tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68395081739097463882024-03-08T00:17:58.714-08:00All the Questions to my AnswersAyla Adlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16495747342876802328noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6839508173909746388.post-12443780620953683572014-01-01T23:40:00.000-08:002014-01-01T23:50:25.184-08:00Not Caroling for Holot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Garamond;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">When asylum-seekers from
Eritrea and Sudan walked out of the Holot Prison last week, they walked out of
obscurity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until then, even many people
like myself who had been involved in their community six years ago when they first
spilled into Israel—and who, three years later, had protested against the Holot
prison—had allowed them to disappear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The truth was, even though I live in the Negev, I wasn’t even sure
exactly where Holot had been built.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">At
the same time, Christmastime was making me homesick for family and
friends-who-knew-me-before-I-was-forty; I had this embarrassing impulse:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted to Christmas Carol for the Holot prisoners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew that only some, Eritreans, were
Christian, and that even they celebrated the Coptic Christmas on January 7<sup>th</sup>,
and that anyway, neither they nor most Israelis would know the songs that I, an
American Jew, had grown up on (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Silent
Night, Little Drummer Boy, Oh Holy Night</i>…), but I felt, somehow, that it
would bless them, and us, if we, their Negev neighbors, knocked on their door
and sang these Noels of love and devotion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was six years ago that my friend, Tsehaye showed me
how if you want to reach out to people, you simply show up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tsehaye had overheard me, a stranger then, on
the telephone talking to Israeli NGOs about wanting to help African refugees,
and he’d approached me, saying, “I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">am</i>
an African refugee.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like many, Tsehaye
had walked from Eritrea through Sudan and Egypt into Israel, all along risking
his life, imprisonment, and paying enormous bribe money to human
smugglers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He offered to take me to
South Tel Aviv to meet his community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that, I visited people at
the shelter once a week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was there
that I finally met the NGO workers I’d been trying to connect with by telephone,
but really, they were just people doing what I was doing and a lot more of it:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>learning what people needed, trying to help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So it was with Tsehaye’s guidance in mind that I simply
put an event on Facebook:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Caroling for Holot”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>it was happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was only
one person I was sure would come:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>SH of
+972 Mag commenting fame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had met
each other commenting on the site and had been in touch for years, but until
Thursday, had never met in person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
creating the event, I posted confident posts, though in truth, I suspected SH
and I would be singing duets. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But Tsehaye taught me this, too:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>if you show up, somehow, it will be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it was. Four others joined us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had a mat to lay on the desert ground, a car
full of food and gifts (hats, scarves, socks), and a packet full of Christmas lyrics;
what more could we need? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One thing we were very curious about was this
oxymoron:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Open Prison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Israel calls it an Open Detention Center, but
it’s impossible to distinguish between Ketsiot, the old prison the refugees
call “The Palestinian Prison”; Saharonim, the other prison in which African
refugees have been detained; and Holot, the new, “open” place, all three a part
of one complex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, prisoners refer
to them interchangeably; I received an SMS from a prisoner, thanking us for our
visit, referring to himself as “Emmanuel from Saharonim”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were not surprised when we showed up to
heavy security between ourselves and the prisoners; the gate was padlocked, the
security intense, as they came out slowly, one by one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We’d also received word that since the week before, not many
prisoners remained in Holot, since the hundreds who had walked had been punished
by being put back in Saharonim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we
were surprised to learn from the remaining prisoners—35 (20 Eritreans, 15
Sudanese according to Aman from Eritrea)—all who seemed to join us that day—that
they prefer Saharonim to Holot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First of all, it’s nicer; Saharonim has
televisions in the rooms and a library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Secondly, from Saharonim, there is at least the hope of getting
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From Holot—Sands, in English—you
aren’t going anywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was reminded of an Eritrean refugee I’d met
in the Tel Aviv shelter so many years ago, Solomon, who had told me that he’d
been in a Sudanese prison for twenty years, but never had he been as depressed
as he was now that he’d come to Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“At least then,” he’d told me, “I could dream of being free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, we are stuck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can’t work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not a life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Two
lawyers from Hotline for Migrant Workers who showed up to Holot at the same
time as us explained it this way:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Israel
calls this an ‘open center’; how can one be released from a place that is open?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hopelessness is the strategy:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>if people have no hope, they might sign their
own release forms to go back to their countries of origin; countries in which the
human rights are so bad, it’s against international law to deport them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that they’ve all been in Holot for
one, two, some three years now with no chance of release and have chosen to
stay should be proof enough for anyone believing the Israeli government, who
had the nerve to tell even the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NY Times</i>
that most Africans here are economic refugees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If Israel had a Refugee Status Determination process (for non-Jews) like
every other democracy in the world, the asylum-seekers’ status could be
determined objectively, by the UNHCR,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but
Israel has no such policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Really?” we
asked the prisoners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It isn’t a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bit</i> better to be in Holot, where at
least you can take a walk?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they are
in the middle of the desert, not far from Nizana border crossing to Egypt, with
three mandatory roll calls a day; where is there to go?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s only one thing that makes Holot more
advantageous than Saharonim, and that’s that they can come out if people visit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until they put themselves back in the
spotlight last week, no one had been visiting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We actually had a great time, picnicking desert style, exchanging
stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They all speak Hebrew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I arrived in this country around the same
time as them and although I’ve been embarrassed not to have learned more, I’ve
never felt ashamed until I visited Holot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“It’s easier for us,” Amman told me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Hebrew and Tgrinya are very similar.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He pointed to his finger:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>etzba;
atsabe’ta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To his hand:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>yad; ea-d.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To his leg:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>regel; egri.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In fact, Tgrinya comes from Ge’ez, the language in which Ethiopian
Torahs are scribed, in which older generations of Ethiopian Jews still pray. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Still,
we had enough language between us for me to understand that their wives and
children are living on the outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Holot
is separating families, and for what?” they asked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want to be with their children, who speak
fluent Hebrew by now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want to be learning,
working.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What should we bring them when
we return?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Toothbrushes and dictionaries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">We
didn’t sing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just didn’t feel
right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we’d seen them coming out,
we’d scrambled to set up our mat, and later, once we’d all met each other, what
were we going to do; suddenly break out in song?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Holot is not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glee</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe if we’d already been
caroling when they’d been coming out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe when we go back for their Christmas on January 7<sup>th</sup>,
we’ll greet them with these songs of love and devotion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But somehow, I doubt it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just to show up, to connect—to make sure they
know they aren’t forgotten, to keep pressure on the Israeli government to
remember the values on which Israel is founded and get a refugee policy like
every other developed country—this is what we can do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When we were ready to leave, there were still two
unmatched socks that we’d brought as gifts—new, thermal wool; one dark brown,
one black—remaining; someone must have taken a mismatched pair by mistake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But still, they were warm, new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really, we asked—no one wanted them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, they said; they didn’t match.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried to remember if my own socks matched
that day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when all of your decencies
have been taken, you hold on to what you can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Ayla Adlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16495747342876802328noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6839508173909746388.post-24470904386882692842012-11-28T10:22:00.000-08:002012-11-29T13:59:20.278-08:00A Pillar Of Cloud<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Seven days of War in Facebook Status Updates: </span></h2>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Thursday, November 15th:</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14px;">"Whenever there is war or warfare here--as there is now, very close to my home and personally affecting many people I care about--facebook is full of status updates from Israel supporters (many of them far away, some here) saying: The Media doesn't show how many rockets have fallen on Israel! The media only shows what we do; not what is done to us! and also from Palestinians and Palestinian suppo<div class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">
rters--and I really understand this from people in Gaza right now--saying, The media has forgotten us! This is happening to us! And I understand, but it's as if we're all children going to Mom and Dad to say: this happened to me! He did this to me! When what we need now is to turn to each other, brothers and sisters, and say: I am so sorry this is happening to you. I don't want to hurt you. Please, let's fight together, against the media, against the so-called leaders, who turn us as pawns against each other. I am not against you."</div>
</span></h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span></span><br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Friday, November 16th</span></h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="uiGrid fbStreamTimelineGrid" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 799px; word-wrap: normal;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="vTop" style="text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><div class="plm logStoryContent" style="padding-left: 10px; width: 225px;">
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
</h5>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"></span></span><br />
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="display: inline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">"My friends and family in the States keep asking me what's really going on here. The truth is that if you live here, the inside perspective is daily life. I should say, first, that I am very, very safe where I live, everyone--it's very quiet here. I work in Be'er Sheva where rockets are falling, but I work there once a week, and the University where I teach is closed now. For rockets...). Daily lif</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">e here is knowing that my friends in Be'er Sheva are undergoing sirens constantly and are in and out of bomb shelters, with their children. After a siren goes off, there is the loud boom of a missile falling, somewhere. Daily life is knowing about how people I don't know personally but care about nonetheless in other desert towns west of me are experiencing this even more constantly. It's knowing that my friends in Tel Aviv are experiencing a brand new alertness and for many of them, fear, because of the attack yesterday that actually fell short of the city (seemingly a warning, or demonstrating capability), but the next one, who knows. It's knowing that my Palestinian friends' relatives are right over the border, experiencing the Hell that is being in Gaza while under Israel's fire. It's reading live blogs out of Gaza from teenagers who can't sleep. Ever. I read the stories of the Israelis who died yesterday (or was it the day before?)--their stories are insanely tragic--beyond sad. I read about the 8 month year old girl killed in Gaza and see her father holding her, weeping, and weep. The inside story is that several of my students are on their way to reserve duty in the army, and so are the sons of some people I love here. That is the inside story. The inside story is: I guess I'm not going to pick olives at my friend's today because I don't want to drive through Be'er Sheva. The inside story is that I have a novel to write, and I'm aware that I could get sucked into this all day to no one's benefit, so I'm going to shut down my internet now until the evening. The inside story is that this is very sad for everyone, and will cost many more innocent lives, and I happen to be on the cynical side of not trusting this particular government at all, and feeling that they chose this action at this time for their own popularity. There are always reasons... I don't want to believe that, especially as people are risking and giving their lives to this operation, but I do believe it. So, I pray.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;">Saturday, November 17th</span></span></h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span></span><br />
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_50b7398906aca5978583481" style="display: inline;">
last night, i lay awake listening to planes--low and fast--heading to gaza, feeling dread and fear for people there. we have seemingly reached a point of no return, here. 75,000 israeli reservists are being drafted. During the war in Lebanon, 60,000 were drafted, and I walked around feeling that all the men were gone. That was before I made friends with all the people who get out of service by<br />
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">
claiming psychological problems (you know, because it's crazy to be sensitive enough not to be able to stand violence), and that was when I started coming down to the Negev, not knowing what else to do with myself during wartime. Now, the Negev is my home. The only place left to go this time is further into this novel I'm writing. Which is where I'm meant to go, I'm sure of it. But I will put this out there: There are anti-war protests now, but most of them are in solidarity with Gaza against Israel. I get that. However. Being against one people in order to be for another does not work. This will never free us. Only solidarity together, against our governments, will free us. This war presents the perfect opportunity, because this one was really created by them, unnecessarily. This one could have, and should have, been avoided. Instead, it may be turning into our biggest war in recent history. I pray not. But it may. Are we willing to rise up, together? This means swallowing a lot of ego (needing to prove rightness or another's wrongness) for the sake of freeing ourselves. Of course this movement can't be only for peace and a return to the way things have been; it must also be for freedom for all. Leave the details out. If we, the people, join together, everything is still possible. This is a turning point in history, in every realm. The moment of power is now.</div>
</div>
"</span></h5>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-size: small; line-height: 14px;">
</span></span></h5>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_50b64c6a7671e0033019324" style="display: inline;">
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_50b64c6a7671e0033019324" style="display: inline;">
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">"L</span><br />
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_50b7398873a5a2b60425758" style="display: inline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">ast post of the day, because I'm weaning myself off: The moon is gorgeous right now. Charlotte and I went for a beautiful walk earlier, and the birds and yaelim/ibex were still enjoying the effects of rain from a few days ago. Also, I'm eating a lot of soup. with beer. The reason I said "this is amazing" on the post I shared about an hour about about soldiers refusing to serve in this war is</span><br />
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">that it went so much against the feeling I'm getting from things around here right now: it seems that most people are feeling depressed because here we go again; some depressed because they've been hard fighting to wake people up, and now this is it--we didn't make any important societal changes since the last war in Gaza, so, inevitably, here we are; some, of course, are raring to go to defend the country--especially with actual rockets falling in Tel Aviv and some before shabbat around Jerusalem. It turns out that the video I shared isn't amazing, because it's from 2009, during the last war in Gaza. I hope it will still inspire some people, and trust that there are people, now, who feel the same. But that is not the mood now. I wish it were. I wish that people didn't accept that things have to be like this. They don't. I'm not saying it's all in Israel's control; I'm saying that this is not, and has never been, the answer. In so many areas of our life right now--environmentally, politically--we are creating or contributing to messes that then, Yes, reach a critical point where something must be done. And it's at that critical point that we have to have tremendous courage to break our patterns. If they have never worked before, they won't work now. If people have been hurt before, they will be hurt again. Alternatives are scary--they are the unknown. They are putting ourselves aside for the greater good. Both sides. We don't need everyone on board for this, just a critical mass. It's possible. It's in our hands.</span></div>
</div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">
"</span><br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px;">Sunday, November 18th</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span></span><br />
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
"</span></span></h5>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span></span>
<h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="uiGrid fbStreamTimelineGrid" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 799px; word-wrap: normal;"></table>
</span></span></span></h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 14px;">"you know it's bad when what you're thinking while they're scraping the plaque off your teeth at the dentist is: It's so quiet here; no army planes."</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 14px;">Monday, November 19th</span></span></h3>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
"W</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">ell-meaning efforts that are killing us:</span></span></h5>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="display: inline;">
1) Jews who care about a just Israel, trying to get the word out about Israel's injustices, but without any sympathy for Israel's actual existential dilemmas and without offering a vision for how it could be on the other side. (I sympathize with this one greatly, but check it out: it's not working, and I understand why. It's not the content; it's the to<br />
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">
ne).<br />
2) Palestinians who denounce any argument made by Jews for Palestinian rights and freedom that includes a vision for both people on this land, and/or care for Israel.<br />
3) Anyone trying to defend their side against the media who hath wronged them. People are dying. Fuck PR. You want to look better to the outside world? Care about everyone. Use your suffering as a victim to empathize with others who are suffering; only then will you transform your suffering into healing.<br />
4) All talking points. Israel has the right to defend itself. Palestine has the right to resist. Blah blah blah blah blah. Shut up.<br />
5) Anti-normalization. If you're jewish and you've never heard of this, sorry, but you know nothing about this conflict today. Palestinians, seriously, stop it; you've taken this way too far and you're killing everything good, and there ain't much left (pun intended). show up and change it from within. don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. don't make me use more cliches.<br />
6) Everyone feeling depressed and powerless right now. Yes, you. Me. Us. This is a time of citizen revolution. Arab Spring. Occupy Everything. We must rise up together against our governments who are using us as pawns against each other and say No. Jews: don't say no against Israel; say no against War and for Palestinian sovereignty (no peace without this and it's the only moral way). Palestinians: don't say you won't fight until there's justice; I understand the mistrust, but if you begin with the problems, there's no way out. If we join together--the one thing we haven't tried and continue to block--we will feel empowered like never before and then we will have a vision for the way things can be, and with that vision, we can get there. Somehow. Imperfectly and sloppily, like all love."</div>
</div>
</span></span></h5>
</div>
<br />
<h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: small;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span></span>
<br />
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-size: small; line-height: 14px;">
"if you are fighting a PR war on Israel's behalf, you are killing israel."</span></span></h5>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span>
"well I woke up grumpy today, didn't I. something about sleeping with the sound of army planes overhead and waking to read about who died last night. signing off for now. ♥"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span></span><br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></div>
"so a friend who I met via political commenting on +972 mag added me to this small, underground-esque fb group in which the sweetest group of Israelis I've ever wanted to be friends with (I don't' know any of them) post lines from literature they love, and the rest have to say what it's from. often, passionate discussions follow about the book. It's almost all in Hebrew (unless the book was written </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">in English, in which case it's often classics; not the contemporary, literary fiction my american reader and writer friends would cite) for which I need Google Translate, and like all fb groups, it clogs up my email inbox, but even though I can barely participate, I can't quit because in the middle of this hateful war, little bubbles keep popping up on my fb screen with lines from literature and people who love it and escape to talking about it at this time, and this is somehow the greatest act of faith I can imagine.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_50b64c00b32753a12583618" style="display: inline;">
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">
</div>
</div>
</h5>
<div>
<br /></div>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
</h5>
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
"the only good things to do during a war are write your novel and eat and drink and make love and walk in nature. not fight about the war, on Facebook. Good night, and good luck."</h5>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px;">Tuesday, November 20th</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><div>
<br /></div>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="uiGrid fbStreamTimelineGrid" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 799px; word-wrap: normal;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="vTop hRght logStoryControls" style="text-align: right; vertical-align: top; width: 70px;"><div class="stat_elem fbTimelineLogStoryControl">
<div class="uiSelector inlineBlock mls audienceSelector fbTimelineAllActivityAudienceSelector audienceSelectorNoTruncate dynamicIconSelector uiSelectorRight uiSelectorNormal uiSelectorDynamicTooltip" style="display: inline-block; margin-left: 5px; max-width: 200px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; zoom: 1;">
<div class="wrap" style="position: relative;">
<a aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="1" aria-label="Your friends" class="uiSelectorButton uiButton uiButtonSuppressed uiButtonNoText" data-hover="tooltip" data-label="" data-length="30" data-tooltip-alignh="right" data-tooltip="Your friends" href="http://www.facebook.com/ayla.adler/allactivity#" rel="toggle" role="button" style="-webkit-box-shadow: none; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% -295px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: auto; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: transparent; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: transparent; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: transparent; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 13px; margin-top: -4px; max-width: 169px; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 2px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;"><i class="mrs defaultIcon customimg img sp_cqf546 sx_731793" style="background-image: url(http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v2/yI/x/4jB4tvIAAbU.png); background-position: -192px -14px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: auto; display: inline-block; height: 16px; margin-left: -2px; margin-right: -5px; margin-top: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 17px;"></i><span class="uiButtonText" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 169px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 1px; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;"></span></a></div>
<select style="border-bottom-color: rgb(189, 199, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(189, 199, 216); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(189, 199, 216); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(189, 199, 216); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; display: none; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px; padding-top: 2px;"><option value=""></option><option value="80">Public</option><option selected="1" value="40">Friends</option><option value="127">Friends except Acquaintances</option><option value="10">Only Me</option><option value="111">Custom</option><option value="2411170285081">Close Friends</option><option value="2411170365083">Ben-Gurion University of the Negev</option><option value="See all lists...">See all lists...</option><option value="1036324794803">friends (sort of)</option><option value="2419699578308">Northwestern University</option><option value="2419566774988">Shaker Heights High School</option><option value="2411170445085">Sde Boker Area</option><option value="2411170405084">University of Michigan</option><option value="2411170325082">Family</option><option value="2639455072058">Acquaintances</option><option value="Go Back">Go Back</option></select></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 14px;">"so we've all been hearing about this ceasefire scheduled for 11:30 tonight. Until ten minutes ago, army planes were flying over us incessantly, heading in the direction of Gaza. People in Gaza were posting about explosions. Now: silence. One hour before. Is *this* how it works? Crazy."</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span></span><br />
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"the silence is pregnant with prayer."</span></h5>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span></span><br />
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
"planes are back. I haven't read about it yet, but this is my guess: no one would be the first to stop, so no one stopped. boys."</span></span></h5>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span></span>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
Wednesday, November 21st</span></span></h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
<div>
<br /></div>
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">"My family called hysterical--did I hear about the bus and that there's no ceasefire and am I okay and Iran is scary? I was drinking a beer and grading a student paper in our desert town's only cafe; I'm okay. I mean, physically, in terms of my safety, I'm okay. I have a thin skin; I'm not bred for this. I'm upset. But I'm safe. Today I hung out on the street, talking to friends from Ramallah, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">Bethlehem, Israel, and Zambia. Yes, Zambia. Why not. Everyone is, in their own way, okay, and upset. People in Bethlehem, who, you know, are Palestinian, are worried about being hit by Hamas rockets. This place is one big grey zone; don't let the news tell you otherwise. Word now from my journalist friends that there is a ceasefire scheduled, again, for tonight. But people--our friends, our students, people's sons--are still being called for reserve (army) duty. The sky from here is the quietest it's been since this all started--nothing heading to Gaza. Nearing ceasefire? Placating Hillary? (Nah, they don't give a shit). Turning into a ground war? Here is my question to you, locals: who here feel safer than they did a week ago? Safer with Jabari dead? Safer in any way? You think you'd feel safer months from now if you went into Gaza on the ground and destroyed whatever there is to destroy? We are all, all of use, a lot less safe today than we were on November 15th, and a lot of what's been done cannot be undone. murders, for example. An intifada seems to be brewing, and that has nothing to do with whether or not we cease fire. A Palestinian friend told me that some of the aggression is against Fatah, so internal Palestinian fighting. It's not brewing from this week. It's from, for starters, over a year of peaceful West Bank protests, gone completely unanswered, unnoticed. No one is more safe today than we were last week. It never, ever works that way. But we do it again and again anyway. A lovely student told me today that if he's called up, he goes. Look what's happening in Tel Aviv. What to do? "Are you willing to die for this?" I asked him. He has a two year old daughter and a wonderful wife who made us cupcakes for my class today. He looked to the ground, then back to me. "What to do?" he said.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
</h5>
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="uiGrid fbStreamTimelineGrid" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 799px; word-wrap: normal;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="vTop hRght logStoryControls" style="text-align: right; vertical-align: top; width: 70px;"><div class="stat_elem fbTimelineLogStoryControl">
<div class="uiSelector inlineBlock mrs fbTimelineAllActivityStorySelector dynamicIconSelector uiSelectorRight uiSelectorNormal uiSelectorDynamicTooltip" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 5px; max-width: 200px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; zoom: 1;">
<div class="wrap" style="position: relative;">
<a ajaxify="/ajax/timeline/show_story_options.php?profile_id=1425980371&story_fbid=4992640980235&story_row_time=1353051357&activity_log=1&story_dom_id=uqpfddr4" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="1" aria-label="Allowed on Timeline" class="uiSelectorButton uiButton uiButtonSuppressed uiButtonNoText" data-hover="tooltip" data-label="" data-length="30" data-tooltip-alignh="right" data-tooltip="Allowed on Timeline" href="http://www.facebook.com/ayla.adler/allactivity#" rel="toggle" role="button" style="-webkit-box-shadow: none; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% -295px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: auto; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: transparent; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: transparent; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: transparent; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; height: 16px; line-height: 13px; margin-top: -4px; max-width: 169px; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 2px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;"><i class="mrs defaultIcon customimg img sp_eq819g sx_6af0b0" style="background-image: url(http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v2/yt/x/75_SvEMsnnP.png); background-position: 0px -36px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: auto; display: inline-block; height: 16px; margin-left: -1px; margin-right: -1px; margin-top: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 16px;"></i><span class="uiButtonText" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 169px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 1px; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;"></span></a></div>
</div>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span><br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
<ul class="uiList mbm uiStream timelineAllActivityStream fbProfileStream translateParent _4kg _704 _4kt" data-referrer="timeline_all_activity_stream_2012_11" id="timeline_all_activity_stream_2012_11" style="list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 100px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">
<li class="activityDayHeader uiListItem" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: block; line-height: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thursday, November 22nd</span></li>
<li class="activityDayHeader uiListItem" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: block; line-height: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span></span></li>
<li class="activityDayHeader uiListItem" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: block; margin-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">"<span class="Apple-style-span">What</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; line-height: 17px;"> it's like to be leftwing in Israel: you wake up the morning after the ceasefire, after sleeping for twelve straight hours--the first night all week you haven't lay awake at night listening to army planes flying into gaza, waking to read the list of the dead--to hear that two palestinian homes were demolished in Silwan. You can't even believe that one of your friends still has the heart to post this on Facebook. You know that nobody cares. You know that since Cast Lead, Israeli journalists and activists have devoted their lives to getting the word out about the actualities of the occupation. You know that no one in Israel, or in the mainstream Jewish American community, is listening. You know that the American Left cares, but understands nothing. You know this because up until recently, you were one of them. You know that most of the people who are listening and do care express this as being against the state of Israel; you know that this is weakening your cause. You know that Palestinians have been fighting weekly, non-violently, to return to their own wells for water, to pick their own olives from their own trees. And you know and that no one knows or cares about these marches. You know that some violent Israelis have been attacking them, and that the IDF has been protecting the Israelis. You know that anyone who marches--Palestinian and Israelis together--risks being tear-gassed and skunk-sprayed and wounded or killed by rubber bullets or tear gas canisters. You know that another man from the Tamimi Family was killed this way during the war, or as Israelis call it, the "situation", this past week. You know that most Israelis don't know this, or who he is, or what this means. You know that most Palestinians do. You wonder how any journalist can still have the will to go to work and try to get the word out now that we've circled back to another war in Gaza that left the majority of Israelis wanting to go back and pummel the place. It is easier to imagine being the activist; at least they get to hang out with each other and cool Palestinians and feel good about the world that day. But they risk the most heartbreak. Hamas is awful. They drag their own people to death. No Jewish Israeli likes Hamas. Not the left, not the right; no one. We, the left, just don't want to go kill a bunch of children to find ourselves in a less safe place than we were in before it all began. What to do? Let's start with: not that. Let's start with accounting for our side of the responsibility for what's happened since 1947 and hasn't stopped to Palestinians. We know what's happened to us, and I am not discounting that, but we don't know what we've done. We're so sure we have the moral high ground, and legal high ground that we don't don't look and don't see. No one has the moral high ground, here. Everyone is responsible for every dead child. There's enough, here for everyone. There's enough on this planet for everyone. Enough food, enough water. There's room in the Holy Land for everyone to live, to benefit from the richness of each other's cultures that all run deep on this land. But we keep damming rivers and pumping potash and grabbing land and genetically modifying food and torturing animals so we can eat them and not looking at ourselves. Look. That's all I'm asking. Take a Breaking the Silence tour. Read an article by Amira Hass. Talk to some Palestinians who grew up in the territories. Look. And then we'll see what we should do."</span></span></li>
</ul>
</h3>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Friday, November 23rd</span></span></h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"rain in the desert. shabbat shalom."</span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;">
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"></span>
<br />
<h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">
</span></h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">
<ul class="uiList mbm uiStream timelineAllActivityStream fbProfileStream translateParent _4kg _704 _4kt" data-referrer="timeline_all_activity_stream_2012_11" style="list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 100px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">
<li class="activityDayHeader uiListItem" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: block; font-size: 11px; line-height: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span></li>
</ul>
</span></h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
</div>
Ayla Adlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16495747342876802328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6839508173909746388.post-41320722592468147292011-12-07T15:47:00.000-08:002011-12-09T01:30:39.215-08:00To Know You is Not to Love You<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">I just returned from a Jewish, silent meditation retreat up in the Lower Galilee’s Or HaLev. Although I live in the middle of the Negev, overlooking nothing but desert, I needed this retreat; my mind has been active with clutter. There is a spiritual teaching, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">energy flows where attention goes, </i>and lately, I’ve been addicted to comment threads on <a href="http://972mag.com/">http://972mag.com/</a>, a challenging news blog from Israeli and Palestinian journalists, where I’ve been engaging in political discourse with a regular cast of characters. No matter what thoughtful commentary the 972 Journalists offer, most readers fire back with pre-programmed responses aligned with whatever beliefs they clung to before reading. The few moments we’ve managed to break free of talking points have been moving, but, sadly, rare. More often, commenters are committed to their certainty that they know everything about everyone else.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Some labels thrown around in these threads include: settler, Zionist, liberal Zionist, religious right winger, anti-Israeli/Zionist leftist, and this just in from a Jewish American man, “obscenely hypocritical” leftist Jewish immigrants to Israel (that’s me). We use these labels the way highschoolers do to make sense of their world: jocks, druggies, popular kids… And we do so for the same reasons: to separate, through judgment, ourselves from others in order to feel superior, in order to know where to sit in the cafeteria, in order to have a place to sit in the cafeteria, and mostly to avoid the complexities of this world, ourselves. This is the age of separation via the very religions that connect us—consciously or unconsciously—to this Land. It is one of the greatest tragedies of our time that the essence of God—the interconnectedness of everything—is used, including by vehement non-believers, for the purpose of disconnection. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We first arrived at the meditation retreat just in time for one meal before entering silence. As we registered, I filled out a form about my meditation history and was told by a man I’d just met that he did not like my old teacher. During the meal, some American new immigrants were talking loudly about their Israeli army service, and a dear friend of mine—a peace activist—whispered, “I didn’t come here to listen to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>,” to which I whispered back, “don’t worry—soon we won’t have to know anything about each other.” Another woman, who, incidentally, is orthodox and lives in a settlement, discovered that a group of young women were from Be’er Sheva and asked, “How did they<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>know about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this</i>?” Across the room, I could see someone I knew who worked with Rabbis for Human Rights, several men (and one woman) in kippot, a Haredi man, a man with an artificial ear (had he lost his to war?), religious students from Jerusalem, and secular residents of Tel Aviv. The tables were lined up as one, long banquet, yet people sat in packs. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There is nothing inherently Jewish about a silent meditation retreat: stay in silence for a prolonged period, practice mindfulness in everything from eating to walking to washing your face, sit on your cushion often, follow your breath, and when thoughts or feelings arise, as they do in humans, simply observe them before waving them goodbye. When that same thought or feeling returns (and it will—the mind is persistent), acknowledge it again, return to your breath. This action is not unlike the tool “redirect” that I used to train my dog, except in this case, I’m the dog and the trainer. Through this practice, one experiences a knowing that you are not your thoughts, you are not your feelings; you are more expansive than your mind, even than your “you”. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What makes silent retreats like this one “Jewish”—besides that the teachers talk a lot and the retreatants, too, can ask unlimited questions—is that they are run by Jews, many of whom are rabbis, and when we wake, we gather together to chant the morning prayers—our voices arising out of silence—about gratitude, compassion, and awe. Sometimes, teachers will connect basic mindfulness teachings to Judaism, though they’re just as likely to connect them to teachings of monks or Sufis. If the retreat runs over Shabbat, there are Shabbat meals, prayers, and practice, together in silent communion. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On this retreat, there was also an option to go to the community mikveh, something that, because I am not married, I’ve never had permission to do according to Jewish Law. As we waited for our turn to disrobe, shower, and immerse ourselves in ritual water before God with whatever intentions we were bringing for purification, healing, or rebirth, the woman helping at the Mikveh asked us, since many of us were first-timers, if we had any questions. What began with quiet questions about what to expect quickly snowballed into judgments of various tones: Did the Jewish laws around mikveh imply that menstruation made women unclean? Did the fact that only married women could participate mean that the Orthodox world denied the reality of non-marital sex? Did our own religion deem us unholy? Yet for some reason, nearly every woman returning to that waiting room after her mikveh was moved to tears. We lingered in that room, together, long after our turn had come and gone, our hair wet from timeless ritual, from inclusion, immersion; from our womb-like experience, alone with God.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At the end of the retreat, there is a gratitude circle, and people were invited to share their experiences. One woman told us she had never felt connected to Judaism until the retreat. A Haredi man, who had sat beside me the whole time, shared that although it was strange for him to practice with women, he felt more connected to prayer on these retreats than ever before. I shared how surprised I’d been to care about being included in the mikveh. And then one of the young men my friend and I had heard, days earlier, talking about his army service, spoke. He said that just after going into silence, he’d regretted not asking a man he’d met that evening about where exactly he lived, what he did for work, or how many children he had in order to know this man, but now, none of those things seemed to matter. Now, he’d experienced this man through his small, kind gestures; the essence of his being. In fact, he'd seen all of us this way; so much beauty. He vowed from this point forward to truly experience people, rather than to try to know them. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">It took me one hour upon returning home to check in with +972 Magazine’s comment threads. They hadn’t changed. What had changed was that now, I could feel the pain of everyone involved; the longing to connect to the beauty within ourselves, each other, each piece of fruit, spider, clump of soil. I could feel our yearning to be included, to include; to recognize and be recognized. I could feel the suffering we endure in order to deny ourselves the love this world is offering us, every moment of every day. <o:p></o:p></div></div>Ayla Adlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16495747342876802328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6839508173909746388.post-68454665375928713932011-08-10T03:21:00.000-07:002011-08-26T19:12:24.698-07:00Family Therapy for the Whole World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">I’m an American Jew, living in Israel. In fact, I just became a dual citizen. This is the only language I’m comfortable using when I tell anyone about my status change—a change I made for the spiritual purpose of being in one place at one time; to reflect the truth—that this is currently my home where I live, work, and pay taxes; and for the logistic purpose of allowing me to stay beyond the expiration of my visa—how much longer, I do not know. The majority of Jews in the diaspora call this “making aliyah”—ascending, and moving one’s life to the Promised Land. I wasn’t raised with Zionist ideals or even Zionist awareness; moving here was never on my radar. Even now, I don’t feel I’ve moved to the State of Israel, but rather to the Negev, a desert whose rocks and land called me to come, then called me to stay, and then to stay longer; a desert whose voice long precedes this State, but certainly holds the voices of my own ancestors, along with so many others’. Nonetheless, I cannot pretend that having Israeli Citizenship—a controversial privilege as well as status—does not come with the responsibility of being a part, now, of the conflict, here. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This land is full of such rich narratives, each of them carrying truth; what makes the news, by the time it’s boiled down to the jargon of good guys and bad guys, is not even the 10% of the visible iceberg. As a writer, and a human being, I collect these narratives. I absorb them. I try to find a way to carry them all within me. Even when some narratives don’t seem to include much objective truth, I listen with my heart to the person whose story has led them to their understanding. There is always truth, there, and often it is more powerful than facts. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because this is the way I experience the world, I am often accused by friends who are personally connected to this land of not seeing The Real Truth, and willfully not letting that Truth in. They come at me armed with information—so much information!—about what really happened in 1948 and long before, or 1967, or about Hamas, or about the ethics of the Israeli Army, or etc. As a writer, I understand that there is a way in which this very essay would be stronger if I were including more concrete examples, yet it is those very examples that lead us into the downward spiral of our own personal hell. If I add any detail to these arguments, someone reading will need to respond with counter arguments, and we’ll all go home feeling sick and hopeless. This is exactly why the current “Social Justice Revolution” in Israel is struggling with how to take on certain issues; they know where that snowball goes, and are enjoying an unprecedented moment of unified, if vague, activism. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Recently, however, something happened, my reaction to which will, tragically, make some of my Jewish friends in the diaspora feel gratified. I was talking to one of my dearest friends here—to protect her identity I’ll say only that she is Arab and Muslim—and she told me that it was obvious that Al-Qaeda wasn’t behind the September Eleventh attacks; after all, why had over 500 Jews known not to be in the Twin Towers that day? How could some camel-riding men from Afghanistan have pulled off such a high tech operation without the help of the CIA? And my heart sank. I had seen this story floating around the web at some point, but I never expected to hear it from my friend. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One of the many things my Jewish, Israel-loving friends have accused me of is not grasping the magnitude of brainwashing and revisionist history in the Arab world. I tell them that I am aware of this (and, I am); it is simply not where I put my energy, nor where I want to put my energy. I believe that we create each other, and our future, with how we see each other. If we’re always reacting to the places that bring up pain for us, always feeling victimized and defending ourselves, we can never move forward, personally or collectively. This is Family Therapy 101; also Couples Counseling 101. If we spend our energy trying to Right ourselves and make the other side and/or the world see how We are right and They are wrong, we get stuck in our own personal hell. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Instead, I look for the equally true goodness, with empathy, as I find that not only is this better for me, but it actually brings out the true goodness and helps to create a better world. I don't look at a rose-colored surface; I dig deep. I meditate until I experience the ways in which we are all one, not a We and They. And when I do break things down—I look to my own people, Jews and Israelis and Americans, for how we and I can do better. There is, of course, a lot to look at, there. I stand by this way of being. I find this layer of truth to be truer, and more heart-driven, than the reactive surface on which we usually operate.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But when one of my dearest friends, whom I respect tremendously, who is highly educated, has plenty of access to good journalism including English language journalism, and plenty of Jewish friends (Israeli and American alike)—so, plenty of access to the multi-layered tapestry of reality—tells me this Conspiracy Theory as if it is Fact, and tells me that I have bought into the American Story, I feel the weight of how far we have to go.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All you have to do is incite Jews in the Arab world—why did 500 Jews know to stay home that day?—and then you can add any other fiction you want, and it works. Of course, Jews didn’t stay home that day and September Eleventh had exactly nothing to do with Jews, who died in the Twin Towers along with their fellow Arab Americans and everyone else—a demographic melting pot the scope of which is beyond the imagination of most people who have never lived in New York City, a city I resided in for ten years, which I often refer to as my true homeland; New Yorkers, My People. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here in my heart’s other homeland, the Negev, I just spent a day and night with my surrogate Bedouin family, fasting during Ramadan, praying, watching hundreds of thousands praying in Mecca via television, listening to televised sermons of Imams based on the Quran. The values of the Quran are beautiful, and the content full of stories of Moses and Aaron resembling the Torah. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When Islamic terrorist attacks are carried out throughout the world by a small yet organized percentage of Islam, why aren’t respected Islamic Leaders joining together and raising their voice against these attacks carried out in the name of the Quran? Why aren’t they speaking to their own people about this problem in their world, rather than allowing the problem to be ignored, or worse, denied? <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s another lesson I learned in Family Therapy. We can only take responsibility for ourselves, and our own reactions. I will not allow the fact that my dear friend buys into this revisionist history to make me operate from a reactive place, trying to get the truth out. Even here, I had written a paragraph about the September Eleventh hijackers, and then deleted it; this is a level on which I maintain I do not want to engage any more today than I did last week, when my friends accused me of not seeing The Truth. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But I will ask my Arab, Muslim friends to join me in self-reflection, and to call upon their leaders to do the same. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And I will call upon the readers of this entry who are satisfied to see me writing about this subject, in this way, to join me in feeling sad, not gratified. Any response of gratification to this post is just as destructive as denial or reactive accusations against it. If we really want to score any points, let’s feel something. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div>Ayla Adlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16495747342876802328noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6839508173909746388.post-28865648236410740152010-12-16T15:37:00.000-08:002011-06-26T11:08:55.297-07:00Good News From Nowhere<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">When counter groups marched in Tel Aviv’s Human Right’s March last week, stating that <i>Jews deserve rights too</i>—they raised the most important human rights issue of all. Although I trust they didn’t intend this implication, their stance suggests that as Jews, they do not include themselves as humans. Just as serious is what it seems they <i>did</i> intend to suggest: that Jews are separate from other humans, or, more specifically, that rights for others threaten their own. Although it was a group of Jews who took this stand here, we certainly can’t attribute this attitude solely to Jews. I’ve heard Arab friends respond to Jews recounting their suffering—even from parts of Jewish history that have nothing to do with Arabs--such as the Holocaust—by belittling Jewish suffering in favor of their own, as if one person’s pain can negate, or challenge, another’s, when in fact, the opposite is true: your own suffering enables you to empathize with another's. We should thank the group who marched for Jewish Rights vs. Human Rights for raising not only the most poignant issue of the March, but of our time: this idea of separateness, driven by an existential fear that there is not enough of what we need to go around. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">In Israel, a country built by Holocaust survivors and refugees that had to defend itself in war before it could even say “State”, generations of Jewish Israelis have grown up on the doctrine that self-protection against others is a matter of survival. This attitude actually did contribute to Israel’s survival in its early years, but at what cost? As we grow into a more mature nation, we must grow beyond our adolescent defenses; the very mechanisms that once helped us survive are exactly those that later hold us prisoner of ourselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">The deep-seated belief that there isn’t enough love and aren’t enough crops is rooted in our father, Avraham/Ibrihim: In the Torah, it wasn’t possible for Isaac and Ishmael both to live in their father’s home, though when God tells Abraham that he will have a child with Sarah (Isaac), Abraham’s first response is on behalf of Ishmael, and God promises Ishmael a great nation (love, family) and land (place, food). It is clear that Abraham’s love--and God's love--for both sons is strong, yet that is not the emotional experience of either son. What they both take away is that there isn’t enough love to go around. They live in separate lands, though finally, they bury their father together. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">This conflict is then passed through the generations. Isaac and Rebecca bear only two children, twin sons: Jacob and Esau, who battle it out in Rebecca’s womb “as two nations.” Isaac has but one blessing to offer to one of his sons, and although it is meant to go to Esau who managed to be born first, their mother, who favors Jacob, convinces Jacob to trick Isaac into believing he is Esau so that that he can receive the one and only available blessing. After, Jacob has to leave the house so that Esau won’t kill him. Eventually they reconcile in time to bury their father together. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Jacob bears many children, but it is Joseph, his youngest (until much later) who is prophetic and his father’s favorite. His brothers are jealous of their father’s love for Joseph, so they plot to kill him and end up selling him instead to the Ishmaelites. Eventually Joseph and his brother’s reconcile, are each blessed by their father (phew—a little growth), and, that's right: they bury their father together. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">It’s no wonder we, the children of Avraham/Ibrihim, feel that there isn’t enough love for us all. But aren’t we supposed to learn from the Torah—and the Koran whose stories share the same source and roots—not by doing as our ancestors did, but learning from the lessons of their lives? Don’t we know by now that perceiving love as a limited source has caused us nothing but pain, hatred, and war? Don’t we know, now, that love is not a pie? Mothers have enough love for all their children, just as God <i>is </i>love.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Dear Land of Israel, if I could be your beloved therapist for a day—not the therapist who diagnosed you or reduced you or told you what was wrong with you, but the therapist who understood you, <i>saw</i> you, helped you love yourself for who you are—if I could be <i>that</i> therapist, I would say: Listen, Israel. Many terrible things happened to you when you were just born, and long before that. You came into the world fighting your ancestor’s fight, and then you had to fight for your own right to exist, to be yourself, before you could even say your own name. And with time, that fight became not a means to being yourself; it became a part of you. Without that fight, you felt you would have died, or worse: lost yourself. I understand, Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">But now you are grown, capable and deserving and needing of love—love you have to give and receive—and you can act from a place of wholeness now, Israel. You are 60. You can look at your mistakes, grieve them, even ask forgiveness for them, without giving up your self, your right to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">What? Yes, yes. Yes, I know. I know, Israel. I hear you. You are saying: your pain is not all in your subconscious! It’s not all from the distant past, from your ancestors! Just yesterday, <i>yesterday</i>!—you gave something to your brother, something precious to you, which was very hard for you to give! Very hard! And how did your brother react? You’ll tell me how! He hated you! He tried to kill you! <i>Again</i>! Your fear is based on reality! Today! Don’t tell you that it is not! Or you will die!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">I hear you, Israel. I have to say, though, that your brother, too, has an equally painful story—I have heard his as well—and if he were sitting here with you, and you could listen to each other with open hearts, you might be able to hear that the conditions for what you feel, and what he feels, are both present and true and old and new, and that you’re both reacting to something deep and pervasive that hurts you, yourselves, even more than you hurt each other. You feel that when I acknowledge his story, I’m belittling yours, but I am not, Israel, any more than I am belittling his when I speak to you. There is enough love to contain every story, every bit of suffering and pain. And then there is enough love to love you through yourself, beyond yourself, above yourself, into your Self. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">And if some people still hate—and they direct that hate at you—that’s their pain to bear. It has nothing to do with you, really. You can still choose love. Believe me when I say that this will cause the opposite of your death. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">*** <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Three years ago, when I was living in the same Negev community where I live now—Midreshet Ben Gurion—I met Tsehaye, who has since become a dear friend and source of guidance. Tsehaye had entered Israel as a refugee from Eritrea, and when he overheard me saying that I wanted to volunteer with Sudanese refugees, he offered to introduce me to the community in Tel Aviv. At the time, I only understood that there were people in Israel from Darfur. Like many Americans, I had carried Darfur’s genocide with me numbly; now, it seemed, there might be a way to do something. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">When Tsehaye and I arrived in Tel Aviv, he took me from person to person in meetings he had prearranged. <span style="color: #161616;">I’d be talking to one young woman as she held her baby, hearing about how her husband was shot at the water hole while she'd hid, then pregnant, in the forest, and Tsehaye would quietly let us know that I was late for our next appointment. That day, I met dozens of refugees: Yosef, who was raising his young daughter, Lidia, unable to obtain information about his wife who’d been imprisoned in Cairo, and Yergulem, who had watched her son shot by the Egyptian border police as they entered Israel; she was held in Ketsiot prison with her daughter when the Israeli Army brought her son to a hospital, and later buried him, in her absence. They were telling me their stories because they believed I could help. I began coming to them every Monday. Ostensibly I was there to teach English. Really, I was there help in the only way I could: by listening, holding their stories.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #161616; line-height: 150%;">One day, I got a call saying not to come; the community was in mourning on behalf of Mulu, a young, pregnant mother who had crossed the border with her son while her two older children made the journey with their father, her husband. That day, her children had made it into Israel with the news that their father had died along the way. The group had buried him in Egypt. Mulu was later told that he’d died of starvation, feeding their children. </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #161616; line-height: 150%;">Because Mulu was Ethiopian, my Ethiopian friend, Mesfin, and I, decided to bring her native food for cooking from Be’er Sheva. In her tradition, Mesfin explained to me, the person mourning cooks for the community all week. Mesfin, who had lived in Ethiopia all his life and was in Israel earning a Masters degree in Agriculture, had had no idea until that day that people in his own country were suffering from hunger, risking their lives to leave. Farmers living with drought, they couldn’t feed their children. On the way home, Mesfin was very quiet. Eventually, he said, “It doesn’t have to be this way. We have resources in Ethiopia—more than Israel. In Israel, they grow vegetables without earth; fish without water.”</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #161616; line-height: 150%;">Just last week, I talked to Tsehaye, who is now living in the United States with his family, about the proposed detention camp for refugees in Israel. The refugees Tsehaye knew are still here; no one—not a single asylum-seeker here out of 33,000 (and growing)—has ever gotten an exit visa out except for Tsehaye. Because Tsehaye arrived here with an acceptance letter from an American university, he already had permission to enter the U.S.; all he needed was permission to leave. When we talked last week, Tsehaye told me a bit about the time he’d spent in Ketsiot prison when he’d first crossed Israel’s border. A journalist came and told them all that Israel was going to deport everyone who wasn’t from Darfur. They were scared for their lives. “We used to create happy news from no source,” he told me. “We just wanted to hear promising news. We used to hear good news from no where.” </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #161616; line-height: 150%;">***</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #161616; line-height: 150%;">Dear Israel, It doesn't have to be this way. I want you to try this: just for a day, maybe even a week: instead of seeing the world through a magnifying glass on the ways in which you are hated, distrusted, misunderstood—instead of amplifying the bad news, true as it may be—I want you to try to magnify the good. Imagine it if you have to. Imagine the ways in which people are on your side; people are conspiring to help you, to support you. You are loved, Israel. And once you hold that love with you for a while, you may find that it changes you. You may no longer feel that someone else’s suffering threatens your own; that the rights of someone else take the place of yours; that your father has only enough love for one; that you may not get your blessing. Try this, Israel: Good news from nowhere. Can you hear those prison walls, crumbling down, around you? </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #1d1d1d; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #1d1d1d; line-height: 150%;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div></div>Ayla Adlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16495747342876802328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6839508173909746388.post-11328695833564589942010-12-01T15:32:00.001-08:002010-12-10T13:15:40.740-08:00Why Blog<div class="MsoNormal">Until now, I’ve just said no to blogging. For one thing, I don’t read blogs; they seem, to me, too easy, like emailing your question to your professor, rather than going to his or her office for help. When my work hasn’t been published in the in the past, frankly, there has been a reason; I don’t want to be the final authority regarding whether or not my work has an audience. Strangely, I’m patient about publishing. I’m old-fashioned. I like to call my short non-fiction “essays”, put them in an envelope with stamps, and receive the rejection letter in the mail months later, delighting in any hand-written feedback from the person who held it while reading.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perhaps most importantly, I’m working on a novel that covers just about any territory I’d want to blog about; I’m afraid to consider in non-fiction what needs to rise to the surface in fiction. As poet Robert Frost says, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And if there is one subject I particularly don’t want to blog about, it’s Israeli politics. And let’s face it; if it happens here, it’s political. I live here, in Israel, in the Negev. My novel, <i>Measuring Rain</i>, is set in this very desert, and the characters include an American Jewish water scientist, a Bedouin woman, an Ethiopian Jewish Israeli woman, and two North African refugees in Israel: one from Sudan, one from Eritrea. In my wildest fantasies, the book gives me an international platform (see: wildest fantasies) to speak out about refugees, drought, and sustenance, and to start a foundation (wildest) led by my friend, Tsehaye, to provide education for refugee children—wherever they may come from and live at the time—who can’t register for school. Also, I hope to write a beautiful book that moves people, which is good, because the wildest fantasy part can’t come true without a beautiful book. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">A few things happened this past week to convert me into a blogger. Mainly, something shifted here in Israel under Netanyahu’s authority—a shift that makes me feel that not speaking out immediately is actually dangerous. Since African refugees started pouring into Israel roughly four years ago, there have been plenty of Israelis who have devoted their lives to helping, and plenty more who have opened their hearts any way they could. Too, there have been plenty of Israelis who hold fast that we should help only “our own”, a cultural norm I attribute to the existential fear at the root of so many personal, social, and political problems, here. But okay: help your own, help others; see the world in these dichotomies or experience the ways in which everyone and everything is connected; any mulling I have to do over all that can come through my novel however it chooses, however many years from now. Like I said, I'm patient. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This past month, however, the overt, systematic and legalized pressure to fire African asylum-seekers who aren’t permitted to obtain legal work permits, evict them from their homes, and the State’s vote of approval to build a detention camp to house 10,000 asylum-seekers in the Negev has me stunned, heart-broken, and, frankly, scared. I’m afraid for these refugees--most who haven't yet been granted official refugee status and some whom I know personally--but also, for the first time, I’ve joined the fearful masses: I'm afraid for Israel. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">Does no one adhering to these new regulations hear this echo: People fleeing for their lives, seeking asylum, being turned away by the passive indifference of other countries, sent back to their death? These asylum-seekers—whom Netanyahu has recently deemed “infiltrators", a term that caught on quickly—from Eritrea, Ivory Coast, Congo, Somolia and Sudan, have fled genocide, torture and imprisonment just for speaking out, rape, and other atrocities. Once they’ve left their countries illegally—the only way they could—risking their lives and children’s lives—they cannot go back safely. No country along the way is safe for them, either. Unlike most of the refugees who found their way to Israel in the past, these people did not intend to come here. They walked until they were safe. Israel was the first safe place. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Can a country built by refugees and holocaust survivors reconcile rounding people up into a detention camp? Can she reconcile making lists of people who house African refugees, to shame them, as a local Haredi neighborhood did this week, in the name of religious law no less? Can she reconcile a new implementation of fines against employers who have employed certain refugees for years in jobs that no other Israelis want? What happens to a people who promise never to forget, when the very lessons they swear upon manifest in walls, not only around the borders of their country, but around their hearts? Can’t we see that the very way some of us see these “infiltrators” is the way we were seen?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Israel can't grant residency and work permits to every asylum-seeker who crosses her border. No country can do this. But Israel's policies of deterrence are hurting everyone. Where do we see this going? African refugees in Israel have not delighted in being here in mere safety; many have felt more depressed here than ever before. Before, there was the dream of freedom. Now, there is the reality: no permission to work legally to support their family, no way to leave. Israel hasn’t wanted to grant official refugee status, enabling many seek asylum elsewhere, because they don’t want to become known as a portal to the West, thus encouraging more people to sneak across the border. So while many of the refugees here are asylum-eligible in other countries, they can’t go forward, nor can they go back. Israel can’t deport anyone eligible for asylum, and those they can legally deport would be unsafe. As long as Israel is more concerned with deterring people than helping them, everyone is stuck. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This humanitarian crisis is a God-given opportunity for a country built by refugees and survivors--children of refugees and children of survivors--to lead the world in finding international solutions. What is Israel going to ask of the world, and her nations, by way of collective consciousness and responsibility? After all, Israel knows what happens when people take care only of their own. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mostly, what are we, residents and citizens in Israel, going to do to stand up against the pressure to fire and evict our survivor neighbors, leaving them without shelter or means to feed their children? Haven't they lived through enough trauma? What is the rabbinical community going to do to take back Judaism, sending a clear message to Haredi Rabbis who have so much control in Israel that the more they use Halekha to separate, the more they turn the Jewish diaspora off from Israel; the more they turn the secular Jewish community in Israel, secular? What are we going to do to fight against the term "infiltrator", because we know what happens when we dehumanize an entire population? Right now, in the my Negev home, walls are going up to send asylum-seekers back to their death; to build a camp for those who are here. We can say No, in the names of our family members who didn't survive, in the name of every value on which Israel was built. We can say no because if this is the direction in which Israel is going, surely she has forgotten. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">*** </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I said that there were a few things that happened this past week to convert me into a blogger. Here are the others: My friend, Shlomit Zarur, an intuitive counselor and healer, told me, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You know, you think you need your novel in order to have a platform to help refugees (on a large scale), but that’s not really the way it works. It doesn’t work that the world grants you permission because of your book; it works that you see yourself as having that permission because of your book</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At the same time, my journalist friends, Ilene Prusher and Tovah Lazaroff, helped me turn a facebook note about all this into an op ed for Israeli papers. When I did so, I felt an awareness of audience as I never had before. When I write about Israel on facebook, I’m instinctively careful. People who have never lived here already know enough about Israel’s bigotry, aggressiveness, and stubbornness; they don’t tend to understand the context, nuance, or history here, nor can they know anything they don’t read in the papers: news, not stories. I feel a sense of responsibility to share what will open people’s minds, not confirm their outrage. When I began to write for Israelis, however, the context was a given. And what I found, in doing so, was that I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">want </i>to write for Israelis; there is so much at stake, here. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Shlomit was giving me another piece of advice, something concrete and personal that was essentially about getting centered, and as she did, she said: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If you do this, you’ll find all the questions to your answers. </i> I smiled, repeating back to her what she had just said. She started to say<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, I meant…,</i> then stopped. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Ayla Adlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16495747342876802328noreply@blogger.com10