Netroots Nation Sunday Service: Contributors Wanted
Loggersbrat and I will be leading the Sunday Service at Netroots this year. If you are planning on attending the conference, please come join us at 9 AM. We will end well before the community service...
View ArticleYet again, Daily Kos fails to be reality-based
I must draw attention to a diary that is currently, for some reason, featured in the Community Spotlight, that is promoting pure fantasy, in direct contradiction to well established history and...
View ArticlePalestinian 'militants' kill 14 and wound 43 in refugee camp in Syria
The Palestinian Ma'an News Agency reports: 14 Palestinians killed in Syria camp.Angered over the failure of camp leaders to organize demonstrations marking the Naksa, the anniversary of Israel's...
View ArticleD'var Torah: Bechelotecha
As many of you know, I have been collecting words of inspiration for the service at Netroots Nation from people of all religious or philosophical traditions. We have gathered quite a collection, all...
View ArticleD'var Torah: Shelach
“.…in the human condition there is a fundamental life and death struggle with which we are constantly faced – the struggle between the soul and the body. Your body usually chooses death – meaning, the...
View ArticleA View From the Shore - Do Labels Make It Better?
So I've been thinking about labels a lot as I try to organise and prepare for the big changes that are coming up around here.
View Article"Are You a Jewess?"
Over the last fifty years, social norms have evolved such that overt expressions of many forms of prejudice are now taboo. If you live in world in which you rarely, if ever, encounter such prejudices,...
View ArticleFive Years of Capitivity
Saturday marked the fifth occurrence of a most sad anniversary denoting the date when Galid Shalit was captured by Hamas and taken into Gaza as their prisoner.Five years have passed without him once...
View ArticleMondofront: Now with Gilad Atzmon
Though still curiously acceptable in some corners, the Middle East-focused site Mondoweiss has graduated from mere Jew-counting to front-page publishing of Holocaust deniers. In his June 23rd screed,...
View ArticleDoes Nasrallah Support Massacres?
The LA Times reports today that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has called upon Syrians to support the Assad regime as it massacres them in the streets.In a speech late Wednesday, Nasrallah threw his...
View ArticleD'var Torah: Chukat
Parashat Chukat Numbers 19:1-22:1All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being...
View ArticleDvar Torah: Pinchas
First, a personal comment: It's fascinating how a person's life experience shape them.... As I sit here in the great backwoods of Maine and read about the Israelites in the Wilderness, I realize that...
View ArticlePalestinian Territories in Financial Distress
In yesterday's LA Times it was reported that the Palestinian Authority is being faced with increasing financial difficulties. The PA has until July 26 to pay the salaries of its 150,000 government...
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Lyndonville, VT: From homophobia to antiSemitism
Or perhaps in the Northeast Kingdom in general? On the heels of the anti-LGBT bigotry openly practiced by the ownership of the Wildflower Inn, the Caledonian Record is polling the issue, with...
View ArticleD'var Torah: Mas'ei
Parashat Mas'ei Numbers 33:1-36:13This is the final Torah portion in the Book of Numbers. Numbers is essentially a chronicle of the Israelites' 40 years of wandering in the desert between the Exodus...
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Last Known Gay Holocaust Survivor Dies
Edited to correct a typo Rudolf and Edi were partners for nearly 60 years, not 30 as originally noted.Multiple European news sources are reporting that Rudolf Brázda, believed to be the last gay...
View ArticleReminder: NYC Meetup Monday 8/15!!!
Time flies fast, and suddenly the Great Brooklyn DailyKos Meetup is right around the corner - Monday, to be precise! And the long-range forecast is: warm conversation, with a strong chance of mojitos...
View ArticleD'var Torah: Va'Etchanan
Parashat Va'Etchanan Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11With apologies, I didn't realize until this afternoon that no one had signed up to write this week's d'var Torah. This week's portion is very complicated so...
View ArticleDvar Torah: Re'eh
A bit of background, for those new to this: This week's parsha (the weekly Torah portion reading in the synagogue) is Re'eh (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17). The overall theme of this week's parsha is the...
View ArticlePalestinian Statehood - From Agnosticism to Agreement
A few days ago I wrote an article concerning the Palestinian attempt at Statehood called: Confusion in Palestine... The Upcoming Vote. In that article (I like that word much more) I wrote the...
View ArticleJewish Holidays: Calling for Volunteers
It occurs to me that with so many folks boycotting the site this week (fight the good fight, my friends!), I'd better get this out tonight. The Jewish holiday season begins in just a couple of weeks...
View ArticleHell Yes I'm In
I have nothing but solidarity with Daily Kos' black community from what I have experienced trying to tamp down antisemitism at this site.What is Kos thinking? How could he possibly think that...
View ArticleForgiveness: "Getting Even Has Never Healed a Single Person"
I am teaching a college course on research methods and last week, I taught a lesson on ethics in research. This is one of my favorite lessons in the course because I get to discuss the details of some...
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Should I Quit the ACLU Over Durban?
I have been a "card-carrying" ACLU member since 2000, which is basically all of my adult life. I take the First Amendment extremely seriously. I especially think that the defense of our liberty from...
View ArticleWhy Israel Should Be A Jewish State
The same reason that Italy should be an Italian state, and Germany should be a German state, and Russia should be a Russian state.Peoples are entitled to self-determination. It's in the UN charter.A...
View ArticleJews Are A People. Deal With It.
Many people on this website apparently want to deny my ethnicity, culture, and heritage - to pretend it doesn't exist, or even that I have invented it. Well I'm here to tell those folks something.I am...
View ArticleThe Days of Awe
The ten days between Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur - the Jewish new year and Day of Atonement are called the Days of Awe. The Book of Life is opened on Rosh Hashannah and the upcoming year is noted....
View ArticleDiverse Jewish Heritage in Music
All too often Judaism is seen as a homogeneous religion, a homogeneous culture. Yet it is, under its image of unity, an extremely diverse religion. It is one of the few religions I know where atheism...
View ArticleWhy You Should Want Israel To Be A Jewish And Democratic State
How should Israel be constituted in a just resolution to the I/P conflict? The standard consensus viewpoint that Israel should emerge as the "Jewish and democratic state" has recently received a lot...
View ArticleOct. 14, 1943: Jewish Rebellion at Sobibor Death Camp
There is an image of Jews going tamely to slaughter in the Holocaust. And it is true, for various reasons, this did happen all too often. But some Jews stood up and fought, even at times defeating the...
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#Bialys - Muslim/Jewish Harmony - I'm Choked Up With Emotion
This is one of those stories that is a rare bit of uncontroversial feel good news, and I think it deserves a short diary.Most Americans are familiar with bagels and their chewy wholesome deliciousness,...
View ArticleSwastikas and Torched Cars. In 2011. In Brooklyn.
Two days ago people around the world marked the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi orgy of public antisemitic violence and property that alerted the world to the horrors of that regime and...
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World AIDS Day: My Fabulous Disease
"So, am I HIV-positive?""Oh, you're definitely HIV-positive", said the nurse, turning away.So began a new chapter, not with a bang, or even a whimper, just a chilling new reality casually announced....
View ArticleWorld's Oldest Hate Increases As We Enter Another Year
Getting into the season, here's sufganiyot (donuts) representing each officially documented antisemitic hate crime recorded in the United States of America just over this past year (as of October...
View ArticleIt only took 1,500 years
The internet is still relatively young, not even 50 years even if you count precursors, but the concept of hypertext is much older. One of the earliest written examples of hypertext is the Talmud, the...
View ArticleOrthodox rabbis condemn violence against girls in Israel
In response to the violence against girls attending a religious school in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel, well documented in this diary, a group of mostly American Orthodox rabbis has issued a statement...
View ArticleD'var Torah: VaYigash
Parashat VaYigash Genesis 44:18-47:27With apologies if anyone else was planning on posting something; the schedule didn't show anyone for this week. I also haven't had time to write anything new, so...
View ArticleJewish Teens Pelted With Eggs in the City of My Birth
A little over 32 years ago I was born in a Lakewood, New Jersey hospital. Mom and dad were living with family down there at the time, for a few years... one of my sisters was born there and then...
View ArticleAn Era Comes to an End in Portland, Oregon
Crossposted from The Progressive ZionistI opened my mailbox here in Southeast Portland on Saturday morning and pulled out the last ever copy of The Jewish Review, the semi-monthly newspaper which has...
View ArticleNJ Rec Center WiFi Signal: "F* All Jews and N------"
Teaneck is a town of roughly 40,000 in North Jersey, not more than a dozen miles from Manhattan and just a few miles from my family's 'home base.' It's also one of the most diverse towns in the state,...
View ArticleGBCW
I have little patience for melodramatic TTFN's and GBCW's written to garner attention and sympathy. This is real. And its permanent. I'm not sick. I'm not depressed. I don't have a fancy new job that...
View ArticlePresident Obama, President Peres at AIPAC: U.S. and Israel share common...
Cross Posted at The Progressive ZionistSpeaking at the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) annual conference speakers U.S. President Barak Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres...
View ArticlePioneer of Global Peace Studies Turns Out To Be Anti-Semitic Bigot
This news is beyond disappointing and disheartening. Not much to add, other than to share the story.From Haaretz:Johan Galtung, Norwegian sociologist nicknamed the “father of peace studies,” made...
View ArticleThe last known gay Jewish Holocaust survivor has died
On Sunday, at a senior citizens' home in Berin, Gad Beck passed away. He was 88 years old. He was also the last known gay Jewish survivor of the Holocaust.Beck's story has been well documented. He was...
View ArticleA Kaddish for the Connecticut Victims
On what should ordinarily be a joyous evening--the penultimate night of Hanukkah--we are instead facing a horribly grievous tragedy. As of this writing, twenty-seven people are dead, eighteen of them...
View Article***Update: Statement of Opposition to Racist Labels Used by Kossacks to...
***UPDATE - due to the overwhelming and gratifying response to this diary - it has now become almost impossible for some people to get it to load, and we are struggling to add all of the names of...
View Article"[A]s President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide."
In October of 2008, as the Presidential race was reaching a fevered pitch, then-Senator Barack Obama came out with a statement that was subsequently published by the news site, The Armenian Reporter....
View Article100 Years of Injustice: Jewish Perspectives on the Armenian Genocide
“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” - Adolf Hitler. So queried the leader of Nazi Germany on August 22, 1939, as plans to invade Poland and ramp up the Final Solution...
View ArticleWorld War II Memorial (photo diary)
I lost lots of my photographs last year, including some that I had set aside in the hope that I could write a diary with photos from the World War I memorial in Kansas City on Veterans' Day. But...
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