In Israel: At a polling station during Israel's parliamentary election

Beautiful brave woman voting while her grandson watches. When he reaches legal age, he will remember this day.

Refugees and asylum seekers awarded diplomas in Levinsky Park

With Gaby, from Eritrea

Meet four among English Level 3 students who completed the course along with a hundred more students of English (Levels 1 and 2), Hebrew (Levels 1-3), computer basics, Photoshop, photography, and pattern making and sewing! All classes are held in Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station.

With Omar, from Darfur

Fellow teachers Hal and Judith flank Shibli and Ibrahim, both from Darfur

Way to go, earnest dreamers working hard six days a week and attending night school two to four times weekly. Next semester begins in a few weeks.

"Have you a sweet year" — celebrating Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah greeting card and honey cake

On September 9, 2010, Atlanta neighbors nine-year-old Taiwanese Peter Chiou and his mom, Sophia, gifted me the Rosh Hashanah greeting card and honey cake shown in the photo. Their greetings and cake remain timely and fresh.

The delightful Chiou family from Taiwan were my neighbors when veterinarian Tony Chiou was conducting research at Emory University's Yerkes National Primate Research Center. With Sophia, also a veterinarian, we shared foods, customs, books, and ideas. Just before Rosh Hashanah, I described our custom of eating apples dipped in honey, symbolizing hopes for sweetness in the coming year. They soon surprised me with their gifts.

This post was originally published September 9, 2010, 5771 in the Jewish calendar.

My related posts

• May the Jewish New Year and its blessings start תָּחֵל שָׁנָה וּבִרְכוֹתֶיהָ 
• L'Shanah Tovah, Happy New Year 5768: On this day, the world was conceived.  
• L'Shanah Tovah, Have a Happy New Year 5767: Clean the slate and move on.
• Shanah Tovah! Country on a String: comedy toward dialog and change

Youth dancing ballet in Tekoa

Be'eri (on the far right)

I rode with my cousins from Jerusalem to Tekoa, just south of the city to attend their granddaughter Be'eri's ballet recital. The annual event showcases youth dance ensembles in the settlement. Be'eri —Hebrew, for my well was our draw.

Post-recital at her home, a "caravan" — Hebrew, for trailer Be'eri changed into a sequined shirt in honor of my Tel Aviv street Calico.

Kitty shirt

Our family feasted on falafel with all the trimmings followed by blessings of thanks for the meal.

Be-eri's elder sister and a cousin blessed outdoors.

Close to nightfall, quick introductions to special neighbors — horses, several members of a cat colony, and sheep in the distance and a selfie of those whom the lens could capture. Hugs all around when my cousins and I left to return to Jerusalem from where I continued by bus to Tel Aviv.

Tekoa is a Jewish settlement (population: 4500, in 2017) on the edge of the Judean desert. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. Entering and leaving settlements requires passing through a checkpoint. While the location is off for me, think cognitive dissonance.

2018 Ramadan Mubarak to my Muslim and Ismaili friends

Images from “Jerusalem in Detail”
Israel Museum | Oct. 1917 - April 2018

May the holy month of Ramadan that begins this evening be affirming and that you follow tenets of your faith in safety —  observing teachings that root your community to its origins and bind you as a people of social, spiritual, and personal reflection, cleansing, and renewal.

Related posts

• 2017 Ramadan Mubarak to my Muslim and Ismaili friends
• In Beit Jala, the West Bank: Breaking the Ramadan fast

In Tel Aviv: Reunion with Amir Habaya at Frishman Beach

Amir Habayba and I at Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom, 2003

Our first reunion since Amir Habayba and I met, in 2003, in the Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom (Arabic and Hebrew for Oasis of Peace) cooperative village! The years and distances (he is now a UK citizen living in Belgium) vanished with bursts of laughter and joy in sharing memories, updates, ice cream, crushed watermelon drinks, and many hugs.

Here we are today.

At the Tel Aviv seaside Calypso Restaurant, 2018

Amir's beloved friends Rola Shehadeh, Khaled, and their ADORABLE Lolo with whom he drove from Jerusalem to spend a beach day, joined us, expanding the friendship circle with everyone babbling in two of three languages — Arabic, English, and Hebrew!

With Rola, Khaled, and ADORABLE Lolo 

In Tel Aviv: Holocaust (Shoah) Remembrance Day

When the SS murdered Romanian-born Leah's parents in front of her,
a Christian neighbor heard the screams and gunshots,
dashed into the house, grabbed the 9-year-old child survivor
insisting she was hers, and hid Leah in a crawl space 3 years.

Note: I first published this post on Yom Hashoah 2009.

Today, as every year on the 27th day of the Hebrew month Nisan, at 10 A.M., a two-minute siren wailed nationwide. The sound calls us to remember the six million Jews — one-third of world Jewry then, among them 1.5 million children that the Third Reich systematically exterminated in less than five years. Five million more victims perished, including German opponents of Nazism, Gypsies/Roma, Serbs, Polish intelligentsia, resistance fighters from all nations, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, people with disabilities, habitual criminals, and the "antisocial" such as beggars, vagrants, and hawkers.

In Israel, listening to the siren, activities and conversations stop and traffic halts: drivers and passengers exit cars, busses, taxis, and trucks; and pedestrians stand still. Yom Hashoah memorial ceremonies follow at the Knesset (Parliament), the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, and in schools, organizations, and institutions nationwide.

At the corner of Tel Aviv's Allenby and Yavne Streets, in the first public Beit Avot (Home for the Aged), I joined the residents, most of them Shoah survivors, for their memorial ceremony.

Watch the video (5:21 minutes).

My related posts

• Extermination Categories (poster) in the Museum of the Liberation of Rome 
• Kristallnacht: Night of Crystal, or "Night of Broken Glass"
• Happy 107, Alice Herz-Sommer: Oldest surviving Holocaust survivor
• In Atlanta: Remembering Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes
• Stefan's Urgent Message
• Holocaust Remembrance Day and Vivi's timely e-mail
• In Tel Aviv: learning from elders

In Israel: Restrooms for Refugees

Two public restrooms funded by individual donations
to provide basic solutions to untenable conditions

Thrilled to support human dignity for our African asylum-seeking friends and partners.

Asylum-seekers are required to apply for visa renewals every month or two (for families, every six months) at the sole office of the Israel Administration of Border Crossings, Population and Immigration (PIBA) in Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv. Instances of frivolous rejection are not uncommon.

Please, join the “Restrooms for Refugees - Israel” GoFundMe campaign to install basic facilities, shelter, and sanitary conditions to alleviate the denigrating conditions they experience waiting outside often in burning sun on dirt ground that turns to mud in pouring rain.

To donate to the campaign, click here. Thank you.

About GoFundMe, the world’s largest social fundraising platform, with over $5 billion raised so far. With a community of more than 50 million donors, GoFundMe is changing the way the world gives. For more information, click here.

Palestinian Israeli Girl Scouts on Palm Sunday

Palestinian Israeli Girl Scouts on Palm Sunday

Happy Easter to my dear Christian friends. 

חג הפסחא שמח לידידי הנוצרים היקרים. בתצלום בנות הצופים פלסטיניות ישראליות ביום ראשון הדקל נוגעת ללב

I hope Holy Week from Palm Sunday through today, Easter Sunday, has been significant and affirming. May the moral life and universal, humanistic message of Jesus, and resurrection —revival and new beginnings inform our visions and actions. 

Thousands of Christian pilgrims observed Holy Week in Jerusalem’s Old City. 

Watch the video (3.5 minutes).

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