Stephen Hawking 1942-2018

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star.

George Orwell 1903-1950

To see what is right in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle.

Calico hair matching (well-groomed) calico fur.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have celebrated his 89th birthday today

I knew I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed ... without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

When daily I witness monster triplets — institutional racism, economic injustice, and militarism, Dr. King's call to speak clearly and resist nonviolently is always on time to ensure freedom and basic rights for natives, immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and guests everywhere.

Welcome 2018. Mind the dove.

An image painted by British street artist Banksy
on the separation wall, West Bank.

Photo credit: REUTERS

My birthday bash in Tel Aviv (I slept through the earsplitting event)

December 2 at 8:30pm at Levontine 7 club in Tel Aviv  

The Canadian electronica band HOLY FUCK performed at Levontine 7 club on my birthday. Too bad I missed it, fast asleep!

Yom Kippur in Israel. The thrill and the drill.

Ben-Gurion International Airport is closed. No public transportation, no traffic, no broadcast TV or radio, businesses closed, schools closed. Blessed stillness for 25 hours.

To all who are observing Yom Kippur, May You Be Signed, Sealed, Delivered in the Book of Life.

16th Jerusalem Pride and Tolerance March: LGBTQ and Religion

Decked out in my hat, shades, sunscreen

I was thrilled to be among the 22,000 people who joined the 16th Jerusalem Pride and Tolerance March yesterday. Spirits soared above heavy security by police and border patrol soldiers. This year, the theme was “LGBTQ and Religion” in response to those who claim to oppose the LGBT community in the name of religion (especially in the "holy city" of Jerusalem). Not far away, extreme-right groups held a counter-demonstration, surrounded by a tight police cordon. Their themes: “Jerusalem is not Sodom” and “Do not let them adopt children.”

In speeches and songs and on banners (my favorite, "Born This Way"), signs, T-shirts, and headgear marchers identified as gay, straight, transgender, asexual, religiously observant, and secular. Youth groups, NGOs, political parties from left to right, and protestors seeking an end to the Occupation also marched. At the spot where Shira Banki was stabbed to death in 2015, marchers stopped to lay white flowers and hold a moment of silence for the teenager who had been marching to support her gay friends.

A free Israel is Jewish and democratic

Seculars marching with pride

"LGBTQ against pinkwashing"
[Hebrew terminology explains the pun:
qibus is washing, and qibush is occupation] 

Click the video to listen to the marchers singing, drumming, and dancing and watch them laying white flowers where Shiri Banki was murdered. (Video and edit by Micah Danney for the Times of Israel.)



Related post
Jerusalem Pride March 2007: You may not stand over the blood of your fellow man . . . לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל-דַּם רֵעֶךָ

African asylum-seeking community represented in Tel Aviv Museum of Art exhibition

Curator-guide Ruti Director with Darfurians Taj Jemy and Idris Korni

Following the tour (Hebrew) of "Regarding Africa: Contemporary Art and Afro-Futurism," Taj Jemy,  Idris Korni, and curator-guide Ruti Direktor share visions for engaging the African asylum-seeking community and Israeli artists in mutually rewarding partnerships.

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art exhibition is a multimedia prism reflecting sub-Saharan African post-colonial realities and visions; and, aspects of the imagination, fantasy, and reality of the south Tel Aviv African asylum-seeking community.

Click Artists to view images of paintings, sculptures, photographs, architectural models, and videos. Click each image to learn about the artist and view their other works.

My related posts

• In Tel Aviv: Levinsky Park (includes video) 
• Breaking Into Israel: Video report and interview with my Eritrean hero Kidane Isaac
• Josh Gomes: My Eritrean brother can dunk; he just wanted a little help this time
• In Tel Aviv: At Bialik-Rogozin School, shooting baskets with Josh Gomes (includes video) 
• In South Tel Aviv: The shelter of humans

Ramadan Mubarak to my Muslim and Ismaili friends

Last evening, I walked along the Mediterranean Sea to join my friends in Jaffa for the Shabbat evening meal. Once there, lovely was hearing the melodious chanting call of the muezzin to Muslim believers to come to prayer. On this eve of Ramadan, a month of intense prayer, dawn-to-dusk fasting, and nightly feasts, Muslim residents of the neighboring streets were enjoying their evening meals at tables set up close to their homes and in restaurants under decorative colored lights.

Later that evening, setting out to return home, kind celebrants guided me to the main street, Jerusalem Boulevard. They graciously responded to my Hebrew "khhag sameakh" — an awkward though well-meant happy holiday greeting. I always panic scrambling for proper Arabic expressions though I have studied them many years, flunking courses, tutorials, and attempts to teach me. NOTE: Learn languages as early and as young as possible!

Related post
In Beit Jala, the West Bank: Breaking the Ramadan fast

The Jewish Festival of Freedom and the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind

Bracha with her guide dog Dinka and me

My two-part post on freedom: Passover, or Pesach (The Jewish Festival of Freedom) that begins tonight at sundown and the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind.

The sacred myth of the Jewish Festival of Freedom celebrates the escape of the ancient Israelites from Egyptian bondage. Our original Independence Day, Passover marks the shift from a nation of Hebrew slaves to a free people, from a collection of tribes to a nation of law. Passover champions freedom and human rights relevant to any Jew whether particularist or universalist, and any person of any faith or none.

Today, 65 million people worldwide — each has a name, a face, a family desperately seek freedom from dictatorships, conscription, war, torture, hunger, want, fear, loneliness, and political and religious persecution in their homelands.

How is this calamity relevant to the Passover story? The Passover narrative teaches: “Like the native among you shall be the sojourner who sojourns among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34).

Facing this soul-numbing destruction and despair and feeling a terrible sense of helplessness, what can a free person do? Pay attention. Internalize the biblical injunction and notice contemporary parallels. Donate time, money, and resources to honor refugees' strength and resilience and support their rescue and relief across the globe and around the corner. Meet and get to know a refugee neighbor. Resist government policies and laws that block immediate rescue and aid. Offer sanctuary and protection. Raise consciousness.

*

At the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind, an all-ages-friendly oasis of help, independence, and full-potential living, my friend Savta Dotty celebrated her 80th birthday with her Israeli family and friends. She requested, “In lieu of gifts, I would be thrilled if you make a donation to the Israel Guide Dog Center or to the charity of your choice: I am so grateful to have everything I need and it will enrich my life to know you are helping someone not as lucky as I am.”

What is in Savta's red-and-white striped bag that she is dipping into?

The Center’s founder welcomed us, congratulated Savta, then linked the Passover lessons on slavery and freedom to the Center’s purpose, mission, services, and facilities. Tour leader Bracha (Hebrew, blessing) explained that until congenital partial blindness severely diminished her freedom, she relied on a white mobility stick. When leaving her private spaces — psychological and physical threatened safe mobility, enslaving her to demoralization and limited opportunities, she turned to the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind to help liberate her, enabling a restored self-confidence and reenergized freedom.

With Dinka at her side, this mother and grandmother who performs Irish music on her guitar, translates technical materials from English to Hebrew and the reverse, and travels locally and internationally led us through the site. Bracha explained the philosophy and logistics of breeding, raising, fostering, and training the dogs; matching them to suit clients’ lifestyles, measurements, and requirements; teaching how to work with a guide dog; and supporting humans and canines throughout their partnerships.

At our final stop, Bracha removed Dinka's harness, and extended to us petting privileges and viewing the PUPPIES!

Nir loving on Dinka

Israel Museum: Unity in diversity

At Jerusalem's Israel Museum, I marvel at the unity in diversity of art and archaeology collections, including works dating from prehistory to the present day in a far-ranging collection of nearly 500,000 objects representing the full scope of world material culture.

An example. Behind me a giant white dome, the top of the Shrine of the Book Complex built as a repository for the first seven scrolls of the Hebrew Bible discovered in 1947 in caves around the archaeological site of Qumran in the Judaean Desert east of Jerusalem and descending to the Dead Sea. (Through 1956, extensive excavations have taken place in Qumran where nearly 900 scrolls and other artifacts were discovered.) The manuscripts, called the Dead Sea Scrolls, were written centuries before the birth of Christianity and Islam and housed and preserved in clay jars. The white dome represents a lid of each jar.

On the lower right, a mobile by the originator of the mobile, US artist Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976) who was also a painter, sculptor, and creator of mobiles, stabiles, and miniature wire toys.

Oh, and on the lower left, knockout knockoff Prada shades that I bought last Thanksgiving at a vintage shop on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC.

In East Jerusalem: Rawdat El-Zuhur School

Majida, Randa, and I at Rawdat El-Zuhur School

I happily crossed a politically-charged line between West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem to bring blessings and love to Rawdat El-Zuhur School from dear friends Ame Kulu (Rev. Joyce Myers-Brown) and Mary Ellen Myers. Their Women’s Fellowship of Central Congregational UCC (United Church of Christ) in Atlanta, Georgia, has been sponsoring a student in the school since 2008 through UCC Global Ministries, which receives sponsor donations and distributes them to schools.

Founded in 1952 as an alternative to public education, this private school in East Jerusalem offers a culturally-appropriate vision, curriculum, and program to its Muslim and Christian students. Randa, the Sponsor Coordinator, introduced me to the principal, teachers, staff, and adorable Majida, whom the Fellowship is sponsoring through Grade 6 when she will graduate and transfer to another school.

Wall displays include children's art work, posters of alphabets (Arabic and English), and photos of the school's beginnings and a donor honor roll.

Photos of the school's beginnings

Pointing to [UCC] Global Ministries on the donor honor roll

Related posts

• In East Jerusalem: With Yu, a fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research
• Normal Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies
• In Tel Aviv: Answering to either name, Jewish or Muslim
• Jewish-Arab Kindergarten in Israel
• In Far'ata: Learning English in the West Bank Palestinian village
• A Jerusalem story

Mutasim Ali and Asaf Weitzen: 7 lessons from Israeli activists on how to fight for refugees‏

"Like the native among you shall be the sojourner who sojourns among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt." (Leviticus 19:34)

Strangers, or sojourners, are rightly under our protection because we are all strangers somewhere. In the biblical era, when strangers were under the protection of the gods, the inhabitants of Sodom defied the singular cultural importance of hospitality shared with other ancient civilizations, including Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. 

Listen to Mutasim Ali and Asaf Weitzen among the righteous in today's Sodom. (2.5 minutes)

"Outsider consciousness resides at the heart of Jewish identity." — Anish Kapoor, artist and social activist

Related posts

• Breaking Into Israel: my Eritrean hero Kidane Isaac 
• Josh Gomes: My Eritrean brother can dunk; he just wanted a little help this time
• In Tel Aviv: The orange on the Passover seder plate
• In Tel Aviv: Levinsky Park

In Tel Aviv: Women's March against new Trump administration

"Keep your tiny hands off our human rights"

In solidarity with the Women's March of dissent against the Trump presidency that was inaugurated the day before, hundreds of Americans gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Israel where they sang, cheered, booed, and waved posters against hate and intolerance, and for social justice and equal rights for all people.

As in Washington, D.C., and in cities nationwide and around the world, participants expressed a common theme — revulsion and contempt for the man who is now president. Among protesters' local concerns and issues explained in handmade signs and speeches: "End U.S. Support of the Occupation" and "Existential Threat / סכנה קיומית" (framing a photo of Trump and Bibi).

Many women and men wore white roses in solidarity with residents of Umm Al-Hiran, a Bedouin village in Israel's southern Negev, whose homes were demolished last Wednesday for lack of building permits impossible to obtain.

Reunion with Indira Sarma and Narayan Subedi

Best people, best Bhutanese food, best time!

How I missed this wonderful couple and how joyous our reunion. True to my inherited trait, weeping when happiest, I shed many tears embracing my beloved Indira and Narayan. And we laughed, shared, and probed local, personal, and global matters; drank divine nectar and ate ambrosia they had prepared; and held closely Pritam, of blessed memory.

Ashish later joined us and shared with the Bhutanese-American couple about mutual interests (healthcare), neighboring birthplaces (Bhutan, India), common spiritual traditions (Hinduism), and exchanged thoughts in at least half a dozen languages! Then Ashish and I took off to spend the rest of the day at the Martin Luther King Jr Historic Site.

Indira, Narayan, me, Ashish

Related posts and articles

• Bhutanese Atlantans repurpose "the vine that ate the South" (includes video)
• The Support Group: Our Story
• Atlanta’s Bhutanese refugees and their new neighbors
• Bhutan refugee finds Shangri-La in Atlanta
• Teen rises up as go-to guide for refugees from Bhutan
• Atlanta’s Bhutanese refugees and their new neighbors

In East Jerusalem: With Yu, a fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research

The professional and the dilettante 

Minutes after a drive-by shooting attack at a nearby East Jerusalem light rail station, I caught up with Yu Zhang, my brilliant and adorable friend from China currently a fellow at the prestigious W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. (At Tel Aviv University, Yu wrote a master's thesis on Canaanite Cult Behavior and the Egyptian Political Hegemony: A View from the North of Israel.)

A shout out to Yosef Halper at whose eponymous used bookstore on Tel Aviv's Allenby Street Yu and I met. Yosef and I were talking books and kvetching when Yu walked in looking for specific archeology texts. She used terms I recognized from a course I had been taking and asked, Is Dr. Omer Sergei your professor at Tel Aviv University? Yes! Our immediate deep-dive freewheeling conversation has happily continued, time- and geography- permitting.

Let the Jewish New Year and its blessings start | תָּחֵל שָׁנָה וּבִרְכוֹתֶיהָ

In Jerusalem's Makhne Yehuda shuk/market honey for sale adds sweetness to the New Year

In Jerusalem's Makhne Yehuda shuk/market

honey for sale adds sweetness to the New Year

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, falls on Tishrei 1 and 2 in the Hebrew calendar. In 2016, it begins Sunday evening, October 2 and ends Tuesday evening, October 4. I first published this post September 12, 2007.

Dear Tamar, 

Let the New Year and its blessings start | תָּחֵל שָׁנָה וּבִרְכוֹתֶיהָ | Takhel shana u-virkhote-ha. * 

The Hebrew word Shana comes from the word li-shnot (to repeat) but it also sounds like le-shanot (to change). I think that's the main idea every Rosh Hashanah: it's our chance to repeat our mistakes or harness our thoughts and steer our actions to change. I hope your New Year will be filled with good choices. 




Shana Tova 5768

Shimon

*  Shimon cites the concluding one-line chorus in the 13th century piyyut, Jewish liturgical poem, by Abraham Hazzan of Gerona (Girondi), Spain. The chorus replaces this chorus in preceding verses:

Let the year end with all its curses | תִּכְלֶה שָׁנָה וְקִלְלוֹתֶיהָ | Tikhleh shana ve-killeloteha! 

Listen to the exquisite Syrian melody in the recording (Hebrew) of this piyyut,  Little Sister | אָחוֹת קְטַנָּה | Akhot Ktana.

Related posts

• "Have you a sweet year"
• Shanah Tovah! Country on a String 
• L'Shanah Tovah, Happy New Year 5768: On this day, the world was conceived. 
• L'Shanah Tovah, Happy New Year 5767: Clean the slate and move on.

In Gaza: Young scholar-leaders doing well while doing good

I am so proud of my good friend Msallam Mohammed AbuKhalil, a medical student in Gaza. Listen to him and his fabulous fellow young leaders — working against all odds contributing their massive talents and dedication to healing and empowering communities, locally and globally.

Msallam reports:

My second video participation for the Social Good Summit 2016: Connecting Today, Creating Tomorrow with other fakhoora.org former and current students including engineers and doctors-in-making. Everybody has shared their personal vision about what they hope to become as potential leaders in their fields and how they see themselves as global citizens connecting with the outside world in this age of huge technological advances. 

London: Ismaili Center

Posing with Nymeth at the London Ismaili Center

The calligraphy conveys the Quran's opening phrase in Arabic, "Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim" ("In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most compassionate"). Muslims recite it on beginning a task to receive the Creator’s strength and blessing, among other reasons. The phrase faces the entrance to this religious, social, and cultural meeting place for the Shia Ismaili Muslim community in the United Kingdom. Nymeth Ali guided me through the center, pointing out examples of the relationship between the architecture and design details and the traditions, symbols, history and values of her faith community. For example, the building exterior materials and colors are compatible with surrounding buildings while the interior features traditional Islamic colors — whites, light grays, and blues.

In our rapid-fire give-and-take Q&A, my new friend helped me understand more of Islam and its ethics, and of Muslim peoples and their values, among them humility, charity, and hospitality. And, I endeavored to answer her wide-ranging questions on aspects of Judaism and Jewish people. Together, we traveled the globe across centuries till and including our own lives, roots, passages, and journeys. Thank you, Ryan Makhani, for the introduction! You hinted, “I have a feeling you both will have some incredible conversations.” You did not exaggerate!