “internal set of images” but left with another.
In the late 1980s, Beyond War and the Traubman couple were approached by Palestinian and Israeli citizen-leaders to apply their knowledge of dialogue to deeply troubled Middle East relationships. This resulted in the historic June 1991 conference in the California redwoods, which established a signed “Framework For A Public Peace Process” and affirmed that authentic citizen-to-citizen relationships and models of cooperation were necessary for any government treaty to succeed. This 1991 moment introduced to the world the term “public peace process,” having previously been known as “track-two diplomacy.” Even as government representatives meet to negotiate what everyone hopes will be a final peace accord, true peace cannot be reached until large numbers of individual Palestinians and Israelis engage to humanize one another by hearing one another’s stories with a new quality of listening-to-learn.
I guess I would have missed it altogether. I never watch the Super Bowl. I never watch TV. I don’t subject myself to its violence and idiocy. I get my information by reading, whether on the internet (more and more) or through print media.
But I’m on the NARAL list, so now I know that CBS is going to subject 100 million viewers to an ad from Focus on Family during the Super Bowl. Supposedly CBS has an advocacy ad policy, but when it comes to “the family,” they don’t seem to be abiding by it. If you don’t know about Focus on Family, they’re a right-wing, anti-choice, anti-birth-control, anti-sex-education, anti-gay organization. They’re against pretty much everything I stand for.
The only thing that made me smile about all of this is the following Youtube video from the Raging Grannies:
If you want to sign a petition protesting the Focus on Family ad, you can go to NARAL.
In a stunning announcement this morning, President Obama unveiled a detailed proposal to heavily regulate big banks (which he called “fat cats”), forcing savings and loans to divest themselves of the investment banks that gambled away taxpayers’ savings, and forcing the largest banks to be broken up. The most heavily impacted financial institutions will be Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the like. It is probably not coincidental that these are the same banks that caused the near collapse of our financial institutions, sucked up billions in tax funds and then planned to hand the same amount out to top execs as bonuses.
Congressional Republicans obstruct this bill at their own peril. It is believed that Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, will make bank regulation an exception to his obstructionist strategy.
It is probably very significant that Obama made this announced flanked by Paul Volcker. Neither Geithner nor Summers were present, nor were they mentioned by name in the press release. Some of you may recall that Volcker, who advocated for increased regulation of banks and a large jobs bill, was frozen out of the administration at the outset by Geithner and Summers.
We lost a seat in MA, but we may have won the war. Certainly, we have won the right to engage in battle.
In other disturbing news, the Supreme Court ruled this morning that campaign finance restrictions are illegal, at least in the existing regulations. Congress is gearing up to pass new legislation.
It is unclear where health care reform stands. I am of the opinion that Obama’s very tough stance on banks will win him the cred he needs to finally pass a meaningful health care reform package, even if it means passing it in bits and pieces.
We moved him to the left guys! He’s very, very moved.
After spending most of my day wondering how the Democratic Party managed to pull off the stunning achievement of losing Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat to a far right wing former centerfold model, I am feeling reassured. The dust is settling and the panorama does not look so bad. In fact, the future looks far brighter to me than it has for weeks.
Obama has acknowledged that White House bears more than a little responsibility for the loss. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that he has scheduled a press conference tomorrow to announce his adoption of Paul Volcker’s strategy to break up and regulate “too big to fail banks.” (No this is not a hoax!)
President Barack Obama on Thursday is expected to propose new limits on the size and risk taken by the country’s biggest banks, marking the administration’s latest assault on Wall Street in what could mark a return, at least in spirit, to some of the curbs on finance put in place during the Great Depression, according to congressional sources and administration officials.
A push to break up and regulate the banks will be extremely popular with both progressives and independents. It will also place the party of “no” in the position of blocking reforms that their tea-party base are clamoring after. Plus, it will fix the economy.
While the White House and Harry Reid have announced they will not push through health care reform prior to seating Brown, this does not appear to be the act of capitulation that was initially reported. Barney Frank, who called on the Senate to drop health care reform efforts in the wake of the Massachusetts debacle, has retracted his remarks. He now says he will consider voting in favor of the Senate bill if Congress commits to amending the bill rapidly through reconciliation or other parliamentary procedures.
In the United States we hear surprisingly little about the War in Iraq. But we hear even less about the people who have been displaced by the war. The newIraqi Voices Amplification Projectseeks to change that reality. In meeting with refugees and telling their stories to the American public, it hopes to add faces to statistics. Iraqi Voices plans not only to document the situation of refugees now living in different countries but also reflect on it through art and music, including theatrical productions and documentary films.
While it will be nice to see the final products of the endeavor, it will no doubt also be challenging. There is a reason why we have not heard much about Iraqi refugees: their voices might have dramatic political and social consequences and end our surprising level of indifference to the war itself.
Teammates Niveen Rasheed and Lauren Polansky are Featured in the New York Times
One of my greatest joys as an editor is reading articles that debunk myths. An experienced journalist and editorial consultant, Ira Rifkin, recently sent me one on the myth that Jewish and Palestinian-Americans can’t get along even thousands of miles away from the conflict itself. He suggests that the media is painting an unnecessarily bleak picture. To Ira, even the recent New York Times article on the friendship of a Jewish and a Palestinian-American basketball player at Princeton was couched in the assumption that such friendships were rare. Here is his myth-busting article in action:
Back in the day when newspapers had space for such trifles, photos of housecats with pet mice perched on their heads was standard fare. The photos constituted “news” because news was defined as anything out of the ordinary. You know, man bites dog. Under that definition, cuddly photos of those generally thought of as intractable enemies – or hunter and prey, in this example – is news.
Certain stories also fall under this rubric. Not least among them is any yarn in which a Jew and an Arab act outside the usual media construct, which is to say as colleagues or friends rather than enemies. Such stories have value when set in Israel/ Palestine, where the conflict is immediate, visceral, and all consuming, and where both sides desperately need outside-the-box inspiration. Truth is, such stories are easily come by. Israeli hospitals, for example, are a goldmine of stories about cooperation and genuine friendship between Jews and Arabs who work side by side to save lives. These stories serve to remind that personal relationships can transcend political differences, that shared goals can breed understanding, acceptance and respect.
But that value is generally lost when the story is set in an American context. There’s nothing terribly unique about individual American Jews and individual American Muslims or Arabs being colleagues and friends. Moreover, in an American context such stories arguably do more harm than good by inadvertently perpetuating the destructive storyline that holds all Jews and Arabs/Muslims to be natural enemies – even in a pluralistic America.
I’m surprised that almost none of us blogged about the Parliament of World Religions (PWR) in Melbourne, Australia (12/3 – 12/9). I realize that the US Congress was still discussing the health care bill, Obama had just given his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and the Copenhagen Climate conference was underway. So we all have good excuses.
Here at Tikkun Daily, we heard from Dave Belden, who wrote about Rabbi Michael Lerner’s workshop on the spiritual progressive movement. And Rabbi Lerner also wrote about the great disappointment world spiritual leaders at the PWR felt at Obama’s speech in Oslo. But otherwise, there wasn’t a peep about this important gathering that happens every five years.
For members of my religion — both feminist pagans and members of the Goddess Movement across a variety of faiths — it seems to have been a very exciting experience. From what I’ve read, both the Goddess movement and paganism were well-received, something that has rarely happened before. In fact, Phyllis Curott was quoted on the Women at the Parliament blog site as saying that back in 1993 she had difficulty finding anyone else who would appear on a panel about the Sacred Feminine and very few attended. She went on to say that
Things certainly seem to have changed with this Parliament and the Sacred Feminine was clearly rising!
One of the most important legal cases in Israel’s history was just decided in the Israeli High Court. The Court determined that the highly controversial Route 443 could not both be built on land taken from Palestinian towns in the West Bank under the pretenses of eminent domain and benefit for the townspeople and then denied usage by Palestinians.
In and of itself, the case is of incredible importance in that it affirms the rights that Israelis owe to their Palestinian neighbors. But more importantly, and somewhat more behind the scenes, the case demonstrates the effectiveness of one of Israel’s largest human rights organizations, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which litigated the case. (Full disclosure: my wife worked there last year while we were living in Jerusalem.)
While at first I was skeptical that the ‘Israeli version of the ACLU,’ as several of its staffers have termed it, could be so effective, it seems to have assembled a terrifyingly bright legal team of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Israelis to bring case after case in front of the Israeli High Court. In 2008 alone, it litigated over 60 court petitions. Coupled with growing education and public outreach programs, ACRI is set to become the major player in human rights advocacy in Israel.
So in the midst of more gridlock in the peace process and the building of settlements in East Jerusalem, there is a bright spot — and one that seems to be getting brighter by the year. Perhaps in 2010, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel will make the ACLU proud to be its ‘American version.’
I’ve been reading various healthcare diaries from around Left Blogistan searching for a strategy to salvage healthcare reform. The most interesting so far are a pair dealing with polls that surfaced on Daily Kos.
fladem writes about the sudden collapse in support for health care reform as measured in the recent WSJ/NBC poll.
The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll coming out later today will show opposition to the health care bill growing — mainly from disappointed liberals, who are very much disappointed to see the public option getting thrown out.
The poll has 47% saying the Obama health care plan is a bad idea, to only 32% who say it’s a good idea…45% say it is not acceptable for a plan to not include a public option. But, 58% would find inclusion of a Medicare Buy in acceptable.
Daily Kos diarist arodb writes about a recent WaPo/ABC poll taken after the defeat of a proposal allowing the re-importation of drugs.
This poll also finds a significant drop in support for health care reform in response to the defeat of an amendment which would have benefited the American people.
But Obama and the Democrats have had decidedly less success convincing the public that their health proposals will bring positive change. More than half of those polled, 53 percent, see higher costs for themselves if the proposed changes go into effect than if the current system remains intact.
It looks to me as if the public is getting smarter and is becoming less willing to have smoke blown in their collective face. Chris Bowers at Open Left urges us to swallow our bitterness and help Obama to pass his sham of a bill.
I strongly disagree.
I believe that if Obama and Emanuel believe we progressives will stand our ground and if they begin to fear their ability to pass a bill will become endangered, they will find a new solution. In all likelihood, Lieberman will be thrown to the political lions, and progressive features will find their way into health care reform in some way, shape or form. But this won’t happen if we blink.
Normally I would make this brief post a comment and stick it on the end of my last article entitled,“Send Leiberman a Golem for Hanukkah,” but I’m too spitting mad. I have argued for a long time that an imperfect bill is much better than no bill. However, a useless bill is not.
Several blogs including McJoan at Daily Kos, Jonathan Kohn at The New Republic, and Carrie Budoff Brown at Politico are reporting that Rahm Emanuel is pressuring Reid to lose the Medicare Buy-in to quickly cut a deal with Lieberman.
The White House, of course, is denying it.
I don’t care who’s telling the truth. I say we send our golems to Rahm. And call him too. Tell the White House to grow some cojones.
The White House comment line is 202-456-1111.
The switchboard is 202-456-1414. Call ‘em both. Keep their lines tied up.
And their email is http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact.
To send Rahm a golem, copy and paste the following message: “Rahm. Stop blocking REAL health care reform or we will vote you and all your evil minions out of office. Here’s a golem for you. I hope you get the message you evil effing ba$tard.” Copy the embed code that appears in the top right hand corner of the box after the one-minute golem video has played into the message box.
Here’s what he will see:
Rahm. Stop blocking REAL health care reform or we will vote you and all your evil minions out of office. Here’s a golem for you. I hope you get the message you evil effing ba$tard!
Of course, you can send whatever message you like. You can write to him in Hebrew. Just be sure he gets the point. And the golem.
(For anyone who does not know what a golem is, and why a golem would mean something to Rahm, see this morning’s diary entitled “Send Leiberman a Golem for Hanukkah.”
I’m considering the possibility that Lieberman is not actually a human. I suspect he is a golem created by the insurance industry to terrorize the general public. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Jewish lore, a golem is a zombie created from clay during times of peril to defend persecuted Jews from Nazis, the Czar, etc. More on this below.
After telling Harry Reid that he would consider supporting a health care reform compromise including an expansion of Medicare, our favorite Senator decided to throw a wrench in the works on the Sunday morning talk circuit by announcing his plan to scuttle health care reform. According to the New York Times Lieberman said:
You’ve got to take out the Medicare buy-in. You’ve got to forget about the public option. You probably have to take out the Class Act, which was a whole new entitlement program that will, in future years, put us further into deficit.
It goes without saying that Lieberman would oppose a Class Act. In this instance he is referring to an insurance policy covering long term care: the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act. In other words, if Reid eliminates every last vestige of reform from the Health Care Reform bill, Lieberman will support it.
There are a number of actions progressives can take to combat Lieberman’s most recent assault on the Democratic Party while saving the health care bill. Senator Olympia Snowe currently objects to the Medicare buy-in because Medicare’s reimbursement rates to hospitals and doctors are disproportionately lower in rural areas, a perfectly reasonable objection for a senator from a rural state. Perhaps it is time to fix this problem.
Next, progressives can sign the 8,868 individuals who have signed a CREDO petition informing Senate leadership that today is a good day to strip Lieberman of his committee chairmanship. Such a move would likely force him into the Republican party which would not go over well with his constituency in Connecticut.
Then we can tune into a Daily Kos diary posted last night by Hlinko to collect pledges for donations to a Lieberman opponent in the next election if he fillibusters HCR. So far, Hlinko has collected $1.6 million in pledges from $30,000 people through facebook.
(You can pledge, too by becoming a fan and leaving your pledge in the comment section. To do this, follow the facebook link in the preceeding paragraph, and sign up for a facebook account by clicking the green tab at the top left hand corner. Tthen follow the link to the pledge page one more time and this time click the blue tab on the top right hand side of the page. Write your pledge into the empty comment bar in the center at the top of the page. Click the share tab below the comment bar and you’ve succeeded! If Lieberman persists in his threat to fillibuster, donate the pledged amount directly to his opponent when the time comes.)
However, there is a particularly Jewish protest Tikkun readers can engage in as well…one that might actually mean something to Lieberman. (Thank you to reader Laura S. for emailing your suggestion!) You can send him a golem of his very own.
For those of you who don’t know, a golem is a gigantic clay monster. According to Jewish lore, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Azalel, Chief Rabbi of Prague in the late 16th century, created a golem to defend his people from vicious anti-semitic pogroms. If you are feeling especially ambitious and are a pious practitioner of Judaism, you can create your own golem to send to Joe Lieberman by fashioning a giant man (at least three stories tall) out of clay and imprinting the name of G-d on his forehead (the clay man’s forehead, not Lieberman’s). Then tell him to go visit Joe. Complete instructions are available at this site. Or, if you are feeling lazy and you may work from the comfort of your own home.
Finally, for readers who do not want to risk dabbling in the occult, send him a pre-formed golem via video. (To do this, copy and paste the URL to the right of the video into an email message. You can reach soon to be ex-Senator Lieberman here.)
Finally, for your own enjoyment, here is a link to an entertaining one minute musical golem video that can’t be embedded. Another good but longer animated video is embedded below. Happy Hanukkah!
Over the past week, people have affirmed and questioned an article I wrote, entitled “Sexy Jewish Stereotypes.” Most recently, Dave Belden wrote a counter-article, “Sexy Jewish Stereotypes — Questions.” I, for one, have been grateful for the opportunity to speak openly about issues that too often are left unsaid — namely sexuality and the way in which it is perceived. (Another interesting discussion on the subject just came out in the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue this fall and may be worth a gander.)
I appreciate Dave’s concern that sexuality and the notion of being “sexy” may contribute to the pressure that everyone, and women in particular, face to adhere to external standards of beauty. It may even push some people to become one-dimensional. But negating the sexuality and beauty of the human body is similarly problematic, if not more so: such traits are inherent to our bodies — could ignoring, subordinating, or sublimating one of the many prominent characteristics that we as humans hold ever be healthy? Even in ultra-traditional Jewish thought, in which modesty is praised, the idea of humans as inherently sexual beings — and beautiful, miraculous beings at that — is widely accepted. It is considered further evidence of the idea that we were made in God’s image.
