Tzom l'Darfur
The Los Angeles Board of Rabbis and a new L.A.-based organization, Jewish World Watch, are calling for a minor fast this Thursday to bring attention to the situation in Sudan. Their press release explains,
According to Jewish tradition, fasting is a means of expressing alarm. It is used to focus attention; it rouses one to prayer and action. Therefore – Thursday May 26 is declared a “Sun-up to Sun-down” – FAST DAY for Darfur. To bring attention to the calamity unfolding before our eyes the genocide taking place at this very moment.
For more information, and for the addresses of three shuls in L.A. that will be having special services as part of this event, check here.
“There are people dying in cruel and unimaginable ways….let’s help them by not eating!” *rolls eyes*
Its called praying to G-d.
Hmm but then you are apparently to thick to have understood that.
My only issue with this is that when it comes to Jews who are oppressed such as not making major protests when the st louis http://www.ushmm.org/museum/ex… was sent back to germany in the 1939 when it was right off the coast (they were frightened to make protests until America bomb the tracks to Aushwitz), Jews in the Soviet Union from 1917 till the 1980’s (they were aginst all protests for them), and Jews being bombed in Israel, these ‘Boards of Rabbis’ and ‘temples’ go to sleep
-only when its blacks as in the civil rights movement, ‘palestinians’ or this do they wake up.
“…But now, thanks to a carefully documented report by Ken Silverstein in the April 29 Los Angeles Times, which has had far too little follow-up by the media, it is clear that the CIA, with the blessings of the Bush administration, is closely connected to the horrifying government of Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, the head perpetrator of the ongoing genocide in Darfur: over 400,000 black Africans dead, with some 500 more dying every day, and more than two million, many in peril of starvation, turned into refugees as their homes and villages are destroyed” (Nat Hentoff, “An Ally From Hell,” Village Voice, May 20, 2005).
http://www.villagevoice.com/ge…
(The Forward, May 20) DES MOINES, Iowa — Dennis Ross, America’s point man on the peace process during the 1990s, came to Iowa last week to talk about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But his speech, made to 450 people at a local Conservative synagogue, took an unexpected turn when a tall man in traditional African garb approached the microphone during the question-and-answer session.
“Did you know that the war in Sudan and other parts of Africa has a relationship to the war in the Middle East?” said Goanar Chol, a pastor and a refugee from Sudan who now works with the Sudanese Presbyterian community in Des Moines and in Omaha, Neb.
“We in South Sudan have come to the conclusion that they are related,” Chol continued. “Christianity in South Sudan was blamed on the U.S. and Israel.”
More…
http://forward.com/articles/32…
Well, I don’t know what things are like in your community, but here in San Francisco there were lots of rallies and vigils in support of Israel during the height of the terrorist attacks. So I’m not sure what Shmoe is referring to.
It saddens me that the response to this story so far seems to be eye-rolling and “but the Jewish community didn’t protest XYZ, so why protest now?” Yes, maybe we didn’t speak up when we should have. So let’s speak up now! Sheesh!
Oh, and fasting is a dramatic symbolic act. If they get some news coverage for doing it, maybe more people will start paying attention to Sudan.
My interpretation of the item was that they are trying to change the situation in Sudan. I simply do not think fasting is an effective method of doing so.
webmacher,
“So let’s speak up now! Sheesh!”
–fair enough.
there were as many Jews protesting Israel at the rallies held every so often in Justin Herman Plaza as there were Jews in support of Israel. What happens in SF is irrelevant to everywhere and everyone except those in the Bay Area. Funny how when you escape that loony bin you realize such things.