Religious expression or feminist trolling
Good morning (or afternoon). I'm back in Israel.
The picture above was on the front page of this morning's Jerusalem Post print edition (Hat Tip:
Leah P).
What does each of the five women in the picture have in common aside from the fact that they all belong to
Women of the
Wall?
The caption says that they are 'teaching' women to put on Tefillin. There's one small problem: Not a single one of them has the Tefillin on correctly.
While I can't really see where the arm Tefillin are, the head Tefillin are supposed to go "in the place where an infant's head beats" according to the Talmud. That means that they should be in the center of the head with the front line of the Tefillin ending at the hairline.
Now look at the picture again.
From Left to Right, women 1, 2 and 5 all have their Tefillin on their foreheads (which was how the Karaite sect wore them). Women 3 and 4 have them off to one side. Yes, of course,
it's the Left side.
Hmmm.
Labels: feminism, radical chic, radical Left, Tefillin, Women of the Wall
How did the American Jewish community lose the battle for college campuses?
This article gives a little too much 'credit' to one person, but to me the important point here is that we need to look into
how the American college campus was lost so that we can go about trying to regain it.
How did the Jewish community, known for its rhetorical genius, lose a critically important political battle on American campuses? Here is a thumbnail sketch:
In 1990, James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, explained on Jordanian TV how the Arab Lobby can and will match Jewish political and organizational success in America. Zogby and his allies recognized that the campus and the media, unlike Capitol Hill, are two battle grounds that Arabists could win by allying themselves with the American left. In both venues they already had beachheads and feet on the ground. The campus was in transition politically, influenced by ’60s tenured radicals who had adopted the dogma of post-colonialism, and its Palestinian version, Professor Edward Said’s “Orientalism.”
Moreover, America was experiencing a significant increase in foreign born Muslim students as well as increased Muslim immigration (many from countries with a culture of vicious anti-Semitism). Zogby focused on forming alliances with Marxist professors, die-hard socialist activists, African- American student groups, gay-lesbian groups and, most importantly, Jewish progressives. He also realized that an emerging anti-Israel Left/Muslim axis on campus could be better organized and benefit from an inflow of Arab petro dollars into prestigious American universities. All this was happening while many Jewish leaders, intoxicated by the Oslo agreement, were abandoning Israel programming.
Today, we can see the brilliance of Zogby’s strategy: Anti-Israel sentiment suffuses the campus atmosphere. In the classroom, radical professors express the the dominant narrative that the Palestinians are right and the Israelis are in the wrong. In its mild form, the Palestinians suffer needlessly at the hands of Israeli occupiers; in its more vicious version, Israel is a racist, genocidal apartheid nation. Outside the classroom, anti-Israel groups hold conferences, screen films and conduct theatrical demonstrations that portray Israel in the harshest of terms. Israel’s advocates are rudely interrupted, prevented from speaking; pro-Israel events are disrupted; Jewish students are intimidated verbally or even physically, and are excluded from pro-Palestinian events. Pathetic attempts by Jewish groups to initiate dialogue with Palestinian students are rejected. Any acknowledgement of Israelis’ humanity is seen as a validation of Palestinian oppression. Our epoch’s secular religion – political correctness and multiculturalism – judges people by who they are, not what they do. Israelis are by definition always guilty, while darker skinned, impoverished, indigenous Palestinians are eternally innocent.
There's another point that needs to be made here. For whatever reason, the vast majority of the American Jewish community is unfortunately incapable of voting Republican. As a result, the community either votes Democratic or stays home, and since most Jews don't stay home on Election Day, the result is that the Democrat gets the Jewish vote regardless of their position on the issues. That leaves the Democrats free to do anything they want to court the Left - including abandon Israel.
The picture below thus reflects reality in today's American Jewish community. And until that changes - until non-Orthodox Jews feel that they can vote Republican and not be deemed sinners for having done so - the Jewish community is likely to continue to be a partner in a radical Leftist agenda that includes supporting the 'Palestinians.'
What could go wrong?
Labels: American college campuses, James Zogby, Jewish vote, radical chic, radical Left
'Palestine' an issue for Western liberals, not for Arabs
This sure goes a long way to explaining
Barack Obama's 'Palestinian' obsession.
The power and allure of Palestine in Western radical circles is extraordinary. Palestine is the only issue they get excited about. But there is nothing progressive in their pro-Palestine fervour. It is not driven by future-oriented demands for economic development in a Palestinian homeland in the West Bank or Gaza. Instead it is driven by a view of Palestinians as the ultimate victims, the hapless and pathetic children of the new world order, who need kindly, wizened Westerners to protect them from Big Bad Israel.
Today's pro-Palestine leftism is more anthropological than political. It treats Palestinians less as a people who ought to have certain democratic rights and more as an intriguing tribe to be prodded and preserved. Some Western radicals have even adopted the fashions of their favourite tribe. Step on to any university campus in the West, or join any left-wing march, and you'll see concerned-looking youths wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, a politically correct version of blacking up.
This is the politics of pity rather than solidarity. Groups of Western middle-class youth have taken Palestinian pity holidays in the West Bank and Gaza. They turn up and marvel at the dignity of this beautiful besieged people, like those wives of old Victorian colonialists who discovered they rather liked the African tribes they had been sent to Christianise. "I've never met people like the Palestinians. They're the strongest people I've ever met", gushed British peace activist Kate Burton, who hit the headlines in 2006 after being kidnapped by a Palestinian faction in Gaza.
Of course, Westerners have often gone on moral adventures overseas, whether as missionaries or revolutionaries. What's different about Palestinian pity tourism is that these Westerners seek neither to convert Palestinians to a religion nor to take up arms with them, but simply to empathise with them, to immerse themselves in what they consider to be the ultimate victimhood experience. One pity-tripper wrote in the New Statesman about her experience living "under siege" in Bethlehem. "I'm beginning to understand what it must be like to be a Palestinian," she said.
That is the ultimate aim of these empathy tours, to have an experience that makes real the politics of victimhood that so many of these Western activists subscribe to. Where some bored Western youth who feel their everyday lives lack zest go on bungee-jumping trips in Peru, Western leftists who feel politics at home has been zapped of urgency go on tank-stopping trips in Palestine.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Obama's obsession with Palestinians, radical chic, radical Left
