by Kalman Rushdie · Friday, April 29th, 2005
Haifa University is not planning to bring disciplinary action against Ilan Pappe despite his role in persuading Britain’s Association of University Teachers (AUT) to boycott the university, according to university president, Aaron Ben-Ze’ev.
Pappe published a letter in the British Guardian newspaper accusing Haifa University of discriminating against him because of his outspoken pro-Palestinian opinions. He called on the AUT to boycott the university as a tactic to ensure pro-Palestinian views continue to be expressed.
“A very precise and focused policy of pressure on the university allowed me, albeit under restriction and systematic harassment, to purse my classes and research,” Pappe wrote, adding that many Arab students at the university do not feel safe to express their own support for the Palestinians.
However, Ben-Ze’ev told the Jerusalem Post that Pappe’s moral stance was “gravely disturbing” and strongly denied Pappe’s claims that the university planned to dismiss him for defending Teddy Katz, a student accused of misrepresenting facts in a controversial thesis three years ago. Katz accused Israel of massacring Arab villagers in Tantura in 1948. His thesis was rejected, however, after an independent committee concluded Katz had distorted quotes from taped interviews and failed to substantiate the accusations.
“I think that a person who calls to boycott his university should join the boycott and resign immediately from the university,” Ben-Ze’ev said. “It is difficult to describe a greater moral injury to academic freedom than the behavior of someone who has been bullying his colleagues and calling to boycott them. It is bizarre that he has chosen to attack the very same university that has exercised such a policy of tolerance towards him.”
by Mobius · Friday, April 29th, 2005
According to the Associated Press, 20,000 people turned out to receive the blessing of the kohanim at the kotel on Wednesday, a number of them using the cover of the crowd to stage a raid on the temple mount:
Two-thousand police officers provided security at Jerusalem’s most contested holy site, where the Al Aqsa Mosque compound now stands atop the temple ruins.
A group called the Temple Mount Faithful, which would like to reclaim the site and build a new Jewish Temple, was barred by Israeli police from entering the mosque compound.
The group responsible, Revava, has vowed to attempt such raids continually until they reach success.
The Palestinian Authority is apparently seizing upon Revava’s misguided activism, particularly a conference on rebuilding the temple held yesterday in the Old City, as an opportunity to incite further animosity towards the Jewish public, claiming on their official State Information Service website that the temple never existed.
Al Aqsa Institution for Construction of the Holy Islamic Sites said in its online edition that the Jewish extremist Revava (Myriad) movement will convene today with participation of other Jewish organizations a Torah conference centered on the ways to expedite the construction of the so -called a” third temple mount”.
[...]
The conference also will underline the upcoming steps by the Jewish fanatic Reveva movement regarding the holy Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest compound for Muslims. A number of renowned hard-line rabbis against Al Aqsa as well as activists, working on for years to build the pretended “temple mount” will address the gathering.
The website of the Al Aqsa institution revealed that information leaked, referring that a massive rally would be organized nearby the door of Al Aqsa mosque next Friday noon calling for storming it and performing the Jewish religious rituals in its yards.
Aljazeera.com took extraodinary liberties with the PA’s press release, claiming that “Tens of the thousands of Jewish extremists are flooding the Aqsa Mosque under the guise of observing the Jewish Passover festival after fanatic Jewish groups failed to storm the Aqsa last April 10,” and further, that the IDF, which according to Revava, is going out of its way to prevent any such raid from taking place, is in fact facilitating the action:
“The Israeli occupation forces will pave the way for tens of thousands of Jews to gather at the Buraq plaza at the western wall of the Aqsa Mosque during daytime”, according to Israeli media sources said.
You just can’t win if you’re the IDF, huh? Really, could the Arab press’ claims get any more disingenuous? Since when is the kotel plaza a part of the Aqsa mosque? And since when is dragging Jewish extremists away from the temple mount kicking and screaming aiding them? I tell ya, such baldfaced lies don’t contribute to an easing of tensions in the area. But an easing of tensions isn’t precisely the agenda of the Arab press is it? Sigh.
As for Revava: The temple was destroyed for the sin of sinat chinam — baseless hatred. Chazzal say the only thing that will restore the temple is ahavat chinam — unconditional love. This sure sounds like ahavat chinam to me.
As I stated in my interview with Kris Krug yesterday,
In next week’s Torah portion, it is written, “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Only when we rise above our hysterical fears of the other (which I will not say are all together unfounded, which is why this is truly an immense challenge) and come to love our Palestinian neighbors unconditionally, will the nation of Israel be at peace, and God willing, all be set right in the world.
Or so I’m gladly foolish enough to believe. If only it weren’t such a lonely place to be.
by Mobius · Thursday, April 28th, 2005
The background’s a little loud and the link colors aren’t precisely right just yet, but the first person to correctly identify all 16 characters in the headmast will get a year’s worth of free webhosting, up to 150mb.
[Update] Man, y’all are terrible. From the left… Clues: #2 is a famous activist, #5 is NOT Howard Stern, #16 is an Israeli singer. First person to e-mail the correct list to freshkyke {at} nospam.jewschool(.)com (kill the ‘nospam.’) by Monday, 5PM EST, wins it.
[Update] Congratulations to Solomyr.
by Mobius · Thursday, April 28th, 2005
Jewlicious may have Esther Kustanowitz, but we have Suicide Girls.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the brilliant and lovely Fenchurch Suicide to the Jewschool blogteam.
by Mobius · Wednesday, April 27th, 2005
by shamirpower · Wednesday, April 27th, 2005
Shabbat Pesach is in a few days and we all know what that means…yeah okay yizkor, hallel, dry food at kiddush…but also public chanting of Shir Ha’shirim! (also knows as Song of Songs/Song of Solomon). But why do we read it on Passover?
I’ve been reading Song of Songs for my Five Megillot class at JTS. We do a very close textual reading–not much searching for spiritual essence–with a lot of emphasis on poetic structure. He pretty much dismisses the view of Rashi and other rabbinic writers and commentators who say that the WHOLE BOOK is an allegory of the love between God and Israel. For example, when it says that “Your breasts are like two fawns” this refers to the fact that Moses and Aaron are equals. Or that the first five and second five of the ten commandments parallel one other. Oh yeah that’s just what I was thinking…seriously if you can get your hands on Rashi’s commentary to this book it is great fun.
This is all facinating, though it did not draw me into the text as much as my friend Shosh’s showing me this essay by Rabbi Sheva Gold - Initiation onto the Path of Love. Though it is hard to fully grasp her point, since she relies so heavily on the love of her husband, (and I’m, well, you know, single and not in love…yet), I do identify with her conclusion:
The truth of my spiritual life is that I encounter God the most clearly in these three ways: through my body and its expanding senses, through Nature and its dramatic and miraculous beauty, and through intimacy with another.
I really can’t do it justice here, so all I can do is refer you to her own words. But most of all, take ten mintues and read over her translation. This is some seriously hot stuff. I also dare you to read a line to it to one of your friends and get them to bet you that you won’t find that in the Bible. Haha! You win! Really fun game.
Okay but seriously; this is some really beautiful stuff. We are in Hesed–lovingkindness–the first week of the Omer, counting the days until Shavuot. I want to give everyone a blessing that they will give and recieve love in a healthy meaningful way. Moadim l’simcha!
by Mobius · Sunday, April 24th, 2005
Wanna get Matisyahu’s brand new album Live At Stubb’s for free, 100% legit? Sign-up for an account at eMusic here. You’ll get enough credits during your trial period to download the whole album in high quality MP3 format, as well as Mat’s critically acclaimed debut Shake Off The Dust…Arise, without paying nary a cent. Not only that, but eMusic has just added four Hasidic New Wave albums this week, in addition to having literally thousands of other great albums to choose from. Give it a shot! You’ve got nothing to lose, and 50 free, legal MP3s to gain!
by Mobius · Sunday, April 24th, 2005
Leave it to them Suicide Girls [NSFF] to take Jewish antinomianism to the next level with a risqué Pesach-themed photoshoot, manhandled matzah and all.
Tradition is very important to me [says Katya, the photo subject, who is a soldier in the Israeli army], so when passover time arrived, I knew that there is no present without the past. Come and join me, on my journey as I leave Egypt and the pyramids, going from the land of slavory [sic] to the land of Israel and freedom.
Man, I’d break her middle matzah! I keed! I keed!
Bah. For more insatiably sacrelicious photos of Katya, visit SuicideGirls.com [NSFF].
by Mobius · Friday, April 22nd, 2005
Peep this bad-ass Flash greeting. Just try not to have an epileptic seizure.
by Mobius · Friday, April 22nd, 2005
Really. Frickin’ video games today. Don’t even ask me how you work this thing. Whatever happened to two-button controllers? (You know, prior to becoming fashion accessories.) Blah, anyway. Maybe this’ll elicit some memories: Exodus, a Nintendo Pesach classic from the evangelical video game company Wisdom Tree Games. Ought to keep you busy between bites of cardboard and whipped cream cheese. Er, I mean, glorious matzah.
Help Moses solve the puzzle with 100 fascinating levels featuring mazes and other obstacles to faith. With your staff and the spoken Word of God, you will defend against enemies including magicians, taskmasters, Pharaoh’s soldiers, weaknesses of man, hardened hearts, and other devices that challenge the character of God. Along the way, Moses can gather Holy oil, the armor of God, greater faith, and much more.
Illustrated with 50 colorful reward screens, this learning tool also includes 250 questions spanning the entire book of Exodus.
You can download a ROM of the game here for use with any of these excellent NES emulators for your Mac or PC. It ain’t no Vice City, but f*ck it. Enjoy it in good health.
And Pesach sameach!
by Mobius · Friday, April 22nd, 2005
Jewlicious blogged this earlier in the week, but just in case you aren’t reading our “normal sibling” site, don’t let Pesach pass without giving this a look.
by Mobius · Thursday, April 21st, 2005
Esteemed author and fatwa target Salman Rushdie writes in The Telegraph:
People have always turned to religion for the answers to the two great questions of life: Where did we come from? and how shall we live? But on the question of origins, all religions are simply wrong. The universe wasn’t created in six days by a superforce that rested on the seventh. Nor was it churned into being by a sky god with a giant churn. And on the social question, the simple truth is that, wherever religions get into society’s driving seat, tyranny results. The Inquisition results, or the taliban.
And yet religions continue to insist that they provide special access to ethical truths, and consequently deserve special treatment and protection. And they continue to emerge from the world of private life — where they belong, like so many other things that are acceptable when done in private between consenting adults but unacceptable in the town square — and to bid for power. The emergence of radical Islam needs no redescription here, but the resurgence of faith is a larger subject than that.
Read on…
by sarah · Thursday, April 21st, 2005
A little self-deprecating humor never caused a flame-war, did it?
Just had to share my latest web find, The Knish, with all of you. I particularly love the new slogan What Happens in Brooklyn, Stays in Brooklyn. Sounds like a new rallying cry to me.
by Benyamin · Thursday, April 21st, 2005
Believe it or not, Nicole Kidman is studying the Old Testament with a professor of religion who has superivsed archaelogical digs in Israel. Could a misguided interest in Kabbalah be far behind? (Cross-posted on Yada.)
by Douglas · Thursday, April 21st, 2005
Why Toronto artist Melissa Shiff is exhibiting at NYU’s Center for Jewish Life instead of the Jewish Museum or, better, MOMA, is a mystery to me. But get there while you can to see one of the most innovative uses of space, myth and texture I’ve encountered in a long long time.
It’s a provocative and playful exploration of the real values underlying Pesach, transmitted to its audience through a series experiential installations that hit all the senses. From a video special effect that puts you at the center of the Red Sea, to a floor filled with pillows that crunch (yes, that’s matzah) as you walk across them, a Miriam bar, an Elijah lounge, and a plague animation, the installation embraces you with the real spirit and content of this holiday.
Of course, ghettoizing the best of Jewish conceptual art at a Jewish student center might be great for the students, but sequesters important works from the general audiences who might appreciate this work for something other than its “Jewishness.” Until we stop seeing art as a form of outreach, I fear work like this - which transcends the goals of the few institutions who might choose to fund it - will remain sadly under-appreciated.
See “Crush Oppression” at the Bronfman Center 7 East 10th Street, New York City, Mon-Thurs from 11am to 7pm, Fri-Sat 11-5 and 7-9, and Sun noon-6pm, until May 2.
by Mobius · Thursday, April 21st, 2005
Podcasting: It’s all the rage. Every putz and his wife is broadcasting an interweb radioshow out of his home office, including Jewschool’s very own Harry. Not only does Harry and his lovely wife Ziva (who is my hero of the week for hemming my jeans!) have their own weekly podcast about life, the universe & everything, but Harry’s launched a special new podcast which focuses solely on indie rock music in Israel, in hopes of exposing the English-speaking world to all that rocks in the Holy Land. It is called… Zion B’Ayin.
Why the name Zion B’Ayin? Well, its a double entendre. The direct translation means “dick in your eye,” but it also means Zion as in “The historic land of Israel as a symbol of the Jewish people” in your eye. Obviously a dick in your eye would be pretty shocking and I hope to give you that same feeling with the music you’ll hear on this podcast. But shocking in a good way, not painful in a “penis in the eye” way.
Eeeew. Anyway, check the show out — it’s already on its second installment. And be careful to wear safety goggles. We don’t need any of you running around lookin’ like Moshe Dayan.
by moses · Thursday, April 21st, 2005
These songs of freedoms just another word for-tee oz to freedom is the only chance I have to …close your eyes and breathe in that’s the scent of freedom… An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing… we wana be free (BD, BM, JJ, M, and isn’t it Sublime).
Exile. What is it about Redemption that doesn’t get us riled up? Do you like your job, your ipod, and your drugs? Is “it all” worth it, does “the struggle” seem to be getting you somewhere? This is not mussar, this is not Armageddon, I am not the messenger of “change your life.”
Exile is to be ejected, thrown out. We are safe here, aren’t we? The peoples of Darfur and Rwanda, they are an exiled people. But we, no, we are secure. Prestigious, sexy and free. Senators, musicians, artists, scientists, bankers, launderers and pimps but never whores. We the Jew have come a long way baby. Right?
Please G-d, you will all enjoy your own Seder. A colorful night of prose and habit, customs and recollections. Each to their own, for each shall be taken out of Egypt. The lessons are plentiful and if I attempt one it will simply be another crumb on the table.
The word îöøéí (Egypt) comes from the word îöø — Boundary (limits). When G-d Almighty took the Jews out of Egypt, She took that which limited them and set a people free. We are told that the entire experience was a lead in to the receiving of the Torah. Hence, every detail is set before us as a lesson or as an inherited power/trait in order that we might be able to fulfill G-d Almighty’s Will. The commandment of Passover is to “teach to your children” that “in every generation we should see ourselves leaving Egypt. In other words — we are all empowered to leave our limitations.
The energy needed to lift ourselves above the perimeter, or to take control over that which controls us, comes from celebrating Passover.
What does it mean to be free? I don’t know, we are not free. What’s it feel like to be in exile? You tell me, how numb are we. Freedom is the health and spiritual wealth to feel good, to see a visible good and to recognize its existence. A touch of it now, is simply a taste. And you should taste, no one said Exile could not be enjoyed. But know dear friends, that this here is not the ultimate. Bush is not the answer, peace is not the answer. Redemption, a huge act of taking away the veil (evil?), ending human self torture and allowing people to live at home. Only G-d Himself can bring Redemption. Only we can set ourselves free.
May we all rise above our limitations and see ourselves really as the image of G-d. At such a point Seder night, when the candles are lit and the glasses are filled — we shall be free. We shall have light that will forever burn and we will have each other to thank for taking the world out of exile.
(Shout out to Mobius and friends — I know you’ll enjoy redeemin’ yourselves. May we sit together at the party.)
by John Brown · Thursday, April 21st, 2005
In Thursday’s Washington Post, Dan Eggen and Jerry Markson report big developments on the still-developing AIPAC espionage scandal :
“Two senior employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of Washington’s most influential lobbying organizations, have left their jobs amid an FBI investigation into whether they passed classified U.S. information to the government of Israel, a source close to the organization said yesterday. The source characterized the departures as firings.”
The two men, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman deny the charges against them but declined to comment further. Up to this point, AIPAC had been defending the conduct of all its employees, and people in the press had even been going as far as pulling the anti-semitism card. But now the organization seems to have taken a tactical 180 degree turn:
“The statement made by Rosen and Weissman represents solely their view of the facts,” said AIPAC spokesman Patrick Dorton. “The action that AIPAC has taken was done in consultation with counsel after careful consideration of recently learned information and the conduct AIPAC expects of its employees.”
Previous article on AIPAC: New Poll Shows Americans Suspicious of AIPAC Status.
