Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2015/12/page/3/)
My podiatrist is an observant Jew, an Ashkenazi by heritage. Every so often I make an appointment to have a callus trimmed on my little toe. I am fond of Jewish culture and humor and I look forward to our visits. He tells me Jewish jokes and I ask him the meaning of Yiddish words. In the summer of 2014, Israel invaded Gaza.
A few weeks ago, I was traveling with a group of 35 American tourists, a Palestinian bus driver, and a Palestinian tour guide from Jenin (a Palestinian city in the West Bank) to Nazareth (a Palestinian city inside the Green Line). When we came to the Jalameh checkpoint, the soldiers pulled us over to an area for additional screening, where we joined tens of Palestinians, most of whom were Israeli citizens on their way home from shopping, visiting relatives, or working. What followed for the next fifteen minutes was a routine exercise in ethnic profiling, in which 20-year-old Jewish Israeli soldiers, armed with heavy artillery, are empowered to make decisions about who is or is not fit to pass. After taking the two Palestinians off the bus for interrogation, several more soldiers came onto the bus to check our passports. One soldier stood at the back of the bus, pointing his gun down toward one of the few people of color in our group, staring at him in creepy silence (not unlike the 44 seconds of silence that Netanyahu performed for the UN).
Every year at my boy’s school there’s a Chanukah concert that includes rap songs and other talent. A few years ago, it included the song the popular song, “Ba’nu Choshekh L’garesh”. I’m not so connected to modern Israeli culture, though, so it was my first time hearing it. Here’s a translation:
We come, the darkness to expel –
In our hands, light and fire. Each one is a small light,
And all of us together – an immense light!
They have names like ISIL, Al Qaeda, Taliban, and so on. We Americans are being told by mainstream media sources that they belong to one religion: “Radical Islam.” The terrorists insist on calling themselves “Islamic,” and the media repeats this claim, but this label is a false equivalence and a very harmful false association we should be quick to avoid. Let the public not be fooled — the peace-loving, pious adherents of a beautiful faith that translates to “Submission” do not share a faith, values, or philosophy with terrorists, homicidal maniacs. The ultimate measurement of who or what is Islamic is universally accepted to be the Quran.
Our core humanity will never be diminished by expanding our appreciation of others. In fact, nothing enhances it more.
Following the devastating attacks in Paris, right wing forces have been fanning the frightening flames of anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia. There have been calls for increased surveillance of Muslim communities, unconstitutional registration of American Muslims, and religious tests for Syrian refugees seeking safety in the United States. I am Mizrahi. I’m a Jew, and like many Mizrahim, I’m also an Arab. We Arab Jews have a unique perspective to offer on the Syrian refugee crisis, and on the Islamophobic and anti-Arab backlash that we are seeing in this country and across the globe.
José Luis Iñiguez practices his art as a form of ritual, mysticism forgotten in his roots. With the use of found objects, ceramics and sculpture, he is able to show the world of his past and create new meaning. José has a BFA in Ceramics, Studio Art from California State University Bakersfield and a MFA in Fine Arts from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. José raised Catholic by his mother and father, a religious yet superstitious household, a world of ghosts and spirits. Though not religious himself he holds onto these believes and they become his art.
On Sunday afternoon, as Hanukkah was about to commence, Donald Trump sent out a greeting to his “Jewish friends,” of which he has few. In this obligatory greeting, Trump wished me and my fellow tribe mates health and happiness, gave a lesson on how not to use the comma, and – most importantly – inspired the ire of many Jews across America by offering us wishes in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong, when somebody uses guns and IED devises to kill 14 people, when his home is full of pipe bombs, I’m the first one to call him a terrorist. I don’t care whether he’s Muslim or Christian or atheist. If you spread terror, you are a terrorist and you deserve everything you get in this world and the next. But what infuriates me is how easily and quickly the media narrative shifts away from the issue of gun control. And that’s why gun lobbyists love terrorists.
Why would anyone want to leave behind notions of right and wrong when they exist in most versions of most religions as well as in other moral systems? Isn’t it a core human faculty to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil? I come back to Maimonides one more time…