Deityblog

Okay, I might make the daily amusement a regular feature, being that I'm so easily amused. This was the BlogAd on my last post:

Meet Palestinian Singles
Find your Arab soul mate today!
Search photos, chat and more.

If anybody's looking for their Palestinian soul mate (and really, is there any other kind?), I can totally hook you up. One more proof that blogs are an excellent peace-building tool.

By now I'm sure most of you have heard about Mordechai Gafni
and the latest scandals that have come out, this time from Bayit Chadash.
It's all very horrifying, especially given the extent to which many of our
most progressive teachers protected him for so many years. Because of a
connection, I knew all along to stay away from him. Yaakov and I have
had discussions with many friends on the matter, regarding whether
to learn from Gafni at the latest Elat Chayyim event, etc. At this point,
we don't feel vindicated, but saddened in the worst possible way that this
was allowed to continue to the point where over a dozen women have come
forward to say they've been affected, including one charge of rape. Add to this the fact that for years he was Gafni has been protected by many leaders in the Jewish Renewal movement, including Arthur Waskow, Avraham Leader, Jacob Ner-David, and even R'Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

While it's quite disturbing and will mean serious consequences for the Renewal movement and for the Jewish community at large, it's definitely something that we should be aware of, as many of us have had contact with Gafni, or with those within the movement who chose to protect him.

For up-to-date details, including letters from Gafni, Arthur Waskow, Avraham
Leader and Jacob Ner-David, go to Jewschool , start from "Gafni
Strikes Again" and read up. You might want to do it on an empty stomach.

Love to you all despite trying times.

We would like to apologize for the achingly earnest, overly self-absorbed poetic sweet nothings which comprised a few of the last few entries. While they may have seemed necessary at the serotonin-depleted time, it has now become abundantly obvious that we needed to simply get over ourselves.

So...not to say this lofty goal has been accomplished, but the knomes are robustly chipping away and so meanwhile, let's discuss what's living for:

~ I got an internship with the Israeli Task Force on Human Trafficking. I'm just a little bit blown away by this development (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Anyone who does not know what this is or why they exist, take a deep breath and click on the link. And after the despair, be prepared to be filled with a sense of existential purpose.

~ There is a very good chance I'll be working as assistant, once again, to a certain professional Rodef Shalom. But this is all very unofficial, so hush.

~ The Palestinian Princess rocks my world. I don't care if you don't think she's perfect. Neither are you.

~ It's suunnny and warm out.

~ We got approved for our aliyah flight--September 5th, baby!

~ Sunday is Mother's Day and I love my Mom. She's the most wonderful and giving person I know, especially with all the crap she's had to put up with. Hug your moms, everybody.

It's not that hard to find those oh-so elusive, mythical beings once you look around a little. Case in point: Lucy Widaad, also known as Palestinian Princess. In her latest post, she writes:

The economy of Palestine is thriving under Hamas rule... NOT!

I wonder what the hell is going to happen here. People are not being paid their salaries (gov't workers), merchants are not seeing cash flow and renters are not paying the rent in our building claiming that they don't have the money. Ouch, that hurts my pocket! Us Palestinians have got to get cracking or we will see a insurgance of violence soon. Lack of money will drive some people to work as hired guns for the Islamic Jihad and related groups leading to violence and more hatered towards Israel, this will effect the peace loving among us as we will also feel the Israeli backlash of making our lives EVEN MORE difficult.

Hamas is entering a long dark tunnel with no way out. With the political party Fatah virtually torn and dying, it is time for us Palestinians to think about building a new national movement.

We must save ourselves, but we cannot do it alone either. It is the time to create a political and social entity that is capable of supporting the government of a state, the Palestinian State. Fatah could not do it because they were obviously corrupt. Hamas does not want to do it, because they do not want to give up their sole role as a "resistance" organization. Therefore a new political and social force must be created. And we must do it now!

Now is the time for us Palestinians to create a responsible, honest, moderate, secular movement. It doesn't have to have a particular political focus but it needs to serve as an organization for supporting life in the Palestinian territories and an instrument for distribution of funds from international donors. This entity will be built using a network of existing NGOs as a nucleus, a support system and guidance. Order and hope need to be restored. and this is the main objective initially. Because we will have funding, and Hamas will not, we will eventually make the Hamas government irrelevant, whether or not the Hamas stay in power.

We will obviously need help to do this and money is not enough. We will need the international community to support us and Arab governments will have to play a big role as moderators and enforcers. The Israeli government has a part to play too. Israel will have to unfreeze the funds it owes the Palestinians to help support our new entity. The ports and border crossings of the Palestinian authorities must be opened to free transport of goods. We have to nip this in the bud NOW, poverty breeds radicalism, and radicalism can be exported. And that means a threat for everyone in the world.

Now the question is, uhhh, how do I get started. Suggestions please. I am so willing to do this, as you all now I am unemployed and I don't think I want to be a gunwoman, I am a PEACE LOVER. So help me.

So, nu? Not that we're anything remotely close to being experts on the topic or necessarily being able to relate to her situation, but that's never stopped us before. She's asking for any and all suggestions. What do we think? More importantly, what can we do?

Cross-posted from Palestinian Princess (in part), Jewschool.

..that I find myself stifling raucous laughter and discreetly wiping away tears while at work:

~ Someone found my blog by googling "Michlala." When you read the post he/she came to, you'll realize why I find this so hilarious.

~ Snakes on a Plane. Or, more accurately, motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane. How the hell did I miss this?

~ The fact that according to this site I look like Shania Twain and Yaakov is a dead-ringer for John Travolta. Check this out, you'll be glad you did.

~ Fuckin' waminals, man.

Read story here.

Since my Aunt Enid (z"l) gave me her book Life on the Fringes on the eve of my bat mitzvah, I've been a devoted follower of her spiritual journey and struggles (and just not b/c my name is Chavivah too).

I've added a few more links to the sidebar--including Radical Torah, On the Face, In the Land of Sad Oranges, and Editor: Myself.

While all of these are excellent and required reading, the last one, a blog by Iranian journalist Hossein Derakshan, is particularly outstanding. Derakshan, or "hoder" left Iran for Canada awhile ago during a regime crackdown on what's left of the free press. I found his blog through On the Face, which linked to an account of Derakshan's recent visit to Israel (do a search for "israel" on his site and read accounts of the whole trip--it's fascinating). He went because, growing up under the repressive regime in Iran, he was raised with the impression that Israel is pure evil. Knowing there had to be more to the story, Derakshan went to Israel (even though by doing so he knew he could never return to Iran under its current rulership), and discovered incredible similarities between the Jewish State and his home country.

For example, did you know that both President Moshe Katsav and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz are Iranian? Did you know that Israel contains the largest Iranian community outside of Iran itself? Pretty amazing.

I've been interested in Iranian youth culture since I picked up Azadeh Moaveni's excellent Lipstick Jihad. Moaveni, daughter of Iranians who had fled the Revolution, grew up in California and returned to Iran as a journalist in 1999. The book describes the culture shock of the Iran of her childhood dreams and the actual reality of what she experienced.

Through Moaveni's book, I learned that our notions of a purely anti-Semitic, anti-American, war-mongering, fundamentalist Iran are fundamentally incorrect. As I learned from both Derakshan and Moaveni, there is an essential disconnect in thought, beliefs, and primary values between the government and the people. The Islamist reactionary government imposes compulsory practice on the nation, who for the most part despise the dress code, the degraded status of women (worth half as much as men, don't have legal rights to custody of their children, can be stoned for adultery, etc. etc.), the government's obsession with blocking out all glimpses of "Western culture", the harsh secret police, the nuclear program, and the virulent anti-Israelism.

In short, the actual citizenry of Iran has diametrically opposed values to the regime. Everything we associate with Iran, from the imprisonment of 12 Iranian Jews several years ago to President Almadinejad's call to "wipe Israel off the map"--is only reflective of a government ruled by dictatorial clerics, not the people themselves who have virtually no say. From reading books and blogs from people of all ages dealing with living in Iran, they seem very similar to anyone else--they want freedom from their oppressive government, they love the poetry of Rumi and Hafez (a love I share), they are devoted to what Iranian has stood for in the past (the founding of the first feminist groups back in the early 1900s, the democratic legendary leader Mossadegh, who was deposed by a US-backed coup in the fifties, a tragedy Iranians are still bitter about, their Persian ancient culture, etc.). And they're pissed, and are writing about it in the only free press still available to them--the Internet. Farsi is the fourth largest language of currently active blogs--an amazing statistic. Hoder has an enormous selection of Iranian blogs, which you need to weed through since most are in Persian.

A book that serves as a translated guide to the inside world of Iranians is Nasrin Alavi's We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs, in which the author, an Iranian now living in the UK, translates excerpts of blogs detailing the daily lives, struggles, hopes and dreams of Iranians living under the regime. The excerpts are grouped into historical categories that put them into context, giving the reader an illuminating picture of the facts on the ground.

Please check these out--you won't regret it.

Check these out, from radicaltorah.org:

L'Azazel, the Scapegoat, Revisited
(written by a certain significant other of mine)

Encountering Spiritual Attitudes Towards Sex Trafficking

Both are brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

To Israel, with utmost love and devotion--

Today I got all dressed up in blue and white, said full hallel with a bracha, and ate a cupcake with an Israeli flag in it. I'd been looking forward to this day for a long time, as I'll officially be Israeli in about four months (!). But something doesn't feel quite right.

Who really has independence in Israel?

~ The citizenry, a quarter of whom live below the poverty line?

~ The military--100% conscripted, some of whom sent to do unimaginable tasks? The conscientious objectors who are arrested and imprisoned?

~ The original chalutzim, the majority of whom are Holocaust survivors, now a poverty-stricken elderly community that has to do battle for survival, this time with the government they help found?

~ The Arab-Israeli community? What kind of a headtrip is it to get a day off work and go to a friend's barbecue while your cousins are stuck in Gaza under lock and key, mourning Al-Naqba?

~ The "liberated" disengagees of Gush Katif, the vast majority of whom have yet to be re-settled and receive what they were promised?

~ The Bedouins, who, despite paying taxes and serving in the army, receives virtually no rights and has never received compensation for losing their Negev homes time and time again?

~ The government and the upper-classes, caught in this system of corruption and factionalism that denies the principles the State was founded on?

~ The "working women", 3,000 of whom a year are trafficked through Israel and live as sex slaves?

~ The charedi community, inextricably dependent on the very State they decry the independence of?

~ The Ethiopian olim, stuck below the color line in the land of their dreams?

~ The anglo olim, watching as the country of their dreams, whatever these dreams are, changes from day to day and makes these dreams so difficult?

Who is independent?

Answer: all of us are

Despite the weaknesses of the government of Israel, weaknesses that have led to the breakdown of normal freedoms for virtually all of its citizens--I believe that there is still abundant hope, in the independent actions of grassroots efforts.

We're connected to Israel, despite its many flaws, because of the picture in our minds, in our souls, of what the land and its people mean to us. It's an unexplainable feeling of belonging, of spiritual resonance, walking down the cobbled streets with arms outstretched to the blue, blue dream of sky. And it's very hard to bridge this feeling to the facts on the ground as they exist for many of Israel's citizens.

Please don't misunderstand this post as simply griping stating that there is nothing worthwhile about living in Israel. For a great many people, it is a wonderful place to live. The disconnect occurs in connecting the vision of Yom Haatzmaut to the lack of socioeconomic and political security so many people live with in Israel.

On this Yom Haatzmaut, it is our duty not to simply go to barbecues, eat falafel, go through the self-congratulatory motions.....but to internalize the value of atzmaut, independence, and vow to work towards making Israel a land of real, vital independence for all of its citizens.

Yom Haatzmaut, viewed this way, is a yearly check-in on where we stand, and what our responsibilities are to do more for the sake of the kind of independence that matters--where it transforms peoples' day-to-day lives for the better, gradually shaping the harsh realities of the land to reflect the picture of our minds that led us to celebrate this day in the first place.

It's when we own our fundamentally independent status as ethical individuals, despite our status within the State, towards helping one another.

So this Yom Haatzmaut and until next year's, let's pledge to do something to get involved in atzmaut. Check out the links below for some ideas, please post more in Comments:

Israeli Task Force on Human Trafficking

Bustan: Sustainable Community Action for Land and People

Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews

Table to Table: Rescuing Food for Israel's Hungry

Sikkuy: The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel