Fast for Gaza - 2

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Monday August 17, 2009 · 5:39 PM PDT

2009/08/17 · 17:39

Wednesday (August 19) is the second monthly (sunrise to sunset) Fast for Gaza. It was launched last month by a minyan (a group of ten required for Jewish communal prayer) rabbis, including my own congregation's rabbi and its rabbi emeritus. It quickly was joined by 600 more people (623 in total) -- Jews, but also Christians and Muslims and those who don't identify with a faith.
I joined the first fast on July 16, but when the day was over, I could not stop thinking about what I had heard on conference call for participants in the fast that took place on that day -- and how little the information in that call is covered in the U.S. media.

CarolT

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Monday November 24, 2008 · 12:56 PM PST

2008/11/24 · 12:56

HEBRON -- Do ordinary Israeli Jews know what's going on Hebron?
Mikhail Manekin, a 29-year-old veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces, says he hopes not. The violations of human rights would be even worse if Israelis knew and understood -- and so approved of -- the extreme situation here: 800 or so Jewish settlers, following their interpretation of the Torah, hold completely hostage a small area of the city called "H-2" and its estimated 15,000 Palestinian residents (there are 160,000 Palestinians in all of Hebron). The settlers -- protected by about 500 soldiers and police -- deny the Palestinian residents the right to leave their homes, walk the streets, get access to health care, even bury their dead.

CarolT

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Saturday November 15, 2008 · 2:29 AM PST

2008/11/15 · 02:29

Forty people, most of them Jews -- 10 of them rabbis -- and a healthy contingent of Christians, including members of the clergy, have come to Israel and the West Bank this week to see close up and personal the faces of the conflict, hear its voices, and struggle with the emotions that well up as a result. We are part of a trip sponsored by Rabbis for Human Rights-North America.
It's been impossible to blog much each day and also sleep, but I want to collect some of the things I've seen and record some of the things we have experienced . . . .

On the bus heading north out of Jerusalem toward the village of Qaryout on the West Bank Tuesday morning, our guide handed each of us a big map that marked the Green Line, Israel's borders before the 1967 war. It included a red line that marked the path of the so-called security barrier, or separation barrier.

The lines do not match.

CarolT

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Tuesday October 28, 2008 · 8:03 PM PDT

2008/10/28 · 20:03

Not anxious enough about the election?
Try this: Global Language Monitor says its study of the use of political buzzwords being used around the world signify, not the landslide some are predicting, but "a very close election, favoring Obama very slightly."
True, the top word, as measured in news stories and on the internet is -- you guessed it -- change (and the second, somewhat surprisingly, given the relative lack of news coverage, is global warming/climate change.

CarolT

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Tuesday June 03, 2008 · 10:05 AM PDT

2008/06/03 · 10:05

As the Democratic nomination draws to a close, mercifully, I'll be especially glad to see those ubiquitous "Hillary" signs disappear.
Being a feminist of a certain age -- that is, Hillary Clinton's age -- her choice (made for a number of good political reasons) to go by her first name really annoyed me. I believe it would have bothered me even if her campaign had been the admirable, trailblazing one it could and should have been but most definitely wasn't.
Her choice to go as Hillary highlighted many of Clinton's flaws as a candidate, and it gave permission for some commentators to call Barack Obama by his first name as well. In both instances, this "first-name-basis" reminded me much too much of the bad old days when a woman or black presidential nominee was unthinkable.

CarolT

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Wednesday October 10, 2007 · 10:38 AM PDT

2007/10/10 · 10:38

This year's Yankee Elimination Day * is particularly sweet, since it was brought to us by my first baseball love, the Cleveland Indians. I first discovered the joys of following major league baseball, in 1958 when I was 10. Back then, Rocky Colavito was in right field and all was right with the world. **
I haven't called Cleveland home for more than 40 years, but there's still a soft spot in my heart for the hometown baseball team . . . except for its ubiquitous logo, Chief Wahoo. I can't help but cringe when I see it, and when you watch the Tribe play, it's everywhere.
Now I know these are fighting words in my family: When I visit them, Chief Wahoo's grinning countenance is inescapable all over Cuyahoga County and beyond, staring down from huge banners draped across house fronts and up from doormats and lawn ornaments, grinning at me from coffee mugs, emblazoned on first-string winter jackets, and on flags flapping from cars speeding down the Shoreway.

RSS

Fast for Gaza - 2

Hebron: To know or not to know

Trees of hope, Trees of Justice

What's the word: Change -- or Inexperience?

What's in a name if it's Hillary?

Of Baseball and Blind Spots