Israel is mine. I own it – or rather, I hold an ownership stake in it. No, I am not a citizen of the country – I’m an American Jew, born upon Georgia’s red clay, now living amidst lush, Pennsylvanian foothills. And no, I am not obligated to send my children to the IDF, nor do I pay taxes or vote in the country’s elections. I did not pitch my tent this past summer along Rothschild Boulevard, nor have I physically stood with Palestinian and Israeli protesters in Nabi Saleh on a Friday afternoon, inhaling tear gas and fleeing from cannon-propelled skunk water.
The flash controversy sparked by comments made by Democratic strategist Hillary Rosen saying that presumptive Republican nominees for President Mitt Romney’s reliance on his wife’s reports regarding women and the economy were meaningless because Ann Romney had never worked “a day in her life” has taken us back to an old discussion that in my opinion misses the point. I must confess that it took me a long time to warm to feminism, especially to the writings of Betty Friedan and the ideas of the “Feminine Mystique” that argued for women leaving the ennui of a suburban housewife’s life to employ her mind and talents in the paid workforce. I was the first generation of women in my family who had a choice about whether or not to work outside of the home. My mother was a school teacher; my grandmother was a cook in white homes in the south; and my great-grandmother was a share cropper. Her foremothers were slaves.
Belated but sincere Easter wishes to Christian friends out there. And a hearty Chag Sameach to Jewish friends who are observing Passover. To make amends for my tardiness, I am sharing a link to this piece arguing for a reappraisal of the New Testament as “Jewish” literature. I’m not convinced by all its arguments, but it’s very interesting and thought-provoking and seems especially apropos as both communities observe intertwined holiday seasons. In “What Jews (and Christians too) Should Know About the New Testament,” Amy-Jill Levine wrote (Biblical Archaeology Review, Mar/Apr 2012):
Most Jews do not grow up with New Testament stories.
These two young Israelis met with some Occupy activists in the US, but unlike that movement–which so far has succeeded more in terms of symbolism and public discourse than concretely–the Israeli movement has already affected government policies.
The Torah tells us of four sons… One of the central passages of the seder involves a presentation of the questions of, and the responses to four paradigmatic sons. We are told of a wise son, a wicked son, an innocent or naive son, and one who does not know how to initiate a question. Each of these “sons” is uncertain, in one way or another, about the meaning of the ritual observances surrounding Passover, and for each one an appropriate answer is given, depending on the personality of the son. This haggada aggada is problematic on several fronts, and one supposes that that is the reason for its inclusion; the haggada being zen-koan-like in its textual strangeness and paradoxicality, a textual device clearly meant to provoke response (and thus perhaps the secret of its enduring popularity).
… despite a natural numerical advantage in female births, there are more males alive today. Why? Because gender discrimination drives greater mortality among girls….
The best facts are often the least known. Here is an example: Most are unaware that the late and renowned atheist Christopher Hitchens had a great-grandfather who defended religion! Revd Edward Athanasius Hitchens (1839-1906) was curate of St. Guinefort the Holy Martyr, an Anglican parish in Gloucester, England. He was also an active participant in debates on religion as publisher and editor of the Anglo-Catholic newspaper The Invincible Aspergilium.
The Jewish Daily Forward website, and other sources, are reporting upon this positive phenomenon of Israelis and Iranians reaching out to each other, via the Internet, to renounce war. Unfortunately, these do not include the decision makers in their respective governments. This article includes recent survey data showing 50% of Israelis “completely opposed to an attack on Iran, even if diplomatic efforts to stall the nuclear program failed” and 78% knowing “that even a successful attack would at best delay Iran’s acquisition of an A-Bomb by a few years.” The following is the heart of this Forward blog piece:
…. On Saturday night, two graphic designers, Israeli couple Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir uploaded photos of themselves superimposed with a logo saying, “Iranians, we will never bomb your country.
Prof. Lipstadt readily stipulates that the US administration should have done more to let in Jewish refugees, … but she warns against judging Franklin D. Roosevelt and the American Jewish community of that time too harshly …; she characterizes such an imposition of present standards on past eras as a fallacy called “presentism.” She also criticized those in the pro-FDR “defensive school”…who indignantly countered that the US did all it could to save Jews during the ’30s and ’40s.
On March 7, when we published our New York Times ad against a U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran, we suggested that one step to implement a “strategy of generosity” as an alternative to the current “strategy of domination” would be for Israel to offer Palestinians a reasonable deal (as defined in my book Embracing Israel/Palestine), which would include helping Palestinians create an economically and politically viable state. One commentator, the hawkish foreign policy writer for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, said that our raising the issue of Israel/Palestine was “stupid” because to him it was obvious that there was no possible connection. But our point is that demonizing of Israel, made easy by its occupation of the West Bank and aggressive militarism, makes it possible for the tyrants in Iran and their allies in Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas to deflect attention from the evils of their own regimes by pointing to the hurtful things being done by Israel. An attack on Iran, we believe, will be used to undermine the “green revolution” that has been partially suppressed by the fundamentalists in Iran already, but which would be forced to join under the leadership of the mullahs to “defend the nation” against these attacks from Israel or the U.S.
Conversely, if Israel were to settle with the Palestinians in an obviously generous, open-hearted, and repentant way, and the U.S. were to launch a Global Marshall Plan, the Iranian dictatorship, the Syrian dictators, Hezbollah, and Hamas would have a very difficult time maintaining the loyalty of their own people. It is not because we support these regimes that we oppose a military response, but because we know that the best and probably only way that a “regime change” can take place is if the people of those countries rebel from inside.
