Israel is a real place

Greetings.

Jewish date:  26 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Ha’azinu).

Today’s holidays:  Ramadan (Islam), Laylat-al-Qadr (Lailat ul Qadr, Lailat-ul Qadr, Night of Power) (Islam), Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Henry Louis Mencken (Church of the SubGenius).

Topic 1:  A big backlog on anti-Semitism and the Arab-Israeli War:  “Selective Outrage: Israeli Facebook Photos Spark Media Circus”, “Action Alert: CBC Drags a False Equivalence”, “EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Dramatic Reunion Ten Years After The Photo That Started It All”, “Iranian youth athlete withdraws from fight with Israel competitor” (translation:  Iran would rather force its taekwondo fighters to chicken out like wimps rather than let them lose with honor), “Lancet Editor "Responds" to HR Critique”, “Ha'aretz Journalist's Speaking Tour: Sponsored by Anti-Zionists”, “BBC Panorama Shocker: Balanced Review of Gaza Flotilla Incident”, “Incitement is not one-sided”, “Dead Jews and living trees” (some people have completely missed what the Holocaust is supposed to teach us), “The Root of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Classic Islamic View of Jews”, “The Despair of Zion” by Walter Reich, and “Egyptian minister calls on Muslims to flood J’lem” (completely forgetting that any Islamic identity of Yerushalayim is completely forged and that Muslim pilgrims there will be giving money to Jews, directly or indirectly, if they want to eat, sleep, or travel).

Topic 2:  I need to start writing about my pilot trip to Israel, my future home, and I still do not know where to start.  So let us start with something basic which at first sounds ridiculously obvious:  Israel is a real place.  Rationality requires us to try to recognize things as they are, for what they are.  The Israel I visited is not a religious fantasy of a Jewish or ecumenical utopia.  Neither is it a successor to Nazi Germany, as anti-Semites would have us believe.  In many respects, Israel is a lot like the United States, being a fully modern, Western country.  This includes the general rule of law and familiar products and technologies.

So how does Israel differ from the United States?  The most obvious (and relevant to this blog) is that while most of the West is predominantly Christian, Israel is predominantly Jewish.  There is a sizeable Muslim minority, and there are Christians, Bahá’ís, and members of other religions as well; but I stayed within areas with Jewish majorities, and this was reflected even within the secular culture.  (I do plan to go into this further as I discuss my trip.)  And while in the United States people are often not so visibly demonstrative of their religion, people who look religious are everywhere in Israel.  Even in Tel ’Aviv, the great bastion of Israeli secularism, there were some people who were visibly observant Jews, including one woman I talked with at a company at which I interviewed.  To be sure, there are enclaves, and whole neighborhoods are set up with particular religious groups in mind.  But in many places, people of different religious strains mix freely and without incident.  This includes on buses; despite what you may have heard about Ḥaredhim (sometimes derisively called “ultra-Orthodox”) holding by segregated buses, I saw plenty riding ordinary, mixed buses.

Israel is also a visibly multilingual society.  In the United States, government-issue signs (such as for traffic and street names) are usually only in English.  In Israel, they are typically in Hebrew, the international language English, and Arabic.  And while the most common language spoken on the street and found in non-governmental signs is indeed Hebrew, I also encountered a fair share of English, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, French, Yiddish, and what was probably Amharic.  One may also easily end up talking to people in languages other than Hebrew.  Someone at one synagogue did try speaking to me in Yiddish, which I do not know.  (I got a C in Yiddish in college and have made no attempts to study it since.)  Several people, upon hearing my American accent even when speaking Hebrew, switched to addressing me in English.  (I myself must admit guilt at switching too frequently from Hebrew to English when I had trouble making myself understood in Hebrew.  Hebrew is not my native language, and it requires more mental effort for me to speak or understand.  And I am under the impression that my accent is not the easiest for Israelis to understand either.)

I need to move on to other things today.  I hope to write about the Old City of Yerushalayim tomorrow.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor: “The transition”:

And again, if anyone knows anything about where this notion of black cats being evil comes from, please let me know.

Peace.

Aaron

The Greatest Story Ever Told is not great

Greetings.

Jewish date:  23 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Maṭṭoth-Mas‘e).

Today’s holidays:  The Three Weeks (Judaism), Feast Day of Anthony Zaccaria (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius Day (Christianity), X-Day (approximate) (Church of the SubGenius).

Note:  X-Day is supposed to be the day of alien invasion.  Considering that the Church of the SubGenius, at least on the surface, is a joke, predictions of impending doom should be taken with a grain of salt.

Topic 1:  The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).  One can debate how great the story of Jesus is, but this telling is dreadfully dull and unimaginative with wooden acting.  Most of what happens comes straight from the Gospel texts, without reflection on what the characters are thinking or background research.  And I am serious about this movie being poorly researched.  The writer did not even know that Christ = Greek khristos = “annointed” = Hebrew mashiaḥ = “Messiah”, a hurdle so low that an ant ought to be able to pass over it without climbing.  Whoever put this film together knew little or nothing of Judaism, including the Temple.  That altar, for instance, is a total disgrace with steps and no horns that no self-respecting person would ever burn a sacrifice on.  Even Satan is boring, depicted as an old man eating dinner, hardly personified evil and no one really able to tempt Jesus.  The lack of reflection results in a bizarre emphasis on Herod Antipas as being the main villain, yet (as standard in the Gospels) the Sanhedhrin and Priests put Jesus on trial, the Jewish crowd demands he be killed, Pontius Pilate orders the execution while denying responsibility, and Roman soldiers do the actual crucifixion.  The most original thing that happens in this movie is that Judas Iscariot commits suicide by immolating himself on that awful altar, which is ironic since some say that Jesus is supposed to be a sacrifice.  Do not bother watching this film unless you have severe insomnia.

Theological rating:  / r̼̊/ (Bronx cheer; perfectly orthodox, but shallowly).

Next up:  Godspell (1973).

Topic 2:  More current anti-Semitism:  “CNN's Cheerleader for Hezbollah” discusses CNN correspondent Octavia Nasr’s mourning over Hezbollah terrorist leader Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah’s death.  “Abbas Eulogizes Munich Massacre Mastermind” discusses Mahmoud Abbas (chairman of the Palestinian Authority and the guy who is allegedly supposed to be a partner for peace with Israel) mourning Abu Dauod, who participated in the murder of 11 Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972.  (And some people somehow have no clue why the “peace process” is hopelessly stalled.  “Ongoing Palestinian Terrorism: 5 Dead, 232 Hurt in 6 Months” may also be a clue.)  “The banality of Methodist evil” deals with a boycott against Israel by the Methodist Church of Britain, justified with a smorgasbord of bad logic, including double-standards, proof by assertion, and lying.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor: “My first owner was Moses…”:


Peace.

Aaron

A big backlog of stuff

Image of where I am working towards going via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  8 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Balaq).

Today’s holidays:  Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Joseph Smith (Church of the SubGenius), Litha - Sommer Solstice (Wicca).

Worthy causes of the day:  “End Violence Against Women - The Petition Site”, “Friends of the Earth U.S.”, “Action at Oil Change”, “Obama, Say No To Commercial Whaling! - The Petition Site”, “ONE | 3.5 Million Healthworkers Needed”, “Support Women's Health with the Global MOMS Act - The Petition Site”, “Please Include the Temple Mount in the Heritage Plan - אנא הוסף את הר הבית לרשימת אתרי המורשת Petition”, “Working Families » Take Action!”, and “What President Obama should have said.”

Note:  The big gap in postings is largely due to me attending an ‘Aliyyah Absorption Information Expo last week.  This is also the reason I have not yet written a review of Mort (The Discworld Series, book 4) while having finished reading Sourcery (The Discworld Series, book 5).  Expect the next Discworld review to be for at least two books at the same time.  On this past trip, I have also acquired a copy of the first season of Serughim, an Israeli show which deals with a group of Dathi Le’umi (religous Zionist/Modern Orthodox) singles in Jerusalem.  The point of getting this set of DVDs is to work on my understanding of spoken Hebrew (Israeli radio is too fast for someone unused to rapid Hebrew speech), but there is enough going on religiously in the episodes I have already watched that I expect to eventually be writing episode-by-episode reviews.

Also:  Since I have a huge backlog, expect this post to be very short on commentary.

Topic 1:  Updates on anti-Semitism:  “CBC National Corrects Gaza Infant Mortality Rate Error”, “Gaza Flotilla: The Battle for Public Opinion Continues”, “SUCCESS! - Yahoo Reunites Jerusalem”, “Best Seller”, “Their Problem”, “Bowen: My Critics Are "Enemies of Impartiality"”, “SUCCESS: BBC Apologises for Al-Dura Inaccuracy”, “Israel Bashers Bash the Beeb”, “HRC Rebuts Mayor's Diatribe in Journal de Montreal”, “Guardian Israel Obsession Reaches New Heights: Flotilla Stats”, “When concept trumps reality?”, “Cairo court rules on Egyptians married to Israeli women”, and (in a different vein) “The Never-Ending Lynching of Sholom Rubashkin” and (the very worthwhile read as it exposes some serious hypocrisy) “A modest proposal for solving the kosher slaughter problem”.

Topic 2:  Other Islam-related things going on:  “BP, Kaddafi, and Britain’s Oil Comeuppance”, “Eurological Problem (2007)”, “Turkish Tomorrow?”, “Barcelona will ban use of face-covering Islamic veil in city buildings”, “Deafening silence from Left as Iranians protest”, “Islamic Sharia Law to Be Banned in Oklahoma”, “World Cup 2010: Somali football fans executed for watching matches” (I cannot make this up, and I do not understand it), “Appeal for Afghan Christians, sentenced to death for their faith”, “Target killing count continues to rise”, “Surge for Dutch anti-Islam Freedom Party”, “Ahmadis press for protection”, “Egyptian Couple Shot by Muslim Extremists Undaunted in Ministry”, “The killing of a Christian businessman in Kirkuk rekindles fear among Christians”, “Muslims Order Christians to Leave Village in Pakistan”, “Prisoners convert to Islam for jail perks” (definitely the wrong reason to convert), and “Chain e-mail claims Muslims will be a majority in U.S. in 20 years”.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor, which deals with a commonly voiced paranoia:  “Consequences Of Gay Marriage”.  I do not support gay marriage, but this graph gets it right as to what would happen if homosexual marriage were allowed.

Peace.

Aaron