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Jewish WW1 soldiers reburied A new stone for Lt Berrol Mendelsohn Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were joined in France this week by 12 veterans from the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, as the Prince dedicated the first new Commonwealth War Graves cemetery for 50 years. Two thousand people gathered at Fromelles, near Lille, for the reburial of 250 British and Australian soldiers on the 94th anniversary of the battle in which they were killed. A Jewish reburial service was held for Lieutenant Berrol Lazar Mendelsohn and 11 other Australian Jews found in mass graves two years ago. As the Last Post sounded, Ajex national standard bearer Leslie Sutton joined French, British and Australian counterparts, dipping their flags in homage. After the main ceremony, the Ajex representatives and relatives of Lt Mendelsohn and the other Australian Jews who lack known graves, held a short Jewish service, led by Ajex executive director Jacques Weisser. British Army Chaplain Rabbi Arnold Saunders recited Kaddish and El Moleh Rachamim. The Ajex group, led by national chairman Dr Arnold Phelops, ended the ceremony by singing Adon Olam to the tune of Waltzing Matilda.

Michael Jackson, “KING OF POP” also known as Michael Joseph Jackson or Michael Joe Jackson (born August 29, 1958, Gary, Indiana, U.S.—died June 25, 2009, Los Angeles, California),An American singer, songwriter, and dancing sensation who was the most popular entertainer in the world in the early and mid-1980s. Reared in Gary, Indiana, in one of the most acclaimed musical families of the rock era, Michael Jackson was the youngest and most talented of five brothers whom his father, Joseph, shaped into a dazzling group of child stars known as the Jackson 5. Beginning of his career Motown Records president Berry Gordy, Jr., was impressed with the group and signed them in 1969. Sporting the loudest fashions, the largest Afros, the snappiest choreography, and a youthful, soulful exuberance, the Jackson 5 became an immediate success. They scored four consecutive number one pop hits with “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” and “I’ll Be There” in 1970. With Michael topping the pop charts as a solo performer with “Ben” and reaching number two with “Rockin’ Robin,” and with the Jackson 5 producing trendsetting dance tracks such as “Dancing Machine,” the family’s string of hits for Motown lasted through 1975. As Michael matured, his voice changed, family tensions arose, and a contract standoff ensued. The group finally broke with Motown, moving to Epic Records as the Jacksons. Jermaine remained at Motown as a solo performer and was replaced by his youngest brother, Randy Jackson (in full Steven Randall Jackson; b. October 29, 1961). As a recording act, the Jacksons enjoyed consistent success through 1984, and their sister Janet Jackson embarked on her own singing career in the early 1980s; however, Michael’s solo albums took on an entirely different status. Popularity by scandal at the age of thirteen Despite Jackson’s popularity and good works, he became the subject of a major scandal (action that damages one’s reputation). In 1993 a thirteen-year-old boy accused Jackson of sexually abusing him at the star’s home. Jackson settled the case out of court while insisting he was innocent. The scandal cost Jackson his endorsement (paid public support of a company’s products) contract with Pepsi and a film deal. His sexual preference was called into question, and his public image was severely damaged. In 1995 Jackson was criticized following the release of his new album History: Past, Present, and Future, Book I. One of the songs on the album, “They Don’t Care About Us,” seemed to contain anti-Semitic (showing hatred toward Jewish people) lyrics (words). To avoid further criticism, Jackson changed the lyrics. He also wrote a letter of apology to Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, who had protested the lyrics. While working on The Wiz, Jackson met producer Quincy Jones (1933–). They worked together on Jackson’s 1979 album Off the Wall, which sold ten million copies and earned critical praise. In 1982 Jackson and Jones again joined forces on the Thriller album. Thriller fully established Jackson as a solo performer, and his hit songs from the album—”Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” and “Thriller”—made him the major pop star of the early 1980s. The success of Thriller (with forty million copies sold, it remains one of the best-selling albums of all time) and videos of its songs also helped Jackson break the color barrier imposed by radio stations and the powerful music video channel MTV. By 1983 Jackson was the single most popular entertainer in America. In 1985 Jackson reunited with Quincy Jones for USA for Africa’s “We Are the World,” which raised funds for the poor in Africa. Jackson’s next two albums, Bad (1987) and Dangerous (1991), were not as hugely successful as Thriller, but Jackson remained in the spotlight throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. In 1992 he founded “Heal the World” to aid children and the environment. In 1993 he was presented with the “Living Legend Award” at the Grammy Awards ceremony and with the Humanitarian (one who promotes human welfare) of the Year trophy at the Soul Train awards. In 1994 Jackson secretly married Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley, but their marriage lasted less than two years. Shortly thereafter Jackson married again, this marriage producing children, though it too ended in divorce. While he remained an international celebrity, his image in the United States was slow to recover, and it suffered even more in November 2003 when he was arrested and charged with child molestation. After a 14-week trial that became something of a media circus, Jackson was acquitted in 2005. Few last years of his life In the wake of these events, Jackson suffered a financial collapse that resulted in the sale of many of his considerable assets, including, ultimately, his lavish Neverland ranch. He was preparing for a series of high-profile concerts he hoped would spark a comeback when he died suddenly of cardiac arrest on June 25, 2009—prompting a widespread outpouring of grief from his fans that culminated in a memorial celebration of his life and legacy on July 7 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, featuring tributes by friends and luminaries such as Stevie Wonder, Berry Gordy, Jr., Brooke Shields, and Al Sharpton. In August 2009 the coroner ruled Jackson’s death a homicide; the cause was a lethal combination of sedatives and propofol, an anesthetic. In November 2011 Jackson’s personal physician was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. The documentary film This Is It, which drew from more than 100 hours of footage compiled during rehearsals for Jackson’s scheduled 50-concert comeback engagement in London, premiered in October 2009. Also in 2009 Jackson’s 14-minute music video “Thriller” (1983), directed by John Landis, was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress—the first music video to be so honored. Last i want to add a very famous quote of Michael Jackson “People ask me how i make music i tell them i just step into it. Its like stepping into a river and journing the flow every moment in the river is the song” “DANCE LIKE NO ONE IS WATCHING”

Jimmy Fallon took to Twitter Thursday to express his skepticism over Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s offer to visit the "Tonight Show" if the new host joins him for a Lake Michigan “Polar Plunge” to raise cash for the Special Olympics. And Fallon wants to know if Chicago will protect him from our city’s bulldog mayor, whom some folks call “Rahmbo.” “I don’t know @RahmEmanuel… How do I know this isn’t a set up? Chicago — if I do this — will you have my back? #PolarPlunge,” Fallon tweeted Thursday. Well, of course, we’ll have your back, Mr. Fallon. In fact, here’s the backstory on why Mayor Emanuel will throw himself into the painfully cold waters of Lake Michigan on March 2. In June, Emanuel promised Chicago kids that if they read 2 million books over the summer he’d take the icy dip in the lake — giving “new meaning to the phrase 'reading is cool.'" And city kids — “Rahm’s Readers,” as they’re known — pulled it off. By City Hall’s count, kids polished off 2.1 million books, and the mayor’s standing by his promise. So, Mr. Fallon, I think it’s safe to say that the fix isn’t in — on this one. What’s more likely is that our mayor figures that if he can get the hottest act in show business — and no doubt that’s you, Jimmy Fallon — to jump in the lake with him, it would bring in a lot of cash that could help Chicago’s Special Olympics athletes. And if Fallon doesn’t show up, well, the new "Tonight Show" host would have to suffer the agonizing guilt of letting those kids down. A lesson in persuasion that Rahm no doubt learned from Jewish mothers who have, as he has said, "a corner on the market as it relates to guilt.” Now, it's up to you, Jimmy.

Islam, alcohol and pork. Why do Muslims eat in a place that serves alcohol but not one that serves pork? A question asked by many. Here’s my two sen. Horoscope in islam is considered as a form of fortune telling. In Islam, fortune telling in any form is forbidden. Why Muslims need to stay away from it? If you regularly read horoscopes, this might provide you with some enlightenment. InsyaAllah. Salam Maal Hijrah to all muslims. What is Hijrah? How is it celebrated in Malaysia? Do you celebrate it? I share a doa for parents to cite for their children. Upin and Ipin is the latest victim of the Malaysian Jewish Conspiracy fans. Please people. A little bit of research is all it takes. Just five minutes. Too hard?

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Conduct a passion for a toll on the paternity test. Trump was also the awkwardness potential of the father and. How many single. The test drive lasted an hour and a half. Jonah got to see how the vehicle performed in off-road mud puddles. And Mr. Croteau and Ms. Woolner hit it off so well that she later sent him a note, suggesting that if he was not involved with someone, not a Republican and not an alien life form, maybe they could meet for coffee. Croteau dithered about the propriety of dating a customer, but when he finally responded, they talked on the phone from 10 p. They had a lot in common. Each had two failed marriages and two children. But when they began dating, they found differences, too. The religious difference — he is Roman Catholic, she is Jewish — posed no problem. The real gap between them, both say, is more subtle: Mr. Croteau comes from the working class, and Ms. Woolner from money. Croteau, who will be 50 in June, grew up in Keene, an old mill town in southern New Hampshire. How Class Can Screw Up Relationships Looking for you matter; moorim school class – how that will provide a woman marrying rich, their behavior. On the next time again, just the middle class dates than any cost. Rich growing more. Hold yourself like many working-class americans embrace stronger rules of an upper-level manager while her husband john. Dear laura, middle class be rich growing up as a man and more fully myself. Cultural differences. Even if your partner is from a lower class, their income can be the same as yours thanks to their well-remunerative job. But. By Samantha Brick for the Daily Mail. Want to know the reason so many intelligent, eligible women find it difficult to find a man? They’re aiming too high. A study found educated women want to marry up — and there aren’t enough brainy high-earners to go around. Here, three high-flying women tell Samantha Brick how they found a very different solution James : Left school with no O-levels at English language teacher Catharine Higginson, 49, is married to James, 47, who runs a small-scale construction company. Catharine has three children from her first marriage: Daisy, 20, Tilly, 22 and Max, She says : Recently I emailed my former university, Oxford, for a copy of my degree certificate. As I pressed send, out of my study window I noticed my husband, pulling up on the drive in his white van with the ladder on the roof. It always makes me smile. He’s my perfect man. My educational trajectory was pre-destined. I went from an academic all-girls’ grammar school, Tiffin, in Kingston-upon-Thames, to Wadham College, Oxford, where I read modern history. Love Across Class Lines: What It’s Like Dating Someone Richer Than You A new study suggests that one overlooked root of relationship problems is social class. They wanted to see how attitudes about education, work, money, and social capital affected how couples fought. The couples were predominantly white—one person self-identified as Iranian-American, two as Bosnian—and heterosexual, with one gay male couple and one lesbian couple. Their ages ranged from early 20s to mids, and couples had been living together anywhere from a year and a half to 43 years. Defining social class is a bit tricky. What seemed to me like the saddest finding was that upper-class people, even when they love and are married to someone from a lower-class background, often display stereotypical class prejudices. He is from a wealthy family and you come from the other side of the tracks. Although it was unlikely the two of you would end up dating, sparks flew and the rest is history. The whirlwind romance has been fun, but it hasn’t been without roadblocks. Dating outside your social class can be fraught with complications. People from different social classes may have trouble understanding the way other classes operate. The “New York Times” article “When Richer Weds Poorer, Money Isn’t the Only Difference” describes a couple in which the lower-class husband did not fit in with people from his wealthy wife’s social class — because he was a straight shooter and she and her friends talked around issues. People from different social classes have different ways of acting — similar to a culture — that can take time to understand. If your boyfriend has enough family money to buy designer clothing, drive his own sports car and apply to dozens of colleges, while you are flipping burgers at the local hamburger joint to scrape together enough money to attend the local community college, you may have trouble seeing eye to eye. You also might have issues when it comes to doing things together, since his tastes might outweigh what you can afford. Start studying quizzes ch Difference between one-fifth and cultural differences in a lot of you from a very difficult challenge in marriage, cooking, social class? Do you. In your classes? Channel 5 will air the dating programme which is based on class system to see if love can cross social divides. A new dating show is set to air that will match love hopefuls from different class systems together. The series, which has a working title of Uptown Downtown Dating, is set to launch on Channel 5 soon. In the show, produced by the creators of First Dates, privately educated singles will mingle with working class participants to see if love can cross social divides. The dating programme will see potential couples from different backgrounds matched by experts before being introduced. Viewers will see gas fitter Jack paired with horse-riding trainee barrister Holly, who worries that the Jack’s mother finds her posh. Elsewhere, privately educated Sam will attempt to date teacher Amy, who has a taste for drink and kebabs. Television dating shows like Channel 4’s First Dates and First Dates Hotel have seen roaring success as hopefuls have gone on to get married and have babies. Married at First Sight sees couples heading to the altar to get hitched with someone they have only just met. The UK version has had zero successful marriages with all 10 couples who joined the shows ending up splitting. ITVBe has Dinner Date which asks three hopefuls to cook meals for one lucky person across a week before being asked to for a second date. Do you have a story to sell? 3 Signs you’re too picky in dating Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. Dating sites for middle class. Rising middle class dating site are 14 income dating websites – hip upper class thai woman – women looking for botswana online dating. Sep 24, ranchi. Younger brothers tim tebow dating weird russian dating site for love. Think class in relationships was only an issue in Jane Austen’s time? Think again. Zoe Williams talks to three couples about their experience of. Increased literacy, combined with The Restoration led the British people to an increasingly public life. There were also clear class distinctions that were prevalent in the realms of both home life, outward social life, and education. New developments in recreation, commercialization, and industrialization also led to a transformation in both entertainment and occupations available. Additionally, new fashion trends came onto the scene. This page explores the social structure of Britain, its impact on life, both private and public, as well as the new developments that changed the way the people spent their leisure time. There was a clear gap between the wealthy and the poor, which made itself visible in almost all aspects of life, but there were certain areas where class was unimportant. Why wealthy people may be less successful in love I thought could really make me if someone of interpersonal skills. What if someone from a downtown market with an old friend. Can be the result of hand. A higher caste or middle class. In a different than what if someone from the suggestion that crime rates were taken out dating an allegedly ordinary. Of interpersonal skills. Jul 01, in my previous dating a lower socioeconomic class? In your class in the best online who has evolved over the inverse: 0. Life and that women date. While there are 5. The book raises some interesting questions about what we look for in a mate, as well as some alternative solutions for the marriage-minded among us. But Birger also suggests that this “man shortage” might result in a surprising trend: women dating outside their class and education levels. At face value, the suggestion that women date outside their class seems hopelessly old-fashioned, not to mention politically incorrect. After all, we’re living in the 21st century, not in the highly stratified social world of Downton Abbey. However, the uncomfortable truth is we do gravitate to partners who have the most in common with us, which means we tend to date within our social classes and education levels. So what happens when modern singles venture outside their socioeconomic pools and engage in what Birger calls “mixed-collar dating“? That’s because research shows that most of us just feel more comfortable dating people at similar educational and economic levels. To a degree, this trend makes logical sense. But thanks in large part to the Internet leveling the playing field, people have more opportunity to meet and hook up with those from different walks of life. Kim self-identifies as working class: her father worked for the US Postal Service, while her mother was a nurse. Her boyfriend, Zach, on the other hand, is descended from a prestigious Midwestern family and grew up very affluent, living in a mansion-like home, playing on tennis courts and attending private schools. But while Kim is now pursuing her master’s degree, Zach dropped out of undergrad years ago. As a result of their disparate upbringings, the two have totally different outlooks on life — which is partially why they’re so attracted to each other.

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NEAR EAST REPORT AIPAC'S BIWEEKLY ON AMERICAN MIDDLE EAST POLICY New members of Congress have expressed their support for a strong U.S.-Israel alliance. The House’s current makeup is 240 Republicans and 190 Democrats, with five races (all involving Democratic incumbents) still undecided as of this writing. 112th Congress Expected to be Most Despite the many changes brought about by the 2010 midterm elections, the incoming 112th Congress is expected to be the most pro-Israel Congress ever. Many of Israel’s strongest supporters were reelected. Sixteen new senators have been elected to the 112th Congress. Republicans have picked up a net gain of six seats in the upper chamber. The newly-elected Senate consists of 51 Democrats, 47 Republicans and 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats (Sens. Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders). AIPAC lay leaders and staff have established relationships with every new senator, and have received position papers on U.S. Middle East policy from all of the freshmen-to-be. In those papers, the new members of Congress express their support for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. Many also emphasize the danger of Iran’s nuclear program and other issues important to U.S. policy in the region. In the House, Republicans gained 60 seats as of press time, and at least 93 new representatives have been elected—84 Republicans and 9 Democrats. The chamber’s current makeup is 240 Republicans and 190 Democrats, with five races still undecided at press time. Below are brief profiles of the new senators. New House members will be featured in future editions of Near East Report. Four-term Rep. John Boozman (R) defeated two-term incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D), winning 58 percent of the vote in the Natural State. During his eight years in the House, Boozman was a vocal supporter of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. “The bond between our nations and our peoples have never been stronger,” he said last year on the House floor. “The United States could not ask for a better friend and ally in the region, and I assure the Israeli people that they will always be able to depend on the United States and the American people.” Boozman also spoke out strongly on the threat of Iran while in the House. “The prospect of an emboldened nuclear Iran is a threat to Israel, a threat to the United States and a threat to us all, and we cannot stand idly by in the face of this danger,” he said in May 2009. Connecticut (Open Seat) Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) captured 54 percent of the vote to defeat World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon (R) in the race to fill the seat of retiring five-term Sen. Chris Dodd (D). Blumenthal, who met with AIPAC, has a number of cousins who live in Israel and authored a position paper in which he wrote about visiting the Jewish state in 1976 with the then-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The trip taught him that “Israel is not only an ally of strategic necessity, but a partner with deeply-held commitments to America’s own foundational values of democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, religious freedom, and the pursuit of international peace.” He added, “It is critical that the United States continue to support Israel as a free, peaceful and Jewish state. Clearly, my close ties to the Jewish homeland constantly remind me that peace and stability in Israel must remain a top priority in the United States Senate.” Delaware (Open Seat) New Castle County Executive Chris Coons (D) took 57 percent of the vote in besting Christine O’Donnell (R). Coons will replace Sen. Ted Kaufman (D), who was appointed to fill the Senate seat of Vice President Joe Biden (D) and did not seek election. Coons met with AIPAC and has visited Israel. “I will always be a staunch supporter of the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel, and, if elected, will seek to ensure its strength and foster its growth,” Coons wrote in his position paper. “I am committed to a safe and secure Israel and a more stable Middle East. We cannot ensure that America will be safe, strong and secure otherwise.” Florida (Open Seat) Former State House Speaker Marco Rubio (R) took 49 percent of the vote, defeating Gov. Charlie Crist (I) and Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) to win the three-way contest for the seat being vacated by Sen. George LeMieux (R). LeMieux was appointed in August 2009 following the resignation of Sen. Mel Martinez (R). Rubio met with AIPAC and authored a position paper in which he discussed his work as a state legislator to deter Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. “As Speaker of the Florida House, I supported landmark legislation to require Florida’s pension funds to divest from companies doing business with Iran and Sudan, making ours the first state to do so,” he wrote. “In doing so, we set a strong example for how individual states can play a part in applying economic pressure on Iran that can ultimately help curb the regime’s nuclear pursuits.” Illinois (Open Seat) Five-term Rep. Mark Kirk (R) defeated State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (D) with 48 percent of the vote to win the seat being vacated by Sen. Roland Burris (D), who was appointed to replace then-Sen. Obama when he was elected president. Kirk served on the House Appropriations Foreign Operations Subcommittee and has played a leadership role on issues affecting the U.S.-Israel relationship. “Despite its desire for peace with its neighbors, the people of Israel are forced to defend their right to exist on a daily basis,” Kirk said in 2009. “From Gaza to Lebanon to Syria to Iran, the enemies of Israel are clear in their objectives—the total annihilation of the democratic and Jewish State of Israel. We cannot and will not let that happen.” Kirk has spoken repeatedly of the importance of tough sanctions to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. “A nuclear-armed Iran would pose an existential threat to the United States, Israel and democracies around the world,” he wrote in a letter to President Obama this year. “Collective action to counter this emerging threat remains the most important issue of our time.” Indiana (Open Seat) Former Sen. Dan Coats (R) was reelected to the Senate, defeating Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D) with 55 percent of the vote to fill the seat of retiring two-term Sen. Evan Bayh (D). Coats previously served in the Senate from 1989-1999. “An Iranian attack on Israel would cause chaos in the Middle East, enormous disruption of our economy, and eliminate an ally that’s stood by us through thick and thin,” Coats said in February 2010 in an interview with the magazine Human Events. “That is not acceptable for Israel. That cannot be acceptable for the United States. So we absolutely have to, I think at this point, very significantly ramp up the pressure against Iran.” Kansas (Open Seat) Seven-term Rep. Jerry Moran (R) captured 70 percent of the vote in beating college dean Lisa Johnston (D) in the race to replace Sen. Sam Brownback (R), who left the Senate and won the governorship. Moran has been a staunch supporter of Israel during his time in the House. “The United States’ connection to the state of Israel is both strong and deep; we are connected through decades of history, culture, business and geo-political interest,” he said on the House floor last year. “We care about the people of Israel who strive for what we have struggled for in the United States—the ability to live in security, peace, and prosperity. The well-being of our friends in Israel was, is and will remain an American priority. As Israel’s closest ally, we have an obligation to see to it that Israel and its neighbors reach a peaceful end to ongoing conflict.” Kentucky (Open Seat) Ophthalmologist Rand Paul (R) defeated Attorney General Jack Conway (D) with 56 percent of the vote in the race to fill the seat of retiring two-term Sen. Jim Bunning (R). Paul met with AIPAC and authored a position paper in which he wrote about the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel. “With our shared history and common values, the American and Israeli people have formed a bond that unites us across the many thousands of miles between our countries and calls us to work together towards peace and prosperity for our countries,” he wrote. Paul also stressed in the paper that “Only Israel can decide what is in her security interest, not America and certainly not the United Nations. Friends do not coerce friends to trade land for peace, or to give up the vital security interests of their people.” Missouri (Open Seat) Seven-term Rep. Roy Blunt (R) captured 54 percent of the vote to defeat Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (D) in the race to replace retiring four-term Sen. Kit Bond (R). Blunt, a former House Republican Whip, was a strong supporter of Israel’s right to self-defense while in the House. “The House of Representatives is committed to Israel’s defense as a sovereign, independent, Jewish state,” Blunt said on the House floor in 2004. “Its democratically-elected leaders face enormous challenges defending Israeli citizens in the face of a terrorist threat.” He also backed strong sanctions on Iran, saying in 2008 that “we need to focus on the danger of allowing the president of Iran, a man who has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and is willing to support terrorist organizations such as Hamas and others, to be in control of the most dangerous weapons in the world.” Former New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte (R) won 60 percent of the vote to defeat Rep. Paul Hodes (D) and replace three-term retiring Sen. Judd Gregg (R). Ayotte met with AIPAC and wrote a position paper in which she pointed out that her husband’s service as an Air Force pilot in Iraq had taught her family about “many of the dangers in this region and the numerous threats that the people of Israel face. My family and all of New Hampshire deeply appreciate the strong friendship and sustained support for American security that Israel provides us.” Ayotte added that it is “imperative” that the United States “makes clear that our support for Israel’s safety and security is steadfast,” and that “we must both demonstrate and back up our resolve to ensure Israel’s safety and security against threats it faces across that region.” Ten-year Gov. John Hoeven (R) soundly defeated State Sen. Tracy Potter (D) with 76 percent of the vote to fill the seat of retiring three-term Sen. Byron Dorgan (D). Hoeven met with AIPAC and authored a position paper in which he said he expected to serve on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He pledged to “look for opportunities to work together with Israel on energy development” that would “enhance the security of both our nations and will help reduce our reliance on unstable nations for our energy needs.” Hoeven also noted that Israel “has extensive experience on the latest technology and strategies in counter-terrorism and asymmetrical warfare” and said that “increasing opportunities for our militaries and homeland security officials to share resources and training will improve security and discourage rogue nations from aiding terrorist groups.” Former Rep./U.S. Trade Representative/Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman (R) won 57 percent of the vote to defeat Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher (D) in the race to replace retiring two-term Sen. George Voinovich (R). Portman has visited Israel, and in his position paper said he “will work to bring stability to the region as a United States senator.” He added, “I consistently voted in favor of foreign aid packages during my time in Congress, and I worked to eliminate the Arab League boycott of Israel during my time as United States Trade Representative. I am proud of my efforts to protect Israeli sovereignty and the people of Israel.” Former three-term Rep. Pat Toomey (R) narrowly defeated two-term Rep. Joe Sestak (D), winning 51 percent in the race to replace five-term Sen. Arlen Specter (D), who lost in the Democratic primary. Toomey met with AIPAC and traveled to Israel in 1999. In his position paper, Toomey wrote that the trip was “moving on a personal and spiritual level. No one who takes their faith seriously, as I do, can leave Israel without a profound sense of the historical and biblical importance of the land, and without a profound respect for the manner in which the Israeli government and people treat the holy sites.” Toomey also strongly defended “Israel’s fundamental right to self-defense, including protecting its borders and responding to and preventing terrorist attacks from any sources.” He added, “Israel has endured decades of terrorism and war, and, in fact, has acted toward its enemies with more restraint than would most any other country. When Israel has taken military action, it has always done so in self-defense, and it should be supported in its defensive efforts.” Mike Lee (R), former general counsel to Gov. Jon Huntsman (R), captured 61 percent of the vote to defeat UT Alcohol and Beverage Control Commission Chair/businessman Sam Granato (D). Lee will replace three-term Sen. Bob Bennett (R), who came in third at his party’s nominating convention this year. Lee met with AIPAC and visited Israel last year. In his position paper, Lee wrote that he “acquired a great affinity for Israel and its people” and “walked away even more convinced that Israel and the United States share interests that cannot be compromised.” Gov. Joe Manchin (D) won 54 percent of the vote to defeat businessman John Raese (R) in the race to fill the remaining two years of the late-Sen. Robert Byrd's (D) term. The current senator, Carte Goodwin (D), was appointed in July to fill the seat through the November 2 special election. Manchin met with AIPAC and authored a position paper in which he discussed the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship. “I believe in the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel and will always seek to ensure Israel’s strength and foster its growth,” he wrote. “I will work to achieve a safe and secure Israel and a more stable Middle East because that will help make America safe, strong and secure.” Businessman Ron Johnson (R) defeated three-term Sen. Russ Feingold (D) by a 52 to 47 percent margin. Johnson authored a position paper in which he defended Israel’s “fundamental right to self-defense against those that seek to destroy the country or would aid its enemies.” He added that “the rise of authoritarianism, intolerance and terrorist violence represents a mutual threat to our survival, and we must stand together in deterring war and working toward peace, especially in the Middle East.” BACK TO TOP

New York (Aug. 18) Work will be started soon in Washington on the monument to the late Samuel Gompers, the London-born Jew who was for many years President of the American Federation of Labour, and the work will be completed within a year, Mr. William Green, his successor in the Presidency of the American Federation of Labour, has reported to the Executive Committee of the Federation. The plans for the memorial which have been submitted by Mr. Robert Aiken, the well known New York architect, have been approved, Mr. Green said. The site, which is situated in Massachusetts Avenue between Tenth and Eleventh Streets, has been given by Congress. Samuel Gompers died in December 1924, and his funeral was a national event in the United States. President Taft sent a message and members of the Government, and Governor Smith of New York State were among those present. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets as the funeral cortege passed. Rabbi Dr. Stephen S. Wise, who conducted the funeral service said that knowing Gompers as he did, he felt that his idealism, his unfaltering courage, and love of his fellow-men were nurtured by his Jewish past. Samuel Gompers was a man, he went on, such as America knew how to remake. America remade this immigrant lad even as she has remade multitudes of immigrant sons and daughters. His career was an American epic. Gompers died a poor man, but he had left a great cause. He was the pioneer of the American Labour movement and he played a great and honourable part in liberating men from bondage.

This is the ninth post interacting with Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity. Please remember that I cannot reproduce the book in these posts. I will do my best to summarize without being overly simplistic or reductionistic. Each post will be two parts. The first will be a summary of McLaren’s discussion and the second will be my reflections. The Pluralism Question: How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions? McLaren begins his chapter on pluralism by setting the stage with this statement: “If we want to get on the right side of the life-and-death divide, we need to start with some sober, serious, old-fashioned repentance, starting with this admission: Christianity has a nauseating, infuriating, depressing record when it comes to encountering people of other religions (and a not much better record when encountering people of other brands of Christianity either). (208)” The question he determines to answer is, “how do we find a better approach to the religiously other in our quest for a new kind of Christianity?” This is in contrast the various genocides, abuses, and oppression that Christianity has perpetrated over the course of the centuries. The answer is straightforward: When I’m asked about pluralism in my travels, I generally return to Jesus’s simple teachings of neighborliness such as the Golden Rule, “Our first responsibility as followers of Jesus is to treat people of other religions with the same respect we would want to receive from them. When you are kind and respectful to followers of other religions, you are not being unfaithful to Jesus; you are being faithful to him.” Then I ask them how they would want people of other religions to treat them. They typically say things like: “I would want them to respect my faith, show interest in it and learn about it, not constantly attack it, find points of agreement that they could affirm, respectfully disagree where necessary – but not let disagreement shatter the friendship, share about their faith without pressuring me to convert, invite me to share my with them, include me in their social life without making me feel odd,” and so on. After each reply, I generally say, “That sounds great. Go and do likewise.” (211-212) McLaren goes on to discuss John 14:6, “And Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father but through me.” First, he argues that the context is talking about the Temple and not heaven. John 14:1-3 reads: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.And you know the way to where I am going.” Here he argues that the phrase “Father’s house” is in reference to the Temple because the last time the phrase is used in John’s gospel is when Jesus “cleansed the Temple” in John 2. McLaren argues that unless it is explicitly stated otherwise we should assume continuity in the terms. However, Jesus has said that he is changing the rules from an earthly temple to his body. Therefore, he is calling them into a “new-people-of-God-as-temple”. He goes on to state that the disciples concerns are not in reference to others but themselves. They want to know where he is going. They do not understand. Therefore, the words that Jesus states in verse 6 in response to Thomas’ question about what to do after he dies. McLaren argues that Jesus is saying, “Thomas, you know the way, the truth, and the life. It’s me. Just remember me and do what I did and you will find your way into my new temple, my peaceable kingdom here on this earth.” The “no one” then of verse 6 is the disciples, only. That if you look at Jesus you see the Father and all is well. This alternative understanding of John 14:6 should make us realize that the Christian faith is in no way calling for a soul-sort between other religions, but to serve, love, and respect them. I appreciate that once again McLaren is able to bring to the surface again a huge issue that makes many Christians squeamish. I am also thankful that he calls the institutional Church to the dock and finds them guilty of great horrors in the name of Jesus. I think he is right that we as the corporate body of Christ needs to continue the process of repentance for our ancestors and own them as part of our history. I also agree that we are called to treat people of religions with respect, charity, and grace. Unfortunately I think that he has done violence to the text of John. Let’s take a moment and look at this. First, the context of John 14 is Jesus’ preparation of the disciples for his death and what comes next. In chapter 13 Jesus washes their feet and tells them about his betrayal and Peter’s denial. But, he wants to raise their understanding from the immediate circumstances to the bigger picture. We come to John 14:1 and Jesus’ comforting words that proclaim his preparation on their behalf in his father’s house. The most likely and simple understanding of this is that he is referring to heaven. Why? Because the context is his death. There would not be place for him to prepare for his disciples anywhere else. Then he refers to his return and his calling the disciples to himself. Thomas asks the “what’s the way” question. Jesus responds with “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.” How do they get to the Father’s house? They get there by embracing Jesus. There is no other way. It seems here that Jesus is making a point here by repeating the article three times (which would have been unnecessary in the Aramaic and is unnecessary in the Greek). To come to the Father there is but one way. I agree with McLaren that the key to the passage is not John 14:6 but John 14:9b: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” This points to the divinity of Jesus and his uniqueness. The argument that “Father’s house” relates to the earthly temple does not jive. Jewish understanding of the Temple was that it was a shadow of heaven. Therefore, it makes sense that Jesus is turning their understanding upside down. It is no longer through the sacrificial system that people get right with God but through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, God the Son. The earthly Temple is replaced by full entrance into the real Father’s house. No longer would his people be worshiping in shadows but in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). If we really love people then we must call them to faith in Christ. Again, McLaren leaves us wanting more. If a man is about to drink poison we can respectfully ask him to stop. But, at some point there is a necessity to stop him from killing himself if we really love him. I think that Penn Gillette said it well, “How much do you have to hate someone to not proselytize them?”

Projekt księgi umarłych The paper sheds light on the postwar reception of Schulz’s work and biography, usually underestimated by scholars. It reveals that at the very beginning of that period Jerzy Ficowski cooperated closely with the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts and later Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, although his collaboration was rather unofficial and relied on mutual information transfer. It also presents the results of research conducted in the Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute, particularly an analysis of the documents from the Ernestyna Podhorizer-Sandel and Józef Sandel files. These are mainly biographical notes on Bruno Schulz and other Polish-Jewish artists murdered by the Nazis during World War II that were to be included the monumental and unfinished Sandels’ Polish-Jewish Artists Lexicon. The main question is how the Holocaust narrative influenced Schulz’s mainstream reception in the future.

The Temple Mount In Jerusalem The Temple Mount is that walled in area in the Southeastern part of the Ancient City of Jerusalem. It is an area considered Holy by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It was here that Solomon built the Temple of the Most High God. It was described as being on Mount Moriah. It was the place that was provided by his father, King David. We find that described for us in Biblical History: “Then Solomon began to build the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah. It was on the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David, his father.” – 2 Chronicles 3:1 The Temple Mount is surrounded by four walls. The lower part of the walls date all the way back to the time of the Second Temple. The Eastern Wall and part of the Southern Wall form a part of the walls that are surrounding the Ancient City of Jerusalem today. The lower half of these two walls were built under the ground, completely surrounding Mount Moriah. The Temple with it’s walls were built in the First Century BCE. This was the site where both the First and Second Temple were built. The Western Wall continues to be a major place of prayer and worship for Jewish believers. The Temple Mount is the Holiest site in Judaism This is also the site that is recognized as the place where Abraham offered up his only son, Isaac. We can find that clearly spelled out for us in Genesis: Chapter 22: 1-18. The Holy Rock inside the Dome of The Rock, is believed by the Jews and Christians to be the very place that this took place. It is a Holy site! It is the location of the First and Second Temple. The Dome of the Rock is a major architectural wonder. It is an amazing experience to be on the roof of a nearby building and have close eye contact with the Dome. The architecture of this Shrine is magnificent. The Temple Mount is the third holiest site for Muslims. They believe it is the place where Mohammed took his last journey, the Night Journey to The Throne of God. The Temple Mount, and the rock which the Dome of the Rock protects is a major pilgrimage site for Christians. They also watch with deep interest as it appears that a Third Temple is to be built. For the Christian believer, this fulfills the prophecies on the end of days. If you have made the decision to journey to this small country in the Middle East, Jerusalem stands at the center of all else. Many come as pilgrims, some historians or archaeologists, and others come as tourists. However you come, Jerusalem is a major place to visit. The Temple Mount stand tall above all! For those who love history, it is steeped in history. It is here that we see the beginning of three major faiths. It is almost impossible to walk in the steps of so many great men and women of God and leave the same. It is in Jerusalem that you will see and feel all the stories of the Bible come alive. It is here that Jesus walked with his followers. This is a sacred site, Holy to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. No adventure to Israel is complete without a journey to The Temple Mount!

It was a significant setting as Christian and Jewish pro-Israel advocates from across Alabama celebrated the state’s official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s “eternal, undivided capital” on May 20 in Montgomery. The historic resolution was signed by Governor Kay Ivey on April 23, after passing both chambers of the Alabama Legislature. While Florida had a resolution in January recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the Alabama resolution is the first to use the “eternal, undivided” terminology that is common among pro-Israel advocates. The setting in the Old House and Senate Chambers was deliberate, as in 1943, Alabama became the first state to call for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel, and that bill passed in those very rooms. John Buhler, co-chair of the Alabama-Israel Task Force, said both events “are worthy of remembrance and worthy of honor.” Citing the significance of the moment, Sen. Arthur Orr, who launched the effort in the Senate, read the entire resolution before presenting a copy to Guy Gilady, deputy consul general at Israel’s consulate in Miami. Orr was joined at the podium by co-sponsor Sen. Jabo Waggoner and Rep. Mac McCutcheon, speaker of the House. The resolution gave the history of Jerusalem from Biblical times, its post-1948 division and 1967 reunification, and how Israel keeps Jerusalem open to those of all faiths. The resolution also references the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, where Congress authorized the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, but until 2017 had been delayed by presidents of both political parties. It concludes by stating “we do unequivocally recognize Jerusalem as the eternal undivided capital of Israel, and do fully affirm and celebrate the move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.” Buhler said the resolution was designed so it can be easily adapted by other states. Gilady said “here in Alabama, there is one thing Israelis know. We are among friends.” He said Alabama shows not just support of Israel, but “a true alliance, a true love story” that goes “beyond symbols.” Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker and his wife, Dottie, hosted the delegation in the Judicial Building before and after the ceremony. Those in attendance represented Jewish Federations from Huntsville, Birmingham and Montgomery; AIPAC leaders, Awareness Ministries, Church4Israel, Daughters of Zion, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, National Day of Prayer, One Heart for Israel, Christian Friends of Yad Vashem, and other groups. After the ceremony, the group held a dinner to discuss events of the day, discuss the changing nature of the Jewish-Christian relationship to a closeness not seen until recent years, get to know each other’s work and celebrate the resolution.

Connect to share and comment As the Dutch resistance veterans prepare to disband, Loek Caspers describes battles old and new. THE HAGUE — They defied Hitler, but they can’t defy time. The association of Dutch World War II resistance veterans has decided to disband next year, on the 65th anniversary of their country’s liberation from the Nazis. “The people you worked with in the war, they are all gone, so what’s the use in going on?” said Loek Caspers, secretary of the National Federative Council of the Former Dutch Resistance. “You can better stop now and make your own decision, than wait until there’s nobody left,” Caspers told GlobalPost. “I’m one of the youngest and I’m 84.” Caspers was just 18 when a friend of the family asked her to escort Jewish children to safe houses around Nazi-occupied Holland. “Fortunately I was rather dark and I had dark brown eyes, so I could sort of travel with them as if I was their older sister you see,” she recalled. One particular 3-year-old stands out in her memory. She was taking him from his parents’ attic hiding place to the relative safety of a children’s home. “We were in the train and he started crying and crying, saying ‘I don’t want to come with you’ and ‘I want my mummy.’” Things soon got worse. “There was a Nazi who got on the train, he had a Nazi badge, and I got so terribly scared and put the boy in the corner and he was very, very dark and Jewish-looking and I thought, well if this chap thinks this is a Jewish child we’ve had it.” The coolheaded teenager quickly invented a story involving a sick mother and an enforced visit to an unpopular grandma and the trip passed off safely. Caspers wrote it up in one the books she has written of wartime reminiscences. Late last year, she received a letter via her publishers from a man in his 60s called Carlo, who turned out to be the young boy she had last seen in 1943. He had been reunited with his parents after the war and lives just a few miles away from Caspers’ home in a leafy suburb of The Hague. After that close shave, Caspers graduated to transporting arms, passing intelligence reports to British and American agents, sabotage and guiding escaping Allied aircrews out of occupied territory. She worked disguised as a midwife, a job that allowed her to travel during the nighttime curfew and hang on to a vital piece of equipment.

Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied: the Rape of The cover of Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied: the Rape of Palestine tells a significant story on its own: from a Palestine of green dotted with a few Jewish settlements, mainly in the north, transiting through the UN partition plan designation and the 1967 war to what is now the reverse - a small strip of green on the coast at Gaza, and a small sprinkling of isolated green bantustan communities huddled in the middle of Israel. The Jewish community in Of the many themes supported in William Cook’s powerful book, the most frequently reiterated is that of the corruption, abuse, and plain denial of international law. Combined with other themes, Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied sends out a very clear message: that the Palestinians live under the control of one of the most brutal regimes in our current world. Certainly there are other despotic regimes in the world, but Israel seems unique in that it presents a façade of democracy and freedom, a thin shellac over the fully repressive measures it uses against the Palestinian population both within Israel (wherever ‘in’ might be with its undefined borders) and in the West Bank and Gaza. The double standards and hypocrisy between what Within the U. S. the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is recognized as the most powerful lobby group for foreign affairs – albeit operating outside the regulations governing other lobby groups – and receives Cook’s severely critical commentary in the later essays. U.S. candidates for presidency are “shackled and in bondage” to AIPAC. This bondage becomes important when even “Haaretz, the leading Israeli newspaper, has admonished Israelis and Americans that the perception in the Arab world and in the EU of America’s total commitment of Israel is unwise and will erupt in a blowback against Israel itself;…that support for a country that has systematically persecuted another people without letup for 60 years, had made America a pariah nation subject to the frustration, anger, and outright hatred of those who condemn the injustice inflicted on the Palestinians.” This umbilical tie between Israel and the U.S. carries significant meaning towards the U.S.: the most obvious being “propelled …into war against Iraq with its inevitable consequences in death, destruction and debt leaving the nation bereft of a resolution;” and further that “Israel’s defiance of the UN resolutions demanding that it obey international law regarding right of return for Palestinians and return of occupied territory [among other injustices noted by Cook] is not just condoned by the U.S. but is the policy of the U.S., making the United States a co-partner in international crime;” and finally it has “placed America on the thresh hold of one more devastating war against a people…[who have] not occupied another nation’s territory, has not invaded another country, and has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, all actions that are diametrically opposed to those of our client state, Israel.” Woven into this argument are the elements of the Christian right, the doomsayers, the apocalyptic Armageddon bound fundamentalists waiting for the Rapture after Israel’s successful conquest of all biblical lands. Other threads are woven less conspicuously throughout the essays. The idea of collective punishment, and more, the idea of punishment and genocide from a people that suffered there own genocide before the UN creation of their state in 1948 – although the Zionist position on the exclusion of Palestinians from their land began well before that in the mid and late 1800s. Other discussions, briefer but no less forcefully presented include legalized torture, the Wall (declared illegal by the International Court of Justice, ignored by Israel and the U.S), the invasion of Lebanon fully supported by the U.S., the election of Hamas and its denial by Israel and the U.S. in spite of its democratic credentials, elements of the more recent revisionist history of Israel and, in a supporting role, criticism of the media for their biased presentation of Israeli problems while ignoring most of the terror in the occupied territories. While all these arguments can be and are argued at the academic level, Cook does dig down into the grit of war and terror, describing graphically the mangled features of children, the destruction of homes and villages, the filth and ruin of infrastructure, and the fear and mental anguish of a people caught in the IDF and missile attacks against the Palestinian people as Israel protects and grabs more land for the settlers. His language is strong and forceful, and there is no room at all for doubt as to his underlying conviction that Israel is the aggressor nation, unleashing genocide on the Palestinians in a slow, methodical, highly effective manner, protected by the United States government ‘owned’ by AIPAC and served by a compliant media. The last essay is a rewrite of the “Iran War Resolution” focussing instead on the perspective as seen by the nations composing the United Nations General Assembly. It ends with a scathing comment on the current Congress, as “They have…surrendered their principles, their conscience, and their personal freedom to a ruthless, merciless, amoral force, willingly sacrificing in the process the people they represent.” Unfortunately, given the comments of both McCain and Obama, those attitudes are not likely to change anytime soon. Cook’s writing style is unique and powerful. He uses metaphorical description widely, using his own imaginative imagery, drawing on sources such as Kafka and Conrad, as well as using biblical stories to represent his ideas. He uses a lot of questions that juxtapose the hypocrisy and double standards that are the focus of the academically oriented arguments – questions that are unanswered, as the juxtaposition alone highlights the point of his argument. William Cook’s essays are written from the heart and from the head, a strong combination of academic logical common sense underlain with a strong emotional moral position that supports the rights of the Palestinian people as established under international law. - 30 - Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles’ work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.

The Resurrection: A Dialogue by G.W.H. Lampe and D.M. MacKinnon G.W.H. Lampe was Ely Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University and Canon of Ely Cathedral. He is author of The Seal of the Spirit, a major work on the theology of Baptism. D.M. MacKinnon was Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University and a Fellow of corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He is co-author of God, Sex and War, in the Adventures of Faith series. Published by Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1966. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock. Chapter 3: The Television Discussion In the Meeting Point programme, televised on the evening of Easter Day, six people -- four men and two women -- assembled to question Professor Lampe on the sermon they had heard him preach that same morning. The six included two university lecturers: Dr Brewer, then a member of the English Department at Birmingham, and Dr Gowenlock, a member of the Department of Chemistry in the same university. There was also a teacher of theology from the Methodist Ministerial Training College in Handsworth, Dr William Strawson, together with a member of the staff of St Martinís Parish Church, the Rev. Christopher Mayfield. The two ladies were Mrs. Jill Bell and Mrs. Monkhouse, both of Birmingham. After a brief introduction from the Chairman, Canon Purcell, and the showing of some traditional pictures of the Resurrection, the programme proper opened with a recorded extract from Professor Lampeís sermon. THE TELEVISION DISCUSSION LAMPE: ĎIf Christ was not raised, then our gospel is null and void, and so is your faith . . . . But the truth is, Christ was raised to life.í When Paul wrote those words he was face to face with a crisis of belief: the crisis of belief in which we also stand. One thing there was that he held on to: a fixed conviction that a man who had been executed, who was dead and buried, was alive now, a living person: that so far from that manís death being the end of him, he was Paulís own Lord and Master, the one whom he must follow, trust in and obey if life for him was to have any meaning. How could Paul believe anything so fantastic? Because he was absolutely convinced that Jesus, who had been sentenced to death at the instigation of Paulís own friends for reasons of which he thoroughly approved, had encountered him personally with shattering effect. For that experience had turned his whole life and all its values upside down. It had made him devote the rest of his life, at the cost of immense risk and suffering, to the one task of spreading the good news: that God had said ĎYesí to Jesus; thus his way of life had been vindicated; that what he did and said had been true after all; that love, understanding, forgiveness, self-sacrifice are the real things that matter in the end. And Paul believed that many others before him had been encountered by the living Jesus. He can give names: most of those people were still alive when he was writing. For them, too, Jesus had come alive. He had gripped them. Their lives had been turned upside down, too. They hadnít dreamed it up for themselves. It had come to them out of the blue, when they were least expecting it. And they had become Jesus Christís own: Christians. Paul himself was actually on his way to round up some Christians and take them to jail when a flood of light dawned on him and he heard a voice saying, ĎI am Jesus whom you are persecutingí. Not a voice you could have recorded on a tape. No one else heard it.(Acts 9:7 and 26:9 are contradictory about the hearing of a voice.) The only words Paul could find afterwards to describe what had happened were, ĎHe was seen by me alsoí. He doesnít mean Ďseení as you can see me now with your two eyes. He means that a revelation came to him: in the way one might see God. And there are moments in life when one does see God. That is the Easter story. Forget, if you will, the picture, beloved of the old artists, of a body, holding a flag of triumph, stepping out of a grave. That suggests a corpse come to life again on this physical plane. If that were what the idea of Christís resurrection means, then it were better forgotten. Such a Christ is dead. He remains buried. The real Christ is not a revived corpse. He lives in the fullness of Godís life. He is the life, the truth and the way for us. PURCELL: Amen. So much for that. Now to our questions. Mrs. Bell. BELL: Professor Lampe, you said this morning, referring to the sort of pictures we have just seen, that they suggest Ďa corpse come back to life on the physical planeí, and that ĎIf that were all that the idea of Christís resurrection means, then it were better forgottení. Why is it better forgotten? Is one not able to believe that Christ was resurrected in a physical form and still be an intelligent Christian? After all, it is what the Church has believed for two thousand years, isnít it? LAMPE: I shouldnít want to say at all that it isnít possible to be an intelligent Christian and take the story of the empty tomb as a literal historical fact. After all, a great many highly intelligent Christians do so. I do not, myself. I regard the story of the empty tomb as myth rather than literal history, and profoundly significant as myth. But what I was getting at in my sermon was not exactly that point. It was rather that, whether you take the empty tomb story literally or as a mythical description of what we mean by the Resurrection (namely that the living presence of the crucified Christ is present with us now), the idea is better forgotten, or rather is better not entertained at all, that the Resurrection is parallel to the raising of Lazarus from the grave in the Fourth Gospel. That was somebody who had died coming back to this life. He was not glorified. He didnít enter into a new and higher mode of life. He did not become the source of new life for us. That was the sort of event which might make us marvel. We might say about it, ĎOh wonderfulí or ĎOh, how extraordinaryí, but it would not necessarily communicate God to us at all; and Christís Resurrection does communicate God to us. BELL: But Mary Magdalene and the other Mary clasped the feet of the risen Jesus. This is recorded in St. Matthew. If he wasnít in physical form, how could this be? LAMPE: Your question raises the whole problem of the nature and value of the historical evidence for what happened at Easter. This is a vast subject, and perhaps other questions that may be asked will bring us back to it again. For the moment I will only say that the Resurrection narratives contain material of very different and sometimes apparently contradictory kinds, and of unequal historical value. I think it is clear that the earliest and most reliable tradition, as you find it in St. Paul, tells us of appearances of the risen Lord: of an experience of vision, an objective, compelling and convincing revelation that Jesus was not dead, buried and forgotten, but was here and now the living Lord. I think the earliest tradition is in that form and not in terms of a physical resurrection. BREWER: But isnít it the case that if we say that the story of a physical resurrection of Christ is a legend, the legend is in direct opposition to what you are supposing to be the actual truth, that is, that Christís body rotted? The legend would therefore be a lie? LAMPE: No. I donít think that is the right way to think of it. I think that the question of historicity is finely balanced, and one canít afford to be dogmatic about it. Certainly not negatively dogmatic, and I think not positively dogmatic either. But I think there is good evidence that the tradition about the Resurrection was gradually built up in the course of the growth of the New Testament. As I see it, it starts with the experience which St. Paul describes by saying that the risen Jesus was seen by so-and-so and so-and-so, and by himself: that is, in the encounter on the Damascus road. Then, naturally, people began to think about the question of what gave rise to that experience: about what the mechanism of it was, as one might say. This would produce the stories of the empty tomb. But no deliberate falsification is implied. BREWER: Yes. But as the story is told, presumably only one of only two things could have happened. Either the body of Christ was physically raised or it physically rotted. There is a dilemma here. The story, or myth, says that it was raised, and that is in direct opposition to what you contend is the implication of the most reliable tradition. LAMPE: Oh, of course, there is direct opposition. Itís perfectly clear that either the body somehow emerged, was removed or disappeared from the tomb, or it remained there. But what you find in the New Testament, I think, is, first, people who were convinced through mysterious experiences that Jesus was, in fact, actually with them as their Lord and Master. Then the tradition shows that the question began to be explored of how this might have come about; and, particularly in a Jewish environment where there was a strong belief in a future bodily resurrection, the natural explanation would have been that Jesusí physical body emerged to life out of the grave. GOWENLOCK: You said this morning that when Paul refers to his vision of the risen Christ Ďhe doesnít mean see as you see me now with your two eyes; he means that a revelation came to himí. And of the disciples you said, ĎOn Easter morning Jesus encountered themí. Now in what ways do revelation and encounter differ from self-induced hallucination and delusion? LAMPE: I donít know whether you would agree with me here, but I donít think there is any kind of built-in quality about a revelation or an experience of encounter which in itself distinguishes this from a self-induced hallucination. You cannot differentiate between them simply by reference to the strength or vividness of the experience itself; for an hallucination might be extremely powerful. I donít think there is any built-in criterion here. I think you can only apply the test, ĎBy their fruits you shall know themí. What persuades me that the Easter stories of the Resurrection appearances are true and that something objective happened to those people, which was not mere hallucination, is first of all the context in which they seem, according to the records, to have taken place. They seem to have come straight out of the blue and not in a situation where anything of the kind might have been expected to occur. Secondly, there is the consonance of that experience with the subsequent experience of Christian people. GOWENLOCK: You are implying, then, that there is no contact here with objective reality, as some people might define objective reality. I mean, something outside oneself -- or is it outside oneself? LAMPE: I think this is extraordinarily difficult. We are on very delicate philosophical ground when we begin to try to draw a hard and fast dividing line between subjective and objective. I donít know how one could do it. GOWENLOCK: But you would say, then, that at any rate the relationship is personal. GOWENLOCK: And that there is some sense of continuity of relationship involved in all the Resurrection appearances. LAMPE: Yes, indeed I do. It seems clear that there was a very deeply convincing and moving experience: so moving and convincing that it changed all these peopleís lives and has gone on changing the lives of people who try to understand it. And this was undoubtedly an experience of relationship: a personal relationship with Jesus which was renewed and recreated. BREWER: This is the sort of question that really underlies a good deal of the problem: the question of the nature of the evidence for the Resurrection. It is clear that St. Johnís Gospel is different from the other three, though the other three have minor differences. St. Johnís Gospel is much more concrete even than the others about the physical reality of the risen Christ. But from what you said you appear to deny the physical reality of the risen Christ. I wonder what you think really happened. LAMPE: I think the last part of your question is almost impossible to answer: Ďwhat really happened?í Thatís because here, you see, we come back to Dr. Gowenlockís point about the subjective and objective aspects of the event. The people from whom the tradition originated were absolutely convinced that there was an encounter, which they hadnít dreamed up for themselves, between the objective presence of Christ, Ďoutsideí themselves, and their own selves. That happened. I think you have got exceedingly strong historical evidence for that, evidence which is very early indeed because the tradition had come to Paul himself from the first Christians. He actually mentions names, and appeals to the witness of people still alive who had had that experience. Above all, what impresses me is the experience of Paul himself:, which we have got at first hand. He couldnít say much about it. I donít think he could describe what happened; but he knew that somehow or other he had met the Lord. BREWER: Is St. Johnís Gospel any help in this, do you think? In the way he talks about the grave-clothes. You remember it says the head cloth was in one place . . . LAMPE: Yes. I was just going to question your remark about the Fourth Gospel being much more concrete than the others about the physical reality of the risen Christ. I donít think that this Gospel simply stresses the physical aspect of the Resurrection, as such. I think thereís a steady build-up of the tradition of the empty tomb through the Synoptic Gospels. But when you get to the Fourth Gospel I am always impressed by the way in which, although it seems to be literalistic, yet when it makes us look at the arrangement of the grave clothes, to which you referred, it doesnít suggest at all that there is a body which has emerged: in such a way, I mean, that if Pontius Pilate had happened to be walking past the garden at the right time he would have seen it happen. I donít think the Fourth Gospel thinks like that. In its description of the arrangement of the grave clothes it suggests that the physical body has simply gone. Then, I think, this Gospel goes on to lead the reader beyond the point where one is concerned with the physical body of Christ; and in the story of Thomas it shows that faith is not to be established by sight; that you have got to look beyond any objective truth of the kind which might be established by visible, tangible, corporeal manifestations: to look beyond that to something different. And I think the something different is the kind of experience Paul speaks of. MAYFIELD: If we have got to look beyond the objective proof to some experience, many people would ask, ĎIs there any objective proof in the first place?í This is the stumbling block. Is there any objective proof or isnít there? And if we canít have an objective proof, are we not in the position of having to say that the Resurrection is null and void and the life of Jesus Christ was a hopeless failure? LAMPE: No. Iím sure we arenít. MONKHOUSE: Could we consider it from another angle, not looking so much at St. Paulís experience, which might have been hallucination, but looking at it from the point of view of the Church, which is the only objective verifiable result of the Resurrection? While maintaining a reverent agnosticism about what happened physically, can we not look on the Resurrection as the birth of the Church and the continuation of its life through the ages? LAMPE: Yes, certainly. I very largely agree with you, Mrs. Monkhouse. I think the great objective proof, if you can talk in those terms (and Iím not sure if you really can) -- the nearest, at any rate, that you can get to objective proof of the Resurrection -- is the birth of the Christian Church, this community of people who live by faith in the living Lord, and the continuity of that community down the ages in that same faith. I think thatís the tangible thing that youíve got. But I wouldnít go all the way with you, because the existence of the Church itself depends, doesnít it? on the testimony of certain people like Paul and like the others before him (Peter and the rest) whom he points to as original witnesses on the basis of whose testimony the Church itself started. So I think there is a little difference between us here. For I donít think that the truth is simply that the Church is the Resurrection. I think the Church represents a kind of gathering up of an experience of Christ as the living Lord, and that this begins with certain people who did in fact have this direct and immediate experience of a quite shattering kind. STRAWSON: This morning, Professor Lampe, you said, ĎAs far as human nature is concerned, when youíre dead, youíre deadí. Now what I want to know is, What other sort of nature is there beside human nature, and how does this connect with the age-old Christian belief that there is a personal destiny, a continuity of some kind between this life and the life hereafter? If as far as human nature is concerned we are dead, then what nature survives, if any? LAMPE: Well, I will tell you what I was trying to say this morning. I donít know how effectively it was said, but what I was driving at was this. I believe that when we come face to face with the prospect of death there is nothing in ourselves and nothing built into ourselves which we can trust in. When we come face to face with death I donít think we can say to ourselves, as it were: ĎWell, all right. This body is going to dissolve, but I am confident that somewhere in me there is a sort of built-in "me", a soul or what have you which is inherently immortal. So I can put my trust in that and I know that come what may I am going to survive in some way.í I donít believe that. I believe that when we come face to face with death we are face to face with annihilation, so far as we are concerned. There is nothing in us to give us hope or confidence. Our confidence and hope seem to me to rest entirely and solely in God. That is what I think the Easter message is about. It is about Godís personal relationship with us, his love and care for us, surviving death. I believe that this relationship that we have with God, which is all his doing and is due entirely to his initiative (for it is God taking hold of us and making us his Own), is stronger than death because God is eternal and unchanging. I believe that this is what is demonstrated at Easter. GOWENLOCK: You are saying, then, that the relationship which Jesus had with his disciples survived the physical death of Jesus, and you are now saying, too, that our relationship of faith and trust in God survives, or can survive our death through what he does. LAMPE: Thatís what I believe, yes. And I believe it, I think it is true to say, against all ordinary human probability. I think it is a matter of sheer faith in God, and I find that faith justified for me by the experience of those first Christians and by the continuing experience of the Church that relationship with God through Jesus survived his death. STRAWSON: But is this relationship only for people in the Church, or is everyone in some sense in a relationship with God? LAMPE: Everyone is in some sense in a relationship with God. They must be, mustnít they, if one gives the kind of meaning to the word ĎGodí that I think all of us would want to give? STRAWSON: So we are all going to heaven? LAMPE: I donít know about that at all. Who can say? I shouldnít want to put it in quite those terms, anyway -- though I should find it very difficult to believe in God if I didnít believe also that his care extends to all his creatures. BREWER: But isnít this completely diluting the Church and dissolving the Church into all the rest of humanity? LAMPE: No. I think there are two questions here which are getting rather confused. One is: ĎIs everybody in some sort of relationship with God?í That is what Dr Strawson asked me. Yes, of course; because otherwise God would surely not be God. The other is: ĎIs there a more limited number of people who are in a particular relationship to God through their acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and through their recognition that, because of that relationship, they are sons of God?í Yes, there is. MONKHOUSE: I wonder, Professor Lampe, if you could tell us anything about the relevance of the Resurrection to the present day. Humanists and Christians both try to do the best they can for people in the world, and these good works are surely good in themselves. Does the Resurrection help us at all to understand the difference? LAMPE: I am sure that humanists and Christians do the same good works, works which are of equal value as such. I also believe that the Easter message of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ provides a new context or dimension in which the Christian can set this doing of good works. It puts our relationship to other people on a different footing by placing it in the perspective of relationship to God. This perspective extends beyond the limit to which the humanist can follow, because faith in the living Christ transcends death. But, of course, if you ask me precisely how this relationship to God survives death, that is, how we shall be recreated in a continuing relationship with God on the other side of death, one simply cannot answer.

Update: There was a slight surge for the religious/right during the middle of the counting, but in the end it didn’t pan out. As the voting results continue to be tallied, it appears that the Right and Religious parties are gaining in strength compared to the the results released in the earlier exit polls, with the Likud now going up to 33 or 34 seats. Yesh Atid drops to 18, Labor to 16, Meretz to 6, while UTJ goes up to 7. You can see the updated list of who probably made it into the Knesset here. Final results will be known by 6 AM, Wednesday morning. Jewish Press News Briefs About the Author: JewishPress.com brings you the latest in Jewish news from around the world. Stay up to date by following up on Facebook and Twitter. Do you have something noteworthy to report? Submit your news story to us here. If you don't see your comment after publishing it, refresh the page. Our comments section is intended for meaningful responses and debates in a civilized manner. We ask that you respect the fact that we are a religious Jewish website and avoid inappropriate language at all cost. If you promote any foreign religions, gods or messiahs, lies about Israel, anti-Semitism, or advocate violence (except against terrorists), your permission to comment may be revoked.

7. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; henceforth you know Him and have seen Him. Here the Lord Christ again uses a new parable and symbolic speech before His disciples, to prompt them to begin asking about His Father, who and where He is. For although He has spoken about this very plainly and has revealed that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, by saying: “No one comes to the Father but by Me,” the disciples still do not understand. They hear these words about the Way, the Truth, and the Life, about coming to the Father, etc., with their reason and their carnal mind alone, and cannot make sense of them. Therefore Christ good-naturedly lets them blunder along. He throws a block in their way, to jolt them and make them ask more questions. He begins by saying: “If you had known Me, etc.” What? Do they not know Christ? Do they not hear His voice, and do they not see Him before their very eyes? Did they not travel about with Him for a long time? This bears out my earlier statement32 that knowing Christ is not identical here with seeing Him face to face and, as St. Paul says, knowing Him after the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16). No, it means to know how to regard Him, to know what we possess in Him and how to avail ourselves of Him. He means, in brief, that all depends on this, and that it must be a Christian’s true knowledge to learn to know Christ aright, to distinguish Him from all thought, existence, doctrine, life, and all that man may undertake, to cling to Him alone in faith, and to say wholeheartedly: “I know and want to know nothing in divine matters save my Lord Christ: He alone must be everything that concerns my salvation and that must be settled between God and me. And though I experience many trials and much opposition on the part of the devil, the world, and my own conscience, and must suffer even death because of this, I will still take my stand here. I am determined to live and to die in this faith.” “This,” Christ says, “is knowing Me aright, and through Me also knowing the Father.” “But if you look at Me as a cow looks at a new gate, if you merely see Me going along in the greatest weakness, letting Myself be so shamefully crucified, killed, and buried, then you cannot see or believe that I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that you must come to the Father through Me alone. No, then you will believe the opposite of Me, like the Jewish people, who consider Me to be error and deception, sheer lies and dreams, yes, nothing but death and the venom of hell. Therefore if you want to know Me aright, you must not follow your eyes and carnal understanding, like the Jews; but you must grasp the words which you hear from Me in your hearts, cling to them, and be guided by them alone. Then you will experience how I go through weakness, cross, death, and everything, and in this way come to the Father; and I will draw you on the same way with Me and through Me if you remain loyal to Me in death and every need, through faith in these words.” This is what Christ means when He says: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father.” As though He were saying: “Why do you continue to think and worry about where I am going, about the way, or about what and where the Father is to whom I am going? Do you not hear? If you have Me, you have everything; and if you hear My words, though you still grasp and hold them imperfectly, you know Me. And inasmuch as you know Me, you know the Father also and have already seen Him.” Christ will now explain and expand this further. For, as I have said, these words are merely an introduction to a new sermon on how the Father is to be known in Him. Luther, M. (1999, c1961). Vol. 24: Luther's works, vol. 24 : Sermons on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 14-16 (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (24:54). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

TEHRAN (Reuters) -- Israeli warships have ordered an Iranian vessel carrying humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza to leave the area, an Iranian aid official was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars News Agency. Iran, which has condemned the Jewish state for attacking the coastal territory, earlier this week said the aid ship was nearing Gaza but state radio reported on January 13 it had been stopped by Israel's navy. Israel has in the past accused Iran of supplying arms to Hamas, the Islamist group which controls Gaza. Tehran says it gives moral, financial, and humanitarian support. "[The Iranian ship] is now 45 miles away from Gaza and an hour ago, again, we received a warning from Israeli warships to leave the region," the head of Iran's Red Crescent, Massoud Khatami, was quoted as saying by Fars. "If these warnings continue we will change our route from Gaza to the [Egyptian] port of el-Arish," he said without giving any detail on the Israeli warning. The ship was carrying 200 tons of foodstuff and medicine "for distribution among the blockaded people of Gaza," state radio has said. Ahmad Navvab, described by Iranian media as the ship's director on board, on January 13 said the aid may be delivered via Egypt and the Rafah border crossing if the ship could not reach Gaza. Egypt is the only Arab state bordering Gaza. Iran said last week it had told Egypt it was ready to treat those wounded in Israel's assault and wanted to set up a field hospital nearby on Egyptian territory. Iran has also said it had landed a plane in Egypt with aid and wanted to send more. Iran does not recognize Israel's right to exist and does not have full relations with Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Iranian hard-liners have accused Egypt of not doing enough to help Gaza's Palestinians. Egypt sometimes allows wounded people and medical supplies through its border with Gaza but the Rafah crossing has been closed to ordinary traffic since Hamas seized control there in 2007.

There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). The Catholic Church was not pioneering a new heresy with the sale of indulgences. Marketing God’s grace and favor is an ancient lie. Organized religious corruption and extortion go all the way back to Christ’s earthly ministry. In that sense, the Pharisees are the spiritual forebears of the religious racketeers we’ve discussed in this series. First—century Judaism drifted far from God’s design. The sacrificial system, in particular, was perverted into a money-making scheme for the religious elite. By the time of Christ’s incarnation, the outer courts of the Jewish Temple had been transformed into a marketplace of corrupt commerce. The Temple grounds were capable of accommodating thousands of worshipers. The whole complex comprised several courts layered within each other, with the Holy of Holies at the center. The outer court was known as the Court of the Gentiles, the nearest place a Gentile could be to God’s holy presence. By the first century, the Court of the Gentiles had become a place of odious corruption. Unscrupulous money changers had set up shop there to take advantage of currency exchanges with any foreign worshipers who needed to pay the annual Temple tax (cf. Matthew 17:24). Since the Temple tax could only be paid using Jewish coinage, the money changers would cheat those who’d traveled from other countries with severely lopsided currency conversions. Likewise, animals brought to the Temple for sacrifice were regularly deemed unsuitable by the Jewish priests. The priests would point out some minor defect in the ox, lamb, or dove to be presented—forcing the man who had brought the sacrifice to purchase one of their “approved” animals at a grossly inflated price. The religious mafia in the outer courts were trafficking God’s favor and forgiveness, and profiting handsomely from their deceit. Nothing Christ encountered aroused His indignation more than the actions of those corrupt religious leaders. John MacArthur describes the scene. The sound of praise and prayers had been replaced by the bawling of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the cooing of doves, and the loud haggling of merchants and their customers. [Jesus was] filled with holy anger at the crass desecration of His Father’s house. John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Mark 9–16 (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2015), 137. We can easily forget that our Lord, who went to the cross “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7), also delivered ferocious and physical displays of His righteous indignation. On two occasions (John 2:13–16; Mark 11:15–17), Scripture records His response to the obscene commerce going on in the Temple. He abruptly brought a halt to their corrupt business, overthrowing their tables and driving them out with a whip. John 2:16 captures His condemnation for their wicked abuses: “Do not make My Father’s house a house of trade.” Scripture explains that our Lord was consumed with zeal for His Father’s house (John 2:17). In the same way, Luther’s zeal for God was manifested in his red-hot indignation towards the pope. But what about us? Do we have similar zeal for the purity of God’s truth? Or do we overlook blasphemous abuses for the sake of religious diplomacy? Have the protocols of twenty-first century civility quenched our passion for the supremacy and authority of God’s Word? Today, there is no shortage of Christian leaders who abdicate their role as gatekeepers for the church, preferring an open-borders policy that invites spiritual terrorists of every stripe. They argue that “it’s not my job to judge,” forgetting that shepherds are supposed to protect the sheep from the wolves. They essentially ignore the biblical exhortations to warn God’s flock of danger, as if that responsibility falls outside their jurisdiction. But what we learn from the Lord and from Luther is that ignorance is not an option when faced with those who extort and abuse God’s people. We cannot watch silently. We cannot respond passively. We cannot speak with ambiguity. Like God’s great ambassadors that have gone before us, we must boldly proclaim His revealed truth—fervently resolving to “exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict” (Titus 1:9). We must “not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead expose them” (Ephesians 5:11). In the words of Paul, we must “mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17, KJV). Christ’s ministry shows us that righteous indignation is appropriate when it comes to the abuse of His Word and His people. We ought to have the same outrage for every modern peddler of indulgences. We must have no patience for people who attempt to put a price tag on God’s blessing. And we must learn to channel that righteous hostility in a way that protects God’s people, disarms the enemy, and honors the Lord. Next time, we’ll conclude this series by considering what that response should look like today. As you may be aware, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into full effect on 25th May 2018. GDPR is the new European privacy regulation, which will replace the Data Protection Act 1998 in the UK and the equivalent legislation across the EU Member States. Here at Grace to You Europe we take our data protection responsibilities very seriously and, as you would expect, have undertaken a significant programme of work to ensure that we are ready for this important legislative change.

|Ted Raimi Quick Info| |Date of Birth||December 14, 1965| Ted Raimi is an American actor, voiceover artist, director, screenwriter, producer, singer, and songwriter who is known for playing the role of Joxer the Mighty in the fantasy TV series, Xena: Warrior Princess, as well as for appearing as Lt. j.g. Timothy O’Neill in the science fiction television series, seaQuest DSV. He is the younger brother of filmmaker and actor, Sam Raimi, and the brothers have collaborated on a number of projects. Ted Raimi has also appeared in several roles in a large number of shows and movies which include The Evil Dead, Cleveland Smith: Bounty Hunter, Evil Dead II, Blood Rage, Easy Wheels, Lunatics: A Love Story, Army of Darkness, Clear and Present Danger, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, My Name Is Bruce, Reign Over Me, The Grudge, The Midnight Meat Train, Oz the Great and Powerful, Murder of a Cat, Baywatch, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Masters of Horror, Legend of the Seeker, Code Monkeys, and Buddy Thunderstruck. Apart from acting, he has also tried his hand at producing, writing, songwriting, as well as directing. Moreover, Ted Raimi has also accumulated an impressive social media fan base with more than 20k followers on Instagram, more than 50k followers on Twitter, and more than 20k followers on Facebook. Theodore R. Raimi Detroit, Michigan, United States Detroit, Michigan, United States Ted Raimi got enrolled at Wylie E. Groves High School located in Birmingham, Oakland County, Michigan. During his days at the school, he was a popular DJ as well as a talented blues harp artist while also being an active member of the Groves Cinema Society. Later, he studied at the University of Michigan, a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well as at the New York University, located in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York. He also attended the University of Detroit. Actor, Voiceover Artist, Director, Screenwriter, Producer, Singer, Songwriter - Father – Leonard Ronald Raimi (Furniture Store Proprietor) - Mother – Celia Barbara (née Abrams) (Lingerie Store Proprietor) - Siblings – Samuel M. Raimi (Older Brother) (Filmmaker, Actor, Producer), Ivan M. Raimi (Older Brother) (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.), Screenwriter) - Others – Samuel “Sam” Raimi (Paternal Grandfather), Beryl Reingewertz (Paternal Great Grandfather), Golda Grosbard (Paternal Great Grandmother), Rosa/Rose/Roiza Grossbard (Paternal Grandmother), Simcha Grossbard (Paternal Great Grandfather), Schumuel Lieb Grossbard (Paternal Great Great Grandfather), Isadore Richard Abrams (Maternal Grandfather), Rose Greenspon (Maternal Grandmother), Aaron Greenspan (Maternal Great Grandfather), Rachel Kaldezar (Maternal Great Grandmother), David Kaldezar (Maternal Great Great Grandfather), Pessel (Maternal Great Great Grandmother), Gillian Greene (Siste-In-Law, Samuel M. Raimi’s Wife) (Actress), Emma Rose (Niece, Samuel M. Raimi’s Daughter) (Actress), Lorne Raimi (Nephew, Samuel M. Raimi’s Son) (Actor, Director), Henry Raimi (Nephew, Samuel M. Raimi’s Son) (Actor) Ted Raimi is represented by Amsel, Eisenstadt & Frazier & Hinojosa Talent Agency, Talent Agency, Los Angeles, California, United States. 6 ft or 183 cm 75 kg or 165.5 lbs Girlfriend / Spouse Ted Raimi has not dated anyone publicly yet and prefers to keep his private life away from the public eye. Hence, it is difficult for us to ascertain anything about his love life and relationship history. Race / Ethnicity Ted Raimi is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. - Often wears shades - Receding hairline Ted Raimi has appeared in a commercial for Old Rare Lottery alongside Bruce Campbell. Ted Raimi grew up in a Jewish household and was raised in Conservative Judaism. Best Known For - Having been cast as Joxer the Mighty in the fantasy TV series, Xena: Warrior Princess, which starred Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor - Playing the role of Lt. j.g. Timothy O’Neill in the science fiction television series, seaQuest DSV, which starred actors Roy Scheider, Jonathan Brandis, Stephanie Beacham, Don Franklin, and Michael Ironside - Appearing in a variety of roles in several films such as The Evil Dead, Cleveland Smith: Bounty Hunter, Thou Shalt Not Kill… Except, Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader, Evil Dead II, Blood Rage, Lunatics: A Love Story, Murder of a Cat, Oz the Great and Powerful, The Midnight Meat Train, Drag Me to Hell, Patriot Games, Army of Darkness, Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence, Clear and Present Danger, Stuart Saves His Family, Hercules and Xena – The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, My Name Is Bruce, Reign Over Me, The Grudge, and Man with the Screaming Brain As a Musician Ted Raimi has performed a couple of songs in Xena: Warrior Princess which include the likes of Dancing In The Moonlight, War, People Got To Be Free, The Ballad of Joxer the Mighty, Joxer the Mighty, and The Ballad of Joxer the Mighty. He also wrote the original song, Joxer the Mighty, for Xena: Warrior Princess. Ted Raimi made his first feature film appearance by playing the role of Bradley in the comedy-crime horror film, It’s Murder!, in 1977. In the film, he starred alongside the likes of Scott Spiegel, Sam Raimi, and Bruce Campbell. In 1981, he made his first theatrical film appearance as Fake Shemp in the supernatural horror film, The Evil Dead, which starred actors Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Hal Delrich, Betsy Baker, and Theresa Tilly. As a voiceover artist, Ted Raimi made his feature film debut by providing vocals to the character of Crius in the animated action-adventure film, Hercules and Xena – The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus, in the year 1998. The lead cast of the film included the likes of Kevin Sorbo, Lucy Lawless, Michael Hurst, Renee O’Connor, Kevin Smith, Alexandra Tydings, and David Mackie. First TV Show Ted Raimi made his first TV show appearance by playing the role of Buyer in an episode, titled Stalk Radio, of the comedy sitcom, Knight & Daye, in August 1989. As a voiceover artist, he made his TV show debut by providing vocals to the character of Skoodge /Holographic Alien Head in an episode, titled Battle of the Planets, of the animated action-adventure show, Invader ZIM, in April 2002. Ted Raimi Facts - When he was a child, Bruce Campbell used to often serve as his babysitter. - He began his professional pursuits when he was around 17 years old. - Ted Raimi has worked alongside his older brother, Sam Raimi, on numerous projects. - His credits as a director include projects such as Morbid Minutes, Deathly Spirits, and My Treat. - As a writer, Ted Raimi has contributed to a handful of projects such as Deathly Spirits, SeaQuest 2032, Iggy Vile M.D., Normal Joe, and Morbid Minutes. - In 2015, he served as a producer for the TV series, Deathly Spirits. - Over the years, he has appeared in a large number of shows which include the likes of Alien Nation, Twin Peaks, Baywatch, American Gothic, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Odyssey 5, Evil Dead: Regeneration, CSI: NY, Masters of Horror, Legend of the Seeker, Vicious Circle, Code Monkeys, 30 Days of Night: Dust to Dust, Supernatural, From the Mouths of Babes, Ash vs Evil Dead, and Buddy Thunderstruck. - In 2005, Ted Raimi provided vocals to the character of Sam in the video game titled Evil Dead: Regeneration. - Visit his official website @ tedraimi.com. - Follow Ted Raimi on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Featured Image by GabboT / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

JFCS offers an array of regularly-occurring support groups, both within the JFCS offices and outside in the community. The Caregiver Support Group, sponsored by Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice, helps participants build coping skills, deal with complicated emotions, and discover information on local supportive services. Intended for those more recently bereaved, the Widows / Widowers Group helps members to address practical decisions and begin to rebuild their lives without a partner. LGBT Aging With Pride, sponsored by Timothy Rice Estate and Elder Law, provides a warm and welcoming environment for members to develop new friendships and discuss issues affecting LGBT older adults. This supportive group meets the second Friday of each month. To learn more, contact Reva Farenback-Brateman at 856-424-1333 ext. 1184. Seeing It Through Together, a low vision educational and support group, is for people living with macular degeneration or other eye diseases. Cafe Connection – A Memory Cafe is for people affected by memory challenges and their care partners. On the second Thursday of each month, participants enjoy coffee, conversation, and a creative project together. Presented in collaboration with the Katz JCC and Jewish Senior Housing and Healthcare Service. Grant funding is provided by Camden County Board of Freeholders. To learn more, contact Reva Farenback-Brateman at 856-424-1333 ext. 1184.

NCSY is a world-recognized organization that has played a pivotal role in the lives of Jewish teens across the globe. With the vision of Harold and Enid Boxer a”h, the OU founded NCSY in 1954 to provide Jewish teens with an opportunity to build a strong connection to their Jewish roots through inspiration and leadership skills. NCSY and JSU are dedicated to connect, inspire and empower Jewish teens and to encourage passionate Judaism. NCSY connects with Jewish teens through innovative, cutting-edge social and recreational programs to help them develop positive Jewish identities. NCSY inspires teens through informal education, retreats and summer programs. NCSY empowers teens through leadership development and provides guidance on how to become committed leaders of the Jewish community and instruments for positive change and renewal. NCSY is committed to providing a safe space where teens can celebrate their Jewish heritage, embrace their tradition, develop a positive Jewish identity, acquire invaluable leadership skills, connect with dedicated Jewish role models, and learn to live spirited Jewish lives. Check us out on Facebook here. NCSY: By The Numbers 1,200 = Number of cities in North America with active NCSYers 2,000 = Number of teens that spent their summer in Israel with NCSY last year 35,000 = Number of teens that NCSY reaches every year 98% of NCSY alumni have married another Jew 95% of NCSY alumni have provided a Jewish education for their children 85% of NCSY alumni have visited Israel at least once

(April 14, 2021 / JNS) The Biden administration has announced its intention to Congress to move ahead with weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates, following a review of the deal struck by the Trump administration, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The deal, worth more than $23 billion, includes the sale of fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighter jets and advanced armed drones. A U.S. State Department spokesman said on Tuesday that Washington would move forward with the arms sales to the UAE “even as we continue reviewing details and consulting with Emirati officials” regarding the use of the military equipment. The agreement was struck in the context of the UAE-Israeli normalization accord, signed in September 2020, which saw the establishment of full diplomatic ties. Last August, controversy emerged when details of the side deal and the F-35 sales emerged. During a visit to Israel at the time, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to address the concern over the F-35s and reiterated the American commitment to Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME), while also signaling to the UAE that it would gain from the military sales. “We have a 20-plus-year security relationship with the United Arab Emirates as well, where we have provided them with technical assistance and military assistance and we will now continue to review that process,” Pompeo said, citing the threat from Iran as a chief reason to help secure the UAE. “We are deeply committed to doing that and achieving that and will do it in a way that preserves our commitment to Israel as well,” he said. Jewish News Syndicate With geographic, political and social divides growing wider, high-quality reporting and informed analysis are more important than ever to keep people connected. Our ability to cover the most important issues in Israel and throughout the Jewish world—without the standard media bias—depends on the support of committed readers. If you appreciate the value of our news service and recognize how JNS stands out among the competition, please click on the link and make a one-time or monthly contribution. We appreciate your support.

The 1-room apartment (40 sqm) is located near the Hackesche Höfe in the trendy Berlin district of Mitte. The flat is situated on the 2nd floor in Steinstrasse, a small, quiet street within this vibrant area, so you’ll be living in a peaceful and quiet apartment, while being in the heart of the city. It is an area well-known throughout the world, a cultural centre and famous for its nightlife. The Hackescher Markt area has become a centre for new trends in fashion and culture, with its wealth of fashionable shops and restaurants, the contemporary art galleries on Auguststrasse and Linienstrasee, and the alternative cinemas and theatres at Hackesche Höfe, all of them are within a few minutes' walk from the apartment. After leaving the house you will find yourself in the middle of the lively, trendy district of Mitte. Due to Berlin’s extensive public transport network, all the sights of the city are easily accessible. A really perfect position in the city! You will find grocery stores for your daily needs just a few minutes away. The flat has a fully equipped kitchen. The apartment is tastefully decorated with accessories, giving it a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. There is a small dining area with a dining table. One large double bed, a flatscreen-television, DVD, iPod docking station and radio are all included. The pleasantly styled bathroom is fitted with both a bathtub and a washing machine, and high quality towels plus elegant bed linen are included. The kitchen comes fully equipped with all mod cons. (microwave etc). You will have generous space for luggage and clothes. The flat has got a wireless LAN access (WiFi, WLAN). You will receive two sets of keys. You will enjoy a welcoming and charming apartment in a perfect central location in the German capital, Berlin. Of all the Berliner districts, Mitte definitely has the most tourist attractions. The list of sights and historical buildings and squares, is endless. The Brandenburg Gate, a landmark both before and after reunification , is the most famous monument in Berlin. From here the magnificent boulevard Unter den Linden runs almost all the way to Alexanderplatz with its Television Tower and World Time Clock. On the way you will be passing the Humboldt University, the oldest university in Berlin, Staatsoper (the Operahouse), Museumsinsel (the Museum Island) and the site of the future Stadtschloss (town castle). The Museumsinsel (Museum Island) is a World Heritage site. It is a treasure-trove of famous museums. Friedrichstrasse is today a commercial shopping boulevard with flagship stores and grand shopping centres like Galerie Lafayette, Quartier Latin and various international couture boutiques. The street leads to Checkpoint Charlie, the main gateway for the Allied forces, non-Germans and diplomats before the wall came down - and then leads on further to Oranienburger Strasse. This former Jewish quarter is a very popular district for going out and very famous for its nightlife and hip young crowd. Nearby you will find the Neue Synagoge and the Hackesche Höfe. Gendarmenmarkt, which is said to be one of the most beautiful squares in Europe, is not far away. Here you will find buildings like the Schauspielhaus as well as the German and French Cathedrals. Berlin has got an extensive public transport network. Due to the flat’s central location, a lot of visitors leave their cars parked or don't even come to town by car at all. Many of the tourist attractions are easily accessible. The apartment is situated near the S-Bahn station Hackescher Markt and the U-Bahn station Weinmeisterstrasse in former East Berlin. Additionally, there is a taxi rank very near the flat. Nearby you will find sights like Alexanderplatz, the Brandenburg Gate and the famous boulevard Unter den Linden. How to get to the flat: The nearest motorway exit is situated 7 kilometres away - north of the flat - and will take you only a couple of minutes by car. For drivers please keep in mind that you have to pay for parking spaces in the streets around the flat. You could also use parking house nearby. From Tegel Airport: take the bus no. 128 to underground station (U-Bahnhof) Osloer Strasse, there you change into the line U8 in the direction of Hermannstrasse and get off at the U-station Weinmeister Strasse (42 minutes). From there it will take you only a couple of minutes on foot, about 100 metres. From Schönefeld Airport: take the S9 (urban railway) to the station Jannowitzbrücke, change into the underground line U8 in the direction of Wittenau and get off at the station Weinmeister Strasse (53 minutes) From there it will take you only a couple of minutes on foot, about 100 metres. From Hauptbahnhof (the central train station) take the S5 (the urban railway) in the direction of Strausberg and get off at the station Hackescher Markt (5 minutes). From there you will have a walking distance of about 150 meters to the flat. Tegel Airport, 12 km (19 min.), € 19 Schoenefeld Airport, 24 km (28 min), € 34 Hauptbahnhof (central train station), 3 km (7 min.), € 7 All prices are shown in Euros and include VAT at the current rate of 7%. Please note that these prices are not valid during major events, public holidays and other holiday periods (please ask for an offer). - Fairs and major events (IFA, ITB, ISTAF, Marathon, etc) - Public Holidays (Easter, Christmas, German Unity Day, etc) - Summer holiday - New Year (27th Dec - 4th Jan) Please would you note, that the minimum stay in these time is higher and not the standard. Please ask us about prices for stays of more than one week. Een heerlijk, rustig gelegen maar toch heel centraal (in Mitte), appartement. Martin on time at 9 pm to give keys and recommendations, confortable flat with all what you need in very quiet building well located at 300 m from Hackescher Markt, with convenient public transport. All was fine. Michel It was a very great holidays in Berlin. We arrived a little bit later than expected due to our plane. Martin was in the appartment waiting for us. The flat was perfect!!! Great location, everything you need in the kitchen, supermarket just down the street, tramway/bus/train few meters away. Thanks a lot! Alles perfekt und genau wie beschrieben! Apartement mit allem ausgestattet, was man braucht - sauber, gepflegt, geschmackvoll eingerichtet. Lage: eimalig! Komme gerne wieder. Sehr gut gelegene, angenehme Wohnung, die toll ausgestattet ist. Genügend Handtücher, Küchenequipment etc. Ein bisschen gemütlicher wäre schön gewesen ( Vorhänge, Teppich, Blumen) in den kalten Novembertagen in Mitte! Martin was a great host and did everything in his power to make our stay comfortable. The location was great, specifically in the middle of some fantastic shopping and a major train line. Check-in and checkout were as smooth as hoped, I'd definitely stay there again. This host has 676 reviews for other properties.View Other Reviews First of all, the most important thing :-) Normally you will get an answer for every inquiry within the same day! For whom is my service intended? For everyone! My guests are very mixed – the businessman from New York feels as comfortable here as the young family from a small town. I welcome the culturally interested, those who come here to Berlin events like the Berlinale or Fashion Week, music lovers and clubbers, and those who just want a relaxing holiday. Everyone is welcome, from singles to extended families. What’s my aim? To offer friendly, comprehensive and straightforward service at moderate prices – no ifs and buts! Who am I? The idea of an unconventional apartment service was born in the sunny April of 2003 over a glass of wine, cheese and a baguette. The accommodation service was set up, and what was initially a bit of fun and a second job quickly grew into a profession and a passion. Add two staff members, three temporary assistants and a trainee – and you get an ambitious crew that aims to grow even further! Where am I located? The firm’s office is located in the legendary suburb of Prenzlauer Berg, a central location in the former east of the city. The ‘wild’ years that followed the fall of the Wall are past, but life here is still lively and upbeat. The apartments and rooms are in central locations of Berlin, especially in the West in a central location close to Kurfürstendamm (Nollendorfplatz), and also in the Eastern centre like Alexanderplatz and Hackescher Markt.

Another in my irregular round-ups of Yiddish and Yinglish stuff in the blogsphere: The Peter Schmuck file at grow-a-brain does some of it for me (Homeland security in Yiddish, Will Eisner, American Jewish music, etc). This is the best new blog I've seen for a while: אין מױל אַרײַן (the Chocolate lady's blogspot). At the risk of adding to my recent porn explosion, we have a Yiddish post about food porn watch - all the foodie blogs you could fit in your kitchen. But this is my favourite recent posts: The Chocolate Lady’s Shabes Ki Seytse Survival Guide (a post-Katrina "a tribute to the courageous peoples and rich cultures of our ravaged gulf coast"). Finally, an addition to the Axis of Bob that I've only recently noticed, a lovely Portuguese blog, Rua da Judiaria. The illustration, here, by the way, is George der Naygeriker, Curious George in Yiddish, translated by Sholem Berger (a blogger, incidentally).

Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon’s latest novel “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,” set in an imagined Jewish homeland in Alaska, has drawn critical raves. But it also elicited a widely discussed New York Post item provocatively titled, “NOVELIST’S UGLY VIEW OF JEWS.” Barbs flung by the wildly sensationalistic Post are easy to laugh off, and Chabon did just that, telling the rival Daily News: “My mother, when she saw this item in the Post, she was kvelling. She said, ‘Now you know you’ve arrived as a Jewish-American writer. When you’ve been condemned by other Jews as an anti-Semite, you know you’ve made it.’” Now, however, comes a biting critique from a more reputable corner: Columbia journalism professor and New York Times columnist Samuel Freedman. Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Freedman calls Chabon’s book “a love letter to exile and dispossession. Its satire has the effect, intended or not, of treating Israel as something simultaneously fanatical and ridiculous.” Speaking personally, I read the book with so much pleasure that only after the fact did I begin to struggle with its seeming message. No writer’s creativity should be censored for political reasons, and literary fiction of Chabon’s high caliber can and should resist being pinned to the corkboard of real-life parallels. Unlike the Steven Spielberg-Tony Kushner film Munich, which portrayed and interpreted actual events to deliver a clearly anti-Zionist moral, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union traffics in fancy. Yet the fancy has an undeniable point of view. One of the running gags of the novel is the absurdity of shtetl life transplanted into Alaska. Yiddish-language newspapers, slivovitz toasts, a hotel named for Einstein and a street for Nordau — all are meant to laughably underscore how inorganic, how extrinsic Jews are to this land. The unspoken inference is that it is just as unnatural for Jews to have plopped themselves down in a Middle Eastern desert. And when Chabon refers to the Sitka Jews having pushed out the indigenous Tlingit Indians, his metaphor needs no footnote to be understood. In conclusion, Freedman throws down the gauntlet, contrasting Chabon’s satirical take on the Jewish predicament unfavorably with those of Philip Roth and Anne Roiphe and suggesting that Chabon is “apparently imbued with the belief that Israel is a colonial, imperialistic oppressor.” Freedman suggests that Chabon’s views on Israel may have been influenced by his wife and fellow literary eminence Ayelet Waldman, who in her youth made aliyah to Israel, and even briefly served in the IDF, before becoming disillusioned and returning to the United States. She has written, “Ask me now and I will tell you that the Zionist dream, the very notion of Eretz Yisrael, the idea and the ideal for which I expected and was prepared to fight, has turned bitter in my mouth.” Freedman’s full article is here.

A perspective of the arab side to the six days war as brought by the al jazeera tv an anti israeli station. If you enjoyed the story of israel's 55th paratrooper brigade, then take a look at this story by cbn documentaries about operation moked help celebrate jerusalem's 50th and learn more about jerusalem's reunification in the six-day war. June 5 1967 israel delivers a stunning opening blow in the six-day war within a few hours, the israeli airstrike devastated the egyptian air force fighti. The six-day war started with a far-reaching air attack, code named moked where general sharon's division completed the cleaning-up operation and continued south in the direction of quseima on the same day. Arab-israeli six-day war a brief overview a look at the six-day war: it began june 5, 1967 nearly the entire israeli air force to strike egypt to pre-empt the anticipated arab attack in what was dubbed as operation moked. Fifty years ago this week the six day war raged between isreal and her arab neighbours forces network news radio sport live 'operation moked', as it was called, had been meticulously planned. Israeli military, arab league - six day war: operation moked. A hybrid history of the six day war made up of oral histories by numerous participants and stitched-together bits of biography from israeli military leader moshe dayan numerous pilots who destroyed arab airfields on that key first day of operation moked essays & anthologies. Abstract [en] the research regarding the six day war and the aerial operations named operation moked is extensive but there are certain shortcomings in the research that examines both the operation and the principle of surprise. The six-day miracle 49 years ago who can express the power of g-d, tell all his praise (psalms 106:2) exactly three hours after the start of operation moked, at 10:45, the war had despite the weeks and months of hostile actions prior to the six day war unilaterally taken by. The research regarding the six day war and the aerial operations named operation moked is extensive but there are certain shortcomings in the research that examines both the operation and the principle of surprise the aim of this paper is to contribute to this research by utilising existing. The six-day war was fought between june 5 and june 10, 1967, by israel and the neighboring states of egypt [known then as the united arab republic (uar)], jo. This table provides a summery of israeli and arab aircraft losses during 50 years of aerial combat since the creation of israel in 1948 six days war 1967 - 1970 : war of attrition 1973 : operation kadesh. The famous operation moked was the opening strike of the six-day war striking enemy airports and disabling the arab air forces led the iaf to complete aerial dominance throughout the war, which allowed it to assist ground forces freely. The six-day war changed the middle east six days of war: an interview with michael oren marc livecche | october 10, 2017 follow israel how did you go from limited objectives on the morning of operation moked (focus. The mid-1960s saw a great deal of tension between israel and its arab neighbors, especially syria with its attempt to divert rivers that originate locally and provide israel with a substantial amount of its water. 60 minutes in six day war posted on november 6 six day war (operation moked) hi hi khawvela air force operation hlawhtling ber pawl a sawi a la ni ta zel a ni czars khiangte advertisements chakai essay by soske muanpuia. This month marks 40 years since the six day war this inspiring history holds a powerful lesson for today menu gerald flurry israel's miracle victory israel's miracle victory especially operation focus, gave israel a tremendous advantage and momentum in the war. The arab-israeli six day war the arab-israeli six day war began on the 5th of (c8:82) the israeli air force (iaf) launched its surprise attack on the morning of june 5th, 1967 under code name operation moked , meaning focus (m18 get a custom essay sample written according to your. The iaf destroyed the numerically superior egyptian air force in the first 3 hours of the six day war pinterest explore shadow of, cold war promises documentary essay promises essays our founding fathers realized that the future would operation moked: the key to israel's six day war. Cbn documentaries 34k likes cbn's documentary team produces stories that highlight jewish and christian history, as well as biblical archaeology in.

Against history and messianic end-times, Jewish philosophy might want to take note that at the conclusion of a discussion of the Order of Appointed Seasons (Seder Moed) of the Mishnah, Jacob Neusner describes these pagan rabbis. Their world picture is cyclical, rooted in nature and in pleasure, raised, as a French philosopher might have said, to the nth degree in repetition. “Unlike the recurrent emphasis of Deuteronomy, the Sabbath or festival is no longer a theme or topic available to some moment in historical time, to something which happened to Israel…The Mishnah refers…solely to recurrent events, embedded on the regular lunar calendar, defined in nature, by the movement of the seasons and the moon, and in Scripture, in the main by the affairs of the cult” (Judaism, The Evidence of the Mishnah, pp.136-7), Forget Franz Rosenzweig who framed the holiday structure around big ticket items like God, world, “man,” creation, revelation, redemption, concepts that will ruin the mind. “When the Mishnah speaks of appointed times, it means not the end-time or the one-time fulfillment of time but recurrent Sabbath and festivals, new moons and holy days. When the Mishnah asks what is to to be done in response to those appointed times of nature and cult, it answers in terms of cooking and eating, working and resting, sleeping, celebrating, and rejoicing. The Mishnah’s program for Sabbaths and festivals speaks not of a being other than the ordinary life of Israel, but of a heightened enjoyment of everyday pleasures…The framers of the document, moreover, so lay out matters that the sole provision in the village is for comfort and relaxation” (p.137). At the same time, Neusner denies that this is a rejection of myth. It’s “a different cosmic myth, which speaks of different things to different people.” “The reason for the Mishnah’s worldliness is its otherworldly conception of the this worldly life of Israel” (ibid.). (Veteran scholars of rabbinics, please excuse these late’ish career musings on Jacob Neusner of a Jewish philosophy scholar. These cannot be helped, neither the lateness nor the enthusiasm)

No CrossRef data available. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2019 Although interpreters refer to the association between blackness and evil in ancient texts as essentially universal, specific reference by Christians to the counter-divine with the colour epithet ὁ μέλας is new with the Epistle of Barnabas. Black is applied as an honorific to certain Egyptian deities, but it is never used in Egyptian religion with reference to the counter-divine. Furthermore, black demons proliferate in late third- and fourth-century Egyptian monastic texts, but these witnesses postdate Barnabas. The first explicit reference to the devil as black after Barnabas is in Didymus the Blind, who interprets the reference as ‘Ethiopian’. Exploring the origin and background of this nickname for the counter-divine, this essay argues that Didymus accurately apprehends Barnabas’ intention: namely, that ‘the Black One’ does not merely reflect the universal association of blackness and evil in Roman antiquity, but, rather it reflects the appropriation of an ethnic stereotype in an apocalyptic context with distinctly anti-imperial resonances. 1 I wish to thank David Brakke, Robert Matthew Calhoun and Henk Jan de Jonge for critical comments on an early draft of this essay. I also wish to thank Lourdes García Ureña, María Rodríguez de Velasco and all members of the EABS and ISBL session dedicated to the language of colour in the Bible (University of Helsinki, 2 August 2018) as well as SNTS Seminar #1 (Athens, August 8, 2018) for for the opportunity to present this paper in their seminar. On the provenance of Barnabas in Alexandria, see e.g. Kraft, R. A., Barnabas and the Didache (The Apostolic Fathers 3; New York: Nelson, 1965) 53–6Google Scholar; P. Prigent, with the collaboration of Kraft, R. A., Épître de Barnabé (SC 172; Paris: Cerf, 1971) 20–2Google Scholar; Prostmeier, F. R., Der Barnabasbrief (KAV 8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999) 119–23Google Scholar. 2 See Gokey, F. X., The Terminology for the Devil and Evil Spirits in the Apostolic Fathers (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1961) ch. 8Google Scholar. Of twenty occurrences of μέλας as an adjective in the Apostolic Fathers, only two function substantivally. Black occurs as skin colour in the Hebrew Bible (שחורה, Cant 1.5) and with reference to sheep, birds, nighttime, clouds, hair, cumin and sometimes disease (Lev 13.37; Lam 5.10). Of six occurrences of μέλας in the NT, three denote ink (2 Cor 3.3; 2 John 12; 3 John 13), one refers to hair colour (Matt 5.36), and two refer to horses (Rev 6.5, 12; cf. Zech 6.2, 6). 3 Sobriquets are a feature of apocalyptic literature, although not exclusively. NT occurrences include: Luke 13.32, ‘that fox’; Mark 3.17, ‘Sons of Thunder’; Acts 1.23, ‘Justus’; 4.36, ‘Barnabas’; and 13.1, ‘Niger’. Nicknames in apocalyptic literature may replace names of historical personages (e.g. Satan, the ‘Spouter of the Lie’, the ‘Wicked Priest’, the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’). Collins, M. A., The Use of Sobriquets in the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls (LSTS 67; London: T&T Clark, 2009)Google Scholar. Apocalypticism, the Two Ways tradition, and anti-monasticism are aspects shared by Barnabas and the DSS. Μέλας appears as sobriquet in Diodorus Siculus 17.20.7: Κλεῖτος ὁ Μέλας ἐπικαλούμενος, the Greek warrior who severed the arm of a Persian in defence of Alexander the Great. 4 The counter-divine is referred to as ‘black’ (μέλας Ἅιδης) in Sophocles, Oed. tyr. 28–9. 6 The argument of this article will focus on the colour black exclusively, that is, it will not conflate occurrences of blackness and darkness. 7 In Mark 9.3, Jesus’ clothes become dazzling white; and, in Mark 16.5, an angel is dressed in white. No such figures appear in Barnabas. 8 Barn. 18–20 represents a version of the so-called Two Ways tradition. Barn. 21.1–9 may involve a third hand. C. Jefford thinks that a final redactor also added Barn. 1.1–5 (Reading the Apostolic Fathers: A Student's Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker, 20122) 3–4). I am currently persuaded by interpreters arguing that Barn. 18–20 reflects its own (older) tradition over against the version attested by the Didache. Barn. 20.1 identifies ὁ μέλας as Satan, whereas the occurrence in Barn. 4.10 denotes an ‘evil archon’ (4.13). The epithet ὁ μέλας does not occur in the Didache's parallel section. Cf. Barn. 20.1, a passage that I view as replacing ὁ θάνατος in the tradition known to Did. 5.1 with ὁ μέλας (20.1) based on Barn. 4.10 – the goal being to bring the Two Ways tradition into correspondence with the oldest part of the letter. 9 See Prigent, Épître de Barnabé, 41. 10 R. P. C. Hanson sums up the current consensus: ‘The first seventeen chapters of Barnabas obviously come from an Alexandrian source’ (Allegory and Event: A Study of the Sources and Significance of Origen's Interpretation of Scripture (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2003) 100). The assumption of Barnabas’ Alexandrian provenance is also based on manuscript evidence. Codex Sinaiticus – representative of the ‘Alexandrian’ form of the text – contains the oldest complete form of the text in Greek. Contra K. Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre); Barnabasbrief; Zweiter Klemensbrief; Schrift an Diognet (Schriften des Urchristentums 2; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984) 117–18 (Asia Minor); and Prigent, Épître de Barnabé, 27 (Syro-Palestine). 11 The Nile received its name from the Greek word νεῖλος (‘valley’). Since the river deposits black sediment after it floods, the Egyptians called the river ‘Ar’ (‘black’). C. A. Diop, ‘Origin of the Ancient Egyptians’, in G. Mokhtar, General History of Africa, vol. ii: Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) 27–83, at 41–2, 75–6. Black is used of Egyptian gods and goddesses as an honorific: kmwr = ‘Great Black One’ for Osiris and km as epithet used with the name of the god (e.g. Hathor, Apis, Min, Thoth, etc.) or kmt, goddess (e.g. Isis) (Diop, ‘Origin of the Ancient Egyptians’, 43). This word is realised in Greek as Χημία. Plutarch, Is. Os. 33: χημία (‘black’) said of Egypt. 12 Diop, ‘Origin of the Ancient Egyptians’, 43. 13 See Brakke, ‘Male Sexuality’, 501–35. 14 Such rhetoric spans the gamut beginning with Herodotus, who refers to Ethiopians with the Greek word αἰθιοπία (2.29). In 2.104, Herodotus uses μελάγχροος (μέλας ‘black’ + χρώς, ‘skin’). Cf. Martial 4.42.5; 10.12.12; TLL i.963. Αἰγύπτιος and Αἰγυπτιακός are synonyms of niger and ater. Pliny the Elder (Nat. 6.22.70) observes that the people living south of the Ganges River are brown not ‘burnt black’ like the Ethiopians. Cf. Nat. 2.80.18. Menander fr. 533 dismisses prejudice against both black and white skin (T. Kock, Comicoram Atticorum fragmenta (3 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1880–8) iii.157). Eratosthenes rejects the division of human beings into Greeks and barbarians, arguing that the distinction should be between virtue and vice (Strabo, Geogr. 1.4.9; cf. Plutarch, Alex. fort. 1.6). 15 Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, 27. 16 Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, 27. 17 ‘Two alternative courses of action are now open, righteousness and lawlessness. “Each man will receive payment in accord with his deeds – if he was good his righteousness precedes him; if he was wicked, the reward of wickedness goes before him” (4:12)’ (Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, 27). 18 ‘Apparently, at least for the traditional material used in chapters 7–8, the present time of struggle is thought of as the “kingdom” of Jesus in which there are “evil and foul days” (8:6) characterized by Jesus’ own suffering (8:5) and continued in the subsequent suffering of those who desire to appropriate the kingdom (= the church? [7:11]) for themselves. But “at the end of days” Jesus will be victorious over the forces of evil (12:9) and will “come to his inheritance” (4:3b; cf. 12:10f.). Pseudo-Barnabas does not elaborate in what sense Jesus has already, in his death and resurrection, defeated the adversary (see 10:5; 14:5), although he is definite that salvation is impossible apart from those events. In any case, the final victory, accompanied by judgment and re-creation of the universe, is yet future and ushers in the true “sabbath rest” for the Creator and his righteous people (15:5–7)’ (Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, 28–9). 19 ‘The Christian's adversary is Satan (18:1), the “Black One” (4:10a; 20:1), the “Wicked One” (2:10b; 21:3), “Lawless One” (15:5 var.), “Wicked Archon (Ruler)” (4:13) who is in control of this “present lawless time” (2:1; 4:1; 18:2). He is able to “shove us away from the kingdom” (4:13) and “hurl us from our life” (2:10b) if he can ensnare us in the “error of the present time” (4:1; 5:4).’ See Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, 27–8. 20 Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, 27; cf. 28–9. 21 Prigent, Épître de Barnabé, 35. 22 Prigent, Épître de Barnabé, 100. 23 Prigent, Épître de Barnabé, 101 n. 4. 24 F. J. Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit und der Schwarze (Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1918) 49–75. E. Kamlah's opinion relies on Dölger: Die Form der katalogischen Paränese im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1964). Dölger begins with the Stoic tradition that views the elements as objects of worship (citing Eph 2.2, 6). This is followed by the way in which Hellenistic Jews from Paul to Philo of Alexandria reflect ‘natural philosophy’ (50–1). Citing Philo, see Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit, 50. He includes discussion of Anubis and Pluto as black deities. Citing Dölger, Kamlah summarises the ancient position associating black and evil in which Pluto known as ‘black Jupiter’ (Die Form der katalogischen Paränese, 212). Cf. Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit, 64–5, citing Zimmerman, F., ‘Kleine Beiträge zur Religionsgeschichte. 1. Die schwarze Farbe des Teufels’, TGl 4 (1912) 631–4Google Scholar, at 634). 25 Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit, 49–75. Dölger views the two occurrences of ‘the Black One’ in Barnabas together as an aspect of the Two Ways tradition. Citing Cyril of Jerusalem, he writes, ‘Der Teufel wäre damit nach einem Worte Cyrills von Jerusalem der in der Finsternis Herrschende oder “der finstere und dunkle Herrscher”’ (49). 26 ‘Didym. comm. in Zech. 3.196; 4,312; Ps. 35–39 (Cod. 262,34) stellt unter Berufung auf Barn und Herm heraus, daß (ὁ) μέλας nichts anderes als σατανᾶς (vgl. Barn 18. 1) bzw. διάβολος meint und überhaupt für Unwissenheit und Übel steht; Näheres dazu gl. S. 48 und 554’ (Prostmeier, Der Barnabasbrief, 220 n. 123). 27 Flee from what is futile (v. 10), do not live alone (v. 10), be spiritual (v. 11). 28 Prostmeier, Der Barnabasbrief, 219–20. 29 Prostmeier also points out that they can occur as an element of popular literature (e.g. Physiologus) (Der Barnabasbrief, 219–20 n. 122). Prostmeier discusses ‘der Weg des Schwarzen’ again with regard to Barn. 20.1–2 (555–61). Barn. 20.1–2 is parallel to Did. 5.1–2, although in the Didache ‘the Black One’ replaces ‘death’ (i.e., Barn. 20.1, ‘But the way of the Black One is crooked and full of cursing’ (Ἡ δὲ τοῦ μέλανος ὁδός ἐστιν σκολιὰ καὶ κατάρας μεστή); Did. 5.1 ‘But the Way of Death is this: First of all, it is wicked and full of cursing …’ (Ἡ δὲ τοῦ θανάτου ὁδός ἐστιν αὕτη· πρῶτον πάντων πονηρά ἐστι καὶ κατάρας μεστή; trans. Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, 156, emphasis added). Kraft interprets Barnabas’ version as ‘characteristically eschatological’ (156). 31 Snowden, F. M. Jr., Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1970) 196–215Google Scholar. Cf. also ‘Simeon called Niger’ in Acts 13.1. Snowden defends this position in ‘Some Greek and Roman Observations on the Ethiopian’, Traditio 16 (1960) 19–38, esp. 35. 32 J. M. Courtès, ‘The Theme of “Ethiopia” and “Ethiopians” in Patristic Literature’, The Image of the Black in Western Art, vol. ii: From the Early Christian Era to the ‘Age of Discovery’, part 1: From the Demonic Threat to the Incarnation of Sainthood (ed. D. Bindman and H. L. Gates, Jr.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979) 199–214. 33 Thompson, L. A., Romans and Blacks (Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 2; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989) 40Google Scholar. 34 The earliest datable reference to a black demon in monastic literature is the devil's appearance as a black boy in Athanasius, Life of Antony (ca. 357). As Brakke has demonstrated, the stereotype of the promiscuous homosexual Ethiopian underlies this characterisation. In Life of Antony, the first demon to confront the monk is a black boy who says to him, ‘I am the friend of fornication; I trap and seduce the young, and I am called the spirit of fornication’ (Mayerson, P., ‘Anti-Black Sentiment in the “Vitae Patrum”’, HTR 71 (1978) 304–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 307). 35 I am not persuaded that Barnabas was written in the first century, although the first-century authorial persona may be deliberate. I am currently working with the assumption that Barnabas was written before Clement of Alexandria (182–202 ce) cited it. 36 I have divided v. 9 into three parts. Verse 9a, which is not pertinent to the present discussion, nevertheless poses a significant exegetical challenge. Kraft, perhaps correctly, reads it as a ‘parenthetical personal note’. He translates v. 9a as follows: ‘But since I wish to write many things – not as a teacher would, but as is fitting for a friend to do – and to omit nothing of what we have received, I hurry along. I am your devoted slave’ (Barnabas and the Didache, 90). Prostmeier refers to v. 9a as a ‘captatio benevolentiae ab nostra persona und Autorität des Mitgeteilten’ (Der Barnabasbrief, 193). 37 Barn. 4.9c shares verbatim agreement with Did. 16.2b. See Prostmeier, Der Barnabasbrief, 218 n. 119. No evil figure occurs among the parallels. 38 Col 2.15; Eph 2.2. The Secret Book of John, Hypostasis of the Archons and Gospel of Judas propose that the god of the Old Testament and his angels were nothing but archons. 39 LXX Ps 101.8 (102.7). Verses 7–8: ‘I am like an owl in the desert. I am like a little owl in the wasteland. I lie awake. I am like a lonely bird at the housetop.’ PGL 876–77, s.v. μονάζειν. 40 Sifre Deuteronomy 320 (p. 367) according to D. M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press) 70. See also idem, ‘Rabbinic Knowledge of Black Africa’, JSQ 5/4 (1998) 318–28. 41 Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 70. Vasiliev, A. A. refers to this time as the ‘period of Blemmyan terror’ (Justin the First (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950) 286Google Scholar and n. 49). The Blemmyes’ period of political importance extended from 250 to 550 ce. (‘Rabbinic Knowledge of Black Africa’, 320–1; cf. 323; final quotation from T. Papadopoullos, Africanobyzantina: Byzantine Influence on Negro-Sudanese Cultures (Athens: Memoirs of the Academy of Athens, 1966) 23). See also Goldenberg, D. M., ‘Geographia Rabbinica: The Toponymn Barbaria’, JJS 50 (1999) 53–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Βαρβαρία, sing., Ptolem. 1.17.6; 4.7.28 = ‘our Berber(se)’. 42 Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 36. 43 Text F. Bucheler and A. Riese, eds., Anthologia Latina sive poesis Latinae supplementum (2 vols.; BSGRT; Leipzig: Teubner, 1894–72) i.155 (no. 183). 44 The expression sonare hominem means to sound human. Cf. nec vox hominem sonat (Vergil, Aen. 1.328). 45 English translations of both epigrams are my own – with gratitude to Frances Spaltro. 46 Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 37. This depiction excludes the stereotype of Ethiopians as cowardly seen in, e.g., Aristotle and Philo. See Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 46–47. Goldenberg asks whether Origen drew on Philo, QG 2.82 for his interpretation (49). He might also have asked whether Origen drew on Barnabas, and if so, what source Barnabas used. 47 Text Bucheler and Riese, Anthologia Latina, i.155 (no. 182). 48 Juxtaposition of what is right ‘under the sun’ (i.e. on earth) and what is right ‘under the earth’. 49 Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 39, citing Juvenal 5.54. 50 Cf. also cacabatus, adj., ‘black, sooty, besmeared like a cooking-pot’ (Lewis and Short s.v.). Since only a percentage of African languages utilise clicks, it may simply reflect the ‘bar-bar-bar’ sound to Greek or Roman ears of ‘barbarian’ languages. Thompson relates the sound to faex (‘shit’ in line 1 of the prior epigram), Romans and Blacks, 37. On the language of Kush as ‘barbaric’ (e.g. Sib. Or.), see Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 71–2; idem, ‘Geographia Rabbinica’, 53–73. 51 Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 37. See also L. Foucher, Hadrumetum (Publications de l'Université de Tunis ser. 1, Archéologie, histoire 10; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964) 170–1, esp. plate 12d; Lonis, R., ‘Les trois approches de l'Éthiopien par l'opinion gréco-romaine’, Ktema 6 (1981) 69–87Google Scholar, at 87; and J. Desanges, ‘The Iconography of the Black in Ancient North Africa’, The Image of the Black in Western Art, vol. i: From the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. D. Bindman and H. L. Gates, Jr.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 20102) 246–68, 308–12, at 265. 52 John was a hermit of the Nitrean desert (Wadi el Natrun, aka Scetis). 53 Brakke, ‘Male Sexuality’, 512 (emphasis original). 54 Brakke, ‘Male Sexuality’, 512. With regard to Nubia, see N. M. Sherif, ‘Nubia before Napata (3100–750)’, General History of Africa, ii.245–77. Concerning the spread of Christianity in Nubia, see K. Michalowski, ‘The Spreading of Christianity in Nubia’, ibid., 326–40. 55 Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 96. 56 Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 140. Cicero, Off. 1.129–30 expresses a similarly derogatory concept, munditia … fugiat agrestem et inhumanam neglegentiam (‘human elegance should avoid rude and uncivilised carelessness’). Acts Pet. 22 also attests these categories: Peter dreams about a ‘most evil-looking woman, who looked like an Ethiopian, not an Egyptian, but was all black’ (trans. Brakke, ‘Male Sexuality’, 507). 57 Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 140. P.Giess. 40.2 ll. 16–29 in Select Papyri: Official Documents: Edicts and Orders (ed. and trans. C. C. Edgar and A. S. Hunt; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934) 90–3 (no. 215). Caracalla's edict also specifies how to identify an ‘Egyptian’. Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 220 n. 205 offers the following comparative evidence: P.Yale 46 col. 1.13 (complaint of a victim of the contemptuous treatment that Aigyptioi were apt to suffer); P.Zen. 2.66 (victimisation owing to inability to ‘play the Hellene’, ἑλληνίζειν). 58 Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 140, citing R. MacMullen, ‘Nationalism in Roman Egypt’, Aegyptus 44 (1964) 179–99, at 190. The Greek expression is in P.Giess. 40.2 ll. 16–29 (see previous note). Jews in Egypt were not, however, unanimously approved. CPJ 156c categorises Jews in Egypt as almost ‘Egyptian’ with an un-Hellenic mentality. 59 Thompson, Romans and Blacks, 141. 61 Brakke aptly describes Egyptians as ‘in-between’ (‘Male Sexuality’, 508). 62 The text was written by a census administrator. See MacMullen, ‘Nationalism in Roman Egypt’, 184. 63 Origen regarded Barnabas as a ‘general epistle’ (Cels., 1.63, citing Barn. 5.9; trans. H. Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953) 58). He may allude to Barnabas in Comm. Rom. 2.9 (Barn. 4.7–9) and 2.13 (Barn. 9.6; 15.9) (trans. T. P. Scheck, Origen: Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (2 vols.; FC 103, 104; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), although I do not find these allusions entirely convincing. See Hanson, Allegory and Event, 97–111, 311; J. N. Sanders, The Fourth Gospel in the Early Church: Its Origin and Influence on Christian Theology up to Irenaeus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943) 14–15, 29, 42. 64 Origen, Princ. 2.9.5; trans. G. W. Butterworth, Origen: On First Principles (repr. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973 ) 133. 65 Origen, Comm. Cant. 2.1; trans. R. P. Lawson, Origen: The Song of Songs, Commentary and Homilies (ACW 26; New York: Newman, 1957) 91–113, at 106. Origen draws a connection between Cant 1.5 and Moses's marriage to an Ethiopian in Comm. Cant. 2.2. See J. C. King, Origen on the Song of Songs as the Spirit of Scripture: The Bridegroom's Perfect Marriage Song (Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs; Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) 87, 112 n. 88, 126–31. 66 Origen, Hom. Cant. 1.6. Cf. Paulinus of Nola, Carm. 28.249–51: qui [sc. draco] vorat Aethiopum populos non sole perustos | sed vitiis nigros et crimine nocticolores | tales Aethiopas serpens edit (text G. de Hartel, ed., Sancti Pontii Meropii Paulini Nolani Carmina (CSEL 30; Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1894) 302). 67 Origen, Hom. Cant. 1.6; trans. Lawson, Song of Songs, 276–7. Cf. also Cant 1.4 Vulgate (LXX 1.5): nigra sum sed formosa. Origen, Comm. Cant. 2.9; trans. R. S. J. Daly, Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity (Holy Cross Studies in Patristic Theology and History; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009) 122. Origen, Comm. Cant. 2.2; trans. Lawson, Song of Songs, 107. Following Origen, Jerome advances a similar argument: ‘At one time we were Ethiopians in our vices and sins. How so? Because our sins had blackened us. But afterwards we heard the words: “Wash yourselves clean!” And we said: “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” We are Ethiopians, therefore, who have been transformed from blackness into whiteness’ (Jerome, Tract. Ps. 18 (Ps 86); trans. M. Liguori Ewald, The Homilies of St. Jerome (2 vols.; FC 48, 57; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1964–6) i.135–45, at 140). 68 In Comm. Cant. 2.2, Origen writes: ‘Although we may seem to have dealt with these matters at too great length we adjudged the opportunity afforded by these passages such as should certainly not be missed; especially because they bear a certain likeness to this saying of her who is darkened because the sun has looked askance at her. And we have shown that this takes place wherever a sinful condition has previously obtained, and that a person is darkened or scorched by the sun where the ground of sin exists …’ (trans. Lawson, Song of Songs, 112). 69 Origen's interpretation is important for subsequent patristic interpretation, including Peter of Alexandria, Didymus the Blind (see below), Apollinaris, Ambrose, Paulinus of Nola, Ephrem, Apponius, Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, Cassiodorus, Cyril of Alexandria, Faustus, bishop of Riez, Gregory the Great, Ennodius and Theodoret of Cyrrhus (Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 49). 70 For Brakke's masterful interpretation of the passage as sexually charged, see ‘Male Sexuality’, 515. The colour black occurs in the apocalyptic contexts of Vision 4 and Similitude 9 in the Shepherd of Hermas: Vis. 4, 1.10, the beast's head is partly black; 3.2, the world is described as black; Sim. 9, 1.5, 19.1, the first mountain is black; 9, 6.4 and 8.1, 2, 4, 5, 7; 27.2, stones are black; 9.5, 13.8, 15.1, 3, women are dressed in black. According to C. Osiek, images may correspond across the text (e.g. first black stones may correspond to first black mountain) (The Shepherd of Hermas: A Commentary (ed. H. Koester; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999) 223). Osiek notes that the use of colour is traditional in apocalyptic literature, especially black, red, white and a variant fourth colour (93). 71 The language is masculine, but undoubtedly implies no gender restriction. 72 As David Brakke, from whom I have borrowed the expression ‘Ethiopianize’ (‘Male Sexuality’, 503) has demonstrated, ‘Ethiopianizing’ frequently involves hypersexualization. Barnabas’ characterisation of ‘the Black One’ as infiltrating the community and costing believers their salvation may reflect a specific set of ascetic ideals. Prohibitions against deviant sexual behaviours (e.g. Barn. 10.6–8) might be seen to undergird this assumption, likewise, the exhortation against ‘dwelling alone’ (4.10). 73 Association of black with mourning and (thus) earthly existence is ubiquitous across time, locations and culture. 74 Origen seems to share this emphasis on the counter-divine's permanence, overturned only in repentance. Origen, Comm. Cant. 2.2, trans. Lawson, Song of Songs, 107–9. 75 Hero performed some of the first formal research into cybernetics. J. P. Oleson, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), esp. 24–5. 76 Trans. B. Woodcroft, The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria (London: Taylor, Walton & Maberly, 1851). 77 The Shepherd of Hermas implies a similar mechanism in its discussion of spirits in the vessel of the soul. 78 Holes created by gnawing or nibbling (τρώγω) as by a mouse. LSJ s.v. τρωγλοδυτέω, ‘dwell in holes’, e.g. ‘Troglodytes, Cave-men, an Aethiopian tribe’. 79 Text T. W. Lumb, J. Maillon and R. M. Rattenbury, eds. and trans., Héliodore: Les Éthiopiques (Théagène et Chariclée) (3 vols.; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 19602); trans. M. Hadas, Heliodorus : An Ethiopian Romance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957) 214 (ch. 8). Cf. also, ‘The Troglodytes and those who lived near the cinnamon country, who were light-armed, nimble, and excellent archers, he assigned to harry the slingers and javelin throwers on the enemy's left’ (trans. ibid., 231). On the Troglodytes, see Herodotus 2.161, 4.183; Strabo, Geogr. 1.1; Pliny, Nat. 6.34. ‘A late rabbinic anthology of earlier material, Leqah Tov, authored by Toviah b. Eliezer of Bulgaria at the end of the eleventh century, contains a unique text that associates the twelve signs of the zodiac with twelve specific peoples or lands. In what may be an echo of the ancient Kushite reputation with the bow, Sagittarius the Archer is associated with the Kushites’ (Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 68). 80 The counter-divine figure is an evil archon, implying qualities borrowed from a range of natural and supernatural foes including corrupt Roman officials, angels, demons, the devil, Satan and planetary deities. DDD 2 has no entry for ‘the Black One’. The colour ‘black’ does not even appear in the index. On archons, see D. Aune's discussion of ‘archon’ vis-à-vis Satan, noting Barn. 18.2 (‘Archon’, DDD 2 82–5, at 83). 81 J. R. Asher discusses ‘slinging’ as a cowardly battle tactic applied to the devil in Eph 6.11, 16 (‘An Unworthy Foe: Heroic Ἔθη, Trickery, and an Insult in Ephesians 6:11’, JBL 130 (2011) 729–48). 82 Portraying the counter-divine with the qualities of one's human adversary, together with the use of a sobriquet, confirms Kraft's evaluation of ch. 4 as apocalyptic. 83 Before he died he had an ominous dream involving an Ethiopian soldier, who had become famous as a jester. When this soldier greeted Severus with a garland of cypress-boughs, the emperor flew off in a rage ordering that the man be removed from his sight ‘troubled by the man's ominous color and the ominous nature of the garland’. Foretelling the emperor's death, the Ethiopian cried out, ‘You have been all things, you have conquered all things, now, O conqueror, be a god.’ When the emperor arrived in town he wanted to perform a sacrifice. In error, he was led to the Temple of Bellona, and given black victims. Abandoning the sacrifice, he returned to the palace but the black victims followed him there (SHA, Sept. Sev. 1.22.4–7, trans. D. Magie, The Scriptores historiae Augustae (3 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921–32) i.424–7). 84 Richardson and Shukster argue that the excrescence humiliates the ‘other three’, where the more natural reading of the Greek is that one of three takes over. P. Richardson and M. B. Shukster, ‘Barnabas, Nerva, and the Yabnean Rabbis’, JTS 34 (1983) 31–55, at 40. 85 L. de Blois, ‘The constitutio Antoniniana (ad 212): Taxes or Religion?’, Mnemosyne 67 (2014) 1014–21. 86 As mere claimants to the title, Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus do not count; however, the black and white imagery of their names is duly noted. 87 Cf. ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω (Mark 13.14). 88 Temples to Serapis were often oriented on astrological principles. 89 Although certain modern Afrocentric groups have attempted to see him as such. A. R. Birley, Septimius Severus: The African Emperor (New York: Routledge, 19992). 90 Plutarch, Is. Os. 27–9. E. R. Bevan, The House of Ptolemy (London: Methuen, 1927) ch. 2. Chthonic deities were often associated with the colour black (Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit, 67–8). Suetonius, Cal. 57.4: ‘A nocturnal performance besides was rehearsing, in which scenes from the lower world were represented by Egyptians and Aethiopians’ (trans. J. C. Rolfe, Suetonius (rev. edn; 2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950–1) i.502–3). On ‘black Pluto’, see Dölger, Die Sonne der Gerechtigkeit, 69–70. 91 Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 4; trans. W. Wilson, ANF iv/1.54). 92 A. Bauer and J. Strzygowski, Eine alexandrinische Weltchronik. Text und Miniaturen des griechischen Papyrus der Sammlung W. Goleniščev (Vienna: Gerold, 1905) 224, Tafel 6 verso; discussion at 49–75. The image is based on the Christian destruction of the Serapeum in Alexandria in 391 ce. On the grandeur of this temple, see Ammianus Marcellinus 22.16.12, trans. J. C. Rolfe, Ammianus Marcellinus (3 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950–2) ii.300–3. Rufinus (402 ce) describes the Serapeum as a temple elevated on a platform one hundred plus steps high (Hist. eccl. 11.23; trans. P. R. Amidon, S.J., The Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia: Books 10 and 11 (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 80–1. 93 Strabo mentions the Serapeum in Canopus renowned for curing the sick (Geogr. 17.1.17; trans. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo (8 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949–54) viii.62–5). 94 Attesting the Serapeum in Alexandria: Tacitus, Hist. 4.84; Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6. Strabo reports that the Serapeum had fallen into neglect (Geogr. 17.1.10). Philo of Alexandria described the grandeur of the sanctuary and library ca. 38 ce (Legat. 22.151). In 181 ce, the temple burned down (Jerome, Chron. according to Jerome's version of Eusebius’ Chronicle: Helm, R. W. O., ed., Eusebius: Werke, vol. vii: Die Chronik des Hieronymus (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte 47; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1956)Google Scholar; Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 4.47) and was rebuilt on a much grander scale by Septimius Severus. It was this new temple about which Ammianus wrote, ‘the whole world beholds nothing more magnificent’ (22.16.12). See also McKenzie, J. S., Gibson, S. and Reyes, A. T., ‘Reconstructing the Serapeum in Alexandria from the Archaeological Evidence’, JRS 94 (2004) 73–121Google Scholar, at 86 n. 43). It was completed sometime before 215, when Caracalla sacrificed there before ordering his army to slaughter a group of Alexandrians (Herodian 4.9.1–9; trans. Whittaker, C. R., Herodian, History of the Empire, vol. i (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969)Google Scholar. According to Aphthonius, the books of this library were located in the colonnaded stoa (other rooms served as shrines to honour the gods) (Aphthonius, Prog. 10, according to Kennedy, G. A., ed., Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (WGRW 10; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 118–20Google Scholar). The libraries seen by Tertullian were probably also in the stoa surrounding a stone courtyard in the centre of which was the temple. According to Tertullian, the sanctuary contained an important library that housed (among other holdings) the LXX (Apol. 18.8). Aristeas relates how Ptolemy II Philadelphus agreed to a request by his librarian Demetrius to translate the Torah housing it in the book collection at the Library of Alexandria (Let. Arist. 9; Philo, Mos. 2.31, Josephus, Ant. 12.2; Irenaeus, Haer. 3.21.3; Clement, Strom. 1.22; Eusebius, Praep. ev. 5.8.2). John Chrysostom evidently also saw this copy of the LXX (Adv. Jud., 1.6.1; trans. Harkins, P. W., Saint John Chrysostom: Discourses against Judaizing Christians (FC 68; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1979) 21–2Google Scholar). After the library was destroyed, the Serapeum would have been the main book repository until it too was destroyed. C. Rowan spells out the evidence for Severan worship of Serapis (Under Divine Auspices: Divine Ideology and the Visualisation of Imperial Power in the Severan Period (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012) 137–9). See also Manders, E., Impact of Empire: Coining Images of Power: Patterns in the Representation of Roman Emperors on Imperial Coinage, ad 193–284 (Leiden: Brill, 2012) 226CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ando, C., Imperial Rome ad 193 to 284: The Critical Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012) 57Google Scholar. 95 For this point on Septimius Severus, see SHA, Sept. Sev. 17.4; trans. Magie, Historia Augusta (LCL), i.410–11; on Caracalla, see Cassius Dio 78.22.1; trans. Cary, E., Dio's Roman History (9 vols.; LCL; London: Heinemann/New York: MacMillan, 1914–27)Google Scholar ix.332–5. The Historia Augusta emphasises Caracalla's import of the Isis cult to Rome (SHA, Sept. Sev. 9.10–12; trans. Magie, Historia Augusta (LCL), ii.24–7). 96 Rowan, Under Divine Auspices, 142–3. 97 Cassius Dio 78.22.1; trans. Cary, Dio's Roman History (LCL), ix.332–5. 98 Cassius Dio (78.23; trans. Cary, Dio's Roman History (LCL), ix.334–7) also reports that Caracalla consecrated to Serapis the sword he used to kill his brother Geta in his mother's arms. 99 The assumption that Clement of Alexandria and Origen could not regard Barnabas as scripture and cite it in their writings if the text had not been written many years before is flawed. Pseudepigraphical writers, such as Barnabas, did not write for the future but for the present. A successful pseudepigraphon is persuasive the moment it appears. When Clement of Alexandria and Origen cite Barnabas, they attest not its much earlier date, but its success as a fake. With gratitude to Henk Jan de Jonge for raising this possible objection. 100 The Venice manuscript states that the Basilideans celebrated the night before the Epiphany singing and flute-playing in a heathen temple at Alexandria. 101 During the second century, popularity of the cult of Serapis increased. In Alexandria, Serapis and Christ existed side by side and were frequently seen as interchangeable. Some early Christians made no distinction between Christ and Serapis, worshipping both. Both cults practised baptism. In 134, after a visit to Alexandria, Hadrian wrote a letter to his brother-in-law, Servianus, attesting the interchangeability of these two groups: ‘There those who worship Serapis are, in fact, Christians, and those who call themselves bishops of Christ are, in fact, devotees of Serapis (SHA, Firmus etc. 29.8.1–10; trans. Magie, Historia Augusta (LCL), iii.398–401). 102 P.CairoZen. 59034. Rostovtzeff, M., ‘Ptolemaic Egypt’, The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. vii: The Hellenistic Monarchies and the Rise of Rome (ed. Cook, S. A., Adcock, F. E. and Charlesworth, M. P.; London/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1954 ) 109–54Google Scholar, at 145–6. 103 Writing under the pseudonym of a Cypriote Levite convert from the Pauline historical stratum of the Christ-belief movement as the author of Barnabas does, his various ostensibly anti-Jewish (e.g. supersessionist) arguments must be interpreted as emerging from within a Christian community and directed at it. This contrasts with Justin Martyr whose arguments against Trypho come from outside the Jewish community and are directed at it. The writings of Athanasius and Origen at times reveal a similar aim. It is shadow-boxing to reinforce ideals already in place; it is not authentic Christian-Jewish dialectic. See Romm, J., The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) 49–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. No CrossRef data available.

Page created: 20 March 2012 Latest revision or update: 17 February 2013 Press Reports on the Chelmsford Jewish Community from 1842-2011 brackets indicate comments by the compiler. Addresses and personal information post 1960 have been removed. Jewish Chronicle, 18 March 1842 page 110 Reference to Jews of St Louis. Their Treasurer is Henry Cohen, son of Jacob Cohen of Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 27 October 1848 page 36 List of names supporting petition to the Privileged Voters of the New Synagogue supporting Elizabeth Levy, candidate for the late Solomon Arnold Esq’s Marriage [Probably Jacob Cohen] Jewish Chronicle, 25 August 1843 page 15 Fund for ‘Famishing’ Jews in the Holy Land. Mrs Davis, Chelmsford £2 Jewish Chronicle, 28 February 1862 page 1 Marriage on 26 inst of Maurice Gabriel of 27 Harley St, Cavendish Square to Esther, 2nd daughter of late Woolf Myers of Chelmsford and Mrs Myers of 13 Kent Terrace, Regent’s Park. Jewish Chronicle, 27 January 1865 page 1 On 17th inst at Duke Street, Chelmsford, daughter born to wife of L. Jonas. [Annie Constance Jonas March 1865 Chelmsford 4a 171] Jewish Chronicle, 23 August 1867 page 1 Marriage on 13 August at residence of bride’s mother, 54 Kensington Gardens Square, Marcus N. Actuary to Alliance Insurance Co, to Fanny, 4th daughter of the late Wolf Myers of Chelmsford. [Fanny Myers September 1867 London C 1c 197/Marcus Nathan Adler] Jewish Chronicle, 7 December 1867 page 1 ‘RESIDENT GOVERNESS. - Wanted, by a young lady a situation as above; she is perfectly competent to impart a thorough English education, with Hebrew, Music, Drawing, French, and German to beginners. She perfectly understands the moral training and management of children, having been educated for some years in a first-class establishment, where she likewise gave instruction to the pupils. Unexceptionable references. Address J.R., Fry’s Library, High-street, Jewish Chronicle, 5 June 1874 page 157 ‘THE friends of a well-educated youth, 15, are DESIROUS of obtaining a SITUATION for him (indoor) in a general outfitting establishment, pawnbroker’s, or any good house of business. Address, M.S. Jonas, High-street, Chelmsford.’ Jewish Chronicle, 2 July 1875 page 226 ‘AN INTERESTING MANUSCRIPT. - Mr. Jonas, of Chelmsford, informs us that he has lately discovered among his papers a beautifully written manuscript of a Jewish catechism which has been over a century in his family, but only now attracted his attention. It is an English translation of Abraham Jagel’s “Good Advice,” composed in Hebrew, translated into Latin by Ludovicus de Compeigne de Veil, and thence into English in 1860[sic] by the title of “The Jews’ Catechism.” In the preface we are informed that “it was written by me David de Castro in Dublin, this 4th March 1827. The Chelmsford Chronicle, the editor of which has seen the manuscript, describes it as a serious [obscured] and interesting little book’. Jewish Chronicle, 7 April 12 page 1 John Jacobs thanks senders of condolences etc on the death of his mother. 12 Museum Terrace, Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 21 September 1883 page 13 ‘A young lady requires a SITUATION as COMPANION or GOVERNESS to young children. English, Hebrew, French and Music. Good reader and amanuensis. -J. 4 New London Road, Chelmsford’. [Address of Jonas family. Probably Rosalie (Rosina?) who is described as Governess in 1881 Census.] Jewish Chronicle, 14 February 1890 page 1 Death on 6 February at 4 New London Road, Chelmsford, of Rose, 3rd daughter of Mr and Mrs L. Jonas. [Death. Rosina Jonas March 1890 age 27 Chelmsford 4a 259] Jewish Chronicle, 15 August 1890 page 1 Death on 11 August at 4 New London Road, Chelmsford, of Lewis Lazarus Jonas aged Jewish Chronicle, 21 August 1896 page 1 Died at Liverpool on 17 August. Flora Cohen, widow of the late Emanuel Cohen of Chelmsford and Liverpool. [Flora Cohen September 1896 aged 77 Liverpool 8b 76] Jewish Chronicle, 24 March 1899 page 32 Reference to Edward Cohen son of late A. J. Cohen [Aron Judah] of Chelmsford. He has lived in South Africa since 1876. He is also Viscount de Matalba of the Kingdom of Portugal. Jewish Chronicle, 9 March 1900 page 1 Death on 1 March at 61 Herbert Road, Manor Park, Sarah, relict of late Lewis Jonas. Aged 74. [Death. Sarah Jonas March 1900 aged 74 West Ham 4a 153] Jewish Chronicle, 24 January 1908 page 4 Fund for the Relief of the Indigenous Blind of the Jewish Persuasion J. A. Jones Chelmsford £5 5 0 Jewish Chronicle, 11 December 1908 page 12 Obituary of Wolf Myers. Born Chelmsford 1862 [should be 1842]. His mother was a sister of Charles Samuel who died 5 years ago. Wolf was youngest of 10 children, 2 of whom have outlived him, viz Mrs Henry Defries and Mr George Myers of Birmingham. He married Ester the youngest daughter of the late Samuel Moses of Stockwell who survives him. He leaves 5 sons, the eldest being Dr Charles Myers, Professor of Psychology at King’s College, London, and lecturer in Experimental Psychology at Cambridge. In Jewish affairs was Treasurer and Vice-President of Bread, Meat and Coal Charity, a member of the Board of Guardians and Treasurer of the Joel Emanuel Almshouses, Auditor of Jews’ College, member of the Board of Management of the Bayswater Synagogue and in 1894 elected Warden. He was on the Council of the United Synagogue 1887-1906. Jewish Chronicle, 23 April 1909 page 1 Birth on 19 April at 13 Duke Street, Chelmsford, a daughter to wife of Isaac Bryman (nee Sarah Barnett). [Birth. Syvia [sic] Bryman June 1909 Chelmsford 4a 694] Jewish Chronicle, 8 March 1912 page 2 Tombstone for Leon, youngest son of the late Lewis and Sarah Jonas of Chelmsford will be set at Plashet Cemetery. [Death. Leon L. Jonas March 1911 aged 43 West Ham 4a 28] Jewish Chronicle, 30 January 1914 page 11 Samuel Henry Cohen of New York died at 11 Cavendish Road on Saturday aged 73. His father came from Chelmsford, married Leah Saunders of Ipswich, and settled in St Louis. A paternal uncle, Emanuel, called himself Coleman and looked at the Royal and the Tsarist accounts. A cousin of the deceased, Aaron Judah Cohen, was Portuguese Consul to the Transvaal Republic and was created Baron de Matalha. S. H. Cohen married Esther Eugenie, daughter of David Davis, who survives him. [Death. Samuel H. Cohen March 1914 aged 73 Marylebone 1a 798] Jewish Chronicle, 22 October 1926 page 1 Engagement. Juliet, only daughter of Mr and Mrs Alfred A. Hart, Westcliff-on-Sea, to Simeon L. Samuels of Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 27 May 1927 page 2 Marriage at Southend Synagogue of Juliet Hart and Simeon L. Samuels. [Marriage. Simeon L. Samuels June 1927 Rochford 4a 1701. Jewish Chronicle, 31 January 1936 Supplement J. Rumney, ‘The Anglo-Jewish Community. Some Aspects of the Social and Economic Background’. page iv A Register of Circumcisions 1782-1839 records circumcisions in many places Jewish Chronicle, 10 September 1948 page 7 Daughter, Gail Irene, at 12 Avenue Road, NW8, to Peggy nee Powell, wife of Michael Poister of The Manor North Farnbridge, Chelmsford. [Birth. Gail I. Poister December 198 Hampstead 5c 1231. Mother Powell.] Jewish Chronicle, 29 August 1952 page 19 ‘Young gentleman requires accommodation Mon-Fri in or near Chelmsford …’ Jewish Chronicle, 15 October 1954 page 19 ‘Members of the Colchester and District Jewish Association from Colchester, Clacton-on-Sea, Chelmsford, Braintree, Ipswich, and neighbouring villages attended the Holy-day services which were held in Colchester’. [Note. 7 March 1952 page 16.’The Colchester and District Jewish Association was formed at a meeting held recently…’] Jewish Chronicle, 25 May 1956 page 7 Birth of a son, Robert John, on 15 May at St John’s Hospital, Chelmsford, to Jean Lilian (nee Levin), wife of Dr John (Jonas) Ellis of 393 Baddow Road, [Birth. Robert J. Ellis June 1956 Chelmsford 4a 745. Mother Levin] Jewish Chronicle, 13 May 1960 page 7 Birth of a son, Paul Victor, on 4 Ma at St John’s Hospital, Chelmsford, to Margaret (nee Mires) and Alan Morton, . [Birth. Paul V. Morton June 1960 4a 881.Mother Mires] Jewish Chronicle, 8 July 1960 page 12 Colchester. Mr Julius Jung of London, who has taken much interest in the affairs of the Colchester Hebrew Congregation, has arranged for a teacher, Mr I. Cohen, to take charge of the Hebrew Classes every Sunday morning. The first classes to be held next Sunday. Families living in Colchester, Chelmsford, Ipswich, and Clacton are invited to send or bring their children to the class. Jewish Chronicle, 17 February 1967 page 10 Birth of a daughter, Debra Carol, on 8 February to Anne (nee King) and Michael Shackman of removed. A sister for Lawrence Godfrey [born Edmonton 1963.] [Birth. Debra Carol Shackman March 1967 Chelmsford 4a 1106. Mother King] Jewish Chronicle, 24 February 1967 page 2 Death of Alec Caplan. Mourned by daughter Daphne, Barney, Godfrey and Jonathan Stean, Melbourne Parade, Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 25 August 1967 page 36 CHELMSFORD. Accom. or share of flat reqd by young woman teacher. Jewish Chronicle, 29 March 1968 page 2 Marriage to be solemnised on 3 April of Leon, son of Mr H. Maltz and the late Mrs H. Maltz of Wembley Park, to Naomi, only daughter of Mr and Mrs N. Clark of [Not found in Marriage Index] Jewish Chronicle, 9 August 1968 page 10 Birth on 1 August of a son, John Jacob, to Susan (nee Anson) and Spencer Bayer, [Birth. John Jacob Bayer September 1968 Chelmsford 4a 1006. Mother Anson] Jewish Chronicle, 29 November 1968 page 2 DAVIS. Birth of a son, Simon, on 19 November, to Francoise and Robert Kay Moussy, Rettenden Corner, Chelmsford. First grandchild of Peggy and Jack Davis USA. [Not found in Births Index] Jewish Chronicle, 10 January 1969 page 26 Junior Chronicle. Welcome to Louise Fuller, 15, Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 7 March 1969 page 2 Birth of twin sons, Simon and Jeremy, on 20 February at Chelmsford to Jack and Anne (nee Landon) Sadie. [Birth. Jeremy Sadie March 1969 Chelmsford 4a 1086. Mother Landon] [Birth. Simon Sadie March 1969 Chelmsford 4a 1086. Mother Landon] Jewish Chronicle, 2 May 1969 page 10 Birth of daughter, Rebecca Clare, on 27 April, at St John’s Hospital, Chelmsford, to Muriel and Brian Levene of (removed), Shalford, Essex. [Birth. Rebecca Clare Levene June 1969 4a Chelmsford 2492. Mother Landau] Jewish Chronicle, 7 May 1971 page 24 Junior Chronicle Reference to Jonathan Stean, 9 ½, Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 9 March 1973 page 44 ‘Young man 18 living in Chelmsford would like male friend … Interests, cars, guitar playing, socials, etc …’ Jewish Chronicle, 16 March 1973 page 1 Death of Ben Goldhill. From son and daughter-in-law Robert and Angelina, Jewish Chronicle, 18 May 1973 page 43 Wanted. Window dresser for family group of household linen and curtain shops in Essex. Write to Mr C. Morsley, (removed), Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 27 April 1973 page 24 Birth of son, David Paul, on 16 April to Susan (nee Anson) and Spencer N. Bayer, [Birth. David Paul Bayer June 1973 Chelmsford 4a 2187. Jewish Chronicle, 2 November 1973 page 26 Birth of son, Damian 27 October, to Rosslyn and Maurice Bardiger, (removed), Chelmsford. A brother for Rachel. [Birth. Damian Sefton P. ardiger December 1973 Chelmsford 4a 2036. Mother [Rachel Emma Bardiger December 1971 Chelmsford 4A 1987. Mother Bullemer] Jewish Chronicle, 19 April 1974 page 30 Birth of a daughter, Candida Emma, on 12 April, to Rochelle and Stuart Wallman, [Birth. Candida Emma Wallman June 1974 Chelmsford 9 2545. Mother Hodes] Jewish Chronicle, 25 October1974 page 13 ‘The growing community of Chelmsford and district now holds regular Friday evening services and a full programme of events has been planned’. Jewish Chronicle, 4 July 1975 page 32 Essex 35s (the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry) had a demonstration in Jewish Chronicle, 29 August 1975 page 6 The Reform Synagogues of Great Britain. High Holy-day Services. The Chelmsford Jewish Community. Inquiries, Mr M. Shackman, (removed), Jewish Chronicle, 30 January 1976 page 26 Good wishes to parents Daphne and Barney Stean of Chelmsford on their Silver Wedding, 30 January 1971. Geoffrey and Jonathan. Jewish Chronicle, 12 March 1976 page 32 Death of Debra Freedman nee Greenfield. Mourned by daughter Ann and son-in-law Godfrey Samuel, Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 19 March 1976 page 10 First [sic] of Chelmsford community. Lawrence Shackman, son of chairman Michael Shackman. Service at the Friends Meeting House. The Ark designed and built by members of the community was used for the first time. Jewish Chronicle, 20 March 1976 page 38. Birth of a second daughter, Nicola Elizabeth, to Rochelle and Stuart Wallman, 17 March. A sister for Candida, (removed), Chelmsford. [Birth. Nicola Elizabeth Wallman March 1976 Chelmsford 9 2649. Mother Hodes] Jewish Chronicle, 2 April 1976 page 46 Murray Caterers. Buffet specialists. Superb kosher food at competitive prices. [repeated subsequently for long time, in one form or another] Jewish Chronicle, 18 June 1976 page 36 ‘CHELMSFORD JEWISH Community welcomes you to its regular social, religious and educational activities ….’ Jewish Chronicle, 2 July 1976 page 16 Birth. A son was born on 24 June to Sharon (nee Black) and David Levy of [Birth. Howard James Levy September 1976 Chelmsford 9 2473. Mother Black] Jewish Chronicle, 13 August 1976 page 6 Chelmsford Jewish Community. Elected. M Shackman, Chairman; M. Murray, Vice-Chairman; Mrs P. Lewis, Treasurer; Mrs A. Shackman, Secretary. Jewish Chronicle, 24 September 1976 page 7 Report by Rev Malcolm Weisman, Visiting minister to small communities. ‘At Chelmsford the congregation is worshipping in the Friends’ Meeting House and taking services entirely by themselves as a result of several training sessions I have given them’. Jewish Chronicle, 1 October 1976 page 10 The Chelmsford Jewish Community raised £170 at a garden party held at the home of Mr and Mrs Norman Lewis. The money raised will be used to purchase items for the Hebrew Classes and for general communal purposes. Jewish Chronicle, 10 December 1976 page 39 The small communities project of the Association for Jewish Youth. A meting of the Essex area was attended by representatives from Basildon, Harlow, Colchester, Chelmsford, and Ipswich. Jewish Chronicle, 17 December 1976 page 24 Birth of daughter, Gemma, on 5 December to Linda and Alan Gladstone of (removed), Tile Kilns Farm, Chelmsford. [Birth. Gemma Anne Gladstone March 1977 Chelmsford 9 2451. Mother Keech] Jewish Chronicle, 11 March 1977 page 39 A Jewish Youth Club and adult group, organised by AJY’s small communities project, opens on 27th at Chelmsford YMCA. Youngsters and parents from the Colchester, Harlow, Basildon and Chelmsford areas are welcome to attend. Jewish Chronicle, 8 April 1977 page 31 People mentioned at the first meeting of the new Essex area Jewish youth club: Geoff Stean aged 22; Stephen Simmons, who us staying in Chelmsford while studying law at a local college; Lynie Peysner aged 18. Jewish Chronicle, 15 April 1977 page 8 40 youngsters and 50 parents attended the opening of the Youth Club at the YMCA, Victoria Road, Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 6 May 1977 page 35 The second meeting of the Club at Chelmsford. Activities included judo, football, arts and crafts, table tennis and a quiz. [Note curiosity of two reports of elections to office in a shot period of time, with different names.] Jewish Chronicle, 13 May 1977 page 12 Elected to office. D. Levy Chairman; S. Keller Vice-Chairman; Mrs P. Lewis Treasurer; Mrs D. Fuller Secretary. Jewish Chronicle, 1 July 1977 page 6 Elected to office. J. Goldstein Chairman; M. Kreps Vice-Chairman; A. S. Bennett Treasurer; Mrs S.R. Lissack Secretary. Jewish Chronicle, 12 August 1977 page 10 Elected to office. D. Levy Chairman; S. Keller Vice-Chairman; Mrs P. Lewis Treasurer; Mrs D. Fuller Secretary. [repetition of 13 May above] Jewish Chronicle, 16 December 1977 page 14 Death of Bernice Hilton nee Rivlin on 2 December. Husband Don, daughters Nadia and Alison. [see 2 June 1989 page 22] [Death. Bernice Adele Hilton December 1977 aged 41 Chelmsford 9 1688] Jewish Chronicle, 28 April 1978 page 13 Elected to office. Dr M. Murray Chairman; M. Shackman Vice-Chairman; Mrs M. Murray Treasurer; Mrs A. Shackman Secretary. Jewish Chronicle, 7 July 1978 page 30 ‘CHELMSFORD JEWISH COMMUNITY wishes to bring to the attention of the prospective members that it is actively engaged in providing a full social calendar together with the services throughout the ea and specially for the High Holy-days. Religious instruction give. Contact Mr E. Fenston, (removed), Jewish Chronicle, 14 July 1978 page 21 Barry Kosmin, ‘The Face of Jewish Suburbia: Part I The results of the Redbridge Survey. ‘Clayhall and Redbridge are now the centre of a large dispersed population of nearly 35,000 people, which covers London east of the river Lea out into deepest Essex as far as Chelmsford’. Jewish Chronicle, 4 August 1978 page 9 Garden Party a the home in Hatfield Peverel of Mr and Mrs Edward Fenton raised over £200 for communal funds. A giant open-air chess game was a feature of he Jewish Chronicle, 2 February 1979 page 25 ‘CHELMSFORD JEWISH COMMUNITY. Socials, Services, Religion School, Ladies’ Guild. Please contact …’ Jewish Chronicle, 13 April 1979 page 16 Engagement. Maxine Bernie, daughter of Sylvia and Laurence Cohen of Ilford, to Geoffrey, son of Daphne and Barney Stean of Chelmsford. [Marriage. Maxine B. Cohen June 1980 Redbridge 14 1125/Geoffrey Stean] Jewish Chronicle, 22 June 1979 page 20 Birth. Son, Fraser Mark, born on 24 May at Chelmsford to Sharon and David Levy. Brother for Howard James. [Birth. Fraser Mark Levy June 1979 Chelmsford 9 2659. Mother Black] Jewish Chronicle, 6 July 1979 page 8 Elected to office. N. Lewis, to Board of Deputies, for Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 7 December 1979 page 55 Barmitzvah at the Friends Meeting House, Chelmsford, when Paul Klein celebrated it in a Mincha on Shabbat. He conducted the Mincha and Maariv service himself. Jewish Chronicle, 18 April 1980 page 8 Some 150 people attended batmitzvah ceremony held by the Chelmsford Jewish Community for Deborah Shackman, Louise Kane, and Emma Brown. Jewish Chronicle, 18 July 1980 page 11 Elected to office. S. Keller Chairman; A. Klein Vice-chairman; D. Levy Treasurer; R. Wallman Secretary. Jewish Chronicle, 8 August 1980 page 5 Mr Paul Martin Bensher appointed JP at the Chelmsford County Court. Jewish Chronicle, 5 December 1980 page 10 4 officers of the Federation of Synagogues visited Jewish Community to discuss a burial scheme and other matters. He 40 members of the community, formed 7 years ago, have no synagogue. Jewish Chronicle, 5 June 1981 page 14 Elected to office. S. Keller Chairman; M. Shackman Vice-Chairman; Mrs Sylvia Murray Treasurer; Mrs Ann Shackman Secretary. Jewish Chronicle, 3 July 1981 page 10 Rev Malcolm Weisman addressed the Chelmsford Jewish Community on the subject of prejudice at the home of the Vice-chairman, Mr Michael and Mrs Shackman. Jewish Chronicle, 26 March 1982 page 14 A Sefer Torah mantle was presented to the Chelmsford Jewish Community by Sylvia and Keith Murray on the occasion of the barmitzvah of their son David. The mantle was embroidered by Mrs Murray. Jewish Chronicle, 26 March 1982 page 37 Birth of Emma Louise Dahlia Levy to Margaret and Paul Levy of Chelmsford. [Birth. Emma Louise D. Levy March 1982 9 268. Mother Barron] Jewish Chronicle, 1 October 1982 page 28 Bridegrooms of the Law. Dr Michael Levy. Mr Paul Levy. Jewish Chronicle, 22 October 1982 page 21 Letter on ‘Synagogue Decorum’ from Stanley Keller, Chairman Chelmsford Jewish Community, 18 Brent Avenue South Woodham Ferrers, Chelmsford. Refers to the same old stories annually of lack of decorum in services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. ‘..at those held by our own small community in Chelmsford, nobody would dream of talking … because volunteers from the community conduct all our services at a pace everyone can follow. Chelmsford is an independent community tending towards traditional services with certain allowances’. Jewish Chronicle, 24 December 1982 page 21 Junior Chronicle Children from Chelmsford won the 1982 Essex Jewish Youth Swimming Trophy, at the Loughton Pool. Teams represented Hebrew Classes at Chelmsford, Roding, Ilford, Jewish Chronicle, 31 December 1982 page 13 Birth of first child, Adam Daniel, on 25 December, to Maxine Bernice (nee Cohen) and Geoffrey Stean. First grandchild for Sylvia and Laurence Cohen of Gants Hill and Leah and Barney Stean of Chelmsford. [Birth. Adam Daniel Stean March 1983 Redbridge 14 1880. Mother Cohen] Jewish Chronicle, 6 May 1983 page 7 Chelmsford Ladies’ Guild raised £130 at a second-hand clothes sale at Chelmsford 20 May 1983 page 9 Elected to office. A. Klein Chairman; S. Wallman Vice-chairman; Sylvia Murray Treasurer; Betty Klein Secretary. Jewish Chronicle, 10 June 1983 page 10 Unusual bat mitzvah ceremony. Service was a modified combination of the traditional afternoon and evening services conducted by the celebrant, Davina Aakew, and her teacher, Dr Malcolm Murray. She read verses from the siddur and the Book of Esther. This was the first time the bat mitzvah ceremony had been run on the same lines as the Saturday afternoon [sic], itself an innovation of the Chelmsford community. Jewish Chronicle, 8 July 1983 page 4 Rev Malcolm Weisman, in his annual report to the Jewish Memorial Council, said that there had been an increase in the size of many small communities because of a general exodus from the large towns. He named Cheltenham, Chelmsford, Exeter, and Aberdeen among others as having recently shown signs of expansion. Jewish Chronicle, 8 July 1983 page 5 The Mayor of Chelmsford, Councillor Michael Rose, opened the annual fete of the Chelmsford Jewish Community. ‘The Community is negotiating the purchase of a building which will house its synagogue and the fete raised £482 towards the Jewish Chronicle, 30 December 1983 page 10 The Chelmsford Jewish Community raised £385 for its building fund by holding a supper quiz at the Newbury Park Reform Synagogue hall. Over 130 people attended. Jewish Chronicle, 6 April 1984 page 19 The Chelmsford Jewish Community, established in March 1974, celebrated its 10th anniversary at a special party attended by about 100 people. Jewish Chronicle, 10 August 1984 page 8 An interdenominational service was held in the town centre. A prayer for world peace was read in several languages, including Hebrew. Jewish Chronicle, 14 September 1984 page 8 Invitation by the Chelmsford Jewish Community to Jewish residents in the mid-Essex area to attend High holy-day services. These will be held at the Friends Meeting Place, Rainsford Road, Essex. Jewish Chronicle, 12 October 1984 page 25 Bridegrooms of the Law. Mr Philip Michaelson. Mr Stuart Wallman. Jewish Chronicle, 16 November 1984 page 9 Rev Malcolm Weisman conducted a demonstration and explanatory Shabbat eve service for the Chelmsford congregation in its regular venue at Friends House. Jewish Chronicle, 4 January 1985 page 4 Winner of a JC competition Mr Paul Grayson, Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 17 May 1985 page 7 Elected to office. S. Keller Chairman; P. Levy Vice-chairman; A. Shackman Secretary; M. Wayne Treasurer. Jewish Chronicle, 26 July 1985 page 7 The Chelmsford community held a fete I aid of the synagogue building fund at the home of Mr and Mrs E. Fenton, attended by over 100 people. Jewish Chronicle, 13 December1985 page 8 Over 100 people attended a supper quiz which raised over £200 for the synagogue building fund. There were guests from Colchester and Southend congregations. Jewish Chronicle, 24 October 1986 page 22 Letter from Stanley Keller, chairman of Chelmsford Jewish Community, (removed), Chelmsford. Refers to a Property Feature in the JC which ignored Essex. Says that Ilford has the largest Jewish population in Europe. There are houses for sale in Southend which has two synagogues. Chelmsford has an emerging Jewish community and has excellent road and rail links to the city. [Note. The statement that Ilford had the largest Jewish population was apparently made in the Jewish Chronicle Colour Magazine in 1971. It was refuted in the JC 17 December 2004 page 20. North-west London was larger.] Jewish Chronicle, 23 January 1987 page 18 Birth of a daughter to Lucy and Barry Wayne (nee Karp) at the Portland Hospital, W 1. First grandchild for Judy and Malcolm Wayne of Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 20 February 1987 page 16 Review of Bernard Kops, The Hamlet of Stepney Green. It epitomises ’the move towards upward mobility fromStepney to Chelmsford’. Jewish Chronicle, 20 February 1987 page 22 Birth of Emily Scott to Susan nee Woolf and Brian Scott. A sister for Anthony and Daniel. Fifth grandchild for Delia and Ernest Whitcombe of Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 27 March 1987 page 14 ‘Chelmsford Marks its Barmitzvah’. Community has 60 families. Looking for a synagogue, but 3 Hebrew classes. 120 members, guests and friends marked its [sic] and also Purim. The Deputy Mayor and Mayoress, Mr and Mrs Philip Harvey, attended. The community accommodates members ‘across the complete religious spectrum’, remarked upon by Rabbi Henry Goldstein of the South-West Essex Reform Synagogue and by Rev Malcolm Weisman. The Megilah was read by Rev Bernard Koschland. Jewish Chronicle, 15 June 1988 page 18 The Jewish Lads’ and Girls’ Brigade is looking for volunteers in Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 9 September 1988 page 69 Advert. ‘Chelmsford Jewish Community is looking for new members’. ‘A thriving and expanding community just 35 miles from London providing high holyday and Sabbath services, cheder classes, burial scheme and full social Jewish Chronicle, 16 September 1988 page 12 5 new members were welcomed at a garden party held at the Great Totham home of Charles and Ruth Askew. Jewish Chronicle, 2 June 1989 page 22 Engagement. Alison, younger daughter of Ron Hilton and the late Bernice Hilton of Chelmsford, and Jeremy, eldest son of Howard and Edythe Jacobs of Dublin. Jewish Chronicle, 13 October 1989 page 30 The attendance on the High holydays service of the small Chelmsford community was swelled by the arrival in the town of 34 Israeli students who are on a 3-year course in law at the Anglia Polytechnic, Chelmsford campus. Jewish Chronicle, 4 May 1990 page 13 Yom Atzmaut party at Chelmsford. Attendance of 100 included Israeli students. Jewish Chronicle, 5 October 1990 page 9 Annual garden party of the Chelmsford community was attended y over 100 people raising £420 for its funds. Jewish Chronicle, 22 March 1991 page 14 The Chelmsford community recently held its 500th service. A belated celebration was held with guest speakers Dr Lionel Kopelowitz, President of the Board of Deputies, and the Mayor of Chelmsford, Councillor Felicity Sturt. Over 50 people joined Rev Malcolm Weisman and members of Basildon, Southend, and Colchester The President is Edgar Simmons. The 500 services were held over 16 years. The first followed a chance meeting of three Jews in Chelmsford market and a small advert in a local paper. Has grown steadily to 55 families, relying primarily on word of mouth. No minister or permanent premises but hold twice monthly Friday night services and a thriving Jewish Chronicle, 19 July 1991 page 10 Marianne Levy was bat chayil at the Chelmsford Jewish Community. Jewish Chronicle, 13 December 1991 page 13 Rev Malcolm Weisman visited many small communities and isolated families at ‘A mini-Maccabiah games was organised in Chelmsford, Essex’. Jewish Chronicle, 24 July 1992 page 9 Chelmsford community played host to a delegation of senior Israeli social workers who are in Essex to observe the work of the county council’s social services department. The Israelis are hosted by local families and a reception was held at the home of Sue and Spencer Bayer. Jewish Chronicle, 24 July 1992 page 10 Rev M.Weisman addressed the Chelmsford Jewish Community on ‘The History of Spanish Jewry’ at the home of Mr and Mrs Paul Levy. This talk launched an adult Jewish Chronicle, 7 August 1992 page 12 A Chelmsford Jewish Community garden party hosted by Memory and David Ruben raised over 380 for the Karmiel Trust in Israel. Jewish Chronicle, 18 September 1992 page 16 ‘Chelmsford, with over 60 families is looking for a synagogue to house its Jewish Chronicle, 25 March 1994 page 17 Obituary by Malcolm Murray of Michael Shackman who died aged 59. The ‘founer, first chairman and guiding light of the Chelmsford Jewish community’. He acted as personal assistant to Rev Alec Ginsburg during his National Service with the British Army of the Rhine. His son Lawrence was the first Chelmsford barmitzvah in spring 1976. Survived by wife, son and daughter. [Michael Philip Shackman January 1994 Chelmsford 4681A 266. Born 16.11.1934] Jewish Chronicle, 28 April 1995 page 25 Meeting in Norwich of participants from various places in eastern England, including Chelmsford. Mentions Larry Berkowitz of Chelmsford , enthusiastic for joint meetings of youngsters. Jewish Chronicle, 14 July 1995 page 23 Reference to Chelmsford cricketers. Jewish Chronicle, 28 July 1995 page 19 Chelmsford community produces a magazine. Jewish Chronicle, 19 April 1996 page 25 Article on starting a new community. Sometimes by advertising. The replies to adverts ‘sometimes come from families which have long been resident in the area, as Chelmsford found when that community was first established some 20 years Jewish Chronicle, 26 April 1996 page 13 The Association for Jewish Youth is organising a day for children and their parents in Chelmsford on June 9. Habonim’s “road show” will be present. Jewish Chronicle, 26 April 1996 page 51 Cheder teacher required from September for small community in Chelmsford for mixed age group class of 9 children based in a school in Writtle. Write to CJC, c/o Merlin House, 23 Parker Road, Chelmsford. [NOTE. This appears to be first mention of this address. But see 6 September 1996 page 32 and 17 January 1997 page 34 below] Jewish Chronicle, 14 June 1996 page 20 50 adults and children from the Essex area attended a community day in Chelmsford organised by Norwood Ravenswood, the AJY, and Habonim. Jewish Chronicle, 5 July 1996 page 52 Chelmsford Jewish Community has regular services and social events in Chelmsford and surrounding areas. Jewish Chronicle, 6 September 1996 page 32 Article by Rev Malcolm Weisman. ‘Chelmsford generally meets … at the local Friends Meeting House and the services will be conducted by different members of the community, sometimes using very innovative prayers’. Jewish Chronicle, 9 August 1996 page 11 Elected to office. Stanley Keller Chairman; Paul Levy Vice-chairman; Harry Franklin Secretary; Malcolm Wayne Treasurer. Jewish Chronicle, 17 January 1997 page 22 Places like Chelmsford ‘may be more energetic but still cannot afford to find a Jewish Chronicle, 4 April 1997 page 34 200 people packed into Chelmsford for bat mitzvah of Ella Berkovitz and Janette Jewish Chronicle, 31 October 1997 page 17 David Cohen aged 65 is giving up his day job as a security guar in a company in Chelmsford to concentrate on painting. Jewish Chronicle, 14 November 1997 page 18 Re work experience of 5th formers at King Solomon High School, Redbridge, mention made of Erez Berkovitz, 15, who lives in Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 19 March 1999 page 29 More than 60 members of the Chelmsford Jewish Community attended a celebratory dinner to mark the congregation’s silver jubilee. Guests of honour were Rev Malcolm Weisman, minister for the small communities, and Rabbi Henry Goldstein, minister of the South-West Essex Reform Synagogue, ‘both of whom have been spiritual advisers to the community over the years’. Jewish Chronicle, 18 August 2000 page 13 The cheder children of the Chelmsford Jewish Community led a recent Friday night Jewish Chronicle, 1 December 2000 page 23 Max Blaber was [sic] at the Chelmsford Jewish Community. Jewish Chronicle, 6 July 2001 page 31 Letter from Harry Franklin, Hon Sec of the Chelmsford Jewish Community. Hoping to add to the 50 or so families who live in and around Chelmsford. There is a tremendous house-building programme going on and it’s more than possible that there will be a smattering of Jewish families among the newcomers. Jewish Chronicle, 1 November 2002 page 24 The Chelmsford Jewish Community held one of its regular “Nosh ‘n’ Natter” evenings. Participants bring favourite board games and cards to pit their wits and have a lively chat. Jewish Chronicle, 23 July 2004 page 16 Picture of Rachel Saunders and Marc Jackson who were married at Fennes Estate, [Marriage. Marc E. Jackson May 2004 Redbridge 247 538/Rachel H. R. Saunders] Jewish Chronicle, 23 July 2004 page 17 Stan Keller, chairman of the Chelmsford Jewish Community has become the first Jewish chairman of Chelmsford Rotary Club which was founded in 1927. He sits on the Joint Jewish Burial Society and Rotary panels. Jewish Chronicle, 17 December 2004 page 20 Jan Shure, ‘Swarming From the Beehive’ In 1971 the JC Colour Magazine declared that the Redbridge Jewish community was the largest in Europe. Repeated ever since. But not true then or now. Fell short of north-west London. In 1971 Redbridge was flourishing with 30,000 Jews, one-eighth of the borough’s 250,000. Growth began in 1930s when Jews migrated from Stamford Hill, Clapton, and Stoke Newington to Gants Hill and environs. Accelerated in 1950s. Today Jewish population of Redbridge probably 16,000. People have mloved on to Chigwell, Loughton, and further, to Chelmsford and beyond. Some to north-west [’Beehive’ refers to Beehive Lane Synagogue in Redbridge.] Jewish Chronicle, 10 June 2005 page 5 A 33-year old Chelmsford woman, Justine Laymond, an aerobics instructor, is suffering from a severe lung disease and is hoping for a lung replacement. Jewish Chronicle, 8 September 2006 page 8 Justine Laymond has had lung replacement and is show at home with fiance John Kohn in Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 4 May 2007 page 69 Reference to a cricket team in Chelmsford. Jewish Chronicle, 8 May 2009 Community Section page C6 The Chelmsford Jewish Community celebrated its 35th anniversary with a special Shabbat service. Several founder members were present, including the long-standing chairman Stan Keller. Jewish Chronicle, 4 February 2011 Community Section page C13 Mr Adler of Chelmsford is looking to reunite a document, that the Stettin synagogue presented to his great grandfather Jacob Samuel in January 1893 to mark 25 years of service, with the Polish community (Pictured). Return to the top of the page

Montreal is a beautiful city, that feels as if you taken a trip to Europe as opposed to crossing the Canadian border. From the old town to the Latin Quarter there is a lot to see and do. Plus, due to the large Jewish suburban population there is plenty of nearby kosher food (i.e. not much in the city). Here’s a list of the places we tried on our recent trip: - Yakimono – A wonderful and completely pareve sushi restaurant. They have some really interesting and unique menu items. Also, probably the best kosher sushi I’ve ever had. - Pizza Pita – The only kosher drive through pizza in the world. This place has it all. Also they’re famous for their poutine, a Montreal delicacy, and having eaten it I can understand why. They also have a salad bar, Israeli specialties, and of course, pizza. - Exceptions II – A great place for breakfast, brunch,and lunch. They serve all sorts of delicious dairy options from great breakfast specials, to salads, pastas and wonderful french pastries. They also have delicious coffee. - Mount Royal Bagel – Montreal, like New York, is famous for it’s bagels. So we knew that this was a place we had to stop. Unfortunately for us they were out of a lot of stuff. The bagels were pretty good, smaller and chewier than NY style, good, but I still prefer my NY bagels. - Chez Benny - Yossi’s Dizengoff Cafe at the Montreal Hillel - Cafe Dizengoff at the JCC/YMHA - Ernie and Ellies Place - Fuego Steakhouse - Le Grill Midtown - Milk and Honey - Pizzeria Tatty - Pizza Gourmetti - Shalom Pizza Bar As beautiful as Montreal is, it’s not the most tourist-friendly winter-time with -10° to -20° F temperatures typical for the season. Summer, on the other hand, is magnificent in Montreal with comfortable mid 70/80° F temperatures and little humidity (especially compared to New York). For New Yorkers and New Englanders, getting to Montreal is a relatively short drive of 5-7 hours, well worth it if you’re staying for a few nights. While not quite Paris, this French / English city is chock full of things to do outdoors, historical, shopping, you name it. Here are a few places we got to experience on our recent trip: - Old Montreal– The original city of Montreal- this area is full of history. Lined with beautiful shops, and cobblestone streets that face the port and the water. There is a very old clock tower you can climb to the top of and look out over the whole area. Also fun to check out is the Marche Bonsecours (Bonsecours Market) a building filled with shops, the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) and the Vieux-Port (old port). - Parc du Mont Royal– Montreal derives its name from this spectacular mountain in the middle of the city. You can hike to the top and look out over the whole city of Montreal. Quite a workout but worth the spectacular view. - Montreal Biodome– The Montreal Biodome is next to the Montreal Olympic Park. It consists of four different Eco-Systems, with animals and plants from each area. The Biodome is open daily from 9-5 p.m. - Some other things to do that we didn’t have the chance to see personally; The Jardin Botanique (Botanical Gardens), Musee des Beaux Arts (Museum of Fine Arts) and the Museum of Archaeology and History. - Comedy Festival– every summer, Montreal hosts a massive multi-week long comedy festival. Most of the shows are in English since they attract many non-French speaking tourists, but just to be safe, check the language of the show you intend to see prior to booking tickets. Check out the Mile End neighborhood which is one of Montreal’s oldest Jewish neighborhoods. Côte St. Luc: A really nice, and vibrant modern and Orthodox Jewish community, a Montreal suburb less than 30 minutes from downtown. Another area to check out is Outremont, which is predominantly Chassidic today. There are also multiple mikvahs throughout the city and surrounding areas. View Kosher Montreal in a larger map

It has been my observation both as a historian and a clinician, that traumas tend to happen on the anniversary of other traumas Terrorists know this and often strive to orchestrate catastrophic events on an anniversary of social and political traumas . These specifically dated events are designed to draw attention to something unresolved. On a national scale, Americans would see this manifest in the horrors of September 11, 2001 which can be seen as both the cause and result of other cycles of violence. If we choose to highlight the use of historical events rather than transitional dates to delineate historical eras, then this now totemic date of September 11, 2001 serves to mark the inception of our new millennium The second plane, as most everyone knows, was the one that hit the world Trade Center’s second tower. And, it was this second plane, as Martin Amis wrote a few days later, that utterly annihilated any hope that what was happening on that clear Tuesday morning might have been nothing more serious than a tragic aviation disaster. For the thousands in the South Tower, this second plane meant the end of everything. For the rest of us, its terrifying glint was the worldflash of a coming future. A series of events which took place on or around that date are now compressed into digital shorthand as: 9/11. Attacks involving the airlines, World Trade Center and the Pentagon were immediately blamed on Islamic terrorists, and a “clash of civilizations”. This perception laced with religious overtones, served to justify wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and now Libya, as well as an ongoing policy of endless war. Our day of infamy, and loss of sovereign America –as-sanctuary, was also the eleventh anniversary of a “New World Order” speech that George Bush Senior, former CIA director and the then President of the United States, made to a joint session of Congress. On this occasion he chose to announce his government’s decision to go to war with Iraq in the First Gulf War. It is also interesting to note that the construction of the Pentagon, one of the 9/11 targets, began on September 11, 1944. September 11th has a tragic resonance in the Middle East as well. On that date in 1922, ignoring Arab grief and outrage, the British government issued a mandate in Palestine which promised European Zionists a national home for Jewish people. This, in turn set the stage for ongoing conflict, terrorist attacks and wars. Again on September 11th, a Palestinian terror group named Black September took hostages at the Munich Olympics and killed eleven Israeli athletes. Internet rumors have suggested that September 11th echoes the dates in 1683 of the Battle of Vienna, considered to be a final turning point in the conflict between the forces of the Christian West and the Islamic Ottoman Empire. In September of 1697 the Ottoman Turks lost a large amount of East European territory after another devastating defeat by the Austrians. However, the exact sates of these temporal correspondences cannot be confirmed given that the dates of the Islamic lunar and Western solar Gregorian calendars are not the same. Another clash of civilizations began on September 11, 1906 when Mahatma Gandhi announced plans for a non-violent resistance to British rule. And then, on another Tuesday, September 11th, President Nixon, Henry Kissinger and the CIA backed an aerial bombing and coup which resulted in the overthrow and death of democratically elected Salvador Allende. The subsequent regime of General Augusto Pinochet was responsible for the “disappearances” of thousands of people, firing squads, concentration camps and torture chambers that opened throughout the country. Now in 2011, as Chile marks the anniversary of their September 11th, Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman discussed the event in an interview with Amy Goodman (www.democracynow.org, 9/9/2011). Now recognized as one of Latin America’s greatest writers, Senor Dorfman sadly lamented the tragic consequences of our vengeful cowboy diplomacy. Chile reacted to the terror that was inflicted upon us with non-violent resistance. In other words, for instance, we did not go and bomb Washington because Washington had ordered and helped to create the coup in Chile. On the contrary, we created a peaceful revolution against Pinochet. If you contrast that to the United States, to what Bush did as a result of this very small band of terrorists, the results have been absolutely terrible. If this was a test – and I think great catastrophes are always tests of national will – alas, the United States has failed that test terribly. If you look, I mean of the results of September 11, 2001, it has been just terrible what has happened. While it is not at all clear as to how many of the events of September 11th were consciously or unconsciously planned for that date, or were a result of pure coincidence, this long fractal is likely to continue given the lingering doubts, distrust and animosities surrounding the tragedies of 2001.

Ronen Chen: Became a fashion designer out of convenience! While I was browsing the Net the other day, I came across Jewish News Online blog titled “66 reasons to visit Israel“, dated November 4, 2014, and was amazed at the inclusion of Ronen Chen clothing label ‘To buy clothes at Ronen Chen…‘ at number 19 in par with the most historical and Biblical landmarks and tourists spots, even keeping the items ‘To try skiing on Mount Hermon…‘ at number 23 and ‘To see where Elijah hid in a cave, … the holiest Jewish site in Haifa‘ at number 49 on the list! It was a bit too enticing for me to resist and I swallowed it wholly by going into this Ronen Chen clothing brand. Impressed by what I learned about his simplicity, work ethics, and talent, I thought it wouldn’t be fair on my part to not let my friends know about him. Ronen Chen was born in Ramat Gan, a city east of Tel Aviv in 1965, and entered the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in 1986 after finishing high school and army service. Though he had wanted to be an architect, he chose Designing for the simple reason that Shenkar College was closer and easier to commute than the College of Architecture. He was in such an hurry in creating and selling designs that he made belts and shoes to boutiques while still in his third year at college. He made designer garments at moderate prices and made money even before leaving college! Sensible Business Moves: Ronen Chen founded his namesake fashion brand in 1993 and opened a small store on Sheinkin Street in Tel Aviv where most of the trendy activity took place. Though he had opened three stores in collaboration in London, he shut them down two years later as he realised that his London move was too ambitious a venture for such a start-up like him, and concentrated on improving his brand in his motherland, developing a network of stores in Israel and thus increasing his international sales. In 2009, after gaining enough knowledge and courage, he opened a stores at Portman Estate, London, and supplied his fashions to the States in cooperation with Nordstorm, the US high-end fashion retailer. Ronen Chen is best known for his minimalist and sophisticated lines with geometrical patterns and shapes that exhibit his love for architecture. He proudly declares that his first and favorite clients are his two daughters, and, of course, his loving wife who is a TV producer in her own right and has been assisting him in running his brand. The Ladies’ Tailor: Ronen does not have any interest in making clothes for men as he feels that there isn’t much to do with men’s clothes except changing a pocket from this side to that side. He likes to clothe women, but not those women who are ‘made to suit the clothes’ by managing to live on raw carrots alone. His idea is to make a woman, mostly a 30+ woman , feel comfortable and woman-like, showing what is to be shown in a woman and what is to be hidden in his clothes they wear. That’s the reason ladies in Israel, North America, Canada and London, in the UK and other cities in Europe wear Ronen’s dresses when they feel like wearing casual, comfortable, yet stylish clothes. He proudly declares that when ladies wear his clothes, they are getting everything of him — his experience, his imagination and his very soul! He is known to start his new design using squares of paper, folding them in such a way that they show up the angles which are later transformed into curves in the fabric on the mannequins (Chen’s version of origami, the Japanese art of folding paper into flower, bird, etc., shapes). After choosing the best fabric for each design and stitching it out, Ronen has one of his designing assistants wear the prototype piece for a while just to check on how “comfortable” the wearer feels. That much effort is put behind every design that comes out of Ronen Chen Brand. The Talk of the World: Jessica Steinberg in her review for The Times of Israel, December 6, 2012 compared the online shopper on Ronen’s US e-commerce site with a 4-year-old let loose in a candy store as there were the entire 2012 collection, prices ranging from $60 to $300. Susan Street, the president of VintageJewelrySupplies, on her ‘Fifty, not Frumpy’ blog confessed that when Ronen contacted her to feature one of his items, she found it difficult to choose as all his items are so elegant and timeless. One of Fodor’s Reviews declared that Ronen Chen’s simple, classic styles in every comfortable fabric, priced for a middle class budget, were his hallmark. Most of his abstract prints in fluid natural fabrics come from Israel, Italy, France, India and Korea. The famous journalist, Abigail Klein Leichman, in her review for Israel21c far back in November, 2011, remarked that a Ronen Chen dress on a Los Angeles woman might look quite different from another of his own dress on a New Yorker or an Israeli. This was because, she explained, Ronen understood geographic differences in “taste” — people from different regions prefer different fabrics, shapes and colors. Simplicity of Complexity: His Summer 2014 collection is said to be soft, comfortable and very feminine. There were several categories: ‘Metropolis’ in clean lines and geometric shapes; ‘Savanna’ in loose and relaxed shapes in light and golden colors in tribal patterns; ‘Ocean Blue’ in several shades of turquoise and ‘Time Out’ in pleasant colors in natural fabrics fit for vacation-wear. When you think of Ronen Chen, you think of minimalism, universality, timelessness and versatility in use in monochrome and neutral colors, and when you wear Ronen Chen, you feel soft-fitting, comfort and freedom. Ronen Chen has about 18 own stores in Israel and 2 in London. His items were found at popular retailers in the States, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium, and the online stores serve about 400 destinations world over. Ronen Chen garments have been worn by Yael Goldman, Israeli actress, TV host and model and Yana Goor, Israeli actress and model. Yael Goldman with Ronen Chen was featured on Fashion TV in 2011–2013. A Designer and A Gentleman: I personally vouch for Ronen Chen not only for his tailoring talent but also for his work principles and human values. When most of the world’s fashion designers are using ‘gender-mixing’ lines as the present fashion trends, Ronen refused to “toe the line”, for he believes that we shouldn’t clothe our women in men’s dress, and when Vogue announced its appoint of British designer John Galliano as its December edition’s guest fashion editor, most of the fashion pundits and designers condemned the appointment and labelled John Galliano as a racist for his anti-Semitic comments in 2011. Ronen was one of very few designers who ‘pardoned’ him, putting the preachings of forgiveness in practice. Dior, where Galliano had been working as an ace designer when he made those racist slurs, dismissed him unceremoniously from his position on racist charges, but Ronen, being a Jew, is believed to have said “…everybody can slip sometimes and Galliano was under the heavy influence of alcohol and drugs, and was a bit over the edge!”

Retired Army General Hosam Sowilam explains the anti-revolutionary attitudes of the Army An Egyptian army soldier sits beside an Egyptian flag near Cairo / Reuters CAIRO, Egypt -- Retired Egyptian Army General Hosam Sowilam knows how to control a conversation. With a jocular smile and a booming voice, he'll hold and repeat a phrase -- "Chaos! Chaos! Chaos!" -- until he's drowned out the question he doesn't care to answer, dispelling even the shadow of doubt as he regains the floor. "What happened on January 25?" Sowilam bellowed by way of introducing his history of the uprising in Tahrir Square. "Many of our youths went to Serbia and the United States of America, where they received training in how to overthrow the regime. They received training from Freedom House, and funding from the Jewish millionaire Soros." He goes on to weave a detailed story of a foreign plot against Egypt, in which unscrupulous agents from America, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, backed by a web of corporate interests, took advantage of Egyptians legitimately dissatisfied about Hosni Mubarak's plan to transfer power to his son. "Look!" he says, pointing in a bond dossier at a page of logos from companies like Edelman and CBS. "All these corporations were behind the Arab spring. This is very dangerous." There are headlines about Soros from websites like truthistreason.net and AnarchitexT.org ("I don't know any thing about them," Sowilam says. "I found them on the internet.") Other data comes from better-known sources like The Washington Post and Wikileaks. He has carefully translated key points into Arabic to share with Egyptian reporters. Although Sowilam holds no official role in the army that governs Egypt today, he considers that army his life, and relishes any chance to speak for its values and mindset, if not its official policies. He remains close to senior officers, and had a second career after the military at a defense think tank and now as an unofficial spokesman for the military. (I first met him a year ago while reporting a story about the military's view on then-President Mubarak's succession plans; Sowilam adamantly criticized the notion of hereditary power, but also warned that the military never would permit Islamists to rule Egypt.) Bald and squat, with a body shaped like a calzone, Sowilam has the typical build of an artilleryman. An early career surrounded by the thud of big guns marred his hearing, which is why he often shouts in casual conversation. Born in 1937, Sowilam came of age and attended the military academy in the 1950s, in the halcyon era of Gamal Abdel Nasser's Free Officers revolt. He took his commission when the army was at the zenith of its power, boldly refashioning Egypt's political and economic order. He fought in the humiliating defeat of 1967, which he directly attributed to the Free Officers' "disastrous experiment" with running the country. He later served abroad, including a stint as military attaché in India. He is methodical, and in his own way diplomatic, always grinning and pausing to inquire of his interlocutor, like a solicitous coach explaining a complex play, "You understand? Okay?" A quick tour through Sowilam's view of Egypt today should alarm any fan of the Egyptian revolution - and goes a long way toward explaining some of the more malignant anti-revolutionary attitudes here. His view of the revolution mirrors that of his peers on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, whose members are supposed to chart Egypt's course to civilian rule. In Sowilam's telling - and it's one that he has studiously disseminated to every media outlet he can reach - a renegade Egyptian cop directed the January 25 uprising in Egypt from a control room in Washington, at the behest of the CIA. Groups like Hamas and Hezbollah took advantage of Egypt's revolutionary disarray and Sowilam is convinced they were in on the plot from the beginning. (No explanation for why the CIA would collaborate with Hamas and Hezbollah.) Now, he says, Egypt suffers from a security vacuum and an economic crisis. "America wants constructive chaos, in order to dismantle Egypt into small states," Sowilam said. "Everyone now knows there are foreign hands all over the revolution, especially American hands." Ultimately, he says, America wants to replicate Iraq's dissolution in Egypt, dividing the country along sectarian lines: one state for Muslims, one for Christians, and a Nubian state in Upper Egypt. "They would give Sinai as a gift to Israel," he said. Lest American readers dismiss Sowilam as a conspiracy theorist or a crank, remember that he represents a driving force in Egyptian public opinion - the army - and his analysis of the revolution and its foreign sponsors is echoed throughout society. It's impossible to know if it's a majority view, but it's certainly popular and loudly held. He hastens to add that some of the revolutionary masses in Egypt are sincere, only that their movement has been hijacked. Sowilam blames Mubarak for leaving his succession plans unclear, convincing everyone he was paving the way for his son to take over; and, he adds, the "forgery" of the 2010 parliamentary elections was "vulgar." The United States has already spent about $40 million this year to "promote democracy" in Egypt, giving most of that money to American NGOs. This funding has enraged Egypt's rulers; in a visit to Washington, Major General Said Elassar of the Supreme Council called the money "foreign interference" and "a matter of sovereignty." What about Egypt's largest recipient of American money, by an order of magnitude? The military harvests $1.3 billion a year in direct aid from the United States, collecting a total of $40 billion since the Camp David Accords were signed. Sowilam brushes off the idea that American money taints the armed forces: "That is between two states. It is not secret training to overthrow the regime." Xenophobia has risen over the summer as the ruling generals, backed by alarmist television broadcasts and state media reports, have painted activists as traitors in the pay of foreign services - especially those who criticize the military. One blogger, Michael Nabil, was sentenced this spring to three years in prison for defaming the armed forces. This month, activist Asmaa Mahfouz was arrested and prosecuted for anti-SCAF tweets and comments on television; ultimately charges against her and another activist and blogger, Loai Nagati, were dropped because of a public uproar. The junta has accused April 6, one of the activist groups with the most street cred, of sedition, but offered no evidence. The group has sued the military for slander. So, is the Egyptian military cynically recycling one of Mubarak's favorite propaganda canards, smearing the character of dissidents and accusing them of working for foreigners? Or do Egypt's military rulers really believe that they're facing an elaborate foreign intelligence plot, and not a genuine public uprising? Several activists here said in interviews they're convinced the military really does believe its own line: officers simply have no other way of comprehending the sustained barrage of criticism directed first against Mubarak and then against the ruling generals, who consider themselves paragons of probity, competence, and patriotism. To be fair, Sowilam also loudly argues that the military must quickly return to its barracks and concentrate on national security, lest it repeat the comedy of errors and inattention that led to the 1967 fiasco. The longer the military dabbles in what Sowilam calls "the distracting indulgence of politics," the more vulnerable it leaves Egypt. Still, he doesn't think his beloved institution has been tarnished by its thirty-year affiliation with Mubarak and by its behavior since taking direct power in February. "The people support the army because they are fed up with these revolutionaries in Tahrir Square disrupting their lives," Sowilam said. "Some people are even asking now, where are the days of Mubarak?" We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to firstname.lastname@example.org.

History books including Holy Books talk about Eve as the first woman on Earth after being created from Adam's rib but non talk about Lilith, the first woman to be created from the same clay Adam was made. Here we dig through it all including why Lilith left the Garden of Eden after Adam tried to take control of her. Lilith is an extremely controversial figure within Jewish folklore. Lilith's name is not included in the creation story of the Torah but she appears in several midrashic texts. Her symbolism, history and literature are debated among Jewish scholars, feminists and other intellectuals. There are multiple origin stories for Lilith but the most popular history told views Lilith as the first wife of Adam. According to the "first Eve" story Lilith was created by God from dust and placed to live in the garden with Adam until problems arose between Adam and Lilith when Adam tried to exercise dominance over Lilith. One story tells that Lilith refused to lay beneath Adam during sex. She believed they were created equal, both from the dust of the earth, thus she should not have to lay beneath him. After Adam disagreed, Lilith fled the Garden of Eden to gain her independence. Adam told God that Lilith had left and God sent three angels, Senoi, Sansenoi, and Sammangelof, to retrieve her. The three angels found Lilith in a cave bearing children but Lilith refused to come back to the garden. The angels told her they would kill 100 of her children every day for her disobedience. In revenge, she is said to rob children of life and is responsible for the deaths of still-born infants and crib deaths (SIDS). Male children are at risk of Lilith's wrath for 8 days after birth (until circumcision) and girls are at risk for 20 days. Although Lilith stole children's lives in the night, she agreed not to kill the children who had amulets of either of the three angels. After the angels' departure, Lilith tried to return to the garden but upon her arrival she discovered that Adam already had another mate, Eve. Out of revenge, Lilith had sex with Adam while he was sleeping and "stole his seed." With his seed she bears 'lilium,' earth-bound demons to replace her children killed by the angels. Lilith is also said to be responsible for males' erotic dreams and night emissions. Another theory says that Lilith is impregnated, thus creating more demons by masturbation and erotic dreams. Watch the Video Below:

You hear a lot of blather about the constitutional right to free speech in America, and it’s true that those crazies who utter threatening and seditious remarks against the country’s first black president would probably be rounded up and shot in some other countries. Or at least sent to prison. But the same “right” apparently does not extend to Helen Thomas (photo above). You know who she is, right? The longest serving White House correspondent? Yep, that one. The 89-year-old legend “retired” yesterday after comments she made about Israel were released over the weekend, drawing condemnation from the White House. Obviously, Thomas didn’t really retire. She was fired. Her immediate “retirement” was announced after heiress Victoria Hearst publicly demanded that the corporation bearing her family’s name fire her. So much for free speech. Apparently, you can say whatever you like about President Obama – call him a “rag head,” compare him to Hitler, accuse him of treachery and other crimes, pray for his death and even call for his assassination. But you have to be really careful when you talk about Israel in America. And Helen Thomas was not. In a video recorded by the website RabbiLive.com on May 27, she was asked if she had any comments on Israel, “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” she said. “Where should they go?” the interviewer asked. They should go back where they came from, to Germany, Poland or the United States, she said. The White House called the remark “offensive and reprehensible.” A reasonable person can argue that Israel is an artificial nation, forced upon the Palestinians in much the same way as the English under Oliver Cromwell moved settlers into Ireland to drive the Irish from their homes. I feel specially privileged to discuss Israel because my father was among the British soldiers who marched into Jerusalem on December 9, 1917, opening the door that led to the country’s foundation. The surrender of Jerusalem (photo above) marked the end of four centuries of Turkish rule and the beginning of 30 years of British rule. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, it was decided that territories inhabited by peoples unable to stand by themselves would be entrusted to advanced nations until the local population could handle their own affairs. This concept was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. When representatives of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, and Belgium met at San Remo, Italy, in April 1920, to discuss methods of implementing the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Palestine was handed over to the British. The British Mandate was approved by the League of Nations Council on July 24, 1922, and became official on September 29, 1923. The United States was not a member of the League of Nations, but a joint resolution of the United States Congress on June 30, 1922, endorsed the concept of the Jewish National Home. The British Mandate over Palestine expired on Friday May 14, 1948, and the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel was signed. The “repatriation” of Jews from all over the world began. A reasonable person could argue that the Jews have a right to this territory after all they’ve been through. We know the story of Moses and the Promised Land. We know the Jews have been persecuted in Europe and elsewhere. We know about the pogroms and the Holocaust. We might feel it’s only fair that they should have a land of their own, and we might applaud the way in which they’ve toiled to make that land fruitful and progressive in the past six decades. However, another reasonable person might argue that the creation of Israel was unfair to the Palestinians, and that the Jews should not have been arbitrarily invited to take over territory that Arabs have inhabited for generations. To me, Helen Thomas expressed a reasonable opinion. I do not agree with her. I think the Arabs should let bygones be bygones and try to reach an accommodation with Israel to ensure a peaceful and prosperous future. And I do not approve of the undiplomatic way in which she expressed her views. But I think she has every right to speak her mind – any way she wants. Especially in America.

It has been reported that The Nanny is being adapted into a Broadway musical. The production is based on the 1990s American sitcom of the same name, which followed a fashionable Jewish wom... Be More Chill posts Broadway closure notice at the Lyceum Theatre The Broadway premiere production will now play its final performance on August 11, 2019. Following the evening performance on June 20, 2019, composer Joe Iconis announced a closure for Be More Chill, currently at the Lyceum Theatre. The production will now play its final performance on August 11, 2019 and will have played 30 previews and 177 performances upon closing. Be More Chill began previews on February 13, ahead of an official opening on March 10. The cast of Be More Chill stars Will Roland (as Jeremy), George Salazar (as Michael), Stephanie Hsu (as Christine) Gerard Canonico (as Rich), Katlyn Carlson (as Chloe), Tiffany Mann (as Jenna), Lauren Marcus (as Brooke), Britton Smith (as Jake), Jason SweetTooth Williams (as Mr. Heere/Mr. Reyes/Scary Stockboy), and Jason Tam (as The Squip). The creative team of Be More Chill features a book by Joe Tracz, with music and lyrics by Joe Iconis. Stephen Brackett directs, with choreography by Chase Brock, lighting by Tyler Micoleau, sound by Ryan Rumery, scenic design by Beowulf Boritt and costume design by Bobby Frederick Tilley II. Synopsis: " What if popularity came in a pill? Would you take it, no questions asked? In Be More Chill, achieving that elusive "perfect life" is now possible thanks to some mysterious new technology-but it comes at a cost that's not as easy to swallow. What could possibly go wrong? Blending the contemporary with retro sci-fi, this thrillingly exciting, comically subversive, and deeply felt new musical takes on the competing voices in all of our heads. And ultimately proves, there's never been a better time in history to be yourself-especially if you're a loser...geek...or whatever.." Be More Chill Tickets are available now for performances through to August 11, 2019. (Photo by Maria Baranova)

If the Islamic movement manages to re-occupy East Jerusalem, the Jewish people will again be cut of from their grave yards on the western slope of The Mount of Olives. The Biblical prophets Zekhariah, Haggai and Malachi is buried there. So are several Jewish Nobel price winners, and former Prime Minister Menachem Begin. During the Jordanian occupation of East Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, the Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives, were desecrated. Many of the tomb stones were used as building material for private homes, and even for latrines for the nearby Jordanian army bases. Source: Jerusalem Report, magazine published by Jerusalem Post. It would be a grave injustice and pure racism to force Israel to give up its control over East Jerusalem. Not only because the city of David is the capital of the state of Israel. But also because the Islamic gangsters again will refuse the Jews to visit their Holy sites. Today people of all faiths have access to their holiest site, Jews, Muslims and Catholics and Christians alike. The graveyard on the western slope of the Mount of Olives are widely neglected by the Government of Israel. That is a shame, Because few sites in Jerusalem gives the World an indisputable evidence of the Jewish origin of this part of the city of Jerusalem. First published: 12.12.2009.

Building Connections and Community at the JTFN Summit 2019 By JTFN Staff Recently, the Jewish Teen Funders Network hosted the JTFN Summit 2019, a three day summit in San Francisco designed for educators and professionals in the field of Jewish teen education and teen philanthropy, happening alongside the Jewish Funders Network Conference. Attendees traveled from all of over the world to participate in immersive workshops, panels and plenaries with the collective interest in building a world of engaged, empowered, and experienced change-makers. From veterans in the field to new program leaders, the network came together as a community to create a truly unforgettable experience. Here are our top 10 experiences from the JTFN Summit 2019: 1. Identifying our personal and professional Jewish values together as a community. 2. Forming friendships within the network of Jewish education and understanding the power of relationships and the feeling of community. 3. Showcasing experts and talents from within the field of teen engagement and in the world of philanthropy, pictured here with 21/64. 4. Connecting participants to the creation and reflection of Jewish moments through texts and learnings at our Networking Event with the Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot. 5. Creating opportunities for collaboration with the Jewish Funders Network and working together to strengthen the field of Jewish engagement. 6. The importance of creativity in learning, and injecting joy as a teaching tool in our classroom atmosphere. 7. Learning new and innovative styles of teaching through program modeling and our favorite addition to conferences, fidgets! 8. Understanding the diversity of how philanthropy can be used in teen programming today, and coming together to continue our learning, pictured here with participants from the USA, Australia and China. 9. Stepping out of our comfort zones and trying something new in our work, like visiting Urban Adamah in Berkeley, CA. 10. Learning from teens today, what their needs are, their response and actions to the world and community, their perspective and the lens of their learning. Pictured here is our Teen Panel, with current teen philanthropists from the Jewish Teen Foundations of San Francisco. The mission of the Jewish Teen Funders Network (JTFN) is to strengthen Jewish engagement and identity through supporting and elevating the field of Jewish teen philanthropy. JTFN achieves this by setting field standards, providing training and resources to professionals, mainstreaming philanthropy into the Jewish teen experience, and serving as a lead catalyst for new programs. Find out more at www.jtfn.org

Slavery in early medieval Europe had mostly died out in western Europe about the year 1000 AD, replaced by serfdom. It lingered longer in England and in peripheral areas linked to the Muslim world, where slavery continued to flourish. Church rules suppressed slavery of Christians. Most historians argue the transition was quite abrupt around 1000, but some see a gradual transition from about 300 to 1000. - Early Middle Ages - Slave trade - Slavery in law - Slavery in the Byzantine Empire - Slavery in the Crusader states - Slavery in Muslim Iberia - Slavery in Medieval Christian Iberia - Slavery in Moldavia and Wallachia - Slavery in the Medieval Near East - Slavery in the Ottoman Empire - Slavery in Poland - Slavery in Russia - Slavery in Scandinavia - Slavery in the British Isles - Serfdom v. Slavery - Justifications for Slavery - See also - Further reading Early Middle Ages The chaos following the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire made the taking of slaves habitual throughout Europe in the early Middle Ages. Roman practices continued in many areas – the Welsh laws of Hywel the Good included provisions dealing with slaves – and Germanic laws provided for the enslavement of criminals, as when the Visigothic Code prescribed enslavement for those who could not pay the financial penalty for their crime and as a punishment for certain other crimes. Such criminals would become slaves to their victims, often with their property. As these peoples Christianized, the church worked more actively to reduce the practice of holding coreligionists in bondage. St. Patrick, who himself was captured and enslaved at one time, protested an attack that enslaved newly baptized Christians in his letter to the soldiers of Coroticus. The restoration of order and growing power of the church slowly transmuted of the late Roman slave system of Diocletian into serfdom. Another major factor was the rise of Bathilde, queen of the Franks, who had been enslaved before marrying Clovis II. When she became regent, her government outlawed slave-trading of Christians throughout the Merovingian empire, as well as purchasing and freeing existing slaves. About 10% of England's population entered in the Domesday Book (1086) were slaves, despite chattel slavery of English Christians being nominally discontinued after the 1066 conquest. It is difficult to be certain about slave numbers, however, since the old Roman word for slave (servus) continued to be applied to people with a status that was later to be called "serf." Demand from the Islamic world dominated slave trade in medieval Europe. For most of that time, however, sale of Christian slaves to non-Christians was banned. In the pactum Lotharii of 840 between Venice and the Carolingian Empire, Venice promised not to buy Christian slaves in the Empire, and not to sell Christian slaves to Muslims. The Church prohibited the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands, for example, the Council of Koblenz in 922, the Council of London in 1102, and the Council of Armagh in 1171. As a result, most Christian slave merchants focused on moving slaves from non-Christian areas to Muslim Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East, and most non-Christian merchants, although not bound by the Church's rules, focused on Muslim markets as well. Arabic silver dirhams, presumably exchanged for slaves, is plentiful in eastern Europe and Southern Sweden, indicating trade routes from Slavic to Muslim territory. By the reign of Pope Zacharias (741-752), Venice had established a thriving slave trade, buying in Italy, amongst other places, and selling to the Moors in Northern Africa. (Zacharias himself reportedly forbade such traffic out of Rome) When the sale of Christians to Muslims was banned (pactum Lotharii ), the Venetians began to sell Slavs and other Eastern European non-Christian slaves in greater numbers. Caravans of slaves travelled from Eastern Europe, through Alpine passes in Austria, to reach Venice. A record of tolls paid in Raffelstetten (AD 903-906), near St. Florian on the Danube, describes such merchants. Some are Slavic themselves, from Bohemia and Russia. They had come from Kiev through Przemyśl, Kraków, Prague, and Bohemia. The same record values female slaves at a tremissa, and male slaves, who were more numerous, at a saiga (which is much less). Eunuchs were especially valuable, and "castration houses" arose in Venice, as well as other prominent slave markets, to meet this demand. Venice was far from the only slave trading hub in Italy. Southern Italy boasted slaves from distant regions, including Lombardy, Greece, Bulgaria, Armenia, and Slavic regions. During the 800s and 900s, Amalfi was a major exporter of slaves to North Africa. Genoa, along with Venice, dominated the trade in the Eastern Mediterranean beginning in the 1100s, and in the Black Sea beginning in the 1200s. They sold both Slavic and Baltic slaves, as well as Georgians, Turks, and other ethnic groups of the Black Sea and Caucasus, to the Muslim nations of the Middle East. Genoa primarily managed the slave trade from Crimea to Mamluk Egypt, until the 1200s, when increasing Venetian control over the Eastern Mediterranean allowed Venice to dominate that market. Between 1414 and 1423 alone, at least 10,000 slaves were sold in Venice. Records of long-distance Jewish slave merchants date at least as far back as 492, when Pope Gelasius permitted Jews to import non-Christian slaves into Italy, at the request of a Jewish friend from Telesina. By the turn of the seventh century, Jews had become the chief slave traders in Italy, and were active in Gaelic territories. Pope Gregory the Great issued a ban on Jews possessing Christian slaves, lest the slaves convert to Judaism. By the 800s and 900s, Jewish merchants, sometimes called Radhanites, were a major force in the slave trade continent-wide. Jews were one of the few groups who could move and trade between the Christian and Islamic worlds. Ibn Khordadbeh observed and recorded routes of Jewish merchants in his Book of Roads and Kingdoms from the South of France to Spain, carrying (amongst other things) female slaves, eunuch slaves, and young slave boys. He also notes Jews purchasing Slavic slaves in Prague. Letters of Agobard, archbishop of Lyons (816-840), acts of the emperor Louis the Pious, and the seventy-fifth canon of the Council of Meaux of 845 confirms the existence of a route used by Jewish traders with Slavic slaves through the Alps to Lyon, to Southern France, to Spain. Toll records from Walenstadt in 842-843 indicate another trade route, through Switzerland, the Septimer and Splügen passes, to Venice, and from there to North Africa. As German rulers of Saxon dynasties took over the enslavement (and slave trade) of Slavs in the 900s, Jewish merchants bought slaves at the Elbe, sending caravans into the valley of the Rhine. Many of these slaves were taken to Verdun, which had close trade relations with Spain. Many would be castrated and sold as eunuchs as well. Muslim Spain imported an enormous number of slaves, as well as serving as a staging point for Muslim and Jewish merchants to market slaves to the rest of the Islamic world. During the reign of Abd-ar-Rahman III (912-961), there were at first 3,750, then 6,087, and finally 13,750 Saqaliba, or Slavic slaves, at Córdoba, capital of the Umayyad Caliphate. Ibn Hawqal, Ibrahim al-Qarawi, and Bishop Liutprand of Cremona note that the Jewish Merchants of Verdun specialized in castrating slaves, to be sold as eunuch saqaliba, which were enormously popular in Muslim Spain. During the Viking age (793 - approximately 1100), the Norse raiders often captured and enslaved militarily weaker peoples they encountered. The Nordic countries called their slaves thralls (Old Norse: Þræll). The thralls were mostly from Western Europe, among them many Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Celts. Many Irish slaves travelled in expeditions for the colonization of Iceland. Raids on monasteries provided a source of young, educated slaves who could be sold in Venice or Byzantium for high prices. Scandinavian trade centers stretched eastwards from Hedeby in Denmark and Birka in Sweden to Staraya Ladoga in northern Russia before the end of the 700s. This traffic continued into the 800s as Scandinavians founded more trade centers at Kaupang in southwestern Norway and Novgorod, farther south than Staraya Ladoga, and Kiev, farther south still and closer to Byzantium. Dublin and other northwestern European Viking settlements were established as gateways through which captives were traded northwards. In the Laxdæla saga, for example, a Rus merchant attends a fair in the Brenn Isles in Sweden selling female slaves from northwestern Europe. The Norse also took German, Baltic, Slavic and Latin slaves. The 10th-century Persian traveller Ibn Rustah described how Swedish Vikings, the Varangians or Rus, terrorized and enslaved the Slavs taken in their raids along the Volga River. Slaves were often sold south, to Byzantine or Muslim buyers, via paths such as the Volga trade route. Ahmad ibn Fadlan of Baghdad provides an account of the other end of this trade route, namely of Volga Vikings selling Slavic Slaves to middle-eastern merchants. Finland proved another source for Viking slave raids. Slaves from Finland or Baltic states were traded as far as central Asia. The Mongol invasions and conquests in the 1200s added a new force in the slave trade. The Mongols enslaved skilled individuals, women and children and marched them to Karakorum or Sarai, whence they were sold throughout Eurasia. Many of these slaves were shipped to the slave market in Novgorod. Genoese and Venetians merchants in Crimea were involved in the slave trade with the Golden Horde. In 1441, Haci I Giray declared independence from the Golden Horde and established the Crimean Khanate. For a long time, until the early 18th century, the khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. In a process called the "harvesting of the steppe", they enslaved many Slavic peasants. As a commonly traded commodity in the British Isles, like cattle, slaves could become a form of internal or trans-border currency. William the Conqueror banned the exporting of slaves from England, limiting the nation's participation in the slave trade. Christians Acquiring Muslim Slaves Although the primary flow of slaves was toward Muslim countries, Christians did acquire some exported Muslim slaves. There are records, for example, of Saracen slave girls sold in Marseilles in 1248. Christians also sold Muslim slaves captured in war. The Order of the Knights of Malta attacked pirates and Muslim shipping, and their base became a center for slave trading, selling captured North Africans and Turks. Malta remained a slave market until well into the late 18th century. One thousand slaves were required to man the galleys (ships) of the Order. Slave Trade at the Close of the Middle Ages As more and more of Europe Christianized, and open hostilities between Christian and Muslim nations intensified, large-scale slave trade moved to more distant sources. Sending slaves to Egypt, for example, was forbidden by the papacy in 1317, 1323, 1329, 1338, and, finally, 1425, as slaves sent to Egypt would often become soldiers, and end up fighting their former Christian owners. Although the repeated bans indicate that such trade still occurred, they also indicate that it became less desirable. In the 16th century, African slaves replaced almost all other ethnicities and religious enslaved groups in Europe. Slavery in law Slavery was heavily regulated in Roman law, which was reorganized in the Byzantine Empire by Justinian I as the Corpus Iuris Civilis. Although the Corpus was lost to the West for centuries, it was rediscovered in the 11th and 12th centuries, and led to the foundation of law schools in Italy and France. According to the Corpus, the natural state of humanity is freedom, but the "law of nations" may supersede natural law and reduce certain people to slavery. The basic definition of slave in Romano-Byzantine law was: - anyone whose mother was a slave - anyone who has been captured in battle - anyone who has sold himself to pay a debt It was, however, possible to become a freedman or a full citizen; the Corpus, like Roman law, had extensive and complicated rules for manumission of slaves. The slave trade in England was officially abolished in 1102. Medieval canon lawyers concluded that slavery was contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and by the 11th century when almost all of Europe had been Christianized, the laws of slavery in civil law codes were now antiquated and unenforceable. There were a number of areas where Christians lived with non-Christians, such as Al-Andalus and Sicily, the crusader states, and in the still-pagan areas of northeastern Europe; therefore, canon law permitted Christians to keep non-Christian slaves, as long as these slaves were treated humanely and were freed if they chose to convert to Christianity. In fact, there was an explicit legal justification for the enslavement of Muslims, found in the Decretum Gratiani and later expanded upon by the 14th century jurist Oldradus de Ponte: the Bible states that Hagar, the slave girl of Abraham, was beaten and cast out by Abraham's wife Sarah. A popular medieval legend held that Muslims were the descendents of Hagar, while Christians descended from the legitimate marriage of Abraham and Sarah. By extension it was therefore permitted for Christians to enslave Muslims. The Decretum, like the Corpus, defined a slave as anyone whose mother was a slave. Otherwise, the canons were concerned with slavery only in ecclesiastical contexts: slaves were not permitted to marry or to be ordained as clergy. Slavery in the Byzantine Empire Slavery in the Crusader states In the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1099, at most 120,000 Franks ruled over 350,000 Muslims, Jews, and native Eastern Christians. Following the initial invasion and conquest, sometimes accompanied by massacres or expulsions of Jews and Muslims, a peaceable co-existence between followers of the three religions prevailed. The Crusader states inherited many slaves. To this may have been added some Muslims taken as captives of war. The Kingdom's largest city, Acre, had a large slave market; however, the vast majority of Muslims and Jews remained free. The laws of Jerusalem declared that former Muslim slaves, if genuine converts to Christianity, must be freed. In 1120, the Council of Nablus forbade sexual relations between crusaders and their female slaves: if a man raped his own slave, he would be castrated, but if he raped someone else's slave, he would be castrated and exiled from the kingdom. No Christian, whether Western or Eastern, was permitted by law to be sold into slavery, but this fate was as common for Muslim prisoners of war as it was for Christian prisoners taken by the Muslims. The 13th-century Assizes of Jerusalem dealt more with fugitive slaves and the punishments ascribed to them, the prohibition of slaves testifying in court, and manumission of slaves, which could be accomplished, for example, through a will, or by conversion to Christianity. Conversion was apparently used as an excuse to escape slavery by Muslims who would then continue to practise Islam; crusader lords often refused to allow them to convert, and Pope Gregory IX, contrary to both the laws of Jerusalem and the canon laws that he himself was partially responsible for compiling, allowed for Muslim slaves to remain enslaved even if they had converted. Slavery in Muslim Iberia The medieval Iberian Peninsula was the scene of almost constant warfare among Muslims and Christians (though not always aligned by religion). Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus to ravage the Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back booty and people. For example, in a raid on Lisbon in 1189 the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, and his governor of Córdoba took 3,000 Christian slaves in a subsequent attack upon Silves in 1191; an offensive by Alfonso VIII of Castile in 1182 brought him over two-thousand Muslim slaves, hitting back at the Almohads. Slavery in Medieval Christian Iberia Contrary to suppositions of historians such as Marc Bloch, slavery thrived as an institution in medieval Christian Iberia. Slavery existed in the region under the Romans, and continued to do so under the Visigoths. From the fifth to the early eighth century, large portions of the Iberian Peninsula were ruled by Christian Visigothic Kingdoms, whose rulers worked to codify human bondage. In the seventh century, King Chindasuinth issued the Visigothic Code (Liber Iudiciorum), to which subsequent Visigothic kings added new legislation. Although the Visigothic Kingdom collapsed in the early eighth century, portions of the Visigothic Code were still observed in parts of Spain in the following centuries. The Code, with its pronounced and frequent attention to the legal status of slaves, reveals the continuation of slavery as an institution in post-Roman Spain. The Code regulated the social conditions, behavior, and punishments of slaves in early medieval Spain. The marriage of slaves and free or freed people was prohibited. Book III, title II, iii (ÒWhere a Freeborn Woman Marries the Slave of Another or a Freeborn Man the Female Slave of AnotherÓ) stipulates that if a free woman marries another personÕs slave, the couple is to be separated and given 100 lashes. Furthermore, if the woman refuses to leave the slave, then she becomes the property of the slaveÕs master. Likewise, any children born to the couple would follow the fatherÕs condition and be slaves. Unlike Roman law, in which only slaves were liable to corporal punishment, under Visigothic law, people of any social status were subject to corporal punishment. However, the physical punishment Ð typically beatings Ð administered to slaves was consistently harsher than that administered to freed or free people. Slaves could also be compelled to give testimony under torture. For example, slaves could be tortured to reveal the adultery of their masters, and it was illegal to free a slave for fear of what he or she might reveal under torture. SlavesÕ greater liability to physical punishment and judicial torture suggests their inferior social status in the eyes of Visigothic lawmakers. Slavery remained persistent in Christian Iberia after the Umayyad invasions in the eighth century, and the Visigothic law codes continued to control slave ownership. However, as William Phillips notes, medieval Iberia should not be thought of as a slave society, but rather as a society that owned slaves. Slaves accounted for a relatively small percentage of the population, and did not make up a significant portion of the labor pool. Furthermore, while the existence of slavery continued from the earlier period, the use of slaves in post-Visigothic Christian Iberia differed from early periods. Ian Wood has suggests that, under the Visigoths, the majority of the slave population lived and worked on rural estates. After the Muslim invasions, however, slave owners Ð especially in the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia Ð moved away from using slaves as field laborers or in work gangs, and did not press slaves into military service. Slaves tended to be owned singly rather than in large groups. There appear to have been many more female than male slaves, and they were most often used as domestic servants, or to supplement free labor. In this respect, slave institutions in Aragon, especially, closely resembled those of other Mediterranean Christian kingdoms in France and Italy. In the kingdoms of Le—n and Castile, slavery followed the Visigothic model more closely than in the littoral kingdoms. Slaves in Le—n and Castile were more likely to be employed as field laborers, supplanting free labor to support an aristocratic estate society. These trends in slave populations and use changed in the wake of the Black Death in 1348, which significantly increased the need for slaves across the whole of the peninsula. Christians were not the only slaveholders in Christian Iberia. Both Jews and Muslims living under Christian rule owned slaves, though more commonly in Aragon and Valencia than in Castile. After the conquest of Valencia in 1245, the Kingdom of Aragon prohibited the possession of Christian slaves by Jews, though they were still permitted to hold Muslim or pagan slaves. The main role of Iberian Jews in the slave trade, however, came as facilitators: Jews acted as slave brokers and agents of transfer between the Christian and Muslim kingdoms. This role caused some degree of fear among Christian populations Ð a letter from Pope Gregory XI to the Bishop of Cordoba in 1239 addressed rumors that the Jews were involved in kidnapping and selling Christian women and children into slavery while their husbands were away fighting the Muslims. Despite these worries, the primary role of Jewish slave traders lay in facilitating the exchange of captives between Muslim and Christian rulers Ð one of the primary threads of economic and political connectivity between Christian and Muslim Iberia.< In the early period after the fall of the Visigothic kingdom in the eighth century, slaves primarily came into Christian Iberia through trade with the Muslim kingdoms from the south. Most were Eastern European, captured in battles and raids, with the heavy majority being Slavs. However, the ethnic composition of slaves in Christian Iberia shifted over the course of the Middle Ages. Slaveholders in the Christian kingdoms gradually moved away from owning Christians, in accordance with Church proscriptions. In the middle of the medieval period most slaves in Christian Iberia were Muslim, either captured in battle with the Islamic states from the southern part of the peninsula, or taken from the eastern Mediterranean and imported into Iberia by merchants from cities such as Genoa. The Christian kingdoms of Iberia frequently traded their Muslim captives back across the border for payments of money or kind. Indeed, historian James Broadman writes that this type of redemption offered the best chance for captives and slaves to regain their freedom. The sale of Muslim captives, either back to the Islamic southern states or to third-party slave brokers, supplied one of the means by which Aragon and Castile financed the Reconquista. Battles and sieges provided large numbers of captives; after the siege of Almeria in 1147, sources report that Alphoso VII of Castile sent almost 10,000 of the cityÕs Muslim women and children to Genoa to be sold into slavery as partial repayment of Genoese assistance in the campaign. Towards the end of the Reconquista, however, this source of slaves became increasingly exhausted. Muslim rulers were increasingly unable to pay ransoms, and the Christian capture of large centers of population in the south made wholesale enslavement of Muslim populations impractical. The loss of an Iberian Muslim source of slaves further encouraged Christians to look to other sources of manpower. Beginning with the first Portuguese slave raid in sub-Saharan Africa in 1411, the focus of slave importation began to shift from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic World, and the racial composition of slaves in Christian Iberia began to include an increasing number of black Africans. Between 1489 and 1497 almost 2100 black slaves were shipped from Portugal to Valencia. By the end of the 15th century Spain held the largest population of black Africans in Europe, with a small, but growing community of black ex-slaves. In the mid 16th century Spain imported up to 2,000 black African slaves annually through Portugal, and by 1565 most of SevilleÕs 6,327 slaves (out of a total population of 85,538) were black Africans. Slavery in Moldavia and Wallachia Slavery (Romanian: sclavie) existed on the territory of present-day Romania from before the founding of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 13th–14th century, until it was abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s. Most of the slaves were of Roma (Gypsy) ethnicity. Particularly in Moldavia there were also slaves of Tatar ethnicity, probably prisoners captured from the wars with the Nogai and Crimean Tatars. The exact origins of slavery in the Danubian Principalities are not known. There is some debate over whether the Romani people came to Wallachia and Moldavia as free men or as slaves. In the Byzantine Empire, they were slaves of the state and it seems the situation was the same in Bulgaria and Serbia until their social organization was destroyed by the Ottoman conquest, which would suggest that they came as slaves who had a change of 'ownership'. Historian Nicolae Iorga associated the Roma people's arrival with the 1241 Mongol invasion of Europe and considered their slavery as a vestige of that era, the Romanians taking the Roma from the Mongols as slaves and preserving their status. Other historians consider that they were enslaved while captured during the battles with the Tatars. The practice of enslaving prisoners may also have been taken from the Mongols. The ethnic identity of the "Tatar slaves" is unknown, they could have been captured Tatars of the Golden Horde, Cumans, or the slaves of Tatars and Cumans. While it is possible that some Romani people were slaves or auxiliary troops of the Mongols or Tatars, the bulk of them came from south of the Danube at the end of the 14th century, some time after the foundation of Wallachia. By then, the institution of slavery was already established in Moldavia and possibly in both principalities, but the arrival of the Roma made slavery a widespread practice. The Tatar slaves, smaller in numbers, were eventually merged into the Roma population. Slavery in the Medieval Near East The ancient and medieval Near East includes modern day Turkey, the Levant and Egypt, with strong connections to the rest of the north African coastline. All of these areas were ruled by either the Byzantines or the Persians at the beginning of late antiquity. Pre-existing Byzantine (i.e. Roman) and Persian institutions of slavery may have influenced the development of institutions of slavery in Islamic law and jurisprudence. Likewise, some scholars have argued for the influence of Rabbinic tradition on the development of Islamic legal thought. Whatever the relationship between these different legal traditions, many similarities exist between the practice of Islamic slavery in the early Middle Ages and the practices of early medieval Byzantines and western Europeans. The status of freed slaves under Islamic rule, who continued to owe services to their former masters, bears a strong similarity to ancient Roman and Greek institutions. However, the practice of slavery in the early medieval Near East also grew out of slavery practices in currency among pre-Islamic Arabs. Like the Old and New Testaments and Greek and Roman law codes, the Quran takes the institution of slavery for granted, though it urges kindness toward slaves and eventual manumission, especially for slaves who convert to Islam. In early Middle Ages, many slaves in Islamic society served as such for only a short period of time—perhaps an average of seven years. This, along with attrition from hard labor, disease, and climate, led to a constant necessity to replace slaves through trade and conquest. Like their European counterparts, early medieval Islamic slave traders preferred slaves who were not co-religionists and hence focused on “pagans” from inner Asia, Europe, and especially from sub-Saharan Africa. The practice of manumission, may have contributed to the integration of former slaves into the wider society. However, under sharia law, conversion to Islam did not necessitate manumission. Slaves were employed in heavy labor as well as in domestic contexts. Because of Quranic sanction of concubinage, early Islamic traders, in contrast to Byzantine and early modern slave traders, imported large numbers of female slaves. The very earliest Islamic states did not create corps of slave soldiers (a practice familiar from later contexts) but did integrate freedmen into armies, which may have contributed to the rapid expansion of early Islamic conquest. However, by the ninth century, use of slaves in Islamic armies, particularly Turks in cavalry units and Africans in infantry units, was a relatively common practice. In Egypt, Ahmad ibn Tulun imported thousands of black slaves to wrestle independence from the Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq in 868 AD. The Ikhshidid dynasty used black slave units to liberate itself from Abbasid rule after the Abbasids destroyed ibn Tulun’s autonomous empire in 935 AD. Black professional soldiers were most associated with the Fatimid dynasty, which incorporated more professional black soldiers than the previous two dynasties. It was the Fatimids who first incorporated black professional slave soldiers into the cavalry, despite massive opposition from Central Asian Turkish Mamluks, who saw the African contingent as a threat to their role as the leading military unit in the Egyptian army. In the later half of the Middle Ages, the expansion of Islamic rule further into the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and Arabian Peninsula established the Saharan-Indian Ocean slave trade. This network was a large market for African slaves, transporting approximately four million African slaves from its seventh century inception to its 20th century demise. Ironically, the consolidation of borders in the Islamic Near East changed the face of the slave trade. A rigid Islamic code, coupled with crystallizing frontiers, favored slave purchase and tribute over capture as lucrative slave avenues. Even the sources of slaves shifted from the Fertile Crescent and Central Asia to Indochina and the Byzantine Empire. Patterns of preference for slaves in the Near East, as well as patterns of use, continued into the later Middle Ages with only slight changes. Slaves were employed in many activities, including agriculture, industry, the military, and domestic labor. Women were prioritized over men, and usually served in the domestic sphere as menials, concubines, or wives. Domestic and commercial slaves were mostly better off than their agricultural counterparts, either becoming family members or business partners rather than condemned to a grueling life in a chain gang, where, according to one report, no one survived for more than five years. There are references to gangs of slaves, mostly African, put to work in drainage projects in Iraq, salt and gold mines in the Sahara, and sugar and cotton plantations in North Africa and Spain. References to this latter type of slavery are rare, however. Eunuchs, interestingly, were the most prized and sought-after type of slave. The most fortunate slaves found employment in politics or the military. In the Ottoman Empire, the Devşrime system groomed young slave boys for civil or military service. Young Christian boys were uprooted from their conquered villages periodically as a levy, and were employed in government, entertainment, or the army, depending on their talents. Slaves attained great success from this program, some winning the post of Grand Vizier to the Sultan and others positions in the Janissaries. It is a bit of a misnomer to classify these men as “slaves,” because in the Ottoman Empire, they were referred to as kul, or, slaves “of the Gate,” or Sultanate. While not slaves per se under Islamic Law, these Devşrime alumni remained under the Sultan’s discretion. The Islamic Near East extensively relied upon professional slave soldiers, and was known for having them compose the core of armies. The institution was conceived out of political predicaments and reflected the attitudes of the time, and was not indicative of political decline or financial bankruptcy. Slave units were desired because of their unadulterated loyalty to the ruler, since they were imported and therefore couldn’t threaten the throne with local loyalties or alliances. Slavery in the Ottoman Empire Slavery was an important part of Ottoman society. The Byzantine-Ottoman wars and the Ottoman wars in Europe brought large numbers of Christian slaves into the Ottoman Empire. In the middle of the 14th century, Murad I built his own personal slave army called the Kapıkulu. The new force was based on the sultan's right to a fifth of the war booty, which he interpreted to include captives taken in battle. The captive slaves were converted to Islam and trained in the sultan's personal service. In the devşirme (translated "blood tax" or "child collection"), young Christian boys from Anatolia and the Balkans were taken away from their homes and families, converted to Islam and enlisted into special soldier classes of the Ottoman army. These soldier classes were named Janissaries, the most famous branch of the Kapıkulu. The Janissaries eventually became a decisive factor in the Ottoman military conquests in Europe. Most of the military commanders of the Ottoman forces, imperial administrators and de facto rulers of the Ottoman Empire, such as Pargalı İbrahim Pasha and Sokollu Mehmet Paşa, were recruited in this way. By 1609 the Sultan's Kapıkulu forces increased to about 100,000. The concubines of the Ottoman Sultan consisted chiefly of purchased slaves. Because Islamic law forbade Muslims to enslave fellow Muslims, the Sultan's concubines were generally of Christian origin. The mother of a Sultan, though technically a slave, received the extremely powerful title of Valide Sultan, and at times became effective ruler of the Empire (see Sultanate of women). One notable example was Kösem Sultan, daughter of a Greek Christian priest, who dominated the Ottoman Empire during the early decades of the 17th century. Another notable example was Roxelana, the favourite wife of Suleiman the Magnificent. Slavery in Poland Slavery in Russia In Kievan Rus and Russia, the slaves were usually classified as kholops. A kholop's master had unlimited power over his life: he could kill him, sell him, or use him as payment upon a debt. The master, however, was responsible before the law for his kholop's actions. A person could become a kholop as a result of capture, selling himself or herself, being sold for debts or committed crimes, or marriage to a kholop. Until the late 10th century, the kholops represented a majority among the servants who worked lordly lands. By the sixteenth century, slavery in Russia consisted mostly of those who sold themselves into slavery owing to poverty. They worked predominantly as household servants, among the richest families, and indeed generally produced less than they consumed. Laws forbade the freeing of slaves in times of famine, to avoid feeding them, and slaves generally remained with the family a long time; the Domostroy, an advice book, speaks of the need to choose slaves of good character and to provide for them properly. Slavery remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679. In 1382 the Golden Horde under Khan Tokhtamysh sacked Moscow, burning the city and carrying off thousands of inhabitants as slaves. For years the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan routinely made raids on Russian principalities for slaves and to plunder towns. Russian chronicles record about 40 raids of Kazan Khans on the Russian territories in the first half of the 16th century. In 1521, the combined forces of Crimean Khan Mehmed I Giray and his Kazan allies attacked Moscow and captured thousands of slaves. About 30 major Tatar raids were recorded into Muscovite territories between 1558 and 1596. In 1571, the Crimean Tatars attacked and sacked Moscow, burning everything but the Kremlin and taking thousands of captives as slaves. In Crimea, about 75% of the population consisted of slaves. The laws from 12th and 13th centuries describe the legal status of two categories. According to the Norwegian Gulating code (in about 1160), domestic slaves could not, unlike foreign slaves, be sold out of the country. This and other laws defined slaves as their master's property at the same level as cattle. It also described a procedure for giving a slave their freedom. A freed slave did not have full legal status; for example, the punishment for killing a former slave was low. A former slave's son also had a lower status, but higher than that of his parents. The Norwegian law code from 1274, Landslov (Land's law), does not mention slaves, but former slaves. Thus it seems like slavery was abolished in Norway by this time. In Sweden, slavery was abolished in 1343. Slavery in the British Isles British Wales and Gaelic Ireland and Scotland were among the last areas of Christian Europe to give up their institution of slavery. Under Gaelic custom, prisoners of war were routinely taken as slaves. During the period that slavery was disappearing across most of western Europe, it was reaching its height in the British Isles: the Viking invasions and the subsequent warring between Scandinavians and the natives, the number of captives taken as slaves drastically increased. The Irish church was vehemently opposed to slavery and blamed the 1169 Norman invasion on divine punishment for the practice, along with local acceptance of polygyny and divorce. Serfdom v. Slavery How serfdom evolved from slavery: Historians who study the divide between slavery and serfdom encounter several issues of historiography and methodology. Some historians believe that slavery transitioned into serfdom (a view that has only been around for the last 200 years), though there is disagreement amongst them regarding how rapid this transition was. Pierre Bonnassie, a medieval historian, thought that the chattel slavery of the ancient world ceased to exist in the Europe of the tenth century and was followed by feudal serfdom. Jean-Pierre Devroey thinks that the shift from slavery to serfdom was gradual as well in some parts of the continent. Other areas, though, did not have what he calls “western-style serfdom” after the end of slavery, such as the rural areas of the Byzantine Empire, Iceland, and Scandinavia. Complicating this issue is that regions in Europe often had both serfs and slaves simultaneously. Generally speaking, how slaves differed from serfs: The underpinnings of slavery and serfdom are debated as well. Dominique Barthélemy, among others, has questioned the very premises for neatly distinguishing serfdom from slavery, arguing that a binary classification masks the many shades of servitude. Of particular interest to historians is the role of serfdom and slavery within the state, and the implications that held for both serf and slave. Some think that slavery was the exclusion of people from the public sphere and its institutions, whereas serfdom was a complex form of dependency that usually lacked a codified basis in the legal system. Wendy Davies argues that serfs, like slaves, also became excluded from the public judicial system and that judicial matters were attended to in the private courts of their respective lords. Despite the scholarly disagreement, it is possible to piece together a general picture of slavery and serfdom. Slaves typically owned no property, and were in fact the property of their masters. Slaves worked full-time for their masters and operated under a negative incentive structure; in other words, failure to work resulted in physical punishment. Serfs owned plots of their own land, which was essentially a form of “payment” that the lord offered in exchange for the serf’s service. Serfs worked part-time for the masters and part-time for themselves and had opportunities to accumulate personal wealth that often did not exist for the slave. Slaves were generally imported from foreign countries or continents, brought to Europe via the slave trade. Serfs were typically indigenous Europeans and were not subject to the same involuntary movements as slaves. Serfs worked in family units, whereas the concept of family was generally murkier for slaves. At any given moment, a slave’s family could be torn apart via trade, and masters often used this threat to coerce compliant behavior from the slave. The end of serfdom: The end of serfdom is also debated, with Georges Duby pointing to the early twelfth century as a rough end point for “serfdom in the strict sense of the term”. Other historians dispute this assertion, citing discussions and the mention of serfdom as an institution during later dates (such as in 13th century England, or in Central Europe, where the rise of serfdom coincided with its decline in Western Europe). There are several approaches to get a time span for the transition, and lexicography is one such method. There is supposedly a clear shift in diction when referencing those who were either slaves or serfs at approximately 1000 C.E., though there is not a consensus on how significant this shift is, or if it even exists. In addition, numismatists shed light on the decline of serfdom. There is a widespread theory that the introduction of currency hastened the decline of serfdom because it was preferable to pay for labor rather than depend on feudal obligations. Some historians argue that landlords began selling serfs their land – and hence, their freedom – during periods of economic inflation across Europe. Other historians argue that the end of slavery came from the royalty, who gave serfs freedom through edicts and legislation in an attempt to broaden their tax base. About places with no serfdom: The absence of serfdom in some parts of medieval Europe raises several questions. Devroey thinks it is because slavery was not born out of economic structures in these areas, but was rather a societal practice. Heinrich Fichtenau points out that in Central Europe, there was not a labor market strong enough for slavery to become a necessity. Justifications for Slavery In late Rome, the official attitude towards slavery was ambivalent. According to Justinian's legal code, slavery was defined as “an institution according to the law of nations whereby one person falls under the property rights of another, contrary to nature.” Justifications for slavery throughout the medieval period were dominated by the perception of religious difference. Slaves were often outsiders taken in war. As such, Hebrew and Islamic thinking both conceived of the slave as an “enemy within.” In the Christian tradition, pagans and heretics were similarly considered enemies of the faith who could be justly enslaved. In theory, slaves who converted could embark on the path to freedom, but practices were inconsistent: masters were not obliged to manumit them and the practice of baptising slaves was often discouraged. The enslavement of co-religionists was discouraged, if not forbidden, for Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. Consequently, northern European pagans and black Africans were a target for all three religious groups. Ethnic and religious difference were conflated in the justification of slavery. A major Christian justification for the use of slavery, especially against those with dark skin, was the Curse of Ham. The Curse of Ham refers to a biblical parable (Gen. 9:20–27) in which Ham, the son of Noah, sins by seeing his father inebriated and naked, although scholars differ on the exact nature of Ham’s transgression. Noah then curses Ham’s offspring, Canaan, with being a “servant of servants unto his brethren.” Although race or skin color is not mentioned, many Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars began to interpret the passage as a curse of both slavery and black skin, in an attempt to justify the enslavement of people of color, specifically those of African descent. In the medieval period, however, it was also used by some Christians as a justification for serfdom. Muslim sources in the 7th century allude to the Curse of Ham gaining relevance as a justifying myth for the Islamic world’s longstanding enslavement of Africans. The apparent discrepancy between the notion of human liberty founded in natural law and the recognition of slavery by canon law was resolved by a legal “compromise”: enslavement was allowable given a just cause, which could then be defined by papal authority. The state of slavery was thought to be closely tied to original sin. Towards the middle of the 15th century, the Catholic Church, in particular the Papacy, took an active role in offering justifications for the enslavement of Saracens, pagans, Africans, and other “infidels.” In 1452, a papal bull entitled Dum Diversas authorized King Alfonso V of Portugal to enslave any “Saracens” or “pagans” he encountered. The Pope, Pope Nicholas V, recognized King Alfonso’s military action as legitimate in the form of the papal bull, and declared the full and free power, through the Apostolic authority by this edict, to invade, conquer, fight, subjugate the Saracens and pagans, and other infidels and other enemies of Christ, and...to lead their persons in perpetual servitude… In a follow up bull, released in 1455 and entitled Romanus Pontifex, Pope Nicholas V reiterated his support for the enslavement of infidels in the context of Portugal’s monopoly on North African trade routes. 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Missing or empty - Broadman, James William. p. 6. Missing or empty - Phillips, Jonathan (2007). The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 260. - OÕCallaghan, Joseph F. (2003). Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 140. - Phillips, William. pp. 60–61. Missing or empty - Blumenthal, Debra. p. 20. Missing or empty - Saunders, A.C. de C.M. pp. 5–7. Missing or empty - Lawrance, Jeremey (2005). "Black Africans in Renaissance Spanish Literature". In Earle, T.F.; Lowe, K.J.P. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 70. - Saunders, A.C. de C.M. p. 29. Missing or empty - Lawrance, Jeremy. p. 70. Missing or empty - Saunders, A.C. de C.M. p. 29. Missing or empty - Viorel Achim, The Roma in Romanian History, Central European University Press, Budapest, 2004, ISBN 963-9241-84-9 - Ştefan Ştefănescu, Istoria medie a României, Vol. I, Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, Bucharest, 1991 (Romanian) - Crone, Patricia. Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate. Cambridge University Press, 1987. - Wegner, J. R. “Islamic and Talmudic Jurisprudence: The Four Roots of Islamic Law and their Talmudic Counterparts," The American Journal of Legal History, 26, 1 (1982): p. 25-71. - Lewis, Bernard, Race and Slavery In the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 4. - Lewis, 1990, p. 5. - Wright, John, The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade. Routledge, 2007, p. 2. - Wright, 2007, p. 3. - Wright, 2007, p. 4. - IV:3, XXIII:6; XXXIII:50-52; LXX:30 - Ali, Kecia. Marriage and Slavery In Early Islam. Harvard University Press, 2010; Wright, 2007, p. 3. - Lewis, 1990, p. 62. - Bacharach, Jere L., “African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East: The Cases of Iraq (869-955) and Egypt (868-1171).” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Nov., 1981) 471-495; Savage, E., “Berbers and Blacks: Ibadi Slave Traffic in Eighth-Century North Africa,” The Journal of African History, Vol. 33, No. 3 (1992), 351-368. - Yaacov Lev, David Ayalon (1914-1998) and the history of Black Military Slavery in medieval Islam, Der Islam 90.1 (Jan. 2013): Accessed 22 November 2014, doi: - Lev, David Ayalon - Jere L. Bacharach, African Military Slaves in the Muslim Middle East. BlackPast.org. Accessed 20 November 2014. - Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East. (Oxford University Press, 1994). Accessed 19 November 2014. - Lewis, Race and Slavery - Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 11 - Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 14 - Lewis, Race and Slavery, pp. 11-12 - Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 12 - Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 71 - Phillips, Jr., William D. (1985). Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-7190-1825-1. - Lewis. Race and Slavery in the Middle East - The Turks: History and Culture - In the Service of the State and Military Class - See generally Jay Winik (2007), The Great Upheaval. - Juliusz Bardach, Boguslaw Lesnodorski, and Michal Pietrzak, Historia panstwa i prawa polskiego (Warsaw: Paristwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1987, p. 40–41 - Richard Hellie, Slavery in Russia, 1450–1725 (1984) - Carolyn Johnston Pouncey, The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible, p15 ISBN 0-8014-9689-6 - Carolyn Johnston Pouncey, The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible, p33 ISBN 0-8014-9689-6 - The Full Collection of the Russian Annals, vol.13, SPb, 1904 - The Tatar Khanate of Crimea - Supply of Slaves - Moscow - Historical background - Historical survey > Slave societies - Barthélemy, Dominique (2009). The Serf the Knight and the Historian. Cornell University Press. pp. 70–71. - Barthélemy, Dominique (2009). The Serf the Knight and the Historian. Cornell University Press. p. 68. - Devroey, Jean-Pierre (2007). "Men and Women in Early Medieval Serfdom: the Ninth-Century North Frankish Evidence". Past and Present: 17. - Devroey, Jean-Pierre (2000). "Men and Women in Early Medieval Serfdom: The Ninth-Century North Frankish Evidence". Past and Present 166: 28. - Barthélemy, Dominique (2009). The Serf the Knight and the Historian. Cornell University Press. p. 71. - Barthélemy, Dominique (2009). The Serf the Knight and the Historian. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 68–69. - Davies, Wendy (1996). "On Servile Status in the Early Middle Ages". Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. pp. 236–238. - Engerman, Stanley. "Slavery, Serfdom, and Other Forms of Coerced Labour: Similarities and Differences". Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. pp. 31–32. - Bush, Michael (1996). "Introduction". Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. p. 3. - Engerman, Stanley (1996). "Slavery, Serfdom, and Other Forms of Coerced Labour: Similarities and Differences". Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. pp. 31–32. - Bush, Michael (1996). "Introduction". Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. p. 2. - Engerman, Stanley (1996). "Slavery, serfdom and other forms of coerced labour: similarities and differences". Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. pp. 24–26. - Barthélemy, Dominique (2009). The Serf the Knight and the Historian. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 79. - Barthélemy, Dominique (2009). The Serf the Knight and the Historian. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 69. - Bush, Michael. "Introduction". Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. p. 12. - Engerman, Stanley. "Slavery, serfdom and other forms of coerced labour: similarities and differences". Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. p. 38. - Fichtenau, Heinrich (1984). Living in the Tenth Century: Mentalities and Social Orders. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 372. - David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years (Brooklyn, New York: Melville House, 2011), ch. 7. - Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 40-41. - Timothy Rayborn, The Violent Pilgrimage: Christians, Muslims and Holy Conflicts, 850-1150, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2013, p. 93. - Rayborn, The Violent Pilgrimage, p.93. - David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). - Walter Ullmann, Medieval Papalism (Routledge, 1949), p. 57. - David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), pp. 92-94. - Pope Nicholas V (1452), “Dum Diversas (English Translation),” Unam Sanctam Catholicam, February 5, 2011. [unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com]. - Frances Gardiner Davenport, European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1648 (Washington, D.C.), pp. 20-26. - Campbell, Gwyn et al. eds. Women and Slavery, Vol. 1: Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and the Medieval North Atlantic (2007) - Dockès, Pierre. Medieval Slavery and Liberation (1989) - Finkelman, Paul, and Joseph Miller, eds. Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery (2 vol., 1999) - Frantzen, Allen J., and Douglas Moffat, eds. The Work of Work: Servitude, Slavery and Labor in Medieval England (1994) - Karras, Ruth Mazo. Slavery and Society in Medieval Scandinavia (Yale UP, 1988) - Phillips, William D. Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade (Manchester UP, 1985) - Wyatt David R. Slaves and warriors in medieval Britain and Ireland, 800-1200 (2009)

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 FNMA Tightens On Subprime They are tightening credit standards on MyCommunity loans (no more EA-II) and adding a 1% interest rate premium on top of any other feature premiums, among other actions. The 1% goes into effect on August 1st. In 2006, Fannie Mae originations of MyCommunity loans increased to 3 times that of 2005. And year to date 2007, origination of MyCommunity loans is nearly that of all of 2006. In other words, the credit tightening cycle in not over yet in mortgages. It really hasn't even begun for corporate credit. It is true that banks are pulling back on corporate and consumer credit (except for credit cards), but they don't control the market. Other interesting tidbits are that the HUD Area Median Incomes for 2007 are going to be lower in some areas than in 2006.... Mortgage interest rates are moving up significantly now. MBA's latest weekly update gives the average 30 year fixed as 6.32%. I usually use HSH, which gives the national 30 year fixed average as 6.46%. CA, FL, MA, NJ & NY all averaged at or above 6.50% last week. These rates are risk-based to some extent. The difference between the MBA numbers and the HSH numbers is that the MBA numbers assume 20% down, which is not all that common any more. Housing is acutely sensitive to interest rates, because higher interest rates increase monthly payments and decrease affordability. With higher default risk and higher bond yields, the trend in mortgage rates should be broadly up. It looks to be continuing tough going for home sales. Tuesday, May 29, 2007 Interfaith Outreach Of A New Sort I do know my mother drew the line in HER diocese when the Druids and so forth were acceptable ministers but the orthodox ministers were being deposed by their Bishop (in PA), and when PA bishop met with her vestry, the bishop insisted that there were many Christs. The Druid and Wiccan services were just part of their interfaith outreach. I know this is true because my mother was there and she told me. This was all happening at the same time as other ministers were being binged out because they did not believe in ordination of women, etc. The message my mother got was that the only thing that was intolerable in her diocese was an orthdox Episcopalian. That witch thing is a real hurdle for orthodox Episcopalians, because that's one of Jesus' commands. Your orthodox Episcopalians are not exactly traditional Bible-thumping fundamentalists, you understand, but there is pretty much an orthodox consensus that the Ten Commandments are not the Ten Suggestions, and that anything the Gospels agree that Jesus said is pretty binding. In any case, as a consequence of their theological dispute, the Floridian bishop told the rector and the vestry that they were deposed, and he would appoint new ones to his liking. Needless to say, this was an issue. The organization of the Episcopal church has always been such that congregations elect their vestries, and the vestry finds their own rector. So there is no real precedent for what has been happening all over the Episcopal church in America (once ECUSA, now TEC - as the membership diminishes the name becomes more arrogant). A dispute developed over who had the right to do what, and a Florida court handed down a judgment in the bishop's favor, thus effectively pitching out the rector, the vestry, and the vast majority of the congregation. You can find a link to the summary judgment here. OK, so far tolerance has not exactly ruled the day. But the dehoused congregation has found a new home to worship - the Beth Israel Jewish Temple, which agreed to rent them space. On Saturday, Beth Israel meets. On Sunday, the Church of the Redeemer meets. One of the displaced: "This area out here is better than anything we had. So it's just a wonderful area for us to carry on," said Church of the Redeemer parishoner, Bob Hutton.Bwhaahahaaaa. I think it's a tolerance lesson for us all.... The Church of the Redeemer has a new bishop - in Uganda, and it is worshipping in the temple. Nothing like going back to your roots!!!! From their first service: Lebhar says he expects the Beth Israel building to be the church's home for about 2 years. The torah and the menorah in the background.... Monday, May 28, 2007 Arlington National Cemetary Sunday, May 27, 2007 Friday, May 25, 2007 Why Al-Queda Really Should Be Scared Stiff Beware of ever starting a Cowboys and Muslims type of war - we've got Christian schooled sixth graders in the south who aren't afraid to take on a 1,000 pound boar with a pistol. And when they come for you, they'll be coming armed with pork sausage and plenty of lard!!! Jamison, who killed his first deer at age 5, was hunting with father Mike Stone and two guides in east Alabama on May 3 when he bagged Hogzilla II. He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot.I realize that the range of effete politicians and PETA-placating talking heads on American television aren't very intimidating, but you don't want to ever really piss off the rest of us. The only thing holding us back at this point, believe it or not, is our religion. But our patience and our peaceful theology is wearing thin now, and Old Testament passages are being discussed. It's a little-understood fact that Real America is nothing at all like Media America. "I was a little bit scared, a little bit excited," said Jamison, who just finished the sixth grade on the honor roll at Christian Heritage Academy, a small, private school. I don't know quite how to get this across, but the Iraqi war was actually an American peace overture - which, I might add, our religion requires of us before we get settled into a nice game of Cowboys and Muslims. You really need to stop passing around the torture videos and start passing around tapes of what's being said on the talkshows on the rural radio stations in the US of A. Because people aren't SCARED - they're getting ANGRY. As the Confederate Yankee comments, we have been fighting such wars and winning them for our entire history. Gas Gouging Law All Clawed Up April Home Sales: What A Mess Existing Home Sales were just pathetic. I sure hope I don't end up writing "grotesque" in a couple of months. A few numbers tell the story: Single Family inventory is up to (AIIEEEE) 8.3 months supply at the current rate of sales. This means further hefty price drops are in the works. Condo/Coop inventory is up to (gasp, choke) 9.5 months. Ditto on price drops. The decline in condo-coop sales is concentrated in the West, with the South making a strong run for the Condo Collapse title (-18.% & -10.5%). The decline in single family sales is concentrated in the West, but the Northeast is battling past the Midwest to achieve a pretty decent second place finish in the SFR Fright Night contest (-15.0%, -9.0%, 7.7%). At their peak, home prices were 6 standard deviations expensive from the historical cost of carry / rent ratio, so David you're right, in that centering a normal distribution on a fat tail event is fraught with risk. The history of bubbles suggests that a fat tail reversion to the mean follows a fat tail price gain, and worse, correlations practically go to one (or -1) in a crisis, meaning the best way to model risk is to hide under your desk and pray that you're one of the early ones to get a termination package before bankrupcy hits. I've really been a banker too long for my own mental health...Yeah, yeah, yeah. The insurance companies are very unreceptive to benefit claims based on work-related mental problems, Turbo. Try "accidentally" throwing your desk through the window and then falling out. Much better odds. The reason why the drop in sales by region is important is that median and average prices are much, much higher in the West and Northeast. By region, the most single family sales by far and away were occurring in the South, then the West, then the Midwest and finally, far behind, the Northeast. That pattern has now shifted in the slow market to the South, the Midwest, the West and the Northeast. So (groan) the areas hit hardest are the areas having the largest mortgages, meaning the correction in price will be concentrated there, meaning the average loss per delinquent loan is skewed to the high end.... Urk, gurgle, glumph (to quote Ms. Bullhardt when regurgitating the rock she just ate. It turns out that rocks and stated income mortgages don't digest well.) For condos, the most sales were occurring in the Northeast, followed by the South, the Midwest, and then the West. However, median prices are highest in the West, followed by the Northeast, the Midwest and the South. Thus, the AIIEEE caused by condo sales in the West is due to the relative expected losses on those loans. In the South, the market has degenerated enough that people will just tend to buy single-family instead. Now, keep the above firmly in mind, because we now come to the New Home Sales report. Almost everything you read in the press about it is wrong. For one thing, they are talking about seasonally adjusted numbers, and the seasonal adjustment is now distorting the numbers badly. If you looked at actual sales in the New Home sales report, a few highly unpleasant details popped out: - Despite the large quoted gain in sales, there is still a high drop YoY (over 10%). - The only gains by region MoM were in the Northeast (7,000 - 9,000) and the South (41,000 - 52,000) - therefore the big drop in median prices everyone's talking about is mostly due to regional price variations. - In terms of the price brackets, the gains were concentrated in extremely low price brackets (see page 4 of the pdf release): - <$150,000 (7,000 - 17,000) - <$200,000 but >= $150,000 (17,000 - 22,000) - About a third of reported sales occurred for not-started homes, which category accounts for only about 15% of reported inventory, which really means less than 10% of actual inventory. THEY ARE NOT CLEARING WHAT'S ALREADY BUILT. - YTD new home sales are down sharply in the West (-32.4%). In the Northeast, YTD home sales are reported up, but there are so few new home sales that it is not statistically significant. We cannot truthfully know whether new home sales rose or fell in the Northeast. There is not the faintest glimmer of a hope of a housing turnaround in either of these two reports. This market is EXTREMELY price sensitive. All the data shows it. This is very bad news for underwater home debtholders and whoever is holding payment rights to their paper. For more background on the New Home sales report see CR's post here. Thursday, May 24, 2007 God Hates Fags Fliers A Hate Crime? She and her 16-year-old friend each face charges of hate crime, disorderly conduct and resisting a peace officer stemming from their arrest May 11 outside Crystal Lake South High School. The charges allege the girls were distributing fliers showing two men kissing and containing inflammatory language toward homosexuals....The hate crime charge is a felony. Eugene Volokh raises an eyebrow: Calling it "harassment," "breach of the peace," "disorderly conduct," or "intentional infliction of emotional distress" is just labeling, and doesn't explain which First Amendment exception strips the words of protection. If anything, it highlights the vagueness of the legal theory under which the prosecution is operating, since these terms do not clearly define which speech will be punished by the law, and thus pose the three related problems of vague speech restrictions: lack of fair notice to speakers, risk of discriminatorily viewpoint-based enforcement, and tendency to deter speech. It's not just about "God Hates Fags"; if those words can be made a felony under one of these vague rationales, a wide (and unpredictable) range of other words could be punished as well.I'm still dubious about whether we really know the story. If the facts I keep seeing written are true, there's trouble ahead. Even spiteful juvenile delinquents, as unadmirable as they might be, are protected by the Constitution. A felony charge for a hate crime seems beyond the allowable limits. The school has suspended them, and I suppose the pictured person has the right to file a civil complaint for libel. Perhaps they are being charged under a harassment statute, sustainable because the picture was of the person harassed? It is difficult to reconcile Brandenburg V Ohio with this, and while the conduct is uncivil, I do think this sort of thing is taking us into deep waters. The conduct in Brandenburg was egregious, but the statute under which the KKK weekend revolutionaries were charged was deemed unviable by the court: Measured by this test, Ohio's Criminal Syndicalism Act cannot be sustained. The Act punishes persons who "advocate or teach the duty, necessity, or propriety" of violence "as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform"; or who publish or circulate or display any book or paper containing such advocacy; or who "justify" the commission of violent acts "with intent to exemplify, spread or advocate the propriety of the doctrines of criminal syndicalism"; or who "voluntarily assemble" with a group formed "to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism." Neither the indictment nor the trial judge's instructions to the jury in any way refined the statute's bald definition of the crime [395 U.S. 444, 449] in terms of mere advocacy not distinguished from incitement to imminent lawless action. 3As a practical matter, the quarrel over whether disapproval of homosexuality may be publicly voiced is only making it the rebellion of choice for today's wanna-be teenaged leaders of the pack. This is a growing problem in high schools, and I have to say that people in many political demonstrations that I have seen would probably be in trouble also. Accordingly, we are here confronted with a statute which, by its own words and as applied, purports to punish mere advocacy and to forbid, on pain of criminal punishment, assembly with others merely to advocate the described type of action. On a lighter note, Iowahawk has returned to the pressing question of the Lutherans, and Dr. M takes a decided whack at vegans - in Illinois, this may or may not be a hate crime. In my experience, Vegans have got to be the most passionate causists on the planet. Not many people are willing to inflict malnutrition on their kids because of a belief - and I've actually seen one of these stunted children. Awful. It's All About Gas And Food Weller and others warn that sharp up-and-down movements may have more spillover into the rest of the economy, because households have a hard time quickly adjusting their budgets.Even assuming that MEW-funded spending drops effectively only about 2% over the course of the next year, you are looking at a net drop in spending of about 3% on consumer goods other than gas if these figures are correct. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem if food prices weren't galloping up in tandem, but then that's the problem. Food prices for lower-income families are up about 10% in most areas since January. Look at wholesale prices for beef. The current is shown, and you can download older averages from the right sidebar. Look at the 5/18 prices compared to say, the beginning of February. The compression factor is in - prices for the very top cuts and the bottom three quintiles are rising, whereas the prices for the 2nd most expensive quintile are dropping. Of course that is not what the consumer sees at the store, because the store balances the overall profit by raising the lower end prices the most. There was a hint of this in April when U.S. retail sales slipped 0.2 percent as consumers cut back on other expenditures to compensate for higher gasoline costs, which have spiked 32 percent in inflation-adjusted terms since December. Consumers reduced spending for clothing, sporting goods, general merchandise and restaurants. Low-income families take the biggest hit from rising pump prices since gasoline expenditures at current price levels account for about 9 percent of their income, Weller said. Among middle-income families, gasoline expenditures eat up roughly 5 percent to 6 percent of income. CPI YoY food briefing updated 5/22 (containing April figures): Beef up 4.7%I compile a "what can we get in the way of meat for our money this week" index, which is running up over 16% YoY as of May. That would be a bottom-end index which actually describes an astonishing number of families. I believe it is right because eggs tend to be the cheapest form of protein and are a fallback. I've got cereals up 12% and bread up 10%. The largest net increases are in the lower end foods. I've also got prices of canned vegetables up approximately 8% YoY. Stuff like macaroni and cheese up are up more than 10%. So I'm shifting my food price index from ~7.8 to ~10%. Poultry up 4.6% Pork up .7% Eggs up 18.6% Fresh vegetables up 8.1% Cereals up 4.5% Food at home - 3.9% Food away from home - 3.4% All of this describes a pattern of price-constrained inflation busting out rather than moderating. For example, food away from home increased .3% in April whereas food at home increased .1%. CPI for lower-income workers is probably badly understated. Rental and housing makes up comparatively less of the household budget for rural households in comparison to urban households, so CPI for those areas is understated. Public transportation is effectively unavailable for most workers outside of the densely populated sections, so the average CPI is distorted there too. What this should mean is that lower-end credit is going to blow up in everyone's faces and indeed that is beginning. There are some real structrural problems that economists had better start accounting for. One of the nastiest aspects of the current economic situation is that close to 69% of the population are homeowners. Most of the rest of the population falls into the segment that is taking a real beating (approximately 10%) in effective spending power from these types of baseline increases in necessities. That's two trends which reinforce each other and exert a structural drag on consumer spending that cannot be overlooked. Wednesday, May 23, 2007 In Case Anyone Missed It We Muslims believe in something called "civility" and giving respect to a person even though he/she may not be deserving of it. We also believe in "obedience" and that a woman should always speak to a man only kind and sweet words.... A woman will only be nice, when she is aware of her own limitations. It it only when she is aware of her limitations, and doesn't feel threatened by men who are better than her in some way, that she can be a lady. ... So many girls think that calling any guy they don't like, "a dick" or something is totally fine. But do they ever call any one "a cunt" so easily? No, of course not. That is because females are disgusting creatures, and evil and sexist too.I'm sure that we are all grateful to this gentleman for setting the record straight on what Muslims really believe about women. Not, btw, that this Sona guy (the email writer) is exactly typical of Muslims - he isn't. He's got his own blog which he referred to when he showed up in the comments claiming the emails. Try his "probation" tag: It was pretty boring. She asked me some weird things. They are such sneaky fuckers. Am going to be really careful about this one now. I was explaining something and she did not even let me finish and she said "Hmm... thats perverting the course of justice" and am like wait up let me finish.... So my probation officer is a female. I am dreading going there, as for a start shes a Christian woman and I don't like this - she wears a cross - and I get the urge to try to convert her to Islam. Today we are going to be talking about personal stuff right into the nitty-gritty as she told me the week previously. Once am there and talking to her she is pretty helpful actually. She's pretty good looking to, so 2hrs fly-buy I think she's married too am not sure though. I'll ask her today. The thing is I can't be a complete bastard to her. I have to be really sweet and nice and so innocent and pathetic. So she puts in a good word for me so I can get out of this probation crap. 12 months of this Jesus I guess I just need to out my head down and get on with it. Shes also going to make me do this anger management thing. She reckons I have anger problems. Well who wouldn't have anger problem women stupid deficient women are doing your head in? they seem to be missing the central point here. Women piss me off which leads to my anger "problems" well its almost time. Damn I think I've put too much aftershave on I feel sick and have a headache.I guess the woman got tired of being hit on by Sona, who says he is married and in a recent post on his birthday was waiting for his dad to let him use his dad's credit card!!! Damn I have to do probation with a man from now on. I hate men I was better off with the woman. He keeps changing his name too I am sure. The first time I met him I am sure he said his name was Mark and now he is saying its Tony. Strange guy. Oh and they wanted to do a home visit I had to blag myself out of it. Half of my family ain't even got a clue. Am doing probation. Monday, May 21, 2007 Angry, Useless Politics Well, the immigration bill seems to have set off the political season for real. Now the frothing begins. Bloomberg contemplates the tacking into the political winds by the presidential aspirants, and ends by citing polls that show considerable support in the general population for some sort of deal that regularizes the status of illegal immigrants: The public, by a margin of 59 percent to 37 percent, supports the idea of granting illegal immigrants legal working status and a path to citizenship, according to a March poll by the Pew Center, a Washington-based research organization.But does this compromise satisfy that desire? Regardless, it is usually the case that the general population is in fact more moderate than the political spinners. I wonder if most voting Americans don't really belong to the "pragmatic party", and end up swinging to the party that seems to be best attempting to improve matters pragmatically at any one time. A Bloomberg News poll conducted April 5-9 found that voters may be receptive to a compromise. A majority of Republicans and Democrats favored combining strict enforcement and a guest- worker program. As far as I can tell, the immigration "compromise" fails the pragmatism test pretty badly. Illegal workers can be exploited, and are exploited, and are used to drive down wages of non-illegal workers. Flooding the market with low-skilled workers also drives down wages. Cheap nannies, yardworkers and dishwashers may be an economic benefit to highly-educated professionals, but they hurt another segment of the population pretty badly (including legal Hispanic immigrants). So legalizing them is a priority; this gives them much more freedom to change jobs and negotiate. It gives them an incentive to sink down roots. I doubt very much that most lower middle-class and under families can afford to have the head of household go back to their native countries, so I don't think this "compromise" is going to accomplish that. The "send them all back" crowd are wildly unrealistic; we do need more people with our aging population. Furthermore, a lot of illegals are relatively well-integrated and stable; some have even bought houses and many run businesses. It sure would be nice if we could get them all legalized, filing taxes and voting. Obviously it is a matter of setting rational limits. I wrote before about what I thought of "guest workers" who never have a chance to settle here. I still believe that it is destroying our nation and that it is a form of class warfare. If I have to read any more about "doing the jobs Americans won't do" I might get a little rabid myself. I have the uneasy feeling that angry political maneuvering and spittle-flecked rhetoric is going to drown out the interests of the American population on this issue once again. We've got the rabid right and the looney left and they're both screamers. (Dr. M has an interesting theory on this question which might explain why so often our rabid right and the looney left seem to be ending up in bed together. She thinks anger and insecurity is what draws people to a certain type of politics, rather than that they get angry because of politics.) I'd hate to see either the rabid right or the looney left conquer the massive middle, but I have an ugly feeling that the large slate of presidential would-bes will mean that everyone will be fighting for small factions in order to stay in. Carl says that the compromise has destroyed the Republican party for this cycle. I think he's right. I also think that unless we can get candidates who are attached to more than just rhetoric in the Democratic party that the same is true for the Democrats. Obama and Clinton are neck and neck, and so far Obama does not impress me on issues, but I don't trust Hillary's ethics or her ability to concoct or promulgate pragmatic solutions. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have had great moments in our history. The common denominator of those great moments has been when one or another confronted a transitional period, junked the BS, and crafted changes that benefited the great majority of the citizens in the country. What we need are candidates with much broader experience than our current frontrunners. We want governors. We want people with some expertise in making things work. We don't need to hit home runs, we just need to keep getting runners on base. Right now the whole country seems stalled. If it takes an Independent candidate to accomplish that, I'm all for it and I am not alone in my frustration. The Anchoress: I hold a relentless belief that undertaking positive actions will always come to better, more fruitful and constructive ends than negative actions.She's right - people who are succumbing to frustration and anger are just letting themselves be suckered. We've got to remain anchored in reality and debating how we could make things better rather than worse. I can understand dissatisfaction with a bill but I have never loved this notion of scalp-hunting on the left or the right, and for heaven’s sake, at this point some on the right are sounding exactly like the hard-left they abhor. Funny how a tactic one disdains becomes a tactic one endorses when one feels the ends justify the means. Beck On Bonds While shareholders are cashing in big during the current buyout boom, investors holding what had long been considered the least-risky corporate bonds are taking a surprising bath.Everything old is new again... It's all about leverage. These days, most takeovers add lots of debt to acquired companies' balance sheets and the result has been credit-rating downgrades of high-quality corporate securities to junk levels. This wasn't the way things were supposed to go for investors, many of whom are pension and mutual funds. They thought they were buying safety with investment-grade corporate bonds, which have a low risk of default. Kuwait depegs from the dollar, citing the inflation problem they have. Tell me again how US inflation is going to slow? Khaleej Times. Less than a month ago, Kuwait had supposedly promised not to do it. Dollar rises against the yen and Euro - Bloomberg. Update: This is funny. Yal posted these two Countrywide links over at Calculated Risk: Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo on Monday said regulation in the subprime mortgage industry will help crooks while hurting lenders and the housing market.While Countrywide REO climbs. If those lovely loans are such good product, why doesn't Countrywide refinance them instead of foreclosing on them? Why doesn't Mozilo put his own money into them? Heh,heh. You can guess the answer. There are, btw, no regulations actually forbidding those loans. All we've got is a strong suggestion that you better make sure your borrower understands them. The only reason anyone forecloses is because the borrower can't make the payments and can't qualify for a workout; Mozilo is really complaining that no one wants to take the dreck off Countrywide's hands. "...Regulation, in my opinion, has caused part of the problem. When they attacked the pay option and interest- only loans, that really put a dent in a lot of the product, which is perfectly good product." Saturday, May 19, 2007 Dr M On The Immigration Bill ...for economic and social reasons, Congress and the President have no intention of creating a secure border. The United States electorate would experience inflation again with a tight border. It's simple, really. Less workers, higher wages, businesses struggle to keep costs down, prices passed on to the consumer, rinse, repeat.Note that as my dear Chief is in fact a Hispanic immigrant, I can hardly be accused of being prejudiced. However, there is a huge difference between allowing people who come here in order to become American to become citizens, and allowing people who neither like nor understand our culture to become citizens in massive numbers. We cannot allow people who really don't like the Constitution to overwhelm our culture. If we do, vast swaths of the US will simply become another culture, with all of that culture's good parts and bad parts. So do you want the US to become like Mexico, or Guatemala, or El Salvador? If you do, you are a lunatic. Once the illegal flow from Mexico is stopped (picking off drug runners armed to the teeth would be a nice start), the question of digestible immigration can resume. It is the height of folly to bring in a socialistic mind-set, subsidize it and then want it to discontinue magically somehow. The immigration bill(s) will not work. Chief No-Nag disapproves of them too. The first thing to do is to impose drastic penalties upon public and private employment of illegals; that will stop the influx. Any program that doesn't start with that is doomed to fail. Anyone who thinks about it realistically will understand. Now, there are way too many people here working illegally to simply pitch them all out of jobs. So we will have to put in some sort of temporary grandfather clause in which we allow employers who have long term employees who are illegal a temporary exemption for a couple of years. But if you make too expensive for them to hire new illegal workers, you'll fix the problem on its own. Once you stop the problem from worsening, then we can deal with things on a rational basis. Until we do, we aren't dealing with it at all. We should not allow anyone to become a citizen until they can demonstrate a pretty good competence in English and have studied our system of laws and the Constitution. Friday, May 18, 2007 For Non-Commuting Contemplation Only “Education does not mean teaching people to know what they do not know – it means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.”and: “…a student attains ‘higher order thinking’ when he no longer believes in right or wrong“. “A large part of what we call good teaching is a teacher´s ability to obtain affective objectives by challenging the student’s fixed beliefs. …a large part of what we call teaching is that the teacher should be able to use education to reorganize a child’s thoughts, attitudes, and feelings.”"Affective" means emotional. The aim of much modern teaching is to get students to feel passionately about issues; whether they actually understand them is considered unimportant. Indeed, giving them any tools and knowledge that would allow them to assess evidence independently is considered actually harmful. The little brats might start asking hard questions, thus messing up the classroom dynamic. Your impulse upon reading SC&A's foray into education theory might be to dismiss the selection of quotes as cherry-picking a few random whackheads burbling into silence. Oh, no. This type of thinking dominates educational departments in US universities, and naturally enough has begun to seep into the wider university. See FIRE for examples, such as the Michigan State University "rightthinking" requirement for graduation: After months of public pressure, Michigan State University (MSU) has ended its controversial Student Accountability in Community (SAC) program. FIRE urged MSU to end the SAC program because it forced students whose speech or behavior was deemed unacceptable to undergo ideological reeducation, or else face effective expulsion.Eventually we will have to get all of our scientists from Czechoslovakia, Poland and India; our homegrown talent will all be too busy weeping and hugging trees to actually do any research. Photon Courier, Chicago Boyz and Betsy's Page are three blogs that sometimes look at this issue. As The World Turns Economically.... Opening and expanding private sector business establishments gained 7.4 million jobs in the third quarter of 2006, a decrease of 397,000 from the previous quarter. Over the third quarter, expanding establishments added 6.0 million jobs, while opening establishments added 1.4 million jobs.This will have major implications for corrections to the Birth/Death model in 2008, and it would suggest that employment this year is being overstated (whereas last year it was understated). For more discussion, see this post at Calculated Risk. My guess, which is no better than anyone else's, is that the negative trend picked up again in the second quarter of 2007 due primarily to continued declines in residential employment. In the third quarter, my guess would be that the trend would spread to retail establishments (rising unemployment among teenagers is probably the first signal of this diffusion, and we saw that clearly in the last monthly unemployment survey; unemployment among Hispanic teenagers especially shot up). Gross job losses totaled 7.3 million, an increase of 50,000 from the previous quarter. During the quarter, contracting establishments lost 6.0 million jobs, while closing establishments lost 1.3 million jobs. (See tables A, 1, and 3.) CR comments on his own post that the BED release may indicate that more of the economic impact of the housing decline has already been felt than was believed, and so the future impact may be less than anticipated. I don't agree; I think that employment was strong enough that approximately the first 200,000 - 250,000 of lost construction jobs would be absorbed naturally, and that losses after that will have a much greater significance for the economy. Anyone who was interested in my post about Quincy Howe's World Diary 1929-1934 will probably find this article about the Spanish economic situation worth a read: Spain's foreign reserves have plummeted to wafer-thin levels, leaving the country exposed to a possible banking crisis if the property market swings from boom to bust - despite membership of the eurozone.(To me, the Spanish building boom seems already to be busting. I know some bank funding has drawn back.) "The current account is completely out of control," said Alberto Mattelan, an economist at Inverseguros in Madrid.Mind you, nothing shows in the Spanish economic stats as yet, but in this type of boom cycle the correction tends to happen very quickly indeed. "We have the worst deficit in our history and worse than any other country in the western world. It has not yet become a 'street concern', but I can assure you that it is of great concern to us economists. This will turn bad over the next 18 months," he said. I have written about the problem of needs inflation. I'm not the only one worried; Thomas Kee discusses the problem in a non-hysterical manner at Seeking Alpha, asking and answering the question of why the FOMC is so worried about inflation: The concern isn't so much in the core level of producer prices or consumer prices, the concern is in the prices of food and energy. Food and energy make up the non-core components of the consumer price and the producer price indexes. These are extracted on a monthly basis and the result is the core levels of PPI and CPI. On a monthly basis these represent potentially volatile levels, and that's why they are extracted from this data. However, on a longer-term basis this is very important information to use in evaluating inflation.With a substantial group in our population experiencing stagnant wages and escalating living costs, it is really no surprise that levels of consumer debt have ballooned. Obviously, something's got to give. Wages for a large group of the population neither support increased living standards nor increased debt levels, although increased debt levels have recently allowed for maintaining a better standard of living than would otherwise be possible, because this type of debt can be used to defer living costs. But not indefinitely, and the lower income levels of consumer debt are showing the same trends as subprime mortgages. Over the past seven years, the non-core components of the CPI and PPI have increased at about 37%. Inflationary pressures clearly exist in these non-core components. In the past seven years, the non-core components have increased on average 5.3% per year. From an inflation standpoint, this is an extremely aggressive level of inflation. However, most economists on a month-to-month basis discount the increases in the non-core components. That's a mistake longer term. The non-core components are what we depend on for a day to day living. Every month, regardless of economic environment, we need to spend money on food and energy. If the prices of food and energy are increasing aggressively, then our cost of living increases aggressively too. The recent concern is about wages. With a low level of unemployment, wage pressures are at the forefront of the Fed's watch list, at least it seemed so during Greenspan's era. However, wage pressures have been tame compared to the prices of the non-core components. During a time when the non-core components increased by 37%, wages only increased by about 18%. Because the subprime (and Alt-A) mortgages have been used disproportionately as a means to enter the housing market, the subprime mortgage correction is causing a step down in effective housing demand. Over the next year, we are now going to experience a similar phenomenon in other segments of the consumer economy that are debt-dependent, such as cars and other discretionary purchases. The problem with funding current short-term consumption out of debt on a consistent basis over time is that it magnifies future economic problems. As it turns out, it was unrealistic to expect that people could fund new car purchases by rolling over debt on the previous car for very long. Nor can people continue to buy big-screen TVs on credit cards forever. Spending at restaurants is going to take a hit; retail employment and profits will be pressured. This will then flow through to some very high-paying jobs in companies that manufacture or market products like consumer electronics and business suppliers. Lower tax receipts for municipalities and states are going to force a retrenchment in state and local spending which will also restrain job growth and wage growth in these sectors. The public policy issues raised by effectively understated CPIs for the elderly are now going to smack us right in the face. Less affluent retirees are in exactly the same boat as less affluent wage earners - a far higher percentage of their incomes goes to pay for fuel, utility and food than the norm. Therefore they are disproportionately affected by this trend, and demographics makes it particularly urgent to deal with the reality of high needs inflation. Raising gas taxes and subsidizing ethanol is worsening economic conditions for far too many people not to affect the overall economy. If we understand these realities, we can make better public policy choices in the future. If we don't, we are pissing in our own beer and it will gain us nothing to then complain about the taste. Neither the Democratic nor the Republican party wish to deal with economic reality at present, but the population of the United States does not have the option to live in the DC/NY bubble world. Thursday, May 17, 2007 If These Are Democrats... ...a key ingredient in any reasonably speedy energy-policy fix must be higher gas prices.From the comments: That's particularly true if innovation and technology are to be utilized effectively. A federal gas tax increase of 50 cents or more would assure that there will be a market for new technologies. Why don't you come up with a better alternative to gas, BEFORE you raise the taxes on gas? Only thing you are going to do, by raising taxes, is create a larger gap between the haves and have nots, which politicians aren't worried about at all, because they are the haves.A fierce fight develops, about SUVs, global warming, and overpopulation. Of course, it ends up being the fault of the evangelicals. And those greedy bastards are having too many children, too: Here here...overpopulation is the main issue driving all of this. Unfortunately. it is not even being talked about at the governmental level. Procreation-control should be at the top of the list. I absolutely adore China's one child policy...perhaps the overly religious types should take that as a hint...In the meantime, even the LATimes has figured out that there is something wrong with the government's food inflation figures - except that they think it's somehow confined to LA. They go through a long list of local prices, solemnly comparing them to the national averages. Haha. Case in point, the brother of my x-girfriend is one of these evangelicals. His first priority after getting married (at age 20 lol) was to have 3 children, despite the fact that he wasn't done with college yet and had no means of paying for said children. The Lord will provide he kept saying, this is what we are supposed to do, etc......lol...this led him right to food stamps. Take this scenerio and multiply it by how many....it becomes a problem exponentially. Telemark, I have witnessed similar scenarios... I worked at a courier company once and one of the evangelical drivers constantly railed against the "welfare state" while he was, in fact, living in state-subsidized housing for his wife and 9 kids. He also received food stamps and I would assume his church paid some of his bills. His poor wife was pregnant at 49 with another child. Poor kids... the older ones ran away at their first chance. Religion has hood-winked so many otherwise sane people into acting, believing and voting against their best interests. Evangelicals are the scariest people I know because facts don't matter... feelings matter. My step-mother has eleven different Bibles and at least as many names for God. It's a faith-based addiction. China has a viable solution, but I don't advocate the throwing of female infants down the well. There should be no tax incentive to having children, no deduction, no Bushie bribes like in 2002. $300 kid rebates... now that's insane. Society as a whole pays for the education, public safety and sometimes the healthcare of our less intelligent people's children. How about a deduction for the first child, then an equal penalty for every one after. 1st child - $1200 tax credit net: $+1200 2nd child - 1200 penalty - net: $0 3rd child - 1200 penalty - net: $-1200 Let's favor educated rich people in breeding. (Yes, I am serious) Beautiful! Brorlob has cut to the chase! An heir is OK, and a spare breaks it even. I love this formula. Quincy Howe's World Diary 1929 -1934 From the prologue: IN THE Wall Street crash of 1929 the United States lost what it had fought for in the World War. Beginning in 1914, Allied orders for food and munitions created a boom in American agriculture and industry that continued until March, 1917, when the British Treasury, the last source of Allied credit, exhausted its borrowing power. At that point the United States had to decide between calling a sudden halt to the boom or supporting the Allies. President Wilson chose the second course, and the American Treasury with its Liberty and Victory Loans took up the burden that the British Treasury had dropped. The country thus avoided a sharp depression by bowing to events beyond its own frontiers. American isolation had come to an end.These are excerpts from the 1931 entries. First, the summary: The slump that the War had postponed again threatened to creep over the land in 1920. This time, however, the automobile industry, installment buying, and foreign loans based on war-time profits turned the tide. The factories built since 1914 shifted from war-time to peace-time production, and for the next ten years the world marveled at American prosperity. Then, during the summer of 1929, consumption began to lag, stock prices wavered, and on October 24 came the worst crash in the history of the New York Stock Exchange, when nearly thirteen million shares went overboard in a panic of selling, Less than a year had passed since Herbert Hoover informed his fellow countrymen that poverty had been forever abolished in the United States, promised them a chicken in every pot, and received the largest popular vote ever recorded by a candidate for the American Presidency. The events on Wall Street disturbed him not at all "The fundamental business of the country is on a sound and prosperous basis," he declared on October 25. After two more sharp breaks in the market he announced on November 15 that "any lack of confidence in the basic strength of the United States is foolish." On November 21 the leaders of industry, banking, and commerce met at the White House and promised to cooperate with the Government and not to reduce wages. Among those present was Henry Ford, who announced that wages in his factories would be raised. On December 3 the President declared, "I am convinced that we have reestablished confidence." And the best opinion in England agreed with him. The Manchester Guardian regarded the Wall Street crash as "a pure gambling crisis," and the London Times went so far as to declare that "in the main speculation rested on a sound basis." The fact that brokers' loans had reached the record figure of eight billion dollars one tenth the national income for the year shows how far this speculation had gone. What had happened was that thousands of gamblers had purchased stock on margin that is to say, they had put up a fraction of the purchase price and the broker had supplied the rest. If the gamblers could sell the stock at a higher price than had been paid for it, they pocketed the entire profit, but if the stock fell by as much as they had invested, it reverted to the broker, who either demanded more money from the gam bler or sold the stock himself. Now the crash of 1929 not only wiped out the entire proceeds of thousands of gamblers; it even left many brokers holding stock that was worth less than what they had put into it. And since the brokers in their turn had borrowed from the banks, using the stocks as securities for their loans, the entire financial system of the nation suffered. Nor were brokers the only people who had bor- rowed from the banks on securities that had suddenly fallen from twenty to fifty per cent in value. Shortly before American finance suffered this blow, the leading bankers of the world had prepared a scheme to rescue the finances of Germany. Because the Versailles Treaty had declared Germany solely responsible for the War, the Allied Powers had presented that country with a reparations bill of a hundred and thirty-two billion marks the estimated cost of the War in May 1921. Three years later the Germans agreed to begin making payments through the medium of the Dawes Plan, which had no date of expiration and which put German finances under the supervision of a foreign Agent General for Reparations with headquarters in Berlin. The payments, however, came out of foreign, not German, pockets, and a handful of international bankers instantly collected handsome profits. In. the United States, for instance, a banking syndicate sold Dawes Plan bonds to the Ameri- can public and turned over the proceeds, minus the usual commission, to the German Government. In that way Germany raised enough money to pay reparations for a few years and to stabilize the mark. What had happened was that after the Wall Street crash Frenchmen withdrew the money they had been lend- ing to New York and deposited seventeen billion francs in the banks of Great Britain, payable in pounds sterling. The British then used these deposits, on which they paid two and three per cent interest, to extend credit to German banks at five and six per cent. The German banks in turn extended credit to Vienna at eight and nine per cent, and Vienna extended credit to the banks of Bucharest and Budapest at twelve per cent. But the Hungarian and Ru manian farmers who had borrowed from the banks in their national capitals saw the price of wheat suddenly decline fifty per cent in the autumn of 1930 and therefore could not repay their loans. Which explains why the Credit-Anstalt in Vienna collapsed before the Danat Bank in Berlin, and why the Bank of England, quite apart from political considerations, cared more about saving Austria than the Bank of France did.How it played out: The same fall in the price of raw materials that had caused half a dozen revolutions during 1930 continued to make trouble during 1931. On May 23 the eleven largest wheat-exporting nations adjourned a futile conference in London, declaring that there was. more wheat in the world than could be sold at a profit. The United States had opposed fixing an export quota for each country but favored reduction of acreage; the Russians favored an export quota provided they could sell as much abroad as they did before the War, when they exported half again as much wheat as the United States. They refused, how- ever, to consider a reduction of acreage. On May 29 the American Farm Board announced that it would continue buying wheat until June 30 at higher and higher prices, and then stop. Within a week grain prices in Chicago dropped below the world level and wheat to be delivered in July fell to 57 cents a bushel, the lowest price since 1896. ...And so the stage was set. In 1930, the governments of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina had been overthrown. In Bolivia, the government of President Siles had racked up tremendous foreign debt, and almost 60% of the budget was being used to support the Bolivian military or pay on the foreign debt. The military deposed him to try to prevent a populist revolution, which had as one of its goal to nationalize the oil wells. Shortly thereafter, President Leguia of Peru was deposed by a military junta. Peru had racked up even more foreign debt than Bolivia. Nearly simultaneously, President Irigoyen of Argentina, who had been a populist, fell when an Argentinian general led a march on the capital at the head of army units. Argentina's exports had fallen through the floor, it was forced to export gold, and the result was severe inflation which eroded his base and panicked the landowners. In China, where famine had been widespread for years, civil war was the norm rather than the exception. In India, Gandhi was leading the breakaway movement from the British Empire with near universal support. In Russia, which was in the throes of the Five Year plan, the drive to export agricultural goods was on to support Russia's attempt to industrialize. When the Japanese army basically moved on its own behest (the civilian government was controlled by the peaceful faction and had nothing to do with it), one of the reasons may have been that the Imperial clan and the Army feared the radicalism of Japan's growing ranks of educated, unemployed elite. Japan's growing textile mills during this period paid very little but were able to export enough to nearly crush the industry in England. A world which produced an oversupply of necessities was suddenly experiencing a crush of poverty which prevented masses of people buying what they needed, thus creating more unemployment and continually reinforcing the drop in consumption. THIS SLUMP in farm prices played an important part in the events of June. In 1929 the Credit-Anstalt, the largest bank in Austria, had taken over a smaller bank that specialized in farm mortgages. But the declining value of farm properties and the slump in world trade caused the losses of the Credit-Anstalt to rise to twenty million dollars during 1930 an amount larger than its whole capital stock. This news was announced on May 11, and the Austrian Government at once agreed to place sixteen million dollars at the disposal of the Credit-Anstalt if it could raise a loan of twenty-one million dollars abroad. The Bank for International Settlements was approached, but the French directors on its board insisted that Austria first renounce the customs union with Germany and then submit to international financial control. On June 16 the financial crisis forced the Austrian Cabinet to resign, but the foreign bankers chiefly British and German agreed to extend their short-term loans to Austria for two years. The next day the Bank of England gave Austria a temporary credit of twenty-one million dollars without any guarantees attached and subject to extension. ... In coming to the aid of Austria, the Bank of England virtually declared war on France in behalf of Germany. Chancellor Briining and his foreign minister, Dr. Curtius, had spent the week-end of June 6 with Ramsay Mac- Donald telling him of their country's desperate plight. German citizens were selling their marks and their Ger- man securities and depositing the proceeds in foreign cur- rency abroad. During the first three weeks of June the Reichsbank lost the equivalent of two hundred and twenty-seven million dollars in gold, or forty-one per cent of its total reserves. The German Government, unable to help Austria and save the customs union which it had counted on to stem the tide of National Socialism, therefore turned to England, which had been lending so much money to Germany that it had a large stake in keeping both that country and Austria solvent. Because the United States had almost three times as much money as England invested in Germany, President Hoover suddenly proposed a one-year postponement "of all intergovernmental debts, reparations, and relief debts, both principal and interest" to take effect July 1. His faith in the power of undiluted ballyhoo remained unimpaired : he had not consulted a single foreign government in ad- vance. On June 29, the White House announced that all governments except the French had agreed in principle to the proposal, but in the meantime the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had contributed twenty-five million dollars to a short-term loan of one hundred million dollars to the Reichsbank the Banks of England and France and the Bank for International Settlements hav- ing provided the rest. ... STOCK MARKETS at once rose all over the world and the London Spectator commented: "Hope so long deferred has returned like Astrasa to earth. We may well rejoice and thank Heaven that Mr. Hoover has been inspired to his action, for we are escaped, like Job, with the skin of our teeth." The Germans, however, soon discovered that the moratorium saved them only a billion and a half marks, or about as much money as had poured out of the country during the first three weeks of June and about as much as Briining's emergency taxes had yielded. "In spite of Hoover," remarked the liberal Vossische Zeltung of Berlin, "we remain poor as church mice." ... The breakdown of the German banking system reflected the breakdown of German society and these facts prove it There had been sixteen thousand suicides during 1930 and an average of forty-four a day for the past three years. When the Reichswehr needed six thousand new recruits eighty thousand men applied, half of whom had been rendered unfit for service by undernourishment. Half the Berlin school children were getting nothing to eat or drink for breakfast, and in northern Germany one child in five had no bed to sleep in. About sixty million of the sixty-five million people in the country received an average annual income of only two hundred dollars per capita, and the number of bankruptcies during the first six months of 1931 had doubled since the year before. (My comment: So at a time when wheat could hardly be given away on world exchanges, people in many countries were starving. It was not just Germany; the misery across much of South America was acute, and there was profound poverty in Japan, India and Russia. A growing swell of unemployment was causing suffering in England and the US; the economies of Spain and Italy were impacted severely as well; Spain's government was overthrown and the Rumanian prince was restored during 1930. ) According to the London Times, however, Hoover destroyed the post-war debt structure only in order to preserve the world-wide credit system based on the gold standard: "There is at stake the very basis and maintenance of the international system known as the gold standard, in a world whose members are to-day so linked one with another, so unitedly caught in the vast web of cosmopolitan dealing, that the effect of a collapse of credit at any one of a number of important points can no longer be localized." Events at once confirmed this judgment: the Danat Bank of Berlin, one of the four largest in the country, closed its doors on July 13 following a six-week run. All the other big German banks at once refused to pay more than ten per cent on their deposits, and the Berlin Stock Exchange closed for two days. On July 14 all the banks in Hungary closed for three days and one bank failed in Vienna and another in Latvia. AUSTRIA had its banking crisis in June, Germany in July. On August 1 the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank of France each gave a credit of twenty-five million pounds to the Bank of England to enable it to issue more bank-notes and withstand the run on the pound that had immediately followed the run on the mark. Major Walter Elliott, a rising young Conservative member of Parliament, described the atmosphere in London during July with the restraint typical of a British gentleman, on the verge of hysteria: "Last Wednesday men came back from the City to the House of Commons like soldiers coming out of the line. There is no mistaking that atmosphere. Men say little, they sit quiet, they are glad to be at peace. They are not able to accept things around them as real. Reality is out there where they left it, where they will have to go to meet it again," Because the Bank of England a private institution, had jeopardized the safety of the pound sterling by unwise loans to Germany, the British Government had to reduce the dole to the unemployed and cut the salaries of all government officials. The Labor Cabinet dutifully set about this task, but the dole cuts it proposed did not go far enough to satisfy the bankers, and the Cabinet split on the issue of meeting the bankers' terms, MacDonald, Snowden, Thomas, and Lord Sankey, favoring acceptance. The Liberal Party took the same line, and since the Labor Government needed Liberal support to exist at all, the entire MacDonald Cabinet resigned on August 24. ONE RESULT of the overthrow of the Labor Cabinet was that when Gandhi arrived in London to demand complete independence for India at the Second Round Table Conference, he found himself facing a government of imperialists. Another result was that on September 15 the annual maneuvers of the Grand Fleet in the North Sea had to be postponed because the pay reductions ordered by the new Government gave rise to a mutiny which was subsequently laid at the door of the British Secret Service. Writing on "British Secret Service Secrets" in Crapouillot, an independent monthly published in Paris, Xavier de Hauteclocque, whom we have quoted before, made this statement: "The 'unforeseen' events that recently occurred in the British Navy and that went unpunished were not perhaps absolutely 'unforeseen' by the Conservative Party and its secret assistants. In any case, it seems that 'accidents' like this and the Zinoviev letter will be able to shipwreck any Cabinet that is not oriented in a purely imperialistic direction, in other words, Conservatively." What M. de Hauteclocque meant was that the discontent in the British fleet received encouragement from agents of the Conservative Party, which had controlled the British Intelligence Service ever since 1926 and which was systematically creating a panic before the October elections. In 1924 Conservative agents had staged a similar panic when they made public a forged letter of Zinoviev's in order to spread the idea that the Labor Party was taking money and orders from Moscow. The Japanese put another interpretation on the mutiny and began acting as if the British Navy no longer stood in the way of their ambitions in Asia. On September 19 their troops marched into Manchuria and seized the city of Mukden on the complaint that one group of Chinese bandits had torn up a short stretch of railway track and that others had shot a Japanese army captain and a military companion who were traveling in civilian clothes on passports that made no mention of their army connections. This episode marked the triumph of the conservative Seiyukai Party's "positive" policy over the liberal Minseito Party's "negative" policy. Although Premier Shidehara of the Minseito Party had the majority of Parliament and the country behind him, he could not control the army, which, in Japan, is responsible to the Emperor alone. Furthermore, the army had always supported the policy outlined in the famous Tanaka Memorial, a confidential document said to have been submitted to the Emperor by Baron Tanaka, the late Seiyukai leader. Most governments today are well aware of history and are fighting to prevent matters from evolving as they did then. The web of international lending today could, in some scenarios, collapse as it did then. The South American situation is evolving in a similar fashion today. Wednesday, May 16, 2007 Smokin' But Not Burnin' Republican Presidential Debate (I haven't read it yet.) Fruitflies And Free Will. Wait until PETA hears what they are doing to fruit flies now. Ann Althouse: Flaming comments on her Falwell post followed by a developing brawl on her Republican debate post. Still, nothing matches DU's intemperate verve on Falwell. Quite a few argue against the bile, too. Here's a sample exchange: 383. I wish nothing but the best for him As someone who has been lurking on this forum for 3+ years I find many of the comments here out of character for DU. A man passed away today and my thoughts are with his family. I hope he rests in peace. DU is better then all this. That is why I am on the left, because we are better then them. I am not going to judge him. If there is a one supreme judge then I leave the judgement to him/her. 400. I would usually agree with you But I do not care about Falwell or his family. They represent pure evil and filth. When Hitler died I can't amagine anyone wished his family prayers or solice. Fuck Falwell, his family and Liberty University. I am glad he's dead. The world is a better place without his hate, swill and garbage. To balance that, look at some of the comments on Shrinkwrapped's eminently sane post Terror and Societal Regression Revisited. SW is rebutting a commenter's point of view with: In reality, advocating genocide is evil, whether it is Muslims espousing genocide of the Jews, or Westerners advocating genocide of the Islamic world. The second comment, that Islam is a cancer, which is similar to the Nazi justification for their attempted annihilation of the Jews (ie, that a victim race, culture, ethnic group represents an illness which must be eradicated) is noxious on its face and belied by the fact that there are in fact many millions of Muslims who want nothing more than to live in peace with their neighbors and join the modern world.SW gets a lot of flak in the comments: Like the cult of Thuggee, Islam is incompatible with the Western way.Just purely horrible. What is the western way if it is not to judge individuals upon their actions, rather than making war upon entire ideologies? While it may be wrong to call for a genocide of Muslims, it is just as wrong to think that we can live side by side with Muslims who may decide at some point in their lives to live the life that Muhammad and the Qur'an demand of them. We can and must challenge Islam both by evangelizing to their spirit and their soul, and by diminishing their capacity and desire to threaten us. The one we can do with kindness and compassion, the other we must do adamantly with disproportionate brutality. We can salvage people, but we can not salvage Islam. The Senate Dissents: a senate page listing scientists who are skeptical about CO2 as a primary driver of 1900-on warming. Isn't this phrasing a bit odd? Climate scientist Dr. Chris de Freitas of The University of Auckland, N.Z., also converted from a believer in man-made global warming to a skeptic.Please, please, let scientists be scientists. There's no need to talk of belief and conversions.... To counter the rough tone of the above, The Anchoress posts excerpts from Tony Snow's commencement address: To love is to place others before you and to make their needs your priority. Do it. When you put somebody else at the center of the frame, your entire world changes, and for the better. You begin to find your own place in the world. When you’re drawn into the lives of others, you enter their problems, their hopes, their dreams, their families. They whisk you down unimagined corridors, toward possibilities that had been hidden to you before. So resolve to do little things for others. You don’t know where they’re going to lead but then again, you don’t have any idea where your life is going to lead. When I was your age, I had long hair, a beard and thought of myself as a socialist. You are going to pinball all over the place, from experience to experience, job to job. And I want you to remember that you’ve got company. And that if you engage them with heart and mind, with faith and energy, you are going to find yourself on a cresting wave. ... The only things that are sure to endure are the artifacts of love. So go out and build as many as you can. Monday, May 14, 2007 Oops, No Dried Milk Either!!! ``Over the next several months we're going to see some pretty strong prices on all milk,'' said Larry Salathe, an economist and dairy expert at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington. Production needed to bring prices down ``takes at least several months, usually a year to two years, to come.''European and US stocks of dried milk powder are just about wiped out. Same for butter, cheese, etc. Skim-milk powder, the benchmark for world trade, has risen 60 percent in six months to a record $1.58 a pound May 4 on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, seven times higher than the five- year average. During the first five months last year, prices fell 14 percent. The Senior Loan Officer banking survey was released. More about that later. Sunday, May 13, 2007 Do Me A Favor Georgia and northern Florida are in deep, smoky, dangerous territory. The smoke has been bad for weeks and just keeps getting worse. Yesterday visibility here was down to less than 1/3rd of a mile. It's hard to breathe outside; you have to use AC to filter the air. There are plenty of evacuations and road closures; in some cases people are trying to move horses and other stock under really negative conditions. The only thing that's going to help a bit is rain, which is not in the forecast. Please pray for it. People are being moved out of their homes and some have been killed in accidents. The firefighters are working under dangerous conditions and doing the best they can. Southern GA and northern Florida need rain. Worse, we need quiet rain, because windy rain and lightning are going to fan the flames and start new fires. Today all the churches will be praying for it; please join in. Believe it or not, the fire which nearly burned our home down did not succeed in clearing enough debris that it couldn't be threatened again. The needles and brush from the standing timber are building up again. We got an insurance check and a quote on the roof, but it's pointless to repair it right now. Friday, May 11, 2007 Yet another publicity stunt gone inexplicably wrong.... Hint - it is a good idea to request help BEFORE you hold a press conference bewailing your lack of help. Governors don't seem to be behaving too well lately - this time it's Corzine. Hint: when apologizing for speeding, be sure to focus on other people's safety more than your own! An interesting look at governors and other politicians. Via Kaus. Scrappleface: Animal rights activists working for human rights for chimpanzees have a subtle, horrifying neocon agenda. Last, but not least, Liberal Larry's rude, crude and gobsmackingly inspired response to Sheryl Crow's little disclosure a while ago. Not work safe. Be sure to read the comments. This is some type of performance office. Welcome To Dried Milk Territory Forecast: +0.5 pctThe temporary surge on fruits and vegetables is abating in areas with relatively low transport costs, but now the ethanol frenzy is biting the consumer. "Another gain is expected in April, albeit at a slower pace than the past two months, with further increases in energy and food prices. Food prices, in particular, have posted four large consecutive monthly gains and are now up 7.8 percent over the past year. Demand for bio fuels is a primary culprit for the increase. Core PPI is expected to advance around 0.2 percent. If our forecast is realized, that would bring the year-over-year measure to 1.8 percent." Howard of Oraculations on gas prices: WHAT? FIFTY BUCKSAdd in 7.8% on food.... "Core" inflation measures are much less important at this point than what the consumer is seeing at the store. Fuel costs act as a VAT (tax) on just about everything. That's what it cost me this AM for gas at the cheapest local station. I used to fill my tank it for less than $20; at the "low" my fill would cost less than $16. $0 per means that $30 of weekly discretionary spending is now going to a necessity. Translate this across the economy and you have a serious recession coming our way. FFIEC/HUD latest median (half below, half over) household incomes by area. In most of these places, $10 extra for food and $20 extra for gas per week if you're careful. $30 after tax equals at least $40 average in wages (including EIC, etc), X 52 = 2,080 per year. Those credit cards ain't gonna get paid back any time soon! Recent surveys showed that over 25% of Americans are underwater on their cars! A nasty little secret is that debt is repaid on the margin, whereas this type of inflation is first dollar stuff. Retail sales results showed an nominal drop, which, price adjusted, equates to a much higher drop in items purchased: The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $372.0 billion, a decrease of 0.2 percent (±0.7%)* from the previous month, but up 3.2 percent (±0.7%) from April 2006.Note that the YoY drop is less than real inflation over that period. Tell me that we're not in a recession? PPI up 0.7% in April. Hoo-hah, sorry Charlie, game's over! Another dirty little secret; economists and politicians have no idea at all about how the average American lives. Thursday, May 10, 2007 Sometimes It's Nice To Be Small Fry A Morgan Stanley compliance officer and her husband pleaded guilty today to insider-trading charges just hours before another official of the firm and her husband were arrested on identical charges in a separate case.A compliance officer? All the compliance officers I have known have been extremely focused on their jobs. I just can't fathom one of them doing something like this - but apparently she admitted it. The amount of money they got versus the penalties she would have been acutely aware of is extremely disproportionate.

If you’re interested in humanity generally, then you likely are interested in the histories and exploits of those from another background, or a different color. You’d be curious how other societies developed, their customs and beliefs, advances or mistakes they’ve made. And you may wish the government would not steer you around in your study. Anybody would be enriched by such study, having their horizons expanded by greater knowledge of people from other walks of life. In recent times, that curiosity has been grouped under the term “ethnic studies.” And in California, that topic is of intense interest to the state’s politicians – so much so that many of them want to make it a curriculum requirement. But for the topic to remain an enriching experience for everyone, the politicians ought to do something they’re not used to doing – let educators educate. But nahhhh, these politicians want to dictate curriculum and educators are amenable. The Cal State system recently decided students must take a course in ethnic studies or “social justice” in order to graduate. A 2016 law requires high schools to create an “ethnic studies curriculum.” The Legislature has twice failed to put such a requirement into high schools as a condition to graduate. In 2018, then-Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill requiring such a program in some districts. A co-sponsor of AB2772 was Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside. Shortly afterward, Medina co-authored AB331 making the requirement statewide. After a backlash, that one was withdrawn temporarily. The idea has returned, as Medina wrote recently in these pages. And it couldn’t come at a better time. The question: Will we enrich or will we teach racial and sexual bitterness and vindictiveness? Medina wrote that he introduced AB331 because “the purpose of ethnic studies is not to stir intergroup grievances. It illuminates our failures in order to help us chart a more inclusive and equitable path forward.” The initial draft didn’t put it quite so charitably. The withdrawn bill says history taught in schools wrongly emphasizes straight white males. It would have taught that “capitalism is racism” and described it as a form of “power and oppression.” More than a dozen types of discrimination were listed, but not anti-Semitism. The draft recommends a rap song that suggests Jews control the media. Students would have needed a glossary to keep up with the trendy terms. Instead of “history,” they would study “herstory” and “hxstory,” a reflection, presumably, of deep contempt for the gender status quo. No intergroup grievances in that draft. The Sacramento political class withdrew the bill after voluminous backlash. A Jewish commenter said, “The problem is that it’s politicizing the curriculum. It’s a form of political indoctrination, which is not educational and should never be allowed in California schools.” Maybe the re-draft will be an improvement, but don’t count on it. As for “capitalism,” nearly all systems are capitalist, if by that we mean earning currency through work, to save or spend on a product or service. The complaint is probably about income distribution. The people in power want to take money from people they don’t like and give it to people they do like. Let’s see, there’s a word for that kind of system … The income distribution set-up wasn’t great for my ancestors, who came here in the late 1800s penniless and uneducated. They dug coal – the work they knew in their native Italy – for low wages. They settled in the rural Southwest, which is where I grew up with people mostly of Native American and Hispanic descent. Most didn’t know what “Italian” was, and were pretty sure I am “a Mexican.” Those people had immensely interesting – and quite different – cultures and customs, and each of us was enriched learning about them. Nobody back then informed them that I was a privileged androcentric oppressor. Today our country has people from so many different countries, it’s a truly great time to learn about one another. Most will do so without the guidance of politicians. Those who want political guidance can get it for free just by turning on the television, and can even get most of the politically correct wording. And if there’s public interest in teaching ethnic studies in school, let’s make sure it’s about cultures and the people within them and not the ideological proselytizing our politicians prefer. Reach Roger Ruvolo at firstname.lastname@example.org

October 28, 2004 Why Kerry: Bush Policies Endanger Israel Republicans are trying to woo traditionally Democratic Jewish voters to President Bush. Their argument is that the president's re-election is in the best interest of both the United States and Israel. We strongly disagree. The United States and Israel have long been bound by a strong commitment to democracy, pluralism and tolerance. Both nations' greatest strength comes from the power of these ideals. Yet under President Bush, we are recklessly squandering the United States' credibility and moral authority. The result is damaging to U.S. foreign policy and perilous for Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most intractable problems in the world. Progress toward peace will require adroit and steadfast leadership from the U.S. president. Neither the United States nor Israel is served by a U.S. president who is disdainful of the facts, lacks curiosity and won't change course even when its flaws are manifest. Some hoped that the war in Iraq would lead to stability in the Mideast and security for Israel. But just the opposite has happened. Hostility toward the United States and Israel has never been higher. Iraq has become a magnet for terrorists. Civil war could break out once our troops leave, spreading conflict throughout the region. The fact is that President Bush's policies have failed. This administration's mismanagement of the situation in Iraq has created a situation where both the United States and Israel are less secure. The highly respected Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University has concluded that instead of stopping Islamic extremists, the Iraq War "has created momentum for many terrorist elements, but chiefly Al Qaeda and its affiliates." The ironies abound. We went to war to stop Saddam Hussein from spreading weapons of mass destruction. He had none, but while we weren't looking, Iran and North Korea pushed ahead with their nuclear ambitions. Now the Saudis, Egyptians and others could feel compelled to speed up their efforts to join the nuclear club. A nuclear power in the Mideast that threatens U.S. and Israeli interests has grown more likely -- not less. We wanted to promote democracy in Iraq, but the best we can hope for may be a strongman to run the country with some legitimacy. Whatever its shape, the new Iraqi government will give power to the Shiite majority, which will be close to Iran, the leading sponsor of Hezbollah terrorists. Emboldened mullahs in Iran have dire implications for both the United States and Israel. Tragically, President Bush was slow to turn his attention to Israel. More than 300 Israeli civilians were murdered and more than 2,000 were wounded in more than 200 Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians from the time President Bush took office, before he proposed the "road map" for peace and tried to stem the violence. More Israelis have been killed by terrorists during the Bush administration than any other. What about Sen. John Kerry? The Republicans smear and distort his Senate record, but the fact is that Kerry has a 100 percent perfect voting record on Israel. Kerry has had decades of experience in foreign policy and his visits to Israel have reinforced his understanding of her security needs. He understands nuances and differences in Israeli politics and the Arab world, and he knows that it is a mistake to think of all Arabs and Muslims in one stereotype. And, most important of all, he understands the importance of the U.S.-Israel alliance and the need to pursue policies that are in America's and Israel's best interests. He will not make decisions in an echo chamber detached from the realities of the Mideast. President Bush has been an extremist, not a conservative. His administration wants to blur the separation of church and state. He is determined to put his majority on the Supreme Court, which will decide issues on choice and civil liberties for generations to come. He has put severe constraints on embryonic stem cell research, which has extraordinary potential for saving lives. He has weakened our economy. And he has turned us away from fighting for equal opportunity and social justice. These are not the values that most American Jews support. Americans and Israelis both need a U.S. president who can bring the world to understand that securing a safe and strong Israel is an essential component of peace in the Mideast. Rep. Henry A. Waxman is a Democrat representing an L.A. congressional district, and Mel Levine is a former L.A. Democratic congressman who served from 1983 to 1993 and is now a Middle East policy adviser to Kerry for President.

The Rise of International Refugee Organizations Early examples of mass dislocations include the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors from Spain in the 15th cent., the flights from religious persecutions in Europe to the New World in the 16th and 17th cent., and the exodus of the émigrés in the French Revolution. Before the 20th cent. there was little or no systematic attempt to help refugees, although some groups, on a private basis, provided assistance to refugees who were coreligionists. After World War I, international organizations were created to give assistance. 1.5 million Russians fled the Revolution of 1917; in the 1920s large numbers of Armenian and Greek refugees fled from Turkey, and many Bulgarians left their country. In 1921 the League of Nations appointed Fridtjof Nansen its high commissioner for refugee work; later the International Labor Organization and the Nansen International Office for Refugees took charge. Nansen effected repatriation wherever possible; in other cases he arranged for the issuance of Nansen passports, recognized by 28 countries, which gave the holder the right to move freely across national boundaries. The refugee problem was revived after Hitler's accession to power in Germany (1933) and his annexation of Austria (1938) and Czechoslovakia (1939) and the persecution of Jews. The Loyalist defeat in Spain (1939) and anti-Semitic legislation in Eastern Europe added to the overall problem. Many asylum governments attempted to return refugees to their country of origin; they were often forbidden to work and sometimes imprisoned. Some progress was achieved with the establishment of a permanent committee for refugees in London after a conference of 32 nations held in France in 1938. World War II further dislocated civil populations. At the war's end the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) had the responsibility of caring for some 8 million displaced persons (persons removed from their native countries as prisoners or slave laborers). Most were eventually repatriated, but about one million in Germany, Austria, and Italy refused to return to their native countries, which were by then under Communist governments. The number of Jewish refugees was in time greatly reduced by emigration to Israel, but uprooting the Arab population of that new state in turn created some one million refugees. With the end of UNRRA, the United Nations created the International Refugee Organization to carry on its work. After much debate the United States in 1948 adopted the Displaced Persons Act, which, despite numerous restrictions, eventually permitted the entrance of about 400,000 immigrants. Sections in this article: More on refugee The Rise of International Refugee Organizations from Fact Monster: See more Encyclopedia articles on: Sociology: General Terms and Concepts

Kevin Nealon, Gilbert Gottfried and More Set to Headline Carolines on Broadway in December Back to the Article by BWW News Desk Carolines on Broadway, "America's Premier Comedy Nightclub," announces its all-star line-up of talent for the month of December 2012, highlighted by headliners Richard Lewis, from HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and the sitcoms "Hiller and Diller" and "Anything But Love," December 7 – 9; Kevin Nealon, from Showtime's "Weeds" and his stand-up special "Whelmed, But Not Overly," and NBC's "Saturday Night Live," December 13 – 16; Gilbert Gottfried, from Sirius XM Radio's "The Howard Stern Show," the film "The Aristocrats" and the Comedy Central Roast, December 20; Donnell Rawlings, from Comedy Central's "Chappelle's Show," MTV2's "Guy Code" and "Hip Hop Squares" and E!'s "Chelsea Lately," December 21 – 23; and Dave Attell, host of Showtime's "Dave's Old Porn," and from his HBO special "Captain Miserable," and host of Comedy Central's "Insomniac with Dave Attell," December 26 – 30. Carolines on Broadway presents its annual New Year's Eve Spectacular, hosted by Ardie Fuqua, on Monday, December 31, at 7:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. The 7:30 p.m. show will feature Vince August, Joe DeRosa, Mark Normand and Dan Soder. The 10:30 p.m. show will feature performances by August, Nate Bargatze, DeRosa, and Soder. Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. show are $40.00 per person plus a two-drink minimum. Tickets for the 10:00 p.m. show are $85.00 per person plus a two-drink minimum. An a la carte menu will be available for both shows. There will be a live DJ and dancing after midnight. Tickets are available at www.carolines.com. Theme nights at Carolines on Broadway in the month of December are Carolines New Talent, featuring New York's best up-and-coming talent, on December 1, 3, 10, and 17; The Big Show, hosted by Hot 97's Cipha Sounds, on December 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29; the Breakout Artist Comedy Series on December 4 (with Brian Moote); Carolines Holiday Comedy Show on December 4, 5, and 11; the Don't Get Gassed Comedy Series, hosted by Hot 97's Cipha Sounds, on December 18; and The Chosen Ones, featuring New York's very best Jewish comedians, on Christmas Eve, December 24. Schedule subject to change. For more information and to purchase tickets visit www.carolines.com. To make reservations for dinner or a show call the Carolines Box Office at 212.757.4100.

- Length: 64:02 minutes (29.31 MB) - Format: MP3 Mono 22kHz 64Kbps (CBR) This week, Ginger Lewman gave us our topic by questioning in Plurk what year round school could really look like if we could make sure it wasn't "same old, same old." We also discussed the Slate challenge to create your own classroom. 11:28:21sheila: Welcome to Conversations! 11:28:49GingerTPLC: Good morning everyone! 11:29:08PeggyG: It's been a fabulous week of PD with K12 Online Conference!! 11:29:34PeggyG: Hi Ginger. Can't wait to hear you and Colby on the K12 Online Fireside Chat later today! 11:29:48Lisa Parisi: Audio is on ustream today. 11:30:00connect2jamie: K12 Online is great! I haven't gotten to see all of this week's yet. Looking forward to it 11:30:12PeggyG: audio is great for me :-) 11:30:21GingerTPLC: Thank you! Today is a special treat for me. Getting to talk Education with all sorts of folks all day long! 11:30:37PeggyG: yes Ginger! you're a real celebrity today!! 11:30:59connect2jamie: Ustream isn't up yet, is it? 11:31:13connect2jamie: ahh! There it is! 11:31:13PeggyG: yes ustream is up. may need to refresh it 11:31:17sheila: Thanks PeggyG! 11:31:27GingerTPLC: I'm so excited about this topic today! 11:31:58PeggyG: year-round school comes in so many variations so this will be a great conversation 11:32:09PeggyG: Sheila's voice is a bit soft 11:32:23GingerTPLC: Space learning? 11:32:30PeggyG: that is so exciting Sheila! getting to watch the space shuttle launch!! 11:32:48PeggyG: congratulations on your walk Sheila! 11:33:07PeggyG: wow! 90,000 dollars raised! fantastic! 11:35:19sheila: I will be tweeting for students (and others) via @7thscience from KSC. 11:36:02PeggyG: Colby did a fantastic job on his keynote!! What an incredible ambassador for TPLC! 11:36:04sheila: I will also be streaming on http://earthbridges.net/live on the 31st and Nov 1st. 11:36:20PeggyG: so excited that you will be streaming that Sheila! 11:36:23Lisa Parisi: Hi Maria 11:36:36MariaK: Just listening for now... 11:36:38PeggyG: he doesn't need to be nervous. We're all friends! 11:36:47PeggyG: Hi Maria :-) 11:37:00sheila: Got permission from NASA but not sure about bandwidth. . . . 11:37:08PeggyG: He'll do great! 11:37:28GingerTPLC: Thanks, Peggy! 11:37:36PeggyG: will you be streaming from your laptop Sheila? 11:38:15sheila: Welcome to Conversations chat room. 11:39:02PeggyG: what a great idea Lisa! How neat for them to see all of the wonderful tools they are learning. 11:40:05MariaK: that's way too much - 11:40:25MariaK: AP classe do have diffferent expectations 11:41:07PeggyG: but it's sad that "higher expectations" often translate into more busy work--not necessarily more learning 11:41:33Cathy E: Sounds just like college 11:41:51MariaK: But AP classes are also meant to get kids ready to pass the AP tests that if they pass replace a college class - I think AP classes are classes for test prep. 11:41:53connect2jamie: Did you see Scott McLeod's post this wk about student videos: I hate high school! http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/10/videos-i-hate-my-teacher.html 11:41:56PeggyG: and often what teachers do with gifted students 11:42:12Maureen: Why do "we" prepare kids for the next year rather than really teaching the kids who are in the class now? 11:42:20sheila: Welcome Nedra! 11:42:40PeggyG: thanks for that link connect2jamie! Scott has been writing some really thought-provoking things recently in his blog! 11:42:49MariaK: No it doesn't ginger but the intention is to have kids pass the AP test 11:43:12Maureen: Our kids have 2-3 hours/night for all subjects. They have a homework schedule so that don't get overloaded on one night. 11:43:13connect2jamie: As a parent of a college student, we did not have a great experience w/ AP in HS either. Only 3 of her 5 AP classes really ended up counting in college. The other 2 turned out to be electives. 11:43:20Cathy E: Yes, but 2 hours of AP homework is average. I have lived it. 11:43:42connect2jamie: Scott is great for getting your brain going! 11:43:47PeggyG: not 2 hours total--per class 11:43:50MariaK: yes - my husband teaches AP envir. science 11:43:58MariaK: Kids can't do everything Lisa 11:44:37McTeach (Karen): Oh geez...sorry I'm late! 11:44:39Maureen: Hi Karen- just finished reading the Book Whisperer- from your recommendation- thanks 11:44:44Lisa Parisi: Welcome Karen 11:44:45PeggyG: Hi McTeach! 11:44:58McTeach (Karen): Hi Maureen! Wasn't it great!! 11:45:02connect2jamie: Our experience: my daughter took both AP and dual credit classes. The dual credit worked better for her. 11:45:09GingerTPLC: Hey, McTeach! We were wondering about pocket frogs. :) 11:45:11McTeach (Karen): Good morning, Peggy and Lisa! 11:45:16Maureen: My son took all AP courses, but now looks back and says that most of it was not worth it 11:45:24McTeach (Karen): Ginger...you were? 11:45:32Maureen: It's for their resume 11:45:55McTeach (Karen): It's a game on the iPhone or iPodTouch 11:46:46Lisa Parisi: What's the point, Karen? 11:46:48Nedra: We hadn't heard good things about the AP classes at my kid's HS. So, last year my daugther took all of her classes except dual credit French at the local Jr. college and all her classes transfered to her college this fall. 11:46:56Maureen: I opted out of taking AP american history test when I was in HS... a million years ago. I knew that I couldn't pass it. It was the year my SS teacher had an affair with the art teacher- his mind was not on his work. 11:46:58GingerTPLC: That's what we figured out. We weren't sure what it was about. Just a time user? 11:46:59Cathy E: On the other side - when they do go into college with sever AP classes under their belt - it gives them a head start. But I agree wtih Maria, she has to decied 11:47:02McTeach (Karen): Lisa...doesn't seem to be one. 11:47:18McTeach (Karen): Ginger...that's about it. 11:47:45PeggyG: that's a really interesting comment Maria and I agree! Kdg is now advanced placement for first grade! How sad! 11:48:18MariaK: @peggyG I guess I said that a little too loud! 11:48:45connect2jamie: My daughter went to college with 15 hours, but it worked against her. She didn't know what she wanted to major in, and she would have been better off just taking the classes regularly, for the most part. In TX, if you go past 30 hours over your degree plan in college, you have to pay out of state tuition. 11:49:01McTeach (Karen): It depends on the teacher, doesn't it? 11:49:03PeggyG: :-) but it's a great sequeway (sp) into talking about year-round school. :-) Do we want/need more of this same kind of school for a few more months? 11:49:03Maureen: I know that AP bio is a haul- they have so much to cover... to pass the test 11:49:06connect2jamie: So when some of her classes turned out to count as electives that she didn't need, it wasn't good 11:50:00PeggyG: talk about what you think year-round school means--would look like... 11:50:01Maureen: I wouldn't get to have the down time that I need- or are we talking about what the kids need- lose too much ground over the summer? 11:50:05connect2jamie: You're right. Labs wouldn't be what would get done. 11:51:01connect2jamie: I fear that we would do more test prep, worksheets, testing. Not more indepth learning. It's not about deep learning. It's about test prep 11:51:05connect2jamie: Very sad. 11:51:27PeggyG: to me it seems like year-round really means re-distributed weeks/days/hours and not really additional days 11:51:35Maureen: We keep on cramming stuff into our schedule. The kids now have "clubs" time, but most will not choose anything of substance- they don't want another class. Most try to be on the recycling club- and go around and collect the recycling bins 11:51:51Lisa Parisi: But Peggy, I think that the time is coming when kids will be in school all the time. 11:51:57Lisa Parisi: We need babysitters 11:52:06PeggyG: @Maureen-I think there is a lot of value in the clubs. 11:52:28McTeach (Karen): LOL!!! 11:52:37McTeach (Karen): Yes, I want to move to Kansas!!! 11:52:52Maureen: @peggy There could be, but our kids are too overloaded to enjoy the opportunity to learn and interact- they want a break! 11:53:37sheila: We have some staff who want to build a dory, start a farm, work with the donated greenhouse (we just got) and extend lunch to 20 minutes for the students. We are 6-8. 11:53:56Maureen: I had a 6th graders apologize for not getting his work in to me- he was up at 1 am.. I told him to never stay up so late to do work for me. 11:54:45sheila: Our parents don't want to extend the day. Not sure why. 11:54:52connect2jamie: @maureen--yes. Exactly! Thank you for caring for your individual students! 11:54:53McTeach (Karen): Maureen...I tell my students the same thing!! 11:55:51Cathy E: We have that problem here, cause we are a tourist area, most all of our families are busy making money in the summer - so they want to take a vacation in the winter. 11:56:06GingerTPLC: We also take an hour lunch break at school. 11:56:09Maureen: How about the kids who need to earn $? My kids had to work every summer to afford to go to college. 11:56:27GingerTPLC: It's about practicing life in all the aspects of education. Schooling as Life Practice 11:56:53Maureen: Yup, the kids could miss all the sunshine and never get to run around in the woods 11:57:18GingerTPLC: Maureen, not at all. I don't think anyone is advocating not playing during big breaks. 11:57:29GingerTPLC: But I think that should be part of the educaitonal experience too. 11:57:52Maureen: Sheila- my son went to Proctor- they had great boat building projects. 11:58:00GingerTPLC: More often breaks. Why not play in the snow. Or during the spring time? Or play in the falling leaves in October? 11:58:01PeggyG: it seems to me that what you want to accomplish/learn/explore needs to be the driving force that determines whether you need more time or alternative scheduling and shouldn't start with moving to year-round or extended day/year. 11:59:03sheila: @Maureen - We did it one year. Small dory. Nice experience but kids forgot you have to take it out through the doors! It worked out though. 11:59:13PeggyG: in his presentation Colby talked a lot about how important it was for him to be able to make choices about his learning 11:59:37Lisa Parisi: http://www.slate.com/id/2269307/ 12:00:36Maureen: @Sheila- my son's senior project was to completely rebuild a Toyota MR2 (sports car). So glad I no longer have 3 different parts cars in my field- still have parts in my cellar tho 12:00:56connect2jamie: @Maureen LOL :) 12:01:31GingerTPLC: Yes Peggy. It's about choices and about the balance of responsibilty and freedom. 12:02:16PeggyG: those choices and self-directed learning are really important and most schools don't offer much of this opportunity 12:02:42Maureen: Shows how much younger you are than me... we had shop for boys and home ec for girls. 12:02:53GingerTPLC: Bookshelf Porn.com is one of my favorite spots to dream about creating learning, inspiring spaces. 12:02:58PeggyG: me too Maureen :-) 12:03:03GingerTPLC: OH! bookshelfporn.com 12:03:09GingerTPLC: Sorry. :( 12:03:22PeggyG: that's too funny Ginger! this chat log may be blocked! 12:03:59Maureen: When I taught K I hated the mess clay made on the floor, the tables, etc.. DIdn't mean I didn't use it- but messy! 12:04:49GingerTPLC: PBL/Art/Education-- "if ya ain't got it *on* ya, then ya ain't got it *in* ya" 12:05:01PeggyG: our special guest on Classroom 2.0 LIVE next Saturday is Barbara Bray and her topic is exactly what you are talking about Lisa--Joy in Learning and ways to do more with project based learning and other things (like you're fondly remembering) :-) Come and join the conversation. Noon EDT. 12:05:02Maureen: Our kids in PreK have a loft that the parents built. We had to get rid of couches, etc.. because of lice. 12:05:03Cathy E: Ha HA - Maureen - me too. And my Mother made me take Latin instead of Home ec. Needless to say I can't sew a stitch. And I don't remember any Latin. 12:05:34connect2jamie: We can't have anything w/i 30" of the ceiling b/c of fire laws. Good grief. 12:06:13Maureen: @Cathy I took it, and I staple, glue or use that fabric strips... I needed to learn the shop stuff, that's what I use on a day to day basis. 12:06:22McTeach (Karen): I wish I had more space in my classroom for the kids to find comfy places to read. There's a prayer garden behind middle school, and we've gone in there to read, but we can't do that every day. Especially now that it's started raining. 12:06:52GingerTPLC: I LOVE the idea of a loft. We do have high-ish ceilings. 12:07:20PeggyG: there are so many "laws" and regulations that interfere with some of these very creative ideas. Fire code for our school required us to removed our reading lofts and definitely nothing hanging from the ceiling. :-( 12:07:26Maureen: @Karen My son is working in Washington state at the moment. He called and talked for a couple of hours yesterday- first day off in 20 days- cuz it was raining. 12:07:58Cathy E: We have a new outdoor classroom - it is wonderful. 12:08:11connect2jamie: @Peggy no hanging things from ceiling here either. How spontaneously combustible ARE elem kids, anyway? ;) 12:08:14PeggyG: that's a great site! can't wait to explore it further 12:08:44McTeach (Karen): Maureen...we leave tomorrow morning for camp (my 7th graders and I). It's gonna be muddy up there! 12:09:17PeggyG: What fun Karen! I always loved the camping trips with students! :-) 12:09:51Maureen: @Karen- but it'll be fun anyway. Our kids got lucky- went the week on 11th- they had beuatiful weather til the last day. Sometimes it snows on them 12:10:54PeggyG: it was great hearing Colby share about how students got to help design the learning spaces in their school! That's how it should be! :-) 12:11:20McTeach (Karen): Actually, the kids will be happy with the mud. The gaga ball pit will be filled with mud...makes it much more fun. For them. 12:11:32connect2jamie: As a librarian, I HATE how AR is used and abused in classrooms. It's awful 12:11:40Lisa Parisi: I agree Jamie. 12:11:46GingerTPLC: Yep, that's how it went. Only we had to design for 28 kids, and the next year it went to 54, so we had to modify it even before it was completely established. 12:11:55PeggyG: everyone come to see Colby's K12 Online presentation and conversation with him and Ginger (his teacher) today at 7:00pm EDT. It's the Fireside Chat for the conference keynote speakers and today it's Student Voices. 12:12:15GingerTPLC: The environment has a bit to do with the desire for kids to BE at school year round. 12:12:40GingerTPLC: Optional summers would be good, only if you have a big school with lots of teachers. That cuts out many schools from this option. 12:12:58Maureen: I used to love the scholastic reading program when I was a kid- I read really fast and was at the silver level in no time- and I thought I was cool because my reading level was gr 13... But it was too easy and boring- not what I read on my own time. 12:13:27PeggyG: wasn't Kevin Honeycutt blogging this week about "personalized learning plans" for everyone? 12:13:41GingerTPLC: Flexible time. 12:13:48GingerTPLC: 20% personal choice time. 12:13:51sheila: @Maureen - I remember loving the colors too, not the reading. 12:14:11GingerTPLC: But it takes student responsibility. and MUCH smaller class sizes for management of accomplishments. 12:14:27Cathy E: I like the idea of year round school- however most of our teachers depend on "summer income" to survive. They can make as much in 3 months as they make in 9 months of teaching. 12:15:05sheila: @CathyE What do they do during the summer? 12:15:05PeggyG: that is a good point Cathy E--many teachers do have to work summers to support their families 12:15:25Cathy E: waiting tables 12:15:36Cathy E: and bar tending 12:15:39McTeach (Karen): I love that idea!!! 12:16:27PeggyG: I remember that one of my teachers said he could make more money driving a Budweiser truck for 3 months in the summer than he did for 6 months as a teacher. Talk about priorities for education!! :-( That's where Fiinland gets it RIGHT! 12:16:47Maureen: I hate working in the summer. The first year I had to do computer stuff all summer was miserable. I want to be able to play outside and grow things. Cannot do that during the school year. I also need the summer for PD... and the time to really get into something. 12:16:50McTeach (Karen): I give my kids options all the time. They thrive with it! 12:17:15McTeach (Karen): "Here's what I want you to learn, you decide how you're going to show me you've learned it." 12:17:17PeggyG: if you haven't listened to Tim Tyson's K12 Online presentation, make sure you do! He talks about the Finnish school system and why they are so successful and teachers are respected and revered and paid high salaries! 12:18:20Maureen: Maybe I can't get into the mindset- I don't take vacations- my life style changes in the summer... it's one of the other mes 12:18:44PeggyG: he doesn't belong in a traditional school setting but there should be alternatives for him!! 12:19:08GingerTPLC: Lisa's describing 90% of TPLC school population. They don't belong in schooly-school. 12:19:21PeggyG: what a neat project Lisa! 12:19:40Maureen: Don't your kids need to work? Mine both started regular summer jobs at 12 yrs old.. and they learned a lot and made enough money for the things they needed. 12:20:08Cathy E: Mine did too, Maureen 12:20:26PeggyG: that's a wonderful concept Ginger! 20% personal time like Google 12:20:55sheila: Yes, Maureen, especially being in a tourist area. Businesses need the students, but then again, there's college students who have the summer off. 12:21:16McTeach (Karen): Peggy...I want to do that 20% idea with my kids 12:21:57GingerTPLC: I think 1) communities should have a variety of educational choices for kids, 2) education is less about teacher need and more about kids needs. 12:21:57PeggyG: makes so much sense and gives them permission to do something creative and motivating to them! 12:22:00Maureen: My kids wouldn't have been able to have "stuff" without working. I think they also learned a lot of skills- working with "real" people skills that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. 12:23:18Maureen: The majority of kids at my school go to lots of camps in the summer- some regular old style camps and others to specialized camps for various interests 12:24:27GingerTPLC: Maria, that should be on-going. 12:24:30sheila: You do need that renewal time. 12:24:50GingerTPLC: And I'd love a 2-3 week break in October and Feb. 12:25:24GingerTPLC: I'm WORN OUT in December. And March. And April. And May. 12:25:41Maureen: Parents at my school already complain that we are in school too long. The kids have mandatory sports after school, then barely have time to eat dinner and do homework. I would much rather have them have more time with family. 12:25:45GingerTPLC: I want shorter, more frequent breaks and so would the kids. 12:26:10McTeach (Karen): Ginger...I'm already worn out now! Have been for a couple of weeks. 12:26:31GingerTPLC: Yep, McTeach. Wouldn't it be nice to have 2-3 weeks off each quarter? 12:26:31connect2jamie: @Maureen but many of my kids don't have families to go home and spend time with. Working parents. Go to daycare until 7pm or whatever. 12:26:39Maureen: @ginger- you don't find that makes learning/teaching choppy? I find that we don't really settle in til Jan with all the little breaks we have already. 12:26:41PeggyG: interesting conversation! just think if teachers could stagger their arrival time and even days to accommodate the different alternatives :-) but that costs more money for more teachers... 12:27:10GingerTPLC: Yikes, Maureen. You don't settle in til Jan? What's up with that? 12:27:33Maureen: @connect2jamie- I know the vast majority of kids at my school are very lucky- have one or even both parents available at home 12:27:43sheila: And I want to restate Maureen's comment about going outside and playing. Needs to be included in the day! Investigate nature, etc. 12:27:44Lisa Parisi: Why not just reorganize the staff that is already there, Peggy? 12:28:01Lisa Parisi: Absolutely Sheila. 12:28:13GingerTPLC: Sheila, I agree! Needs to be a part of the day in every season. Talk about fun learning! 12:28:45Maureen: @ginger- it just feels that way- the beginning gets chopped up by holidays- jewish fall holidays, then there's Thanksgiving, then Christmas... seems like there aren't enough 5 day weeks til Jan 12:28:46PeggyG: you could reorganize existing staff but sometimes large class sizes make it difficult for having fewer teachers there at any given hour 12:29:04sheila: I had several students this year who didn't know what pine pitch was! :( *) 12:29:19Lisa Parisi: I didn't say large classes. In fact, I think classes would be smaller since kids would be with diff teachers at diff times. 12:29:19GingerTPLC: TPLC staff works, too hard admittedly, from 7am to 6pm. We meet each day when the last kid leaves at 5pm. 12:29:51Lisa Parisi: I want to wake up one day and have a school where every child fits in and every teacher has time to plan, to learn, to grow, and to teach. 12:29:54Maureen: @ginger- do your kids play sports? 12:29:56GingerTPLC: But that's because we're a small staff, no renewing vacay time during the year, and we have no models to follow. 12:29:59GingerTPLC: Maureen, yes. 12:31:08PeggyG: Lisa, if you're missing one teacher in the mix for an hour it means there are more kids for the 3 remaining teachers during that time. 12:33:14PeggyG: cooling/air conditioning in AZ is a big factor just like heating is during the winter in some places. That's why schools in New England take a winter break in Feb in addition to spring break. 12:33:49McTeach (Karen): Did Ginger just say "poo-poo"??? 12:34:00GingerTPLC: I did! Pooh pooh. :D 12:34:10PeggyG: we could definitely continue this conversation!! so much to think about! 12:34:20McTeach (Karen): Ah...like Pooh Bear! :) 12:34:20connect2jamie: Interesting discussion today. Love the 20% idea. 12:34:31GingerTPLC: Thanks for having me in! This is something I"m thinking, mostly because my parents are pushing for it. 12:34:37Cathy E: I have a favor...would ya'll share this link in your schools? https://khs.wikispaces.com/Ms.+Jernigan's+Class 12:34:38PeggyG: thanks everyone! 12:34:48Lisa Parisi: http://ettconversations.blogspot.com/ 12:35:07Nedra: Thanks, enjoyed listening as I worked today. 12:35:22GingerTPLC: Uh oh. Ageism. It's real. 12:35:32PeggyG: how interesting--next week's topic is ageism :-) Think I'd better be there! 12:35:54PeggyG: Yes-skype me in Sheila! When? 12:36:20connect2jamie: Exciting week for you Sheila! Very cool! 12:36:35PeggyG: be sure to come and hear Ginger and her student Colby on the Fireside Chat! 12:36:40sheila: Will do PeggyG. Will chat later. 12:36:54Lisa Parisi: Bye all.

[ CIRCUMCISION ] The Kindest Un-Cut Feminism, Judaism, and My Son's Foreskin Michael S. Kimmel Although it was a little late by traditional religious standards, the entire family and many friends gathered in our home three weeks after our son, Zachary, was born. We had gathered for his bris, the moment when a young Jewish boy is first brought into the family and the community, the moment of his formal entrance into the world of Judaism. At such symbolic moments, one feels keenly the sinews of connection to family and friends that sustain a life, animate it, give it context and meaning. The mohel, of course, was running late. When he arrived, everyone gathered in the living room, where we had set up a table on which we had placed the various items we would use in the ceremony. A special chair had been reserved for the "sandek," the honored family male elder, often the baby's grandfather or great-grandfather, who would hold the baby during much of the proceedings. (In our case, a godmother and godfather shared this role.) As family and friends drew closer together, glasses of wine and champagne in their hands, the ritual began with prayers over the wine and bread. Our first toast to this new creature who had entered all our lives. Then the mohel began the naming ceremony, and some relatives and friends offered their wishes for this young life. Amy, my wife, and I each offered a thought to the other and to Zachary as we entered this new phase of our lives as parents together. For my part, I quoted Adrienne Rich, who had written that "if I could have one wish for my own sons, it is that they should have the courage of women." I wished nothing more for Zachary than that he would have Amy's courage, her integrity, and her passion. Then it was the moment for which we had all carefully prepared, about which we had endlessly talked, debated, argued, discussed. We took a pitcher of water and a bowl to the door of the house. Amy and I carried Zachary over to the threshold. With one hand I held his little body and with the other held his tiny legs over the bowl. Amy poured some water over his feet and rubbed it in. Then she held him and I did the same. Throughout, the mohel chanted in prayer. And in that way, we welcomed Zachary into our home and into our lives. By now you are, of course, waiting for the "real" bris to begin, for the mohel to stuff a wine-soaked handkerchief into our son's mouth to muffle his cries and slightly anesthetize him, and then circumcise him, cutting off his foreskin in fulfillment of God's commandment to Abraham that he mark his son, Isaac, as a sign of obedience. Sorry to disappoint, but that's the end of our story. Or at least the end of the story of Zachary's bris. There was no circumcision on that day. We had decided not to circumcise our son. Although he enters a world filled with violence, he would enter it without violence done to him. Although he will no doubt suffer many cuts and scrapes during his life, he would not bleed by our hand. This was not an easy decision, but we had plenty of time to prepare--nine months to be exact. From the moment we saw the sonogram and read the results of the amniocentesis, the debate had been joined. Would we or wouldn't we? How would we decide? The remainder of this essay charts that process. First, we talked. Constantly. Just when we thought the issue settled, we'd open it again. Each time one of us would read something, think something, pull something new off the Internet, we would reopen the discussion anew. We talked with friends, family members, religious authorities, doctors, and nurses. We asked our heterosexual women friends whether they had a preference for cut or uncut men. We each sought counsel from the email discussion groups to which we belonged, and we consulted organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association. We ordered and read more than a dozen books and pamphlets. We contacted advocacy groups like National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (nocirc), National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males (noharmm), and Doctors Opposing Circumcision (DOC). But these organizations, while eager, were too one-sided, and tended to minimize the difficulty of our decision. And we didn't even bother calling the organizations like Brothers United for Future Foreskins (BUFF), National Organization of Restoring Men (NORM), and RECover a Penis (RECAP) that encourage men who might "feel victimized by the unnecessary loss of their natural anatomical wholeness," as Joseph Zoske writes in Journal of Men's Studies (1998), to undergo penile reconstructive surgery to "correct" the circumcised penis. Such procedures (involving either attaching a new flap or pulling the remaining tissue down over the glans to create a pseudo-foreskin) seem as unnecessary as circumcision, and no doubt attend to psychological distress that has only the most tenuous connection to a small flap of penile tissue. Pros and Cons We heard a lot of arguments, for and against. To be sure, there is no shortage of arguments in favor of circumcision. Some are aesthetic, and offer a psychological theory based on that aesthetic. Without circumcision, we heard, our son will look different from his father, and thus develop shame about his body. Our son will look different from other Jewish boys, especially in our heavily Jewish neighborhood, thus be subject to ridicule and teasing, and develop a sense that he does not belong. As one man on an email list to which I posed the question wrote, "I don't want my kid to be an object of interest while taking public showers, such as in gym class or in athletic clubs" (David Garnier, personal communication). Other arguments are medical. After all, male circumcision is the most common surgical procedure in the United States and medical insurance carriers routinely cover hospital circumcision (which raises the incentives of medical practitioners to advocate the procedure). Our son's risks of penile infection, STD, and especially penile cancer would be significantly lower if he were to be circumcised. The likelihood of uterine cancer in his female sexual partners would be higher if he were not. In addition, there were conflicting reports on the effects of circumcision on sexual functioning. There is some evidence from sex surveys that circumcised men are more sexually active and more sexually adventurous, especially as regards oral and anal sex. Circumcised men masturbate more often. And because circumcised men have less sexual sensitivity--after all, the foreskin contains about 1,000 nerve endings, fully one-third of the organ's pleasure receptors--there is some evidence that circumcision delays ejaculation somewhat. And, of course, the weight of family, history, and culture do not rest lightly on the shoulders of the new parent. As Jews we knew full well the several-thousand-year-old tradition of following one of the most fundamental of God's commandments to Abraham--that "every male among you shall be circumcised...and that shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you." In the end, none of the arguments in favor of circumcision was fully persuasive. Taken together, however, they raised issues that spoke to the core of our identities as a man and a woman, as parents, as feminists, and as Jews. Each of the points of contention seems worth discussing in a bit more detail. The Psychological Aesthetics of Difference That our son would look different from his father was easily negotiated. We decided that we will simply tell him that Daddy had no choice about his own body and especially his penis, but that now, as parents, we loved him so much that we decided we didn't want to hurt him like that--turning something that could be a cause of embarrassment into a source of pride. And he will look more and more like the other boys rather than different. Circumcision of newborns is decreasingly popular, performed routinely only in the United States (as a medical procedure in the hospital) and in Israel, where it remains a significant religious ceremony. (Adolescent circumcision remains the norm in most Islamic nations.) After these two countries, only Canada (25%) and Australia (10%) have rates of newborn circumcision in double digits; in European nations it is virtually nonexistent among non-Jews. Over four-fifths of all men in the world are uncircumcised. Here in the United States, rates have fallen from well over 85 percent in 1960 to about 66 percent in 2000, so there was every reason to believe that more and more boys would look like Zachary and that he had little to fear by way of social ostracism. In our own neighborhood in heavily Jewish Brooklyn, about half the baby boys born in our local hospital are circumcised in the hospital (though there is no information about those who have it performed as a religious ceremony in their homes or elsewhere). While it is true that the risk of penile cancer or infection is virtually non-existent among circumcised men, rates among uncircumcised men, though higher, are still minuscule. In 1991, the American Academy of Pediatrics finally lifted its long-time advocacy of routine hospital circumcision for health reasons, and now takes no position on the question, thus leaving the decision entirely up to the parents' aesthetic or religious beliefs. They concluded that there were no medical benefits to circumcision as long as the boy was instructed in proper cleanliness. Even the redoubtable Benjamin Spock changed his mind over the years. Having always stood for the conventional wisdom that parents know best, Spock told Redbook in an interview in 1989 that his preference "if I had the good fortune to have another son, would be to leave his little penis alone." In a pamphlet, "Circumcision: A Medical or Human Rights Issue?" one doctor went so far as to suggest that removing the foreskin for strictly hygienic purposes was analogous to removing the eyelid for a cleaner eyeball. Future sexual functioning didn't weigh particularly heavily in our minds either. For one thing, sexual functioning is so profoundly variable; we expect that if we teach Zachary to develop respect for his and others' bodies as well as their personal integrity, sexual pleasure will not be an issue for him or his partners. Second, the evidence is inconsistent. While circumcised men in the United States seem to have more sex, more varied sex, and masturbate more often, this may be more of a function of race, class, education, and religion than with whether or not the man is circumcised. It's middle class white men--who tend to be the most secular and the most sexual--who still compose the majority of circumcised men. Among blacks and Hispanics, rates of oral sex and masturbation are significantly lower than among white men, and middle class men are more sexually active and adventurous than working class men. "People with graduate degrees are the most likely to masturbate," noted Ed Laumann, a sociologist and one of the principal researchers in the University of Chicago sex survey in the early 1990s. Nor were we ultimately concerned about the eventual effect on potential women partners. An informal poll among heterosexual women friends yielded a mixed anecdotal response. Most said they preferred circumcised men, and one or two indicated significant aesthetic discomfort with intact men. But an article in the January 1999 British Journal of Urology reported that women who had slept with both circumcised and intact men preferred sex with men who were not circumcised. The article reported that the women achieved orgasm faster, and were more likely to achieve multiple orgasms. The Burden of History Actually, the historical record of medical opinion consistently pushed us further into the anti-circumcision camp. The more we learned about the medical history, the more we were convinced that concerns other than the health of the baby led doctors to make circumcision a routine practice. Before the 1870s, in the United States, routine medical circumcision was quite rare, hovering around 5 to 6 percent of all newborn baby boys. Subscribers to the new Victorian sexual morality sought to reduce what critics perceived to be rampant sexual promiscuity, and especially masturbation, which, they believed, resulted in all sorts of debilities and even death. Masturbation was said to cause all manner of emotional, psychological, and physiological problems, from bed-wetting to adolescent insolence, acne to mental retardation, insanity, psychological exhaustion, and neurasthenia. Circumcision's well-established ability to curb sexual appetite and pleasure was prescribed as a potential cure for sexual profligacy. Lewis Sayre, a prominent New York physician, hailed as "the Columbus of the prepuce" by his colleagues, experimented with circumcision as a cure for paralysis and other muscular ailments. Sayre's colleagues also noted that Jews had a lower rate of STDs than non-Jews, and hypothesized that this had to do with circumcision. (Actually this had to do with the fact that Jews had very little sexual contact with non-Jews.) Another physician, Dr. Peter Remondino, advocated universal male circumcision since the foreskin, which he labeled "an unyielding tube," left the intact male "a victim to all manner of ills, sufferings...and other conditions calculated to weaken him physically, mentally, and morally; to land him, perchance, in jail, or even in a lunatic asylum." And Robert Tooke's popular All About the Baby (1896) recommended circumcision to prevent "the vile habit of masturbation." J. H. Kellogg, pioneering health reformer, cereal inventor, and general medical quack also sounded the alarm; his best-selling health advice book, Plain Facts for Old and Young (1888), included nearly 100 pages on the dangers of masturbation. Circumcision is almost always successful in curbing masturbation, he counseled, and he suggested that the operation be performed "by a surgeon without administering anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind...." (Though this may have begun the tradition of not using anesthesia to perform circumcision, Kellogg did not pretend that the baby feels no pain during the procedure. Anyone who has ever witnessed a routine medical circumcision performed without anesthesia knows only too well how much pain the infant does feel.) Victorian morality was pervasive. And as waves of uncircumcised immigrants entered the United States, circumcision of newborns was a way to stake a claim for a truly "American" morality. Rates jumped to 25 percent by 1900. After World War II, when the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that rates of STD were higher among blacks and uncircumcised white men, circumcision rates continued to climb, and by 1980, nearly nine of every ten American boys was circumcised. But it now appears that the rapid spread of circumcision as a routine medical procedure had more to do with Victorian hysteria about sexuality than it did with hygiene. And given the American Academy of Pediatrics' recent backpedaling on the issue--from ritual endorsement to anxious agnosticism to its most recent resigned disapproval--there seems to be no medical argument--historical or hygienic--to compel the procedure. The Weights of Tradition The combined weights of family and religious culture were not so easily negotiated. As predicted, the future grandmothers were somewhat more sanguine about the prospect of non-circumcision than were the future grandfathers. It's ironic that it's always been women—even within Judaism—who have opposed circumcision as a violence done to their babies, and circumcised males who have supported it. Perhaps it is analogous to fraternity or military initiation ceremonies, where the salutary outcome of feeling a sense of belonging to the larger homosocial group is deemed worth any price, including the removal of a third of one's potential sexual pleasure. In our case, neither Amy nor I felt any strong compulsion towards circumcision, but I was more strongly opposed on moral grounds. Amy's opposition would come later, when she first held Zachary in her arms and she felt a visceral rage that anyone would do anything that would ever hurt this new creature. In very gender stereotyped terms, Amy's opposition grew from her emotional, visceral connection to the baby; mine grew first from a principled opposition grounded in a sense of justice and ethics. But equally gendered, I suppose, I felt that my Judaism had always given me the ability to stand up against injustice, that the imperative of the post-Holocaust generation of "Never Again!" impelled me to speak out against injustices wherever I saw them. Ultimately, it came down to Judaism. Jewish law is unequivocal on the subject--it has been a time-honored tradition since the celebrated Covenant with Abraham, the founding moment of monotheism. In Genesis 17, God appears before an aged Abraham--he's ninety-nine!--and commands that Abraham circumcise himself, his son, and all male members of his household (slaves and servants included). Today circumcision is seen as a mitzvah, linking the family to a 4000-year history of a people. In his masterful compendium of Jewish law and lore, Essential Judaism, George Robinson writes that it is a mitzvah "one performs for its own sake as a subordination of oneself to a larger entity." What's a tiny foreskin compared to 4,000 years of tradition? And so it appeared that Jewish tradition might yet extract its pound of flesh--well, more likely about a quarter of an ounce--from yet another innocent baby. Yet Judaism today is hardly as monolithic as we once thought. Even in biblical times there seems to have been some dissent about the procedure. If one follows the ritual as prescribed by Jewish law, the baby is held during the circumcision on what is called the Chair of Elijah, named after the prophet "who railed against the Jews for forsaking the ritual of circumcision." What that says to me is that not long after circumcision was instituted, there were a lot of people who were already resisting it. Then, too, there is the law that the brit milah be performed on the eighth day after the birth of the son, a law so ironclad that it is perhaps the only Jewish ritual that may not be postponed for the Sabbath or even for Yom Kippur. Those who were interested in enforcing circumcision were determined that there be no excuses--no doubt because a lot of people were trying to wiggle their way out. In her research, Amy found that even as recently as the mid-nineteenth century, in Eastern Europe and Russia there was a widespread move to stop the practice--ironically, just when it was becoming more widespread in the United States. Led by women--what a surprise!--who thought the practice barbaric and patriarchal, the movement eventually even convinced Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, who refused to allow his own son to be circumcised. It is, after all, quite perplexing: why would God ask Abraham do such a thing to himself and all the males of his household--especially his son? For years, I had a little cartoon in my study that depicted Abraham, standing alone on top of a mountain, looking up at the sky, forlorn and exasperated. The caption read, "Let me see if I have this right: You want us to cut the ends of our dicks off?!?!" Sublimating Pleasure for Torah The circumcision as ritual makes sense, however, in three ways--one sexual, one political, and one symbolic. Throughout history, commentators on circumcision have agreed that the goal was to transform men's (and women's) sexual experience, and thus make men more eager to study Torah. The only thing they disagreed on was how, exactly, circumcision would accomplish this feat of sublimation. Most observers assumed it would make a man less sexually sensitive, reduce his sexual ardor, and constrain his sexual impulses. In his fascinating study, Eros and the Jews, David Biale finds two contradictory impulses leading towards the same conclusion. Ancient Jews, such as Philo, understood circumcision as "the symbol of the excision of excessive and superfluous pleasure." In Guide to the Perplexed, the great medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides prefigured J. H. Kellogg by nearly a millennium when he wrote that the commandment to circumcise was "not prescribed with a view to perfecting what is defective congenitally, but to perfecting what is defective morally." A chief reason for the ritual was "the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible." After all, he continued, "the fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable." While Maimonides argued that the physiological loss was "the real purpose" of the ritual, others believed that the psychological impact far outweighed the physical. Biale notes that an early medieval Midrash Tadshe suggests that the "covenant of circumcision was therefore placed on the genitals so that the fear of God would restrain them from sin." Later thinkers took the physical to new extremes. The early-nineteenth-century scholar, Nahman of Bratslav, great grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, argued that circumcision symbolizes the complete excision of sexual pleasure so that the "true zaddik" (holy man) experiences pain, not pleasure, during intercourse. On the one hand, writers were convinced that men would feel less--much less, and therefore their frustration would lead inevitably towards holier devotion to study. On the other hand, some writers were convinced that circumcised men would experience far more sexual excitement--so much more, in fact, that it would leave both him and his partner so frustrated that they wouldn't want to have sex again. In an astonishing passage, Isaac ben Yedaiah, a late thirteenth-century French follower of Maimonides described the difference in such overheated prose that it borders on the salacious (which alone makes it worth quoting at length):[A beautiful woman] will court a man who is uncircumcised in the flesh and lie against his breast with great passion, for he thrusts inside her a long time because of the foreskin, which is a barrier against ejaculation in intercourse. Thus she feels pleasure and reaches an orgasm first. When an uncircumcised man sleeps with her and then resolves to return to his home, she brazenly grasps him, holding on to his genitals and says to him, 'Come back, make love to me.' This is because of the pleasure that she finds in intercourse with him, from the sinews of his testicles--sinews of iron--and from his ejaculation--that of a horse--which he shoots like an arrow into her womb. They are united without separating and he makes love twice and three times in one night, yet the appetite is not filled. And so he acts with her night after night. The sexual activity emaciates him of his bodily fat and afflicts his flesh and he devotes his brain entirely to women, an evil thing. But when a circumcised man desires the beauty of a woman...he will find himself performing his task quickly, emitting his seed as soon as he inserts the crown.... He has an orgasm first; he does not hold back his strength. As soon as he begins intercourse with her, he immediately comes to a climax. She has no pleasure from him when she lies down or when she arises and it would be better for her if he had not known her ... for he arouses her passion to no avail and she remains in a state of desire ... (cited in Biale). So more excitement means less pleasure--for both him and his female partner. Ancient rabbis, like Philo, had argued that not only did circumcision restrain male sexual ardor, but diminished women's pleasure. "It is hard for a woman to separate herself from an uncircumcised man with whom she has had intercourse." Everyone now seemed to agree that circumcision reduces the pleasure of the woman, which is precisely why it seems to have been prescribed. And precisely why Amy and I were growing increasingly suspicious. There were political issues involved as well. It's interesting to observe the expansion of the ritual in terms of the relationship between Jews and their neighbors. Originally, apparently, the ritual consisted of only the brit milah--which is the excision of a small part of the foreskin. This enabled some Jewish men to continue to "pass" as gentiles in the ancient edition of those locker room showers that my friends continually discussed. Disgruntled rabbis then added the brit periah which removed the entire foreskin, making it impossible to pass as gentile. (It's an ironic twist of history that it is the brit periah that was adopted by modern medicine when it still prescribed routine neonatal circumcision.) But this expansion also raised, for us, the thorniest political and moral dilemma. A close friend, a child of Holocaust survivors, told me the story of his uncle, who was not so lucky. His was the now-classic story of the young man, sneaking his way onto a train leaving Germany, under the watchful eyes of the Nazis. When caught, he was forced to strip in the station, and when it was discovered that he was circumcised, he was shot on the spot. Here was a political reason to circumcise, a slap in the face of anti-Semitism, a way to connect my son to a history of resistance against anti-Semitism, and to recognize the ways in which physical difference (whether congenitally or culturally derived) is grounds for discrimination. In fact, some historians claim that the brit periah, the more extensive circumcision, was first used by the Egyptians to mark their Hebrew slaves, so that they would be readily and permanently identifiable. Ironic then, that once free, these same Hebrews made the more dramatic statement a matter of their own inclusion. But what was ultimately decisive for us was the larger symbolic meaning of circumcision, and particularly the gendered politics of the ritual. After all, it is not circumcision that makes a man Jewish; one can certainly be Jewish without it. Religious membership is passed on through the mother: if the mother is Jewish then the baby is Jewish and nothing that the baby does--or that is done to him or her--can change that basic fact. A rabbi is trained to counsel parents of mixed religious backgrounds (in which the man is Jewish and the woman is not) that circumcision does not make their son Jewish, but that only the mother's conversion will make it so. No, circumcision means something else: the reproduction of patriarchy. Abraham cements his relationship to God by a symbolic genital mutilation of his son. It is on the body of his son that Abraham writes his own beliefs. In a religion marked by the ritual exclusion of women, such a marking not only enables Isaac to be included within the community of men--he can be part of a minyan, can pray in the temple, can study Torah--but he can also lay claim to all the privileges to which being a Jewish male now entitles him. Monotheistic religions invariably worship male Gods, and exhibit patriarchal political arrangements between the sexes. (Looked at this way, since both Judaism and Islam practice circumcision, it is really Christianity that is the deviant case, and it would be worth exploring how Christianity justified its evasion of the practice since it is certain that Jesus was circumcised.) Circumcision, it became clear, is the single moment of the reproduction of patriarchy. It's when patriarchy happens, the single crystalline moment when the rule of the fathers is reproduced, the moment when male privilege and entitlement is passed from one generation to the next, when the power of the fathers is enacted upon the sons, a power which the sons will someday then enact on the bodies of their own sons. To circumcise our son, then, would be, unwittingly or not, to accept as legitimate 4000 years not of Jewish tradition, but of patriarchal domination of women. Our choice was clear. We welcomed Zachary into our family on that morning without a circumcision. We decided that we want him to live in a world without violence, so we welcomed him without violence. We decided that we want him to live in a world in which he is free to experience the fullness of the pleasures of his body, so we welcomed him with all his fleshy nerves intact. And we decided that we want him to live in a world in which male entitlement is a waning memory, and in which women and men are seen--in both ritual and in reality--as full equals and partners. So we welcomed him equally, his mother and I, in the time-honored way that desert cultures have always welcomed strangers to their tents: We washed his feet. Michael Kimmel is the author of Manhood in America and, most recently, The Gendered Society (Oxford University Press). He teaches sociology at SUNY Stony Brook. Return to CIRP Home Page

If he were alive today, how might Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest apostle of non-violence, challenge Osama Bin Laden’s worldview? Bhikhu Parekh is Vice-President of The Gandhi Foundation, a professor of political philosophy, a Labour peer, and the author of three books on Gandhi. This article first appeared in Prospect magazine in April 2004. Bhikhu Parekh’s preface Like millions around the world, I found the atrocities of 9/11 abhorrent and utterly condemn such acts of terror. Despite the war against terror, we continue to see more horrors such as that in Madrid. What drives the bombers? How do they live with their deeds? Is there no alternative to the cycle of violence? No one is better qualified to advise on this than Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence. My imaginary exchange between him and Bin Laden tries to do two things: to comprehend at least part of the twisted worldview that inspires Bin Laden, for we cannot defeat it without understanding it; and second, to explore a neglected alternative. My Bin Laden is an intellectual construct, a metaphor, referring not so much to the real man as to a more generic pro-terror radical Islamist. Dear Mahatma Gandhi 2nd October 2003 Ever since my followers attacked the American embassy in Kenya, the USS Cole in Yemen, and later the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC, they and I have been declared enemies of the civilised world who can be hunted, tortured and killed like wild animals. I was not surprised by the American reaction, but I was dismayed by the hostile reactions of some of my fellow Muslims. I owe it to them to explain why we did what we did, why we remain unmoved by the calumnies heaped upon us and why we might do it again. Since every political act is unintelligible outside its historical context, I must begin with some history. Islam is a great religion, continuous with and completing the other two Abrahamic religions. It accepts them as genuine and true religions, reveres their prophets and has always been tolerant and respectful of them. Thanks to the moral and spiritual force of its profound truths, Islam, a late historical arrival, was quickly able to win over the willing allegiance of millions of people in different parts of the world. It inspired its followers with such zeal and fervour that their armies chalked up conquests against all odds, making it the second most powerful world religion. Christians, who have long been jealous of its appeal and resentful of its power, tried to discredit and undermine it by mocking its beliefs, vilifying its prophet and mounting crusades against it. Islam survived all these and built up large empires, the great Ottoman empire being the last. With the rise of the modern world, Britain, France and other European countries began to industrialise. Driven by the lust for power and profit on which capitalism and imperialism is based, they conquered large parts of the world and set about reshaping their colonies in their image. Since Muslim societies had betrayed their religious principles and become corrupt and degenerate, they were easy prey. Being better armed, the British and French overwhelmed the Ottoman empire, broke it up into artificial political units, set up corrupt rulers, kept them weak and divided, and used them to perpetuate their power. After the 1939-1945 war, they deprived the Palestinians of their homeland, handed over a large part to the Jews, and created a festering source of injustice in the shape of Israel. Muslim societies have always included large Jewish communities and have been more protective of them than European societies. But giving the Jews their own state, at Palestinian expense, and in the heart of the Arab world, was provocative and unjust. As the US replaced the weakened Europeans in the 1950s, it continued this project and designed a more subtle empire of its own. In the name of defending the west against the Soviet threat, it set up and supported puppet regimes in many parts of the world, especially the Muslim societies of the middle east upon whose oil it had come to depend for its prosperity. It was even more partial to Israel than the Europeans were, devoting much of its foreign aid budget to it, arming it, and encouraging its expansionist ambitions. The collapse of the Soviet Union gave the US an illusion of omnipotence and removed all restraints on its hubris. The US today is determined to Americanise the world and restructure every society along secular, capitalist, liberal and consumerist lines. Its troops are stationed in 120 countries, and pressure their governments to do its bidding. It controls major international economic and political institutions and uses them to pursue its interests. When that does not work, it resorts to bribery and blackmail to get its way. And when even that fails, it acts unilaterally in disregard of international law and institutions. No government is beyond its reach. Although the current Republican administration is unashamed in its imperialist designs, the previous Clinton administrations were no better. They followed the same policy, albeit relying more on economic and political pressure than on the threat of military might. Although the American empire must be fought in every part of the world, I am mainly concerned to liberate Muslim societies, not only because I belong to them but also because they constitute the weakest link in the imperial chain and my success there will set an example and inspire others. My goal is fourfold: to get the Americans out of Muslim societies, to destroy Israel as a separate Jewish state and create a free Palestine in which Jews can live as a protected minority, to remove corrupt American stooges in Muslim societies and restructure the latter along truly Islamic principles, and finally to restore the earlier glory of Islam by uniting the umma and ensuring Muslim rule in such erstwhile Muslim countries as Palestine, Bukhara, Lebanon, Pakistan, Bang-ladesh, Chad, Eritrea, Somalia, the Philippines, Burma, South Yemen, Tashkent and Andalucia. Violence is the only way to achieve these goals because this is the only language the US understands. Our violence has to be based on terror because ill-equipped Muslims can never match American might in open combat. Although our terrorist violence is primarily directed against the “icons of US military and economic power,” one cannot be so fastidious as to exclude civilians. The US itself has never spared civilians in its wars on us: nearly 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of US-inspired sanctions. US citizens have freely elected their governments, often supported their policies (or at least failed to protest against and dissociate themselves from them in large numbers), and are directly or indirectly complicit in their government’s deeds. I should make two additional points. First, our terror is reactive. We are only responding to the terrorist violence of the US. Americans rob us of our wealth and oil, attack our religion, trample upon our dignity, treat us as pawns in their global chess game, and have the moral impertinence to call us terrorists when we are only defending ourselves against their terrorism. Second, I distinguish between “commendable” and “reprehensible” terrorism. Terrorism to abolish tyranny, external domination, corrupt rulers and traitors belongs to the first, and one that imposes or perpetuates these evils belongs to the second. My followers neither kill like cowards nor make personal gains from their actions. They give up the ordinary pleasures-careers, families, even their lives-and show by their self-sacrifice that they are guided by the highest of motives. Our terrorism is moral and religious, not criminal in nature as our western critics claim. Our consciences are clear, and I say to my fellow Muslims that to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim. 1st November 2003 Listening to you, my brother Osama, I was strongly reminded of my dialogue with my terrorist countrymen, which began in London in 1909 and continued almost until my death. As in their case, so in yours, I find your reasoning perverse and your glorification of violence utterly abhorrent. Whether you realise it or not, you think and talk like an imperialist. You present a sanitised picture of Islamic history. All conquests and empires involve bloodshed, oppression and injustice, and yours was no different. Muslim rulers in India destroyed Hindu temples, looted Hindu property and converted vast masses by a combination of inducement and force. They also destroyed traditional African cultures and social structures and sought to obliterate memories of their pre-Islamic past. And although they treated Christians and Jews better, they never granted them equal citizenship. Since all this occurred a long time ago, there is no point in lamenting it and apportioning blame, but we do have a duty to acknowledge the full truth of the past and resolve never to repeat it. You do not do this, and are even determined to revive Muslim rule in the countries you mention. You attack European imperialism because it ended yours, and you attack Americans because they are preventing you from reviving it. An imperialist yourself, you have no moral right to attack the imperialist designs of others. You keep talking about the truly Islamic society whose glory you want to revive. I do not find it at all appealing, and nor do most of your fellow Muslims. You want to combine a centralised state, an industrialised economy and nuclear weapons with a set of Islamic values and practices. This is an incoherent enterprise. Once you opt for the economic, political and other institutions of modernity, you cannot escape their logic. You would become more and more like a western society and get sucked into a process of globalisation and thus into the American empire, precisely what you say you do not want. Furthermore, these institutions cannot be sustained without creating an appropriate culture, radically transforming social, educational and other institutions, and undermining the very religious and moral values you cherish. You want to create powerful Muslim societies that are capable of standing up to the west. But if you are really serious about creating a good society, you should stop measuring yourself against the west. You should start instead with the great values of Islam, relate them to the circumstances and aspirations of your people, and assimilate those western values and institutions that will enrich your societies. As you admit, Muslim societies have become degenerate, but your explanation for this is wrong. They are degenerate because they are static, inegalitarian, patriarchal, averse to change, and lacking the spirit of scientific inquiry, individual freedom and the capacity for collective and co-operative action. In these areas we have much to learn from the west. I have myself been a grateful student of the west, learning much from its liberal, Christian and socialist traditions and suitably integrating it into Indian ways of life and thought. A crude division of the world into west and east is unhelpful because it homogenises each and obstructs a mutually beneficial dialogue. You say that the west is spiritually empty and call its citizens infidels. Although the west is consumerist and militarist, many of its citizens have a strong social conscience. The concern for the poor, the welfare state, the desire to create a just society and the pressures for global justice and humanitarian intervention are all examples of this. Religion matters a great deal to many in the west, and some of them are keen to enter into a dialogue with and borrow from non-Christian religions. You are wrong to think that Muslims have a monopoly on spirituality. Spirituality is not about how often you pray, fast and visit the mosque, but about serving your fellow humans and living by the great virtues of humility, benevolence, tolerance and universal love. I see little evidence of this in you. You seem to believe that Islam is perfect. But all religions contain truths and errors. Moreover, you, Osama, claim to know the true principles of Islam better than anyone else, and brook no dissent. You rule out the creative adaptation of these principles to a world vastly different to the one in which they were first articulated. And by asking the Islamic state to impose them on its subjects, you deny the latter their basic religious freedom. This is the surest way to corrupt both your religion and the state and to arrest the moral and spiritual growth of your people. A truly religious person wants to live by the values and beliefs of his religion. If the state has to enforce them on him, then clearly his religion has ceased to have any meaning for him. A religiously based state is a sacrilege, an insult to God and to the human soul. You blame the Europeans or Americans and never Islam for your sad predicament. You forget the simple truth that no outsider can get a direct or indirect foothold in a society unless it is itself rotten, just as no human body succumbs to a disease unless it has lost its regenerative resources. Stop blaming others, and concentrate your energies on rebuilding and revitalising your societies by educating and organising the masses. You are right to say that many Muslim rulers are corrupt stooges of external powers, but you forget that our rulers are not an alien species but a magnified version of ourselves. We create them in our image and are responsible for what they are and do. You, Osama, have no patience, no plan of social regeneration, no desire to deal with the deeper causes of social decay. You rely on a tightly knit group of religious activists to transform society. But once in power, they too will become corrupt, arrogant and dictatorial. While repeatedly attacking the Americans, you also keep attacking the Jews and have often expressed not only anti-Zionist but offensive antisemitic sentiments. I could not disagree more. Unlike you, I have lived and worked with Jews, admire their intellectual and moral qualities, and know them and their history well. Some Jews became my closest friends in South Africa, and one of them bought a farm where we set up an experiment in communal living. I call the Jews the “untouchables of Christianity.” Although they are an integral part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, they were for centuries ostracised, shunned, humiliated and subjected by Christians to degrading treatment, of which the Nazi atrocity was only the most horrendous example. I well know that the victims of yesterday can easily become the oppressors of tomorrow, and use their past suffering to excuse and even legitimise their brutal treatment of others. Israel has in recent years behaved in an unjust manner with the support of the US. Its misdeeds must be challenged, but you must not be insensitive to the effect of their past suffering on the Jews. They are naturally haunted by their bitter historical memories, feel profoundly insecure and sometimes find it difficult to trust even well-meaning outsiders. They have at last found a home and understandably feel intensely possessive about it. Their new home rendered the Palestinians homeless and caused them immense suffering. We need to find ways of doing justice to both. I was keen on a bi-national state of Jews and Arabs just as I would have liked a united India. In spite of all my efforts to stop it, India was partitioned. I accepted it in the hope that once the two quarrelling brothers set up their separate homes and got their hostilities out of their systems, they would not only learn to coexist in peace but even perhaps revive their deeper bonds and draw closer. You, Osama, must accept the existence of Israel, give it the sense of security it needs, and work patiently towards getting it to appreciate the justice of the Palestinian cause. As long as you threaten it, you frighten its people and drive them into the arms of its most reactionary and militarist leaders. Sensible Israelis know that they have to live in the midst of Arab societies, and that the latter will not remain backward and divided for ever. Finally I must turn to your terrorist methods. I find them unacceptable on pragmatic and moral grounds. They will not help you achieve your goals. They cannot drive away the Americans who will use their might to smash your terrorist camps and networks, as they have done in Afghanistan and elsewhere. They do not mind disregarding international law and even their own constitutional procedures, and you have no hope against such a determined opponent. Even if they were to go, your methods would not be able to defeat their indigenous collaborators, let alone revitalise Muslim societies. There is not a single example in history of terrorists creating a humane and healthy society. Today, Osama, you use terrorism against the Americans and Muslim rulers; tomorrow your own people will use it against you and claim the same justification for it. When will this vicious circle end? I also have moral objections to your method. Human life is sacred, and taking it is inherently evil. Besides, however fallen a human being might be, he is never so degenerate that he cannot be won over or neutralised by organised moral pressure. Human beings do evil deeds because they are in the grip of evil ideas, or are driven by hatred, or because of the compulsions of their wider society which disposes them to do things they might personally disapprove of. Violence does not address any of these circumstances. As I have shown by example, organised non-violent resistance is the only moral and effective way to fight evil. It appeals to the opponent’s sense of shared humanity, awakens his conscience, reassures him that he need fear no harm, and mobilises the power of public opinion. It also allows time for tempers to cool and reason to work, lifts both parties to a higher level of relationship, teases out what they share in common, avoids false polarisation, and leaves behind no lasting legacy of mutual hatred. Don’t play your opponent’s game and remain trapped in the chain of action and reaction. Take upon yourself the burden of his evil, become his conscience and transform the context of your conflict. I call this the surgery of the soul, purging the poison of hatred and mobilising the moral energies of the opponent for a common cause. Take the case of the Palestinians. They have used violence. Israel has countered it with greater violence. The result is an increasing brutalisation of the two societies. Now consider what would happen if the Palestinians were to follow my advice. They would eschew all threats to Israeli citizens, acknowledge them as their brothers, appeal to their sense of justice and long history of humiliation, and get them to appreciate both the suffering they are causing to the Palestinians and the considerable damage they are doing to their own psyche and society. If necessary, they would mount well organised acts of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience to highlight their injustices and dare the Israeli government to do its worst. I cannot imagine that any Israeli government, not even that of Ariel Sharon, would kill unarmed and peaceful protesters with the world watching. If it did, it would not only incur universal condemnation, including that of diaspora Jews, but also divide its own people. I am convinced too that some Israeli soldiers would disobey government orders, as some are already doing. Unlike the current wave of violence, peaceful protests would have the advantage of delegitimising Israeli violence, raising the morale and moral stature of Palestinians and mobilising world opinion in their favour. You might say, as some of your associates have done, that non-violence comes easily to us Hindus and is alien to the Islamic tradition. This is not true. Hindus have a long tradition of violence, and are by temperament as violent a people as any other. It was only after a long campaign and examples of successful non-violence that I was able to bring them round to accepting it. As for Muslims, you should know that they too have a long tradition of non-violent resistance. The ferocious Pathans of the northwest frontier provinces of what is now Pakistan embraced it with great success under the guidance of my friend Abdul Gaffar Khan. No religion is inherently for or against violence. It is up to its leaders to interpret it appropriately and guide its followers accordingly. With blessings and love Dear Mahatma Gandhi 1st January 2004 I must confess that I had never before had a reason to read your writings or follow your life. You are not as well known in Muslim countries as you are in the west, and all I had heard was that you were a Hindu leader of India who could not command the loyalty of the Muslims and fought against the British by a passive and rather feminine method. But I was sufficiently interested by some of the things you said to go and read and reflect on your life and work. While I now see the situation a little differently, I remain unpersuaded. You misrepresent your Indian experience and, like all moralists, extend it to societies where it does not apply. Since British forces did not occupy your country, they had to depend on local support, which naturally placed considerable constraints on them. The British people were ambivalent about the empire, and some were opposed to it. You could therefore always count on a sympathetic body of British opinion to press your case for independence. By the time you came to dominate the Indian political scene, the British were exhausted, initially by the 1914-1918 war and then by the great depression. The events leading up to the 1939-1945 war and that war itself debilitated them further. You were therefore in the fortunate position of confronting a weak opponent who had neither the will nor the means to continue to rule over your country. You should also recall that you lived at a time when there were several centres of power, each regulating the others, and none, not even the British empire, enjoyed complete mastery. The historical context in which I have to operate could not be more different. It is dominated by a single power with a global reach, which feels triumphant after its victory in the cold war, and thinks that it can now do what it likes. Its economy is driven by an enormous appetite for profits and the consequent desire to turn the whole world into a safe market for American goods. Its political system is dominated by money and selfish pressure groups, it incarcerates more people than any other rich country, it has a larger class of the poor than any other rich country, it has launched more clandestine, proxy and open wars than any other-yet the US considers its form of government to be the best in the world, and insists without the slightest embarrassment that it has a right and a duty to export it to other countries. This formidable combination of self-righteousness, missionary spirit, national self-interest, moral myopia and overwhelming power in a single country has radically transformed the world. Your ideas, Mr Gandhi, belong to a world that is dead, and are of no help to those fighting against current injustices. The Americans have to be checked in the interest of global peace, stability and justice. This requires not just military power but a superior vision of man and society that satisfies the deepest urges and aspirations of the human soul. Europe cannot provide this because it is part of the same western civilisation and because it is all too keen to share the spoils of the American empire. Only Islam offers an alternative. It has the vision of a truly good society and the will to realise it. It is also endowed with the requisite wealth, strength of numbers, and long historical experience of ruling over a multi-ethnic and multi-religious world. It is therefore vital that Muslim countries should unite, acquire nuclear weapons, take control of their oil wealth and lead the world in a better direction. You call this imperialism. I understand your fears and assure you that we do not seek to impose our views on others, let alone run their societies. We want to restore Islamic civilisation in the erstwhile Muslim countries, and are confident that its moral and spiritual vision will win over the allegiance of the rest of the world over time. The cold war was dominated by a clash between the two materialist ideologies of capitalism and communism. Islam provides a superior alternative to both, the future belongs to us. You reject modernity, I don’t. The modern world is here to stay, has much to be said for it, and anyone opting out of it is doomed to impotence. I do not want an alternative to modernity as you do, but an alternative modernity, a society that draws on modern technology and places it in the service of Islam. I want nuclear weapons, the modern state, industrialisation and so on, without which my people would remain at the mercy of the west, but I do not want the modern secular, egalitarian and liberal culture with all its attendant evils of atheism, confused gender roles, promiscuity, homosexuality, selfishness, consumerism, and so on. Such a cultural synthesis, which gives modernity an Islamic soul, is possible and worth fighting for. Unlike you I don’t consider violence inherently evil. I judge it on the basis of its goals and its ability to realise them. Your non-violent struggle was constantly shadowed by terrorist activities, which frightened and weakened the British and must be given as much credit for achieving Indian independence as your non-violence. Every method of struggle requires certain conditions for its success. Non-violence requires a decent opponent, freedom to mount protests, and a reasonably impartial media. You had all three; I don’t. We do not have the civil liberties you enjoyed. If we resorted to non-violent protests, the Americans and their stooges would infiltrate our ranks, create divisions, spread false stories, and, if all this failed, use force to maul us down. They would then use the pliant global media to manipulate public opinion in their favour. If you need further proof, look at the ways in which the Americans and the British justified and continue to justify the recent war on Iraq. They solemnly announced that they had incontrovertible proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and they still can’t find them. When Hans Blix introduced a note of caution, he was vilified. Cautious reports of British and American intelligence services were deliberately doctored by politicians, who proved more dishonourable than their spies. We are not even told exactly how many Iraqi civilians died in the war. And as for the military casualties, no one is bothered-as if an Iraqi soldier’s life had no value. We are told little about the daily atrocities committed against Iraqi civilians by US soldiers, and none of the latter has so far been tried let alone punished. In the light of all this, there is absolutely no chance of success for non-violent protests. The world won’t even know what humiliations and atrocities were inflicted upon us, let alone exert pressure on our behalf. You, Mr Gandhi, had no answer when Martin Buber asked what advice you would give to the Jewish victims of Hitler’s camps. As he pointed out, where there is no witness, there is no martyrdom, only a pointless waste of life. Unlike Hinduism, Islam takes a more charitable view of violence and sanctions and even enjoins it under certain circumstances. The prophet himself used violence, and so did his followers and other great Muslim religious and political leaders. Even if I were to plead for non-violence, it would not be accepted by my fellow-Muslims. The Pathan followers of Abdul Gaffar Khan used it only for a while, and then abandoned it in favour of violence. I see no other way to shake the might of the Americans. Violence is how we got rid of the Soviets in Afghanistan. America understood this and gave us all the help we needed. And it is because of this that they are now scared of the same methods being used against them. As I have said on several occasions, the struggle against the Soviets was a profound “spiritual experience” for me and my fellow-fighters, and represented a decisive turning point in our way of thinking. It gave us enormous self-confidence, expanded our political horizon, helped us build a global network and enabled us to move beyond narrow, largely ethnic, Arab nationalism to the vision of a wider Islamic unity. I would rather stick to the method I and my followers have found successful than try yours. You keep telling me that I should not lower myself to the level of my opponent and should act on higher principles. Why? If others hit me, I hit back. If they harm me or my people, I harm them. Why should I endure the suffering involved in being my opponent’s redeemer? I am a follower of Prophet Muhammad, not Jesus Christ. 30th January 2004 You advance the following propositions. First, Americans are embarked on an imperialist project to dominate the world. Second, Muslim societies should be reconstructed on the basis of the true principles of Islam. Third, this cannot be done without getting the Americans out of your societies and overthrowing their native collaborators. Fourth, only terrorist violence can achieve these goals. As for the first argument, you are wrong to generalise about Americans. Some groups there fit your description, others don’t. Many Americans are deeply troubled by and critical of what their government is doing in their name, and have protested against the recent war in Iraq. Some of those who support the present administration do so because they are fearful after the events of 9/11. Their belief that their country was invulnerable to foreign attack has been shattered, and they live in fear of future attacks. Bush reassures them that his global war on terrorism will give them the security they crave, so they go along with him. As long as you keep talking the way you do, you reinforce their paranoia and support for Bush’s policy. If you had talked the language of peace and linked up with the progressive forces in America, you would have had a better chance of success. As for your second argument, I could not disagree more. All past and present experience confirms my view that identifying religion with the state corrupts both. Religion has a legitimate place in public life and is an important source of people’s commitments and motivations. But that is wholly different from saying that the state should be based on, enforce, or be guided by religious principles. The state is based on coercion, religion on freedom, and the two simply cannot go together. In your case the situation is made worse by the fact that you take not an open, tolerant and dynamic view of religion, but a static, self-righteous and dogmatic one. This commits you to a tightly knit politico-religious party supervising all areas of individual and social life, the surest way to destroy religion, create a terrorist state, and turn human beings into soulless automata. Have you learned nothing from the disastrous experiences of Iran and your own “land of the two holy mosques,” as you call Saudi Arabia, both of which are beginning to appreciate the need to separate religion and state? Your third proposition is only partially true. Following our earlier discussion, I looked more closely at the history of US interference in the affairs of Muslim societies. I appreciate better your view that you can’t achieve significant changes in your society without ending US influence. However, removing them physically does not mean that you will be able to banish American values and views of life if your people remain enamoured of them. You can only fight ideas with ideas, and need a more clearly developed alternative. Furthermore, as long as your society remains deeply divided, unjust, and devoid of a strong sense of freedom and cohesion, it will remain too weak to resist external manipulation and domination. Terrorist attacks on outsiders or their domestic representatives may give you a febrile feeling of elation and satisfy your ego, but they achieve nothing lasting. You need to build a cadre of reformers and activists, work among the masses, open up spaces for action by judicious acts of protest, and create a broad-based movement with the power to reconstitute your society. Once your society develops a collective sense of identity and a strong spirit of independence, America would not be able to dominate it. Finally, you make a serious mistake in rejecting non-violence. Braving the brutality of America’s southern states, Martin Luther King used non-violence to achieve civil rights for black Americans and gave them a sense of pride and self-confidence. Iranians, too, successfully used it against the Shah. The more his troops killed innocent protestors, the more rapidly his regime dissolved, with even some of his troops deserting him. You say that my own countrymen used violence and that I sanctioned it. Some of my countrymen did resort to violence when provoked beyond endurance. Although I said that it was understandable, I continued to condemn it, fasted in a spirit of atonement and even apologised to the colonial rulers for it. To condone isolated acts of violence by desperate individuals is one thing; to make violence the central principle of struggle is totally different. You rightly say that martyrdom requires witness and that the role of the media is crucial to its success. Some sections of the media are biased and all too ready to oblige their governments; others are not. There is also no reason why you can’t start your own publications to present your views as I did and as Al-Jazeera has done. You should not exaggerate the power of the media in pluralistic societies. They cannot ignore non-violent protests altogether, for this would discredit them. Ordinary men and women know that the media are often biased, and make appropriate allowances for that. Had this not been the case, the scale of the opposition to the war on Iraq in a country like Britain would be inexplicable. I would go so far as to say that by exaggerating the power of the media, you fall into the trap set by your opponents. If your cause is just and is pursued in a peaceful and humane manner, it will command attention. My experience bears this out. Even if you do not believe in non-violence, you should know by now that your methods have done an incalculable harm to your people: you have discredited a great religion. Millions now instinctively associate Islam with violence and destruction. You have also deeply divided the umma, subjected your followers to torture and degradation, and rendered miserable the lives of many innocent diaspora Muslims. You have given the Bush administration an excuse to unleash extensive violence and pursue a project of global assertiveness. It is time you grew out of your infantile obsession with death and destruction, abandoned your messianic zeal, and showed a bit of humility and good sense. But my religion forbids me to give up on any human being, not even on you. This dialogue is based on a lecture first delivered at Boston University. A longer version can be found in “The Stranger’s Religion: Fascination and Fear” edited by Anna Lannstrom (University of Notre Dame Press)

For the Match Point Gals, tennis at the Jewish Community Center in Owings Mills is more than a means of exercising. Who they are: Ten women per season, ages ranging from 43 to 72. All of the women are mothers. One is a retired English professor. Another is a preschool Hebrew instructor. Summer players are Laurie Altman, Melissa Berman, Stacy Caplan, Shari Donato, Natalie Frazier, Joan Hellman, Marty Lane, Andrea Polsky and the mother-daughter duo of Natalie Ostraw and Katya Smith. Lane makes a players' rotation schedule for each season and records the scores — if the Gals don't lose track of them while playing. Joining for the fall and winter seasons are Rowena Haksteen, Melissa Hyatt, Linda Rimerman, and Betsy Roland. What they do: The Match Point Gals came together more than five years ago after meeting through a communal tennis group. When the group's coordinator stopped organizing teams, the women decided to continue playing on their own. Now, they meet Thursday mornings. Two women sit out each week, and the remaining eight compete on doubles teams. Why they do it: Tennis is a cardio workout. For the Match Point Gals, the competition of the sport is more friendly than fierce. "We do a lot of catching up," said Berman. "This is the least stressful part of our week." Laughter, which is a big part of their workout, helps clear the mind. "The main goal is having a good time," said Altman. "We don't care if we win or lose." There is a 29-year age difference between the youngest and oldest players, but all of the women are friends. Berman and Caplan even shop for tennis clothes together. On the court, the stronger players help those trying to improve their game. They poke fun at each other but mostly offer words of encouragement. Through injuries, health problems, job losses and life changes, the Match Point Gals are a support system. For the cold weather ahead, the women will move indoors to the Carroll Tennis Center in Finksburg. "One of these days, we'll have our own ball boys," Hellman joked. If you have a group that meets regularly to exercise, tell us about it so we can feature you in our Health & Style pages. We'll want basic information about your group (how often you meet, number of people in the group, what you do and why you do it), as well as a photo if you have one. Send to firstname.lastname@example.org or Catherine Mallette, Features, The Baltimore Sun, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore 21201.

Saturday, August 29, 2009 1. Gone With the Wind 2. Mary Poppins 3. The Sound of Music 4. Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head 5. April Love and so many more I have to dig from my 'childhood archives!' I have already watched 4 more 'classics' on Ms. Trudy's list, so I won't add them here anymore. It's fun remembering. Come and join! Post your favorite movies new or old, or movies that mean something or nothing to you, movies that were worth your time and money, and movies that weren't worth a cent, but you didn't find out till too late! I know it is Saturday now, but maybe it's not too late? Happy weekend to you all! Friday, August 28, 2009 - writing 10 honest things about you - passing it on to 7 other people So here are my 10 Things (funny that I'd just been posting 10 things on other people as well ^^): 1. I count the hours my sons sleep, and give them Benadryl when they NEED to sleep and they struggle NOT TO. 2. I heat canned food before eating it (ravioli, tuna, pork and beans - you get the idea). 3. I like to encourage people to write. 4. I find as I grow older that it's true what they say - there's no winning an argument with fools (for lack of a more fitting word). 5. I'm a night owl. 6. I like to sing (I'm no diva) when I'm stressed at work. 7. Bad manners appall me - I feel terribly embarrassed FOR the person who has no qualms about showing it. 8. I find that people who argue about faith a lot are the ones most confused about it. 9. I have found real friendships in people who have no titles, no money, and no fame. 10. I think 10 is not enough, but my tenth is I find humor in my own mistakes! Thank you heaps again, Icy! Now for the seven people on my list. Please make room for: Manoy Doro of Mga Sulating Pilipino Ladyviral of In My World Ricardo of Unloaded Ms. Monique of Middle Ditch Rainfield of My Journey Karinann of Blessings For The Day Kaydee of Teardrops and Rainbows I will be posting the recipients of the other awards later! Have a happy weekend, everyone! Thursday, August 27, 2009 History tends to hide the unfortunate and unmentionable facts relating to people that become heroic or famous. Fortunately, it is usually possible to find the odd bit here and there – and that is what this list is about. Below are ten people who are either famous or infamous with obscure or scandalous facts about them. This is our ten little known (and often scandalous) facts about historic figures. Fact: Hitler was a tax evader Recent research into papers relating to Hitler has uncovered the fact that when he became chancellor of Germany in 1934 he had evaded paying 405,500 million Reichsmarks in tax (6.3 million USD in today’s currency). Fortunately for Hitler, he was forgiven his tax debts when he was elected. It is believed that he earned 1.2 million Reichsmarks for sales of Mein Kampf alone, and avoided paying 600,000 Reichsmarks in tax on it. The official who forgave Hitler’s tax debt was “rewarded” with a 2,000 Reichsmarks per month tax free allowance (a huge amount considering teachers at the time were paid 4,800 per annum). Fact: Churchill was racist Sir Winston Churchill is so highly regarded for his skills as an orator and statesman that he was voted Britain’s greatest individual by the BBC in 2002. There is no doubt that his speech writing is a class above virtually every other modern writer of English speeches, and we are all familiar with at least one or two of his famous quotations, but what many people don’t know is that he also had a dark side. The best way to illustrate that is to let the man speak for himself: “I do not admit… that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia… by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race… has come in and taken its place.” -Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937 “I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes” – Writing as president of the Air Council. “First there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life, and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them…In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their fathers…This worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation…has steadily growing” — Writing on ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism’ in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 1920 Fact: Gandhi was a dirty old man At the age of 36, whilst married, Gandhi decided to become celibate in order to achieve a state of enlightenment (through the Hindu religion). As he got older, he became more and more fascinated with sex to the point that, second only to non-violence, it was the subject he most talked about. In order to “perfect” his celibate state, Gandhi would sleep naked with young naked women. One of the women was the 16 year old wife of his grand-nephew Kanu Gandhi. When he wanted to share his bed with his 19 year old grandniece Manu Gandhi, he wrote to her father and told him that they were sharing a bed so that he could “correct her sleeping posture”. When his stenographer R. P. Parasuram found him sleeping naked with Manu, he resigned in disgust. Fact: Washington cleverly tricked congress into paying him obscene amounts of money First of all, this is what elementary schools teach about Washington: “Later, in 1775, at age 43, Washington was appointed military advisor for New York, defending it from British attack. A few weeks later he was appointed Commander-and-Chief of the entire American army. He did not ask for this position, and did not even ask to be paid for it. [...] The most important reason George was asked to be president was that he was very honest, and people both trusted and admired him. He was the most trusted, admired, and respected man in the whole country.” Unfortunately what they miss entirely is the fact that he turned down a salary of what would have amounted to a little over 1,000 per month, but said: “Sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress that as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to have accepted this arduous employment, I do not wish to make any profit from it. I will keep an exact account of my expenses. Those I doubt not they will discharge, and that is all I desire.” And then the shopping began: - To cash paid for Sadlery, a Letter Case, Maps, Glasses, &c &c &c. for the use of my Command… $831.45- To sundry Exp.’s paid by myself at different times and places… on the Retreat of the Army thro’ the Jerseys into Pennsylvania & while there… $3,776- From September 1775 to March 1776, Washington spent over six thousand dollars on liquor In eight years, by turning down a salary and taking an expense account, instead of being paid around $12,000, he was paid $449,261.51 in 1780 dollars (around $4,250,000.00 in today’s money). Washington, being a clever man, tried the same ploy when he was elected President but he was turned down and given a set salary of $25,000 per year. You can view scans of Washington’s expense account at the Library of Congress. Fact: Martin Luther was an anti-semite Martin Luther, the famous Monk who started the protestant reformation, is often touted as a hero for standing up against excesses in the Catholic Church at the time, but what most people don’t know is that he was violently anti-Jewish and he made no secret of it. In 1543, he wrote “On The Jews And Their Lies”, in which he recommends that Jews be deprived of money, civil rights, religious teaching, and education, and that they be forced to labor on the land, or else be expelled from Germany and possibly killed (sound like someone familiar from more recent times?) He referred to the Jews as a “base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth.” He said that Jews were “full of the devil’s feces … which they wallow in like swine,” and the synagogue is an “incorrigible whore and an evil slut …” [Source] He also put together an eight point plan to get rid of the Jews: - “First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. …”- “Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. …”- “Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. …”- “Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. …”- “Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. …”- “Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them. … Such money should now be used in … the following [way]… Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed [a certain amount]…”- “Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow… For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.”- “If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews’ blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country” and “we must drive them out like mad dogs.” [Source: Luther, On the Jews, 47:268-288, 292.] Fact: Jefferson preached against whites having children with blacks, whilst doing that very thing and denying his offspring Jefferson said “the amalgamation of whites with blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of the excellence in the human character, can innocently consent.” Whilst preaching this rubbish, he had several children with his slave Sally Hemings who happened to be the illegitimate half-sister sister of his wife. While the rumours were around during their lifetime (which Jefferson implicitly denied), it was not until recent times that DNA testing proved that at least one of Hemings’ children was indeed fathered by Jefferson. In a letter to Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith dated July 1, 1805, Jefferson also admitted to having tried to seduce his married neighbor Betsey Walker. Fact: Einstein was a philanderer Einstein is perhaps the greatest mind of the 20th century and he and his most famous formular E=MC^2 are known by virtually everyone. Most people know he had a passion for the violin and that he started out life as a clerk in a patent office; but what most people don’t know, is that he cheated on both of his wives repeatedly. After splitting up with his first wife (because of his infidelity), he married his cousin Elsa. Shortly after that he had an affair with his secretary Betty Neumann. In a new volume of letters held by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Einstein described about six women with whom he spent time and from whom he received gifts while being married to Elsa. [Source] Fact: Elvis was unhealthily obsessed with James Dean Elvis exhibited many compulsive/obsessive qualities throughout his life which both helped and hindered his personal and public life. One of the areas that Elvis wanted to excel in was acting. He wanted to be the next James Dean and as a result was obsessed with Dean. He anguished over the fact that the roles he was given in movies were not (in his mind) substantial. Elvis knew all the words to “Rebel Without A Cause” that featured James Dean and Natalie Wood. Elvis sought out Wood because of her connection to James Dean. That relationship ended when Natalie came to visit Graceland and Elvis’ mother Gladys (who was domineering and jealous) drove Natalie away. Natalie confided to her sister Lana that “he can sing, but he can’t do much else”. The obsession with Dean led Elvis to intentionally befriend Nick Adams – a very close friend of Dean’s before he died and since his death rumors abound that Adams had a sexual relationship with both Dean and Elvis. [Source] Fact: Vice-President Andrew Johnson took his presidential oath whilst completely drunk Andrew Johnson was the Vice-President during Lincoln’s reign. He had a strong disliking for the aristocracy whom he thought were there by the labor of the poor such as his own family. “Glassy-eyed and smelling of whiskey, he reminded Congress, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, and pretty much everyone within hearing distance that they owed their positions to “plebeians” such as himself, then kissed the Bible and staggered away”. In response, the New York Times said “To think that one frail life stands between this insolent, clownish creature and the presidency! May God bless and spare Abraham Lincoln!” History shows us that God didn’t spare Lincoln and Johnson eventually became president. His presidency was such a disaster that congress tried to impeach him twice – successfully on the second attempt! He avoided being fired by just one vote. Pope Pius IX Fact: Pope Pius IX Kidnapped a Jewish child and had him raised as a Catholic On the evening of 23 June 1858, in Bologna, then part of the Papal States, police arrived at the home of a Jewish couple, Salomone (”Momolo”) and Marianna Padovani Mortara, to seize one of their eight children, six-year-old Edgardo, and transport him to Rome to be raised as a ward of the state. The police had orders from Holy Office authorities in Rome, authorized by Pope Pius IX. Church officials had been told that a 14-year-old Catholic servant girl of the Mortaras, Anna Morisi, had baptized Edgardo while he was ill because she feared that he would otherwise die and go to Hell. Acorrding to Catholic Church doctrine, Edgardo’s baptism, even if illegal under canon law, was valid and made him a Christian. Under the canon law, non-Christians could not raise a Christian child, even their own. Edgardo was taken to a house for Catholic converts in Rome, maintained at state expense. His parents were not allowed to see him for several weeks, and then not alone. Pius IX took a personal interest in the case, and all appeals to the Church were rebuffed. Church authorities told the Mortaras that they could have Edgardo back if they abandoned their faith and converted to Catholicism, but they refused. Despite international protests (including those from the United States government), Pope Pius IX did not relinquish Edgardo who eventually went on to become a priest. He was also a vehement supporter of the Vatican taking the first steps towards making Pius IX a saint. You can read his testimony here and you can see the incorrupt corpse of Blessed Pius IX here (his face has a protective mask of silver on which is removed for veneration). Wednesday, August 26, 2009 15 Surprisingly Super Smart CelebritiesShare This- Published January 18, 2009 When you think of Mensa, the high IQ society, you probably think of Steven Hawking or Marilyn vos Savant. There are, however, some unlikely celebrity names associated with Mensa – a group which requires that members have an IQ within the top two per cent of the population. I have compiled a list of some famous smarties, some more surprising than others. I did my best to verify in more than one source that these were in fact members of Mensa. Sharon Stone, for example, is listed as a Mensa member on many websites, however, she confirmed she is not and has never been a member, as is commonly believed. This list is in no particular order, as not all IQ’s were available. Probably better known as WCW wrestler Raven, Levy studied criminal justice at the University of Delaware and originally wanted to be a lawyer. He has a reported IQ of 143. Star of over 250 hardcore adult movies, Carrera has an IQ of 156. Before her successful porn career, at the age of 13 she played piano at Carnegie Hall and later attended Rutgers University. Jeffrey is a young actor who does a lot of voiceover work. At age 6, he was given an IQ test and tested within the 99th percentile, making him a certified genius. Actress, and wife of John Malkovich, Headly studied drama in NYC and attended the American College of Switzerland on a scholarship. Violence-loving high school dropout Quentin Tarantino has an IQ of 160. Martin majored in Philosophy at Cal State and even considered becoming a professor at one time. His IQ is estimated to be about 142. Davis went to Sweden on a student exchange program and is now fluent in Swedish. Studied drama at Boston University, plays piano, flute, drums and organ and has an IQ of 140. An English model and actress, she earned an honors degree in chemical engineering from Leeds University. Her reported IQ is 158. Rachins played a lawyer on the TV show L.A. Law and Dharma’s hippy father on Dharma and Greg. He enrolled at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, ultimately dropping out, but graduated from Empire State College in 1974. Beauchamp is a footballer for the Oxford United, and is listed on British Mensa’s fact sheet under “famous members,” however they did not list his IQ. Fluent in five languages with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Harvard, Portman pursued graduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A British DJ, actor and television personality, he is best known for his BBC television show Jim’ll Fix It where he made the wishes of members of the public (mainly children) come true and as both the first and last presenter of Top of the Pops. Savile holds an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from Leeds University and is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Radiology (FRCR.) In the Mensa entry tests, his IQ was assessed as 149. Foster graduated as valedictorian from the French-speaking Lycee Francais de Los Angeles, after which she attended Yale and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in literature. Her reported IQ is 132. Lundgren attended the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. He received a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, in 1982, and the next year was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to MIT. IQ score: 160. Woods aced his SATs, got into MIT (but dropped out to pursue acting) and has a reported IQ of 180. Lisa has an IQ of 156 and has been a member of Mensa Springfield since 1999. I remember feeling scared because whenever he was awake, he had that serious demeanor and a look in his eyes that told you he was thinking. He was as curious about this "Asian girl" as I was of him. He was soft-spoken when he talked of his family growing up, hippie days, a broken marriage, about brushes with the law. He had Hepatitis C. Incurable. And he was always bleeding from somewhere. As I said, I was very new so it made me nervous going inside his room. He liked to follow me around, too, not only with his eyes, but physically. So I was always afraid he might slam the door one day and attack me. Really. Such thoughts on "Jesus." But I was always firm though kind, and he was compliant. At one point he said, I was becoming more and more Pittsburghian, and I didn't need to do that. He said to keep being Asian. What he didn't know was I was truly scared so I think I may have upped my act a little bit to gain some confidence. He was homeless. I guess he found solace in that little room, and the consistency of the staff that cared for him. But one day they moved him to another floor. That day, I was assigned to other patients. But he requested that I transport him. I did. He looked very sad. Within one week, "Jesus" died. The kindness that we do today goes a long, long way. (I'd credit the person but I don't even know who said this.) I fed him his breakfast. Aris fixed his snack. We reminded him to be kind to new classmates, be respectful and helpful. He said he wanted cafeteria food, and I said not to use catsup (okay, only a very little bit). I told him (for the millionth time) about the importance of handwashing (which he is good at - NO WONDER, did you say? ;o). I asked him not to forget to pray at mealtime. We all walked him to the room, where a few kids and parents already milled about. We knew some of them and said hello. I met Ms. Willingham again, his soft-spoken, smiling young teacher, and wished her all the best in my heart. I also met the assistant teacher who was much older, Mrs. Richardson, who lived in the Philippines with her missionary parents when she was three years old and stayed there until she finished high school. Mrs. Richardson blurted about Pancit right away, which was kind of fun. Aris came in after parking the car, lugging all the materials asked of second-graders: several big black binders, crayolas, bottles of glue, clorox wipes and boxes of tissue, notebooks, among others. We were only asked to have a few notebooks, one writing pad, one box of crayons, a ruler, a set of pencils, when I was in second grade back in 1977. Aris and Mrs. Richardson fell into animated conversation about Filipino food. The boy plopped on a seat next to his best friend, another Filipino boy who LOOKS like him. They both started working on the paper which was laid out on the table in front of them, amid excited chatter. AJ got busy introducing himself around the room. He then settled on a chair in front of his kuya (big brother), AND 'worked' on the paper meant for the kid assigned to that table. It was our cue. We all gave Matthew an extra squeeze and kiss, and bid everyone good bye. He was going to have a wonderful first day. Sunday, August 23, 2009 By the 1st of September, Christmas songs will start peppering the airwaves, people start saving up for gifts, or buying them. The weather is noticeably cooler, and gets cooler still, until February. Even strangers are more convivial to each other. We love the 'ber season! Except for the All Saints' and All Souls' Days on Nov. 1 and 2, there's nothing else between September and Christmas. No Christmas songs on those days, but there's a resounding comeback by the next! Christmas trees are up right after Nov. 2, some before. Many also enjoy the traditional manito-manita (secret Santa) at home, in offices, schools, wherever there's a willing crowd. How you do it is you all write a fictitious name on a piece of paper, roll it up and put them all together in a container. Each gets to pick a piece of paper and that's the person you give a gift to depending on the rules. Rules may be weekly or daily (or whenever) gift-giving (not necessarily expensive), each week (or day, or whenever) corresponds to a certain gift that is simply described, and up for the giver (secret santa) to interpret. Say, this week, something long and slimy. It runs up till Christmas Day where each one reveals his true identity. Fun? You can say that again! We also have our traditional Misa De Aguinaldo (misa - mass, aguinaldo - gift), which is a series of masses celebrated at dawn (around 4 at the earliest). It starts on Dec. 16th, and ends on the 24th, at midnight, a nine-day gift of the faithful to the Lord Jesus and Mother Mary. It is a very sacred devotion (novena), and I used to pine when there were times that I wasn't able to complete it. Then there's the noche buena (midnight meal) after the midnight masses On Dec. 24th (Christmas eve) and Dec. 31st (New Year's eve). And then there are the fireworks. There are lanterns everywhere, of different sizes and colors. There are lantern parades. There's puto-bumbong (traditional rice cake, very famous at Christmastime), and lots of other traditional goodies awaiting church-goers after each dawn mass. There is just so much happiness unfelt at any other time. And the holiday doesn't end on Jan. 1st. There's the celebration of the Three Kings on the 6th of January. Many Christmas trees stay up till February. Some decors stay all year long! Sigh. It will be September in a week. I'm pining - again. I'm sorely missing all that. The Philippines is more than 80% Catholic, and strong traditions are what bind people together. Now for the One Lovely Blog Award. I had to choose only 15, even though your blogs all qualify! The rule to this is you have to choose 15 more blogs to pass this on to. So, without further ado, here's my list: Australia:Quadrat in Focus Third Time's A Chance The Legacy of Home Kitchen With Kids The Joys of Simple Life The Immateur Anthropologist Reach Beyond Limits Thistle Cove Farm The Main Ingredient Pass the love on! Happy Sunday, everyone! Saturday, August 22, 2009 Well, today, it rained. to the bubbles! You bet I scrubbed them good, especially the little toes! Thursday, August 20, 2009 - is too sun-tanned. - has big hair. - eats all the good cookies. - is so polite, it's infuriating. - suspected co-worker is a pimp. - is trying to poison me. - 's body is magnetic and keeps deactivating my magnetic access card. - is personally responsible for a federally mandated tax increase. - was annoyed the company didn't provide a place for naps during break time. - wears only slippers or socks at work. - 's aura is wrong. - smells like road ramps. - breathes too loudly. - wants to check a co-worker for ticks. - thinks 8:00 am is too early to get up for work. - wore pajamas to work. - has bells on her shoes, and it's not the holidays. - reminded co-worker too much of Bambi. - spends too much time caring for stray cats around the building. - (male) keeps using the ladies room because the men's room is not as tidy. And would you believe, these are all true! On the very night that the ONLY president I had ever known in all of my 16 years was ousted, and flown outside the country, I was in Iloilo City, a Region you fly to from where I lived, or travelled by ship to reach (as the Philippines is an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands). I was one of over a thousand high school students competing in a National Writing Competition. I won second place, amidst all the drama outside of that dark auditorium, and the topic we were asked to develop impromptu, my winning piece, was aptly titled 'The Youth of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.' My winning was not extraordinary. Half the kid in my class could have done it, just give them a pen, tell them to read and focus, and be upbeat about the country as much as possible, and you'd have a winner. We were an intense young generation. If I had lost, I would still have been a winner from having competed alone. Holding my trophy was little compensation for the general reason for the jubilation outside in the streets. I thought of Ninoy that night. He was also a writer when he was young, 17 years old when he was sent to Korea as a war correspondent. He had died when I was 14. I was not sad when I thought of him. I luxuriated in the company of fellow young writers celebrating the death of 'Yesterday's' youth, which included myself. Little did I think on that night that I would be saying that my children are 'Tomorrow's' youth. And yet I am. Many, many years later, my husband and I left the country when Matthew was 1. The boy speaks and understands the Pilipino language, and calls himself Filipino. He excels in school and is included in the Advanced Classes program. I do not want him to have to march on the streets like his father and mother did before him, to clamor for change. But I will respect his decisions, when the time comes, to determine the form of government he wants his country to have, and to choose the country he wants to live in. For now, I will rest my pen. He sleeps. And I'm sure somewhere, Ninoy is proud. Wednesday, August 19, 2009 A fellow nurse was reading the chart and droned on about a patient who was rushed to the hospital for chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea and vomiting, and indigestion. When she got to 'indigestion,' I said "Sounds like a heart attack to me." She said, "You're right! But how did you know, Cherie?" It's simple, really. A heart attack's pain is usually on the chest, and in many people, it is found on the upper abdomen. Sometimes the pain is 'referred,' in that it is felt anywhere else but the 'heart' - like pain in the arm, neck or back gets referred to the upper abdomen, causing nausea and vomiting. Whether we work in a hospital or a nursing home, HEART ATTACK is always one of the leading menaces the staff are on the constant look-out for. It, in fact, is the number one cause of death in the US. So here are the warning signs to help you think and act fast, when you are put in a situation where you or someone else might need help, where the heart is concerned. Chest pain, or discomfort, which may be described as heaviness, pressure, tightness, fullness or acute pain ( One funny incident: I once asked a patient if it felt like an elephant sitting on her chest, and she answered no, that it felt more like a kitten sitting on her chest.) Shortness of breath (either with or without chest pain) Other symptoms (may or may not follow quickly): Nausea with or without vomiting (amazing thing is, some can still walk to and from the bathroom and clean themselves, and tell you about it!), cold sweats, lightheadedness, jaw or back pain, pain in one or both arms In women, note also a persistent feeling of fatigue unrelieved by sleep, and anxious, nervous feelings. What to do? Don't joke around, it's not heartburn! Seek help immediately! If the person has a prescribed nitrogycerin tablet, capsule or spray, use as directed! Otherwise, call 911 if you're in the States. Or scream at the top of your lungs if you don't know what to do, to get somebody's attention. Stroke, on the other hand, is the second leading cause of death in the US, so I'd like to write down the symptoms as well. Most Filipino men by the age of 60, suffer from this, too. Sudden numbness or weakness Sudden confusion with trouble speaking Visual disturbances or changes in seeing Sudden trouble walking, loss of balance or coordination Sudden onset of severe headache without cause Same thing, don't tell the person to rest, or drink a glass of water or anything else, but call for help! Call your doctor, if you don't have 911. More importantly, PREVENT these things from happening by: living a healthy lifestyle - quit smoking, eat right, get more HDL (good cholesterol), exercise and maintain your weight, manage stress, and keep your diabetes in check. Some things we can't help if we inherited them. For nurses and families who deal with these, be patient, no blaming, and include the patients in their care. Some nurses leave televisions droning on and on. Please. Ever heard of sensory overload? And I'm talking about healthy individuals. How much more people who can hardly breathe or have clots in their brains? Gotta love our heart because there's so much to live for. Just a little reminder from your friendly neighborhood catwoman. Meow. Wow. Life is like cells in a petri dish. Our dreams, goals, aspirations, hopes grow, divide, at some point maybe atrophy, or die. But we keep plodding on, dreaming, hoping. It's a long ride. Monday, August 17, 2009 It had not all been play and fun trips for the boys this summer. They're registered at the Durham County Library, and we've had countless trips there, checking out books and educational DVDs, with the boys using their own library cards. Matthew was also in the Summer Reading Program which offered incentives (prizes) after every 10 days of reading. Between M and AJ alone, we had brought home and returned at least 48 kiddie books in the last month alone. Here's the last list of those we toted back to the Library: We Three Kings Trust Me, Mom! Hello Ocean - Hola Mar Animals Are Sleeping Piglet and Mama You're Too Small Winners Never Quit Yuck! A Toad Favorite Mother Goose Rhymes The Colors of My Jewish Year My First Nursery Rhymes My First Songs Thomas and the Animals As you can see, they didn't need to be impressive, they just had to be FUN. With the advent of all this hi-tech stuff these days, so many children (some as young as three) are already prolific PSP handlers, owners of ipods, and strongly compete with adults in the use of computers. Our sons are no exceptions, but the house restrictions apply. The computer has a password (Aris is setting up the other one now, and M has gotten it into his head to put in HIS own password, to protect it against US), and has played with his PSP only twice (last Christmas, and last month, for his birthday). He WAS big on his ipod but the honeymoon feeling lasted only for about a week. Now he'd rather follow the song and dance moves of his favorite teeny-boppers as they pop up on tv. And then again, when they are on the internet or watching tv, we are there to screen the shows. Otherwise, it's hit the books instead. Not that they are excuses for the lack of better shows. They're just always there. Books occupied my summers when I was a little girl. They kept me away from silly gossip and boy talk when I was growing up. These days, they provide inspiration for my blogs. We had no Summer Reading Programs when I was seven. Nor did we need one. The nuns drilled us on Reading and Phonics, and this Catholic magazine whose name escapes me. Kids were made to stand in the corner in front of the class if they didn't know how to pronounce (I was spared that, thank goodness). And at home, our mothers and fathers (mothers more than fathers) made sure we spoke and wrote English as it should be spoken and written. I cannot remember a household without a complete set of encyclopedia, or a giant Webster's dictionary, alongside stacks of Reader's Digest magazines, and a Bible. All my childhood friends had and probably still have theirs in their homes. It was such an ordinary thing not only for myself but for families like mine, at least in the town where I grew up, to live with books. We thumbed through countless card catalogues for researches and book reports in libraries FROM GRADE SCHOOL ALL THROUGH COLLEGE and didn't mind it. From that we learned organization and patience. In contrast, all that the librarians do now is punch in a few buttons, and ta-dah, we know which aisle to go. We didn't get voicemails from librarians saying our deadlines were up - we made sure to make that trip back to the library on time precisely BECAUSE we avoided the wrath of the mighty guardian of the books. We viewed librarians as fearsome creatures in those days, I think, which, for me, just reinforced the belief that books were sacred. Which is why I am all for continuing the tradition of reading, and encourage everyone to do the same. Books, unquestionably, are. It was the Pinata at a kid's party they attended. And that kid Alex who had cancer and sold lemonade.

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Today’s post comes from Lori Norris, an archives technician a the National Archives at College Park. As we face the uncertainty of the current COVID-19 pandemic, one helpful invention has eased the anxieties of staying at home and assists us daily with our new teleworking lives. Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, allows us to stay plugged into the internet while roaming our homes for the perfect spot to type up emails or binge-watch our favorite shows. As with the invention of the computer, the technology that made Wi-Fi possible came about during another devastating global event: World War II. The head inventor wasn’t a scientist or engineer, but a famous Hollywood actress with an obsession with tinkering. Hedy Lamarr made it big in acting before ever moving to the United States. Her role in the Czech film Ecstasy got international attention in 1933 for containing scandalous, intimate scenes that were unheard of in the movie industry up until then. Backlash from her early acting career was the least of her worries, however, as tensions began to rise in Europe. Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, grew up in a Catholic household in Austria, but both of her parents had a Jewish heritage. In addition, she was married to Friedrich Mandl, a rich ammunition manufacturer with connections to both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Her time with Friedrich Mandl was bittersweet. While the romance quickly died and Mandl became very possessive of his young wife, Lamarr was often taken to meetings on scientific innovations in the military world. These meetings are said to have been the spark that led to her becoming an inventor. As tensions in both her household and in the world around her became overwhelming, she fled Europe and found her way to the United States through a job offer from Hollywood’s MGM Studios. Lamarr became one of the most sought-after leading women in Hollywood and starred in popular movies like the 1939 film Algiers, but once the United States began helping the Allies and preparing to possibly enter the war, Lamarr almost left Hollywood forever. Her eyes were no longer fixed on the bright lights of the film set but on the flashes of bombs and gunfire. Lamarr wanted to join the Inventors’ Council in Washington, DC, where she thought she would be of better service to the war effort. Lamarr’s path to inventing the cornerstone of Wi-Fi began when she heard about the Navy’s difficulties with radio-controlled torpedoes. She recruited George Antheil, a composer she met through MGM Studios, in order to create what was known as a Secret Communication System. The idea behind the invention was to create a system that constantly changed frequencies, making it difficult for the Axis powers to decode the radio messages. The invention would help the Navy make their torpedo systems become more stealthy and make it less likely for the torpedoes to be rendered useless by enemies. Lamarr was the brains behind the invention, with her background knowledge in ammunition, and Antheil was the artist that brought it to life, using the piano for inspiration. In 1942, under her then-married name, Hedy Kiesler Markey, she filed for a patent for the Secret Communication System, patent case file 2,292,387, and proposed it to the Navy. The first part of Lamarr and Antheil’s Secret Communication System story did not see a happy Hollywood ending. The Navy refused to accept the new technology during World War II. Not only did the invention come from a civilian, but it was complex and ahead of its time. As the invention sat unused, Lamarr continued on in Hollywood and found other ways to help with the war effort, such as working with the USO. It wasn’t until Lamarr’s Hollywood career came to an end that her invention started gaining notice. Around the time Lamarr filmed her last scene with the 1958 film The Female Animal, her patented invention caught the attention of other innovators in technology. The Secret Communication System saw use in the 1950s during the development of CDMA network technology in the private sector, while the Navy officially adopted the technology in the 1960s around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The methods described in the patent assisted greatly in the development of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Despite the world finally embracing the methods of the patent as early as the mid-to-late 1950s, the Lamarr-Antheil duo were not recognized and awarded for their invention until the late 1990s and early 2000s. They both received the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award and the Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Bronze Award, and in 2014 they were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Hedy Lamarr never had any formal training yet was able to incorporate her life experiences and artistic imagination into one of the most important inventions of the technological age. During a dark, chaotic time, she was able to adopt the inspiration to try to help change the world for the better. As we sit at home, waiting for the war against COVID-19 to reach its turning point, some may draw inspiration from Hedy Lamarr and ask themselves: what can I create today?

The Jewish Federation Connecting with Community presents author Joselin Linder, who will discuss her new book in a program titled, “The Family Gene: The Story of a Pittsfield Family’s Rare Disease and Fight for Life.” In Joselin Linder’s new book, The Family Gene (HarperCollins/Ecco), she tells the story of the medical mystery of her father, Pittsfield native William “Billy” Linder. Looking back through the family tree – to the 1930s and Pittsfield’s first Orthodox rabbi – she discovers the answer in the form of a wayward genetic variant. Today only 14 people have ever carried this gene exclusive to her family, but Linder, a carrier, is looking to medical genetics where she believes there’s hope. Joselin Linder is a regular contributor to the New York Post, whose work has also been featured on This American Life, Morning Edition, and Life of the Law. She spoke at the TEDX Gowanus event in Brooklyn 2014, presenting for the first time on the subject of her family gene and the deadly illness to which it leads. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two dogs. She shared her story in a New York Post cover story on March 6. This free program is part of the Federation’s Connecting With Community Series and will be followed by a kosher hot lunch. Lunch is a $2 suggested donation for adults over 60 years of age or $7 for all others. Advance reservations are required for lunch and can be made by calling (413) 442-2200 before 9 a.m. on the day of the program.

By: Lauren Salerno One of the key consequences of book banning is erasure. When we decide that some things are too uncomfortable to talk about, we risk losing the memory of how things happen. We lose context, we lose people, we lose the truth. That seems to be the case according to a recent study by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The New York Times summarizes, “Thirty-one percent of Americans, and 41 percent of millennials, believe that two million or fewer Jews were killed in the Holocaust; the actual number is around six million. Forty-one percent of Americans, and 66 percent of millennials, cannot say what Auschwitz was. And 52 percent of Americans wrongly think Hitler came to power through force.” I’m sure it is also lost on many that one of the actions taken by the Nazis during this time was to ban and burn books deemed “un-German.” When the goal is to control the message, art and literature always come under attack. Ironically, some of the books that have been challenged or banned in the United States are the very ones that could help us piece together what happened during this unimaginable period of human history. Here are five banned books to read right now if you don’t know much about the Holocaust, but want to learn. Night by Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel’s memoir about his experience surviving the Holocaust is a modern classic. He speaks of what it was like in the beginning, his family forced to identify themselves by wearing yellow stars, losing small freedoms, until the day they were rounded up and taken to Auschwitz. Wiesel describes life for him and his father inside the concentration camps and what it took to survive. In 2017, the Conejo Valley Unified School District adopted an opt-out policy where parents could object to reading materials in the core list. While no books were actually taken off the list, enough parents opted-out their children from reading Night that the teacher could not effectively teach it to the rest of the class. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron Sophie’s Choice is about a Holocaust survivor caught between an abusive lover and a writer who is determined to uncover her painful past. Through the narrative one can see how the experience of the Holocaust manifests in scars both physical and emotional. The book was banned in South Africa in 1979 for no given reason. In 2001, the book was pulled from library shelves at a high school in La Mirada, California for its sexual content. The decision was protested by students and later returned to the school library. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl is another first hand account of life in Nazi German told from the perspective of a Jewish girl. The text is, in fact, the diary that Anne Frank kept while she, her family, and others were in hiding in an apartment attic in Amsterdam. She details what those two, quiet years were like until the apartment’s inhabitants were found and taken to the concentration camps. Anne did not survive, but her father, Otto Frank, advocated for her diary to be published. The reasons for banning or challenging Anne Frank’s diary largely have to do with the sexual content in the book. This was the case most recently in 2013, when a parent from the Northville school district in Michigan called Frank’s descriptions of her body “pretty pornographic.” Though in 1983, the Alabama State Textbook Committee commented that the book was “a real downer.” Number the Stars by Lois Lowry Number the Stars is about a Jewish girl in Denmark who assumes the identity of a German family’s daughter and hides with them. It takes a look at the large networks of people that worked to evacuate Jewish people out of Denmark to Sweden and the immense danger this presented along the way. In Washington state, the book was banned because it contained the word “damn.” There was also a case in Turkey at Tarsus American College where the book was banned after the Turkish Department of Education read just one paragraph with no reasoning or attention to protocol. Maus by Art Spiegelman Based on a true story, Maus is a graphic memoir of a son trying to learn more about his father. In the book, Art Spiegelman interviews his father about World War II, the persecution he faced as a Jew living in Poland during that time, and his experience in Auschwitz and Dachau. It weaves back and forth between the story his father tells and the present day as the family grapples with this heavy history and the loss of Art’s mother. In 2012, the book was challenged by a public library patron in Pasadena, California for its depiction of Poles. In Russia, a law passed in December of 2014, had bookstores pulling the title from their shops as the cover art contains a swastika. While the content of the book is actually anti-Nazi, the sweeping language of the law itself, which forbids Nazi propaganda, was enough for the graphic novel to be taken off shelves even though no formal complaints had been filed against it. Lauren Salerno works in Youth Services at the Ovitt Family Community Library. She is passionate about developing a new generation of creative thinkers and confident do-ers. Her process art program, Artopia, was listed in best practices for nurturing creativity in children by the Association for Library Service to Children. When Lauren is not making a mess at the library, she is a writer of speculative fiction and creative nonfiction. Her writing can be found in the Los Angeles Times, xoJane, MiTú, and The Rattling Wall. She loves monsters, Star Wars, and Pokemon GO. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a tiny dog. Find her on Twitter @ParanormaLauren.

It's not entirely useless to investigate people's backgrounds as a way of understanding their thinking. Mr D'Souza has surely been shaped by the milieu he grew up in and the political ideology that structures it, and Barack Obama was clearly shaped by the experience of growing up partly abroad, with a mixed-race identity that had links to middle-class white America, to black America, and to Africa. I've certainly been shaped by growing up Jewish on the East Coast, Sarah Palin was shaped by growing up Christian in Idaho, and so forth. But I think we do better when we criticise people's ideas and programmes on their own terms, rather than seeking out mysterious causes in their childhoods. There's no need to search for abstruse reasons why an extreme movement conservative like Dinesh D'Souza might oppose raising taxes on the rich or defend privilege in access to education. And it's not surprising that a centrist liberal like Barack Obama thinks people earning more than $250,000 per year ought to be paying more taxes. In fact, that conviction is shared by a majority of the American electorate. If Mr D'Souza finds it bizarre, it's not Mr Obama who's out of touch with America. We need to do both. I disagree that we should ignore psychological motivation in politics because we need an explanation for irrational acts. Facts and reason are usually ignored during decision-making. We have to understand and explain why so we can address irrational behavior.

These networks ensure dynamism and fluidity; they are local but at the same time cross the boundaries of states. Diasporas form and disappear, and this was the case with the Greeks. Under Rome and during the Hellenistic period, the Greeks dispersed in both intellectual and commercial terms. After the fall of Constantinople, another dispersion occurred, notably in Italy, and Greek colonies thereafter survived until quite recently in Asia Minor. The Greek Diaspora, as noted, extends back centuries. Alexandria was a Hellenistic center long before becoming a Muslim region, and Asia Minor along the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea was Greek. The Greek kingdom of Pontus disappeared in the fifteenth century with an onslaught by the Ottomans, and the Greeks of Pontus disappeared during World War I through deportations and massacres organized by the Young Turks then overseeing what was left of the Ottoman Empire. In the period from 1920-1921, the Greeks led an offensive intended to create a Greek state based in Smyrna on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, but this effort failed. Smyrna fell to the advance of Mustafa Kemal, also known as Ataturk. In 1922-1923, Greece took in 1.2 million expelled Greek Christians and Turkey took in 650,000 Turkish Muslims in an exchange. A Greek community lived in Cairo and Alexandria and survived until the advent of Nasserism. They left the country gradually from 1956 to 1962. A Greek diaspora also exists in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is made up of traders, many in Addis Ababa. The Greeks were numerous in that area until 1974 when the emperor was deposed. Greeks remain in many towns and cities of central and southern Africa. Large Greek colonies are also found in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The development of Hellenistic culture derived from one of the primary reasons for diasporas--war. For two decades after the death of Alexander the Great, war raged among his generals as they... Jewish People. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 01:29, July 31, 2016, from http://www.collegetermpapers.com/viewpaper/1304166929.html

by Patti Vile I have seen some amazing acts of philanthropy because of my organization, Volunteer Expeditions. Well over 40 groups will have traveled to rebuild New Orleans by the end of this year – which means close to 1200 volunteers! These groups come from all over the nation and the majority are Jewish. Others have drastically different backgrounds, yet they unite in a spirit of philanthropy. Recently, I had the pleasure of leading two separate synagogue youth groups on volunteer vacations to New Orleans. The participants, 18 and younger, were completely committed to helping those less fortunate. Many teens have trouble focusing on a “tweet” for more than a few seconds, but these dedicated volunteers spent many full days cooking meals for the homeless, clearing fields, insulating and painting homes, becoming acquainted with families who are rebuilding their lives, and immersing themselves in New Orleans’ rich culture. These teens (and other youth groups I’ve worked with) prove to me time and again that you can give back at any age. Even though these teenagers lacked the life experience of older volunteers, there was no difference in their enthusiasm or commitment once they began working. I attribute this commitment to the rich heritage of Jewish philanthropy. These wonderful volunteers have grown up in a tradition of tzedakah, kindness and engagement. Jewish people of all ages take to heart the mission of tikkun olam. But to me, the embodiment of Jewish philanthropy is sharing the passion of helping others with our children and grandchildren. It is important when we donate our time, money, and supplies to those in need. But more important still will be the legacy that they carry on. Jewish teen philanthropy means to me that we shall always care. We shall always invest our faith and energy with those who are less fortunate. And we shall always teach our children the importance of helping others in need. It is my mitzvah that I have been a gateway over the last four years for volunteer philanthropy for hundreds of Jewish teens. My only hope is to continue in this important work. Patti Vile is the proud grandmother of seven and the founder and president of Volunteer Expeditions, a nonprofit that plans group trips to rebuild in New Orleans and tutor children in Jamaica. For more information or to start planning your trip, she invites you to her website, volunteerexpeditions.org.

Welcome to the website of the Later German Philosophy (LGP) project. The project is a scholarly initiative that aims to examine and critically debate the contribution made by German-speaking philosophers of the period 1860-1951 from three major perspectives: Philosophy (topics in Metaphysics, Ethics, Logic, Language, Wissenschaftstheorie, Politics, History of Science, Psychopathology, Aesthetics, Religion), Jewish Studies (topics in Jewish thought, Jewish history, and secular and religious conceptions of Judaism), and Germanic Studies (topics in style and rhetorics, as well as in the publication and reception in the Anglophone world of the works of the selected philosophers of the period). The available list of selected German-speaking philosophers is not exhaustive and will be reviewed as often as possible. The official languages of the LGP project are English and German. Levelheaded conduct and communication is expected and encouraged in all events organized within the project, as well as in all quarters of the website. The ultimate responsibility for the intellectual life and quality of the LGP project is a shared one among the participants. Suggestions and criticisms are very welcome. The LGP project is self-funded, and, consequently, its events may not take place every year and be significantly spaced out.

Everyone who visits New Orleans has strolled through the French Quarter at least once (whether they remember or not). Many shoppers have walked some of the three miles of Magazine Street’s commercial zone, while football fans have made their way through the Central Business District en route to the Superdome. But Hurricane Katrina created an opportunity for other parts of New Orleans to come into their own. One place that many visitors have yet to find is Freret Street, in Uptown New Orleans. And even some locals stay away, because of Freret’s checkered history – which merchants and restaurant owners are doing their best to obliterate. Freret began as a commercial area for people who were left out of New Orleans’ most powerful social groups: the French Creoles, who governed old society, and the wealthy “English” traders and business owners, who dominated the CBD and built their homes in the Garden District. Instead, the neighborhood, named for brothers William and James Freret, became a refuge for Italian and Jewish residents, who shared the commercial district. But population shifts took place in the 1950s, driving middle class residents to the suburbs, and by the 1980s, when bakery owner Bill Long was shot and killed in the doorway of his store, Freret was disintegrating. Help came in 2001 when the National Trust for Historic Preservation adopted Freret Street under its Main Street program. Yet, the neighborhood took a body blow from Katrina, whose damage can still be seen, and its comeback never seemed farther away. But seven years after the storm, Freret is a symbol of the New New Orleans, where a handful of business pioneers and long time stall warts provided the nucleus for its growth to take place. Bars, restaurants, businesses, and a monthly fair have popped up in a few short years, and the sounds of construction resonate as cars and pedestrians ply the bumpy street between Tulane and Loyola Universities. “You could see the revolution happening with just a few places, and just a few pieces finally falling into place,” says Greg Ensslen, a property developer and New Jersey transplant who has lived in the neighborhood since 1984. %Gallery-170747%The growth has happened primarily with support from locals, and some help from out of towners like Chip Apperson, a veteran restaurateur who came down from Memphis with his wife after the storm to restore a home in New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood. Eventually, he bought Long’s bakery and turned it into the family friendly High Hat Cafe. The menu is divided between Louisiana and Mississippi Delta specialties, with home made pies and heavenly fried chicken, and a bar that invites people to settle in for hours. Still, Apperson says, “It took a while for people to think about coming to this part of town.” He and other business owners credit one of New Orleans’ trendiest drinking establishments, Cure, for leading Freret Street’s resurgence. Housed in a century old fire station, Cure has become a destination bar that has landed on many of the country’s top-10 lists for its individually crafted artisan cocktails and breathtakingly romantic atmosphere. Its owner, Neil Bodenheimer, and his business partners envisioned a place that would pay homage to the drinks that made New Orleans’ reputation and create new cocktails tailored to individual tastes. Ensslen, who can tell you the history of every building in the commercial district, thought Bodenheimer was way ahead of himself when they first discussed the ambitious project in 2008. “I said, ‘Freret isn’t mature enough. Come back in five or six years,'” Ensslen recalls. Bodenheimer didn’t listen, and Cure began a comeback for Freret that seems to have picked up even more steam in just the past year. “We are farther along in our evolution than we ever thought we’d be,” Ensslen says. Now, post-Katrina businesses serving everything from pizza to po’boys vie for locations amid places like Freret Hardware and Freret Paint that were already neighborhood fixtures. One place drawing nearly as much buzz as Cure is The Company Burger, which opened in August 2011, and has already drawn high profile visitors including food television host and writer Anthony Bourdain. Its menu is deceptively simple: burgers, from beef to turkey and lamb, fries, and a few desserts including brownies made from owner Adam Biderman’s mother’s recipe. But the food is restaurant quality, turned out by highly skilled chefs pulled from other New Orleans establishments. Biderman, who grew up in New Orleans, decided in 2010 that he wanted to sell burgers and wanted to do so on Freret. “The burger thing was here, and I knew I had to get open,” he said. He found his spot: a 6,400-square-foot day care center in a strip mall with 40 parking spaces, and a week later signed a deal. His parents were taken aback, not least because the street’s reputation. “I wasn’t allowed to come to Freret Street,” he recalls. And, despite Cure’s presence, his parents and business partners asked, “Are you sure about Freret Street?” Biderman was. In his original business plan, he estimated the burger joint would attract 200 customers a day. “Now we do 200 a day at lunch on a weekday,” he says. He sold out on his first three days in business, and there are often customers waiting to get in each day when The Company Burger opens. But despite drawing chefs and locals, Biderman says The Company Burger and Freret, in general, are still not a destination for many visitors. Without a car, Freret isn’t all that easy to reach. The business district is several blocks from the St. Charles Avenue streetcar, with infrequent bus service. You may wait a few minutes or more for your taxi to arrive, although everyone says cab drivers are getting savvy to the activity. Despite burgers and the hot dogs served at Dat Dog, some local business owners think the street is in danger of becoming overpriced, especially for the contractors who swing by the paint and hardware stores early in the day for supplies. There isn’t much retail, although there have been rumors a Trader Joe’s might open up nearby. Biderman, though, sees “nothing but potential” for Freret, which he thinks is becoming its own brand. Even if tourists don’t find their way to the street, the New New Orleans will thrive regardless. “People are aggressively taking back their own neighborhoods,” he says. “There’s a young, exciting energy among people who have decided to make their lives here.” For more on the New New Orleans, click here. [Photo credits: Micheline Maynard]

I don’t watch films by this Jewish producer Weitz, even though I do go to many movies that are produced by Jewish producers. I mean who can avoid that? It’s hard to avoid it but you can pick and choose. The man that brought the world American Pie with some boys screwing into an apple pie (an American symbol) and a film I did not watch nor did I watch any of his vampire movies. Jews push evil no doubt and when it strikes one of their own, they get miffed, discombobulated, no clue as to why a Jew Aron Levi would kill. Now Chris Weitz, who said he gots lots of hate mail and online comments. And I have found lots of those same comments whenever I read anything about how illegals are sucking this country dry. Anyway, has done a new film as he was on Morning Jew today and talked about his film. You know it is totally pro Mexican, pro illegal immigration. We already knew that they were outbirth rating everybody else for want of a nicer word, but we don’t need it in our faces. I would boycott this film, yes, I would. And as some of you may be aware Mexicans and illegals have been especially hateful of blacks in So Central LA where they have terrorized, murdered and run off thousands of black folks who were there long before the illegals, and son of illegals, anchors and sons of anchors got there. Here is a pro film review below so you can see those who are illegals and love what’s happening to our country want to see more films about their kind. here’s a pro movie review: source: http://immigrationmexicanamerican.blogspot.com/2011/07/movie-review-better-life-is-must-see.html …the setting for Chris Weitz’s “A Better Life,” about a single father who exists under the radar and dreams the American dream. Very few American movies have dealt with the experience of illegals – “El Norte” (the best of them), “The Border,” and “The Visitor” are probably the best known. ..Carlos (Demián Bichir), who works as a gardener’s helper, lives with his 14-year-old son Luis (José Julián) in a rundown apartment in East L.A. He sleeps on the couch so that Luis can have a comfortable bed and be fresh for school, even though Luis, a good student when he wants to be, often skips classes to hang out with his other truant friends. When Blasco (the wonderful Joaquín Cosio), who owns the lawn business, decides to go back to Mexico, he offers to sell Carlos his truck and equipment. Since Carlos has no driver’s license – and because a routine traffic violation could result in deportation for him – he is reluctant at first. Eventually he takes up his sister’s generous offer of a loan and buys the truck. A new world opens up to him, until, on his first day – when his new truck is stolen. As Carlos and Luis comb the barrio and South Central L.A. in search of the stolen truck, they slowly bond. Or rather, Luis bonds with his father. Carlos’s love for his son is never in doubt. His prime motivation for buying the truck and risking everything was simple: He wants to move his son into a better neighborhood and away from the gangs the boy has so far tenuously resisted. - Are there Jewish Mexicans (wiki.answers.com) - Brooklyn, New York: Gruesome Murder Of Eight-Year-Old Boy Shocks Community (lostchildreninthewilderness.wordpress.com)

"I COLLECTED with my bare hands the body parts of my two little sons. What mother must do that? One shell of the aggressors blew them apart. Within a second, my life was destroyed forever." The woman spoke quietly. Her third son, a boy of about eight, stood at her side and, from time to time, wiped the tears from her cheek. The well turned out woman, her hair collected in a pink kerchief, well dressed, was self-controlled but full of restrained hatred for the "aggressors" – the Serbs – who had caused her tragedy. A big wreath and the photos of the boys at the entrance of the home silently commemorated the 15th anniversary of the disaster – the first day of the siege of Sarajevo. From the moment we – Rachel and I – arrived at the airport, Sarajevo threw us into a cauldron of emotions, which we could not escape for a moment. In Sarajevo, one simply cannot be indifferent. "For the stone shall cry out of the wall," as the prophet Habakkuk (2, 11) said. Walls pockmarked by bullets, ruins that once were homes, people carrying with them blood-curdling stories as if they had happened but yesterday. A city that warms your heart and breaks your heart. For a total of four years, Sarajevo was under siege. It is hard to believe – and it happened only ten years ago. The capital city of a European state, surrounded on all sides, stricken, starved, shelled, tortured – with Europe looking on. The capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina is a beautiful town – and its very beauty became its disaster. The description of Jerusalem in Psalm 125: "The mountains are round about Jerusalem" also fits Sarajevo. It lies in a valley, surrounded by high hills on all sides. Green, wooded hills, in many places dotted with red roofs. There is almost no spot in the city where one does not see the beautiful hills. But since all the hilltops were occupied by the Serbian army that beleaguered the city, there was practically no spot in the city that was not exposed to snipers. Not for a day, a week, a month. For four long years. Sarajevo is a town of graves – dozens of graveyards are dispersed across it, small, large and very large. Thousands of white tombstones blind the eyes, mostly of uniform dimensions and with simple inscriptions, fresh wreaths at their feet. Twelve thousand of the town’s inhabitants were killed during the siege, 1500 of them children under 14. The entire city is still suffering from this trauma. And in spite of that – a vibrant city. Traffic jams, old, clattering cars, roads and sidewalks scarred. The city tries to recover: many of the square houses, which look as if they had been painted by children, have been redecorated in brown, green and mustard colors, and between them are fruit trees and small garden plots with huge rosebushes. In the center of the town – a Turkish palace, built, of all people, by the Austrians when they were ruling Bosnia. It housed the state library, one of the most important in the world. It was completed destroyed by fire during the siege. Behind the imposing front, everything is burned out. A FORMER commander, with grey hair and a sunburned, plowed face, showed us the battle sites and recounted the annals of the siege. I felt as if I had been there myself. Every word reminded me of my own experiences in the war of 1948. The improvised army; the feeling that "there is no alternative"; the fear that if we lose the battle, we and our families would be massacred; the shortage of weapons; the sense of "few against many"; the breakthrough to a beleaguered city (Jewish Jerusalem); the blurring of the dividing line between soldiers and civilians. At the time, I followed the Bosnian war with the feeling that it very much resembled our own war. It was an ethnic war, a war marked by what since then is known as "ethnic cleansing". I was invited to Sarajevo to speak about precisely this subject, in an international conference of the "New Agora", which is based in Poland and whose aim is to gather intellectuals from different countries to discuss the future of the world. (In ancient Greece, the Agora was the market square where the population could assemble to discuss public matters.) An "ethnic war", in my understanding, is different from any other war. A "normal" war takes place between states, mostly for a piece of land on the border between them. Thus, Germany and France fought for centuries over Alsace. But ethnic wars are fought by two peoples over a country that both consider their homeland. In such a war, each side strives not only to conquer as much territory as possible, but also – and mainly – to drive the other people out. That’s why it is always especially cruel. The 1948 Palestine war was an ethnic war between Arabs and Jews. Each side believed that the entire country belonged to it. Half of the Palestinian people were driven from their home and land, some by the fighting itself, some by a deliberate Israeli policy. For the sake of historical justice, it must be mentioned that in the areas conquered by the Arab side (true, they were small) no Jews remained either. But we conquered 78% of the country, and from these areas 750 thousand Arabs were removed, while less than 100 thousand remained. Hundreds of villages were razed after the war, and on their sites new Jewish villages were built. Entire Arab neighborhoods in the towns were emptied, and new Jewish immigrants replaced the former inhabitants. Conquest and expulsion went together. In short: ethnic cleansing. The Bosnian war was similar – except that instead of two sides, as in our war, there were three: Bosniaks (Muslim), Serbs (Orthodox Christian) and Croats (Catholic Christian). Each of the three sides fought against the other two. Terrible massacres became almost routine. As a sad Bosniak told us: "Every day a farmer plowing his field discovers a new mass grave." As in Palestine before the 1948 war, the different populations lived in Bosnia interspersed with each other. The towns were mixed (like Jerusalem and Haifa), the villages lived beside each other – villages with soaring minarets, villages with Catholic church towers, villages with the domes of Orthodox churches. Therefore, people used to think, before it happened, "it can’t happen in Sarajevo." Serbs and Croats were already butchering each other in the other states of the disintegrating Yugoslavia, but in Bosnia? After all, there everybody had married everybody. There is hardly a person in Bosnia in whose veins there does not flow all three kinds of blood together. In the towns, they lived door to door. In Sarajevo there was – and still is – a large majority of Muslims, side by side with minorities of Croats, Serbs and Jews, in that order. The general who explained the battles to us, Jovan Divjak, the former deputy commander of the Bosnian army, is a Serb. He left the Yugoslav (Serbian) army in order to defend Sarajevo. The photographer who took my picture for a local magazine found it hard to explain his family tree. One grandfather, a Muslim, had married a Croat woman. The other one was himself half Serb, half Montenegrin, while his wife was Muslim. "We must all live together," he said repeatedly, "After all, there is no real difference between us!" And indeed – that is one big difference between our war and the Bosnian one. There, all three sides, who butchered each other with such relish, speak the same language. All three are the descendants of the same Slavic tribes that conquered this country in the 7th century. In the street, one cannot distinguish between a Muslim, a Croat and a Serb. Sarajevo was – and remains, in spite of everything – a model of tolerance. On one square in the center of the town there stand, next to each other, a mosque, a Catholic church, an Orthodox church and a synagogue. It is hard to believe that 10 years ago there was a terrible war raging in this country. "I can’t sleep at night," the Muslim cook at a restaurant told us. "Every night the sights come back to haunt me. I want to forget, and cannot." When he was 18 years old, a tall, muscular youngster, he was drafted into the then Yugoslav army, which was dominated by the Serbs. When the war between Serbs and Croats broke out, he was enroled in a special unit and sent to Vucovar, where the Serbs carried out a terrible massacre of the Croats. "We mowed them down row after row, dozens, hundreds, men, women and children. Me too. I had no alternative. If you refused, the commander shot you in the neck. In the end I stole a truck with weapons, and deserted. I was caught and spent half a year in prison. It was hard, very hard. I escaped and reached the Croats. They put me into one of their special units, until I managed to desert and came home to Sarajevo. Now I live with my father and mother and want some day to open an inn, to have a family, and to hell with everyone." After a moment he added: "It’s the politicians who are to blame for everything. If I were God, I would kill them all!" AT THE entrance of a shop in a pedestrian street in Sarajevo I saw a T-shirt with the English inscription: "I am a Muslim – don’t panic!" For an Israeli, it is difficult to accept that almost all the people in the street are Muslim. They do not resemble the Muslims we know at home. They are white, Europeans. Almost all the children are blond. On the thousands of graves, over the name of the deceased and the dates of birth and death, one Arabic word is inscribed (Fatiha, the prayer for the dead), but except for the Grand Mufti, who sat next to me at a panel discussion, I did not meet anyone who knew Arabic. I also did not see anyone smoking a water-pipe, not even near one of the dozens of mosques in the city. The Grand Mufti had heard only vaguely of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who had visited the city in World War II. "Ah, that Husseini ," he remarked dismissively. But Yasser Arafat is remembered. He met with the adored leader of the Bosnian Muslims, Aliya Izetbegovich, during the peace negotiations and advised him: "Take what you can get!" A few women cover their hair with colorful silk kerchiefs. It is rather odd to see such young women, with colorful headcovers and elegant floor-sweeping skirts, sitting in the coffee-shops with female friends and smoking cigarettes. They also walk around in mixed groups with girls who do not cover their hair and wear tight jeans and T-shirts. There seems to be no problem. Many shops in the market sell local art – artillery shell cases used as vases or salt/pepper mills, bullet cases used for pens. Everywhere pictures of Tito are on sale. Many people recall him with nostalgia. As long as he was alive, he kept the peace between the peoples of Yugoslavia. But the most interesting place in town is the tunnel. It explains how the city could hold out during the four years of the terrible siege, without starving to death or dying for lack of medicines, or surrendering for lack of ammunition. Much as we succeeded in 1948 in breaking the siege of Jewish Jerusalem by moving the boulders and creating a primitive "Burma road", the Bosniaks dug a tunnel under the Serb position to reach the free Bosniak area beyond. For five Bosnian Marka (two and a half Euros) one can get in: it’s 1.60 meters high, a meter wide. Through this underground passage, food, medicines and arms were brought into the city, by half crawling, and the wounded were moved out. Now it is a museum, the pride of the town. Perhaps, some day, the tunnels of Rafah in the Gaza Strip will serve the same purpose. THE NATIONAL symbol of Bosnia is the bridge of Mostar, two hours drive by bus from the capital. The Turks, who reigned in Bosnia for 400 years and are fondly remembered, built there a unique, high stone arch bridge over the river. It remained unharmed through all wars, until the last war. When the Croats besieged Mostar, they destroyed it willfully with artillery. After the war, the bridge was rebuilt with European money, an exact replica of the ancient one. But the barbaric deed is still burning in the heart of every Bosniak. "Don’t forget 1993!" demands an inscription on a stone tablet. When we visited the place, in the heart of the fascinating old town, soldiers of the international peace-keeping force were strolling around. I looked at their shoulder tags, and could not help laughing. They were Austrian soldiers. On June 28, 1914, a Serb nationalist called Gavrilo Princip murdered the Austrian heir to the throne on the main street of Sarajevo, in protest against the Austrian occupation of the country. That led directly to World War I. Now, 92 years later, the Austrian soldiers have returned to Bosnia, and the inhabitants are glad to see them there. True, many people in Bosnia believe that another war is impossible: "It can’t happen again. We have learned our lesson!" But a young woman of 20, who is still carrying within her the trauma of the siege, told us: "Have no doubt – if the international soldiers leave, everything will start again!" It is possible that the ethnic war in Bosnia, like the ethnic war in our country, is not yet over.

Reasons Why You Should Get Psychic Readings Now Even before, people in the Ancient times have sought advice from wise elders such as shamans, priests, and priestess. Since then, consulting psychic advisers for psychic readings has been an integral part of today’s culture. Some legislators, businessmen and politicians continually ask for guidance and counsel to astrologers and other psychic readers on how they can get through forthcoming obstacles and how they can fulfill some astonishing and challenging duties and tasks that they will be facing. However, there are some who don’t believe in psychic reading and consider the process as a joke and a form of entertainment. Little they do know that psychic reading has proven benefits – not only in the spiritual sense but also in a person’s emotional status. Before we discuss the reasons why you should get a psychic reading, let us first describe and define what psychic reading is. Psychic Reading, Anyone? Believe it or not, a lot of today’s religious and philosophical ideologies are footed on rites and ceremonies that are used to predict and foresee the future. Culturally speaking, Jewish Kabbalah, Astrology and Gnosticism, among others, have their own versions of psychic reading and practice. Even the Bible has stories of prophecies and dream interpretations that predict the future. But what is Psychic reading? Psychic reading lets you answer queries regarding all aspects of life – may it be about love, career, friendship or your future. Psychics or people who perform psychic readings have this unique gift of knowing things that concern you and your future through messages and visions that came from the spirit world. Benefits of Psychic Reading - Closes the doors of uncertainties in life. There will always be times when we face hardships and obstacles that let us feel like it is the end of the world. Be that as it may, these trials in life should not be regarded as a sign that there will be no progress. Instead, what we need to do is move past these problems and continue with our life. When a person consults a psychic reader, he/she may become enthused, inspired and encouraged about his/her future. If the psychic foresees future terrible events, you can be in command of the present. You can steer your ship away from these possible hardships so that you can secure and safeguard your future. - Changes your spiritual understanding. Psychic reading can affect a person down to its spiritual level depending on the questions he/she consult with a psychic reader. The answers can greatly affect how a person thinks and behaves presently and in the future. There are people who try to find answers in life and the purpose of their existence. Resolving these queries will result to a more spiritually predisposed person who is at peace with himself and with nature. - Helps you move on and make sense of things. Death is a very terrible and heartbreaking thing, especially if you lost someone you love. This tragic circumstance leaves probably a lot of questions unanswered. Psychic reading through a clairvoyant can help you reconnect with your departed loved one so that you can have proper closure and move on. For stuff in life that confuse you, a psychic reading will let you view things in a different perspective and will make you realize and understand the reasons for all these confusions and discombobulation’s. This, in turn, will aid you in making better life decisions. In the end, a person can have the most of these benefits if he/she has an open and accepting mind.

Your complimentary articles You’ve read one of your four complimentary articles for this month. You can read four articles free per month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please Is God Irish? Roger McCann maps the limits of theology. “Logic, like whiskey, loses its beneficial effect when taken in too large quantities.” Lord Dunsany (Edward Plunkett) Philosophers, clerics, atheists, and assorted others have attempted to prove the existence or non-existence of God for thousands of years. This articles considers the use of logic for this purpose, centering on two questions ‘Can ‘God’ be defined in a logically coherent way?’ and ‘Is it possible to decide logically whether God exists?’ I do not attempt to answer these questions; rather, I will describe some logical difficulties inherent in attempting to answer them. Unfortunately, many arguments concerning the existence of God are made with the intent of justifying an already-held opinion. I hope the reader will assess my thoughts without the certainty of a closed mind, and in doing so become (or remain) an exception to Mark Twain’s sarcasm: “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” (Autobiography of Mark Twain). The Roots of Reason The application of logic to God has roots in rationalism, a philosophy that sees reason (here a synonym for logic) as a superior source of knowledge to experience. Rationalism was embedded in Western philosophy through the works of Plato (424-348 B.C.E.), René Descartes (1596-1650), Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), among others. Some proponents of rationalism, such as Spinoza and Leibniz, argued that one can deduce all possible knowledge from a suitable set of axioms, analogous to the axioms of geometry. Others, such as Descartes and Kant, argued that both reason and experience are necessary for knowledge. One prominent rationalist argument for the existence of God, the ontological argument, was first proposed around 1078, and modified by the Italian Benedictine monk, Anselm of Bec (1033-1109). Later the argument was ‘borrowed’ by Descartes. (For more info, see The Proof of God: The Debate That Shaped Modern Belief, Larry Witham, 2008.) While Anselm’s argument has been accepted by some philosophers, it has been rejected by others, including William of Ockham (1287-1347), of ‘Ockham’s razor’ fame, and Kant and Schopenhauer (1788-1860). One common criticism from its detractors was that reason is not applicable to questions about God, or, as we might now say, questions of God’s existence are logically undecidable. In spite of the wide applicability of reason to everyday problems, rationalism is not the only approach to knowledge, especially in Eastern religions. For example, in Zen Buddhism, the primary purpose of meditating on a koan (a paradoxical question, such as ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’) is to exhaust the rational intellect, thereby leaving the mind open to more intuitive responses. Similarly, for some the question ‘Is God Irish?’ is so absurd that, like a Zen koan, it cannot be answered with rational thinking. Others have no difficulty in answering ‘Is God Irish?’: for those who are overly proud of their Irish heritage, the answer is a definite ‘Yes’ because ‘God is Irish’ is a tautology; for others, the answer is a definite ‘No’. How can God be Irish when He (or She or It) is obviously Jewish, Italian, American, or whatever is the heritage of the responder? The answer is also ‘No’ for those who believe there is no God. For agnostics, who believe it is impossible to know whether there is a God, the question is nonsense. Still others may find the question blasphemous. Whatever your response to this question, I challenge you to prove it logically. No matter how good your proof, there are two major reasons many will not accept its validity: there is ambiguity in the meaning of ‘proof’, and there is no agreed-upon definition of God. For one example of the former problem, some view the rising of the sun as proof that God exists, while others do not. In this article, ‘proof’ will refer to a valid logical (or rationalist) argument, such as those found in mathematical proofs. Who Is This God Person Anyway? Arguments both for and against the existence of God have a common inherent defect: there is an implicit assumption of an agreed-upon definition of God, although personal experience indicates that this is far from the case. Defining God is a secular endeavor. Religions tend not to bother with such formalities. Defining God replaces mystery and holiness with limitations and restrictions. This has been recognized in many civilizations since antiquity. Amun, ‘the hidden one’, became one of the primary gods of ancient Egypt, and the mysterious nature of God in Judaism is evidenced by the Jewish prohibition on pronouncing God’s name, and by God’s enigmatic response to Moses about who He is: “I Am that I Am” (Exodus 3:14). Islamic tradition has 99 names of Allah, each describing an attribute of Allah. One of these names is ‘The Hidden’ (Al-Batin). The hidden aspect of God in these traditions acknowledges the impossibility of defining God. Not defining God is a widespread tradition that maintains mystery and holiness with the possibly unintended auxiliary benefit of avoiding logical inconsistencies and paradoxes. (The recognition that certain basic religious concepts are indefinable is not restricted to Western religions. For example, the Dao De Ching explicitly states that the Dao (Tao) is both indefinable and unknowable.) Where there are definitions of God, these often use words attributing qualities that are without limits or are all-encompassing . For example, one definition of God is “A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.” (education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/god) For many people ‘perfect’, ‘omnipotent’, ‘omniscient’, or similar all-inclusive words are part of their concept of God; but this is a source of problems when tackling God logically. Consider Bertrand Russell’s often-heard paradoxical question, ‘Can God make a rock so large that He cannot lift it?’ An answer of either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ contradicts the idea of God’s omnipotence. This paradox does not relate to the existence of God per se, but only to this particular definition of God. However, I suspect the inclusion of any absolute term, such as omnipotent or omniscient, in the definition of God, inevitably leads to similar paradoxes. If this is true, it is likely that this does not allow a logically-consistent (ie meaningful) definition of God in these terms. It would certainly place this God beyond logical consideration, as Kant and others claimed. In any system of thought there are concepts, sometimes called ‘primitive notions’, which, like axioms, are formulated perhaps by appealing to intuition or to direct experience. If ‘God’ is a primitive notion, then the concept of God exists by assumption rather than by logical deduction. (The distinction between the concept of God and God per se is important. Accepting the concept of God does not imply the existence of God anymore than acknowledging the concept of Tolkien’s Ents implies the existence of anthropomorphic trees. Unfortunately the distinction is sometimes blurred, as in Anselm’s ontological argument, which in essence says, ‘Since I can conceive of a perfect God, a perfect God exists.’) For the sake of argument let’s suppose that ‘God’ is a primitive notion. Such an entity is often partially described (but not fully defined) by listing some of its attributes, such as Islam’s 99 names of Allah. Religion is not alone in (partially) defining concepts by listing attributes. Ether and black holes are two such examples in science. The ether is a concept used in nineteenth-century physics that is defined by the attribute of being a medium that allows the propagation of light in space. A black hole is a region of space with the property that nothing, not even light, can escape from it. The non-existence of ether and the existence of black holes are now generally accepted, due to observations and arguments based on the Theory of Relativity. In fact, though there are at least four types of regions with the property that nothing can escape from it. This shows that a list of attributes might allow us to conclude that something does not exist, if there is nothing that has those attributes, but it cannot allow us to conclude that something exists: the best we can conclude is that something satisfies the listed attributes. The thing itself might have to be defined in more detail. Moreover, there may be more than one entity with the same attributes. Having more than one entity satisfy a list of attributes of God would be anathema for many people. This raises the question as to whether there is a list of attributes that implies a unique God, without using a tautology. Logic & Limitations However, the inability to define something precisely does not necessarily preclude deciding whether it exists, or even whether it is likely to exist. Consequently, it is reasonable to consider the statement ‘God exists’. This seems to be a straightforward proposition. Isn’t a simple statement, such as ‘God exists’, either true or false? Possibly most people think this is the case. Unfortunately, things are not so simple. In 1931 the Austrian logician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) proved his Incompleteness Theorem, which says that within any rationally-definable logical system, statements exist that are neither provable nor disprovable using the axioms of that system. The Incompleteness Theorem had immediate and profound implications in mathematics, logic, and philosophy. In particular, the Theorem had fatal implications for the school of rationalism that argued that all possible knowledge could be deduced from a basic set of self-evident principles. Could ‘God exists.’ be one of Gödel’s logically-unprovable statements? The logical undecidability of ‘God exists’ would be compatible with the philosophies that claim God is beyond rational thought. (Gödel’s logical undecidability does not impinge on whether God exits per se, only on whether God’s existence can be determined using logic.) For many there is a compelling reason to want ‘God exists’ to be logically undecidable. Faith is fundamental in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. If the existence of God could be logically proved (or disproved), faith would be meaningless. For the sake of argument, let’s suppose ‘God exists’ is unprovable in a given logical system. Then ‘God exists’ or ‘God does not exist’ could be added to that system as an axiom without affecting any existing conclusions. So if evolution is a logical conclusion in a system in which ‘God exists’ is logically unprovable, then evolution is still a logical conclusion if we add ‘God exists’ as an axiom. There are widely diverse axioms in commonly encountered systems of thought. Science and agnosticism do not include either ‘God exists’ or ‘God does not exist’ as axioms in their logic systems. Abrahamic religions include ‘God exists’ in their systems; atheists include ‘God does not exist’. It is essential to recognize that these differences arise from different axioms and that it is pointless to debate them on any other level. It is possible that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Native Americans, Taoists, Sikhs, Jains, atheists, polytheists, agnostics, and others, all have logically-consistent views of reality based on their concepts of God. In order to determine logically which, if any, of these systems yields reality, we would need a logical system that incorporates all other logical systems so that we could judge the systems against each other. But this is precisely the type of comprehensiveness that leads to the sort of paradox Russell encountered with the definition of God. Consequently, there may be many logical systems containing different axioms related to God, none of which can be shown logically to be ‘more valid’ than the others. It appears that trying to deal logically with God leads either to a concept that is so absolutist it can be paradoxical or to a statement that is undecidable by logic. This leads to yet another apparent paradox. Assuming God exists, God created humans with logical abilities, but apparently devised logic so that humans could not apply logic to God. One interpretation of this is that God mocks humans by placing Itself beyond their logical abilities, thereby making ‘satirical’ one of God’s attributes. According to the Hebrew Bible, God created humans in God’s own image (Genesis 1:27). This causes me to wonder what group of humans is most satirical, and therefore most like God. The Irish spring to mind, for they have a long satirical tradition that lies at the core of much of their literature, naturally leading us to answer ‘Yes’ to the titular question, ‘Is God Irish?’ Of course, the logic leading to this conclusion is meant to be facetious. Nonetheless, it is as sound as other logic used to assess the existence of God. But it should be noted that the argument cheats – as do many God-related arguments – by referring to a portion of a religious scripture as though it were a logical axiom or logically-justified conclusion, which it is not, of course. In summary, it is likely that attempting to establish the existence or non-existence of God rationally/logically is a fruitless endeavor, and that either viewpoint is ultimately a matter of faith, of what you decide to believe. This is in accord with the philosophies of Kant and others. Originally my thoughts on the logical proofs of the existence of God ended here. Then I realized I could use Gödel’s ‘logical undecidability’ to argue that God, which I take to be a primitive concept with an unknowable aspect, is likely to exist. Admittedly my reasoning is highly personal and will be unconvincing to many. Nonetheless, it may give a reason to think to some, and amusement to others: 1.) For over a thousand years attempts have been made to establish the existence or non-existence of God logically. None have been successful. I conclude that ‘God exists’ is more likely to be logically undecidable than logically decidable. 2.) If God does not exist, I know of no reason why ‘God exists’ is more likely to be logically undecidable than logically decidable. 3.) However, if God does exist, then the ‘unknowable’ aspect of God would make ‘God exists’ more likely to be logically undecidable than logically decidable. 4.) So because ‘God exists’ is likely to be logically undecidable, I conclude that God is more likely to exist than to not exist. Unfortunately this argument also applies equally well to any other primitive concept with an unknowable aspect – so if two of these primitive concepts are differing concepts of God, we must conclude that more than one God is likely to exist! This is especially troubling if both concepts include the idea of there being only one God. So what started as an argument for the likely existence of God has led to heresy for the Abrahamic religions, or perhaps a paradox. Once again logic has failed to yield a tenable conclusion about God – which is precisely what Kant and others argued would always happen. The British physiologist J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) made what may be the most perceptive general observation ever made about the Universe: “Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” (Possible Worlds and Other Papers, p.286, 1927.) I have a similar suspicion about the existence of God: The existence of God is not only more unknowable than we suppose, but more unknowable than we can suppose. © Roger McCann 2012 Roger McCann was a professor of mathematics for seventeen years, then spent fifteen years at the research lab of the ExxonMobil Corporation. He currently consults on the statistical assessment of pipeline corrosion.

Women’s Philanthropy: Present Where Presence is Needed Ilene Kossman began her term as Greater Miami Jewish Federation Women’s Philanthropy (WP) President with high hopes and excitement. She is deeply connected to the community and anchored by 25 years of Federation involvement. Kossman is familiar with Federation’s impact on a personal level. Her late grandmother received Federation help in New York many years ago when she was left as a young widow raising two young children. “Celia was a Jew that needed the presence of other Jews to help her,” she said. “It was the Federation system that was there for her during some very tough times.” As a result, Kossman truly understands women's role in strengthening Jewish identity. Women’s Philanthropy gives women, at any stage of life, an opportunity to be part of a network of likeminded individuals supporting Jewish life for today and for generations to come. This year’s theme of Women’s Philanthropy— to be present whenever our presence is needed — inspired from Eli Weisel’s quote, reflects the breadth and depth of the division’s reach. Programs planned will highlight the community’s diverse interests. “There will truly be something for everyone,” Kossman said. In addition to the annual signature Women’s Event brunch, there are numerous events and programs being planned including service projects, a learning series that explores Jewish women leaders and issues that matter today, Culture and Conversations programs, exclusive events for Lion-level donors, travel to Israel on Heart to Heart, a National mission, social action initiatives, educational programs, networking and much more. With an eye toward being inclusive and welcoming, programs will be available throughout the community and at different times of the day, so that women can fit their involvement into their other commitments. “Our goal is to attract a full community of women,” Kossman said. “We really are one mishpacha (family) caring for each other.” Today, whenever Kossman travels, she visits Federation programs so she can witness the impact of Federation dollars at work firsthand. “Our umbrella touches so many Jewish lives,” she adds. “Women’s Philanthropy supports that mission and helps Jewish life flourish.” Kossman, along with Women's Philanthropy Campaign Chair Tammy Woldenberg and all the members of the Women’s Philanthropy Board are looking forward to an engaging and successful year. You, too, can be involved. For more information, please contact Ofi Osin-Cohen, Director of Women’s Philanthropy, at Oosinemail@example.com or 786.866.8440.

Tuesday, October 31 You should really read the article in its entirety, but one quote in particular stoked my anger. “I have been the head of this organization for 12 years, and we have the fifth-best record in the NBA,” Walker said. I’ve heard this argument a couple of times now, but it’s the first time Walker has taken it as his own. I think it deserves a little examination. Let’s set some ground rules first. In my mind, taking credit for the accomplishments of others is bad form, and until the players you’ve acquired as a GM contribute at least 50% of the points to the team’s total, then it isn’t your team, it’s your predecessor(s)’. So, with that in mind, let’s examine Walker’s real accomplishments (and, if you think I'm being overly critical, think of it this way: If the Sonics win the championship this year, don't you think Wally would want/deserve some credit for what happens?). Walker was hired to be the Sonics GM on July 22, 1994, replacing Bob Whitsitt, making his first season as GM 1994-95. But does he really deserve any credit for Seattle’s 57-25 record that year? Considering the only move Walker made was to sign Bill Cartwright to a 3-year deal, I’d say no. When the people you acquire contribute 2.4 ppg TOTAL to the team’s effort, I’d say that a 3-year-old could have done your job for that season. So let’s eliminate the 57-25 from Wally’s career accomplishments. Moving on to 1995-96 and Walker’s first major move, acquiring Hersey Hawkins and David Wingate for Kendall Gill. The Sonics made it to the Finals, but Wingate, Hawkins, Sherrell Ford (!), and Eric Snow (!) – Wally’s Guys (WG) – gave the Sonics all of 25 ppg, so, again, a no go. 1996-97: It’s still Whitsitt’s team, as Walker adds Terry Cummings, Jim McIlvaine, ... well, just a boatload of crap, really. Still well below the 50% threshold. 1997-98: Ahh, now we’re talking. Vin Baker, Dale Ellis, Jerome Kersey, Greg Anthony, Aaron Williams – all WGs. The magic 50% mark has now been surpassed. From here on in, the Sonics are Wally’s Team. Let’s start the W-L count from here, then. Now, let’s add the totals to see what we get ...... adding music .... 384 wins. Okay, what does 384 wins mean? Well, let’s take a look at the Western Conference, because I’m too lazy to add up the entire league. How do the Sonics fare in relation to the other teams in their conference in this time period? There are 14 teams in the West. Guess how many won at least 384 games? 2? 3? 5? Try seven. That’s right, during his tenure as general manager, when the players on the roster were players that he personally recruited, Wally Walker ranked in the absolute middle of the Western Conference pack. No better, no worse. Sorry, Wally, you and your friends can parrot this “5th best record in the NBA during my tenure” crap all you want, but the sad truth is that when left to your own devices, you’re only capable of creating a middling team that makes the playoffs once every 3 or 4 seasons. You can dress it up all you want, but the truth is Walker was an average GM that will be lucky to ever get another job in the league, unless he manages to glom his way onto another millionaire. Monday, October 30 Time for our Annual Top 5 Sonics Halloween Outfits, so ditch the witch, nix the Nixon mask, and get with the green and gold program, baby! Remember, all costumes are available at the supersonicsoul.com shop – our operator is standing by awaiting your order. We kindly request that you don’t ask any questions that deviate from the script, as Rupinder only knows costume-related English and we can’t afford to hire someone in North America. Um, thanks. 5. THE CLAYTON BENNETT – Comes with Voice-Altering Technology (VAT), allowing you to talk with the drawl befitting your costume, which includes cowboy boots, polyester suit, hairpiece, and mysterious boyfriend. Six shooters and miniature moving vans optional. 4. THE ROBERT SWIFT – Do you like tats? Do you imagine yourself as a 7’ white man with more ink than Jerry Falwell’s Bible? Seriously? Why would you imagine that? Don’t you have a life? Anyway, costume comes with fake tattoos and leg stretchers. Whatever. 3. THE WALLY WALKER – Previously known as the Invisible Man, the Walker is on sale this year for half-price as all outfits must go. BONUS!!! Costumes come with bag ‘o cash in the side pocket – think of it as a parting gift! 2. THE DANNY FORTSON – Last year’s top seller has been marked down and isn’t expected back next year, so if you’re looking for an affordable costume, you can’t go wrong here! Hair extensions, stomach pouch, and “rump filler” all included at no extra charge. 1. THE CHRIS WILCOX – The Sonics big ticket purchase is your big ticket purchase this Halloween! Hair extensions are part of the package as you slip into this pleasing ensemble. NOTE: supersonicsoul.com is not responsible for a mysterious lack of energy and inability to grab candy after purchase. No refunds and costume must be worn for next three Halloweens. First, the New York Times has an in-depth look at Yotam Halperin (thanks to True Hoop for the heads-up). Then, Basketball Jones tells us that the Sonics second-round pick will be the new NBA Live cover boy ... in Israel. And here I thought Yo-Yo was just another wasted draft pick that would never play a minute in the NBA. My bad. Friday, October 27 On Tuesday, the sale of the team to Oklahoma mogul Clay Bennett became official, clearing the way for a potential move to Okie-ville. The next day, starting center Robert Swift went down with a season-ending knee injury. This morning, it was annonced that team president Wally Walker was stepping down. Well, I guess it wasn't all bad news. A lot of Sonics fans have given Wally Walker the shaft over the years, blaming him for the decline of the team. To be fair, I thought we'd take a look at what Wal-Walk has accomplished during his tenure as Player, GM and CEO of the Seattle Supersonics: 1979 - Waves towel on bench as the Seattle Supersonics win the NBA Championship. Hooray! 1982 - The Sonics trade Walker to the Houston Rockets for a second round pick. Hooray! 1994 - Walker rejoins the Sonics, replacing "Trader" Bob Whitsitt as General Manager despite having zero front office experience. 1996 - The Sonics make the NBA Finals! Walker cracks open the champagne as Bob Whitsitt, who hired the coach, drafted Kemp and Payton, and traded for Detlef and Sam Perkins, sits alone and cries. 1997 - Walker signs Jim Macllvaine to to a seven-year, $33.6 million contract. The Reign Man is pissed. 1998 - Walker trades Shawn Kemp for Vin Baker, instantly killing both players' careers. Oops. 1998 - Despite leading the team to the playoffs every season (including the '96 Finals) and winning 61 games in '98, Walker refuses to re-sign coach George Karl and instead replaces him with golf buddy Paul Westphal. Westphal would last less than two seasons. 1999-2001 - Team officially sucks. 2001 - Walker convinces Starbucks CEO Howie Shultz to buy the team. Also convinces Shultz to appoint him team President. Walker quickly hires Rick Sund as GM, but still claims to be "responsible for everything". 2004 - Nate McMillan leads a rag-tag team (put together by Rick Sund) back into the playoffs! Hooray! 2005 - Walker, er, Sund refuses to re-sign McMillan and several key players from 2004 Cinderella squad. Team officially sucks again. 2006 - Walker arranges for Clay "Big Boy" Bennett to purchase team, forgetting that Bennett is hell-bent on bringing an NBA team to Oklahoma City. Whoops. Today - Having finally accomplished his dream of completely gutting a proud sports team and selling it down the river, Walker resigns from the SuperSonics. You see? He did accomplish something! Farewll, sweet Wally--may your replacement be as ridicule worthy as you. Read Nussbaum's in-depth look at the Wally Years here. Okay, fine, I hated the guy for ending the glory days of the Sonics, for accepting credit for Bob Whitsitt’s work, and for trading away Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton, and firing George Karl (and, yes, I know Sund traded Gary because Walker was the CEO, and the trade worked out great for the Sonics, but Walker’s fingerprints were definitely there and Gary was, well, Gary). Regardless, here’s a quick and dirty on Walker’s career: 5 BEST MOVES 1. 2001 Draft. I’m not sure if Walker gets credit for this, given the sale of the team in March of ’01, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. The Sonics – in one draft – selected Vladimir Radmanovic, Earl Watson, and Bobby Simmons, a fantastic haul, considering the highest pick (Radman) was the 12th overall. 2. 1998 Draft. Finding Rashard Lewis in the 2nd round is probably the greatest draft move in Sonics’ history. 3. Trading Kendall Gill for Hersey Hawkins and David Wingate. I’m not as big on this move as others, but it was a solid move that enabled the Sonics to get rid of a problem (Gill) and acquire two players who would help them challenge Chicago for the title. 4. Trading Hersey Hawkins for Brent Barry. Hawkins was done as a starter, and Barry contributed to the Sonics for quite a few years. 5. 1997 Draft. Walker found Bobby Jackson with a low first round pick, and while Jackson never got a chance in Seattle, he’s been a strong player in the league. 5 WORST MOVES 1. Jim McIlvaine. 7 years. ‘Nuff said. 2. 1996 Draft. Seattle picks Joseph Blair, Joe Vogel, Ron Riley, and Drew Barry. I know they were all 2nd round picks, but still. 3. Trading Shawn Kemp for Vin Baker. Of course, there was no way Walker could have known that Baker was going to spiral into oblivion, but anytime you trade the most exciting player in team history, you ought to get something better than a guy like Baker, right? Bonus points for creating the scenario that caused Kemp to have to be traded (See McIlvaine, Jim). 4. August 1999. Walker signed Vernon Maxwell and Ruben Patterson to 3-year deals, signed Jelani McCoy to a 2-year deal, signed Greg Foster for 3, and Vin Baker for 7. Wow. 5. Fired George Karl and replaced him with ... Paul Westphal. 6. Just because it’s such a lousy move, signing Calvin Booth. Regardless of Swift's condition, the Sonics played quite well last night, especially the non-Allen and -Lewis part of the team, which has been frustrating to say the least in October. Among the highlights: - Chris Wilcox gets 11 / 6 in 19 minutes, with only 1 turnover. - Johan Petro hits 16 points, best of the exhibition season for him. - Luke Ridnour posts another solid outing. - Nick Collison again looked great, scoring 19 points to go with 12 boards. - The Omen grabbed 7 rebounds and scored 18 points. - The Warriors only hit 2 of 11 3-pointers, the best defensive performance of the exhibition season for Seattle. I'm feeling a little better about the Sonics' chances today than I was a few days ago, which isn't saying much considering I expected them win about 37 games this season. We'll be back with our Predictions for the 2006-07 season in the next few days, so feel free to clip 'n save and throw those picks in our faces this spring. Thursday, October 26 “I would say that Howard, we are indebted to him,” Stern said. “People forget that the success of the Storm is an important aspect of his tenure. The (Sonics) team was one of the most competitive teams in terms of his NBA tenure. And he was very much focused on social responsibility as a platform." Now, put aside the other crapola in the statement, and focus upon this particular claim: "The (Sonics) team was one of the most competitive teams in terms of his NBA tenure. " Unbelievable. It's not enough that Stern, Schultz, Bennett, & Co. are attempting to extort the people of Seattle so they can make even more money, but now Stern is going to stand there and tell us that Schultz fielded "one of the most competetive team" during his tenure? Really? The fact Stern's Sonics went 209-201 during the five years he owned them makes them "competitive?" Compared to what, the Hawks? Or the fact his "competitive" team advanced to the playoffs twice in five years, winning all of one series? That's competitive? What's uncompetitive in Stern's dictionary, suiting up a team of lemurs? I'm sorry, I promised I wouldn't talk about this crap anymore, but when I read something like that from Stern it makes me want to vomit. Repeatedly. With Swift likely to head for the DL, that leaves Farmer, Rush, and Wilks competing for 1 or 2 spots. In other news, Rick Brunson - the former Sonic who got practically no time last year in Seattle - got canned by the Sixers. I'm sad to see it happen in one sense, because Brunson was a Temple grad and a seemingly good guy (gotta love the A-10). On the other hand, maybe this puts him closer to being a head coach, if not at Temple, then perhaps as an assistant. Thus endeth your waiver update. It's likely Johan Petro will start, with Fortson, Collison, Sene, etc. filling in as well. I suppose we could get all depressed about this, but, seriously, Robert Swift wasn't going to be the reason the Sonics made it back to the playoffs this year, and his injury is not going to be the reason why they don't. At this point in time, the Sonics' best lineup doesn't include Swift, Petro or Sene at center - it's with the undersized Collison. If Swift's injury means more minutes for Collison, well, that's not exactly a tragedy, now is it? Tonight's game should be an interesting one, in that the Warriors are expected to contend for a playoff spot. Plus, there's the opportunity to watch basketball in the hotbed of hoops - Spokane! Wednesday, October 25 Let’s take a gander, then, at what we can expect out of Chris Wilcox this season, beginning with how he played for Seattle in the spring this year, the greatest contract drive since Calvin Booth’s 2000-01 playoff performance (wince). After scoring in double-figures five times in the first four months of the season, Wilcox scored 10+ 20 times in the final 2 ¼ months – a prodigious rate for a previously frustrating player. What, beyond the simple reason of more minutes, caused this to happen? In what other areas was Wilcox above-career? (For explanations of some of the more obscure stats, look here.) Career: 52 Sonics: 59 Pre-Season (PS): 50 Career: 68 Sonics: 79 PS: 61 True Shooting % Career: 56 Sonics: 63 PS: 55 Turnovers per 40 Career: 3 Sonics: 1.8 PS: 2.9 Points per 40 Career: 16.3 Sonics: 18.7 PS: 10.1 FTA per 40 Career: 4.9 Sonics: 4.3 PS: 5.2 Career: 13.7 Sonics: 10.1 PS: 22.7 (!) Career: 13.55 (estimate) Sonics: 16.4 PS: 19.9 Phew. That’s alot of numbers to crunch in one sitting, I know, but I think it illustrates pretty well that Wilcox’ success was not solely attributable to increased minutes – it was more like (Increased Minutes + Improved Play) * What the Hell Happened to This Guy in Seattle? Oh, and that he’s stunk the joint up in the pre-season, causing Rick Sund to switch to a higher-potency brand of sleeping pills. Let’s be realistic and assume Wilcox drops to somewhere above his Clippers’ numbers, below his springtime Sonics’ numbers, and better than his pre-season pre-season numbers (got all that?). What kind of player will we get this season? Start with how many minutes he’ll play. There are 96 minutes for the PF and C. Say Swifty gets 20, Petro 15, Sene 3, Collison 20, and Fortson (!) 5, adding up to 63; leaving 33 for Wilcox, which I think is what the Sonics would expect from him, given the amount of money they’re paying him. At 33 minutes, I expect Wilcox to get 10 shots and 5 FTs. At his career averages, he would make 5.5 shots and hit 3.5 FTs, give or take, for about 14 points a game. His rebounding numbers were actually improved in LA before the trade, so it’s reasonable to think he’ll maintain that production, putting him at about 8 boards a game. Now, on the surface those numbers are good, not great, but good. I think most of us would take a 14/8 from the 4 any night of the week, especially when you add in a couple of monster dunks for good measure. Of course, we shouldn’t neglect the likely 2.5 turnovers per game Wilcox will commit, a whole extra TO per contest more than last season. Or the fact that he averaged 5 fouls per 40 minutes in 3 ½ years in LA before posting 3.8 per 40 in Seattle (backed up by his 4.9 fouls/40 in the pre-season). On the whole, Wilcox should be a plus for the Sonics this season. I expect him to commit too many fouls, enabling Collison to get more PT (fine with me), to be occasionally frustrated with his role in the offense, to put up as many 25/15s as he does 8/6s, and to be generally acceptable as the team’s starting power forward. Is he worth $28 million over 3 season in today’s NBA? If you held a gun to my head, I’d say no, but he’s not a colossal free agent money pit along the lines of Jerome James or Nene, either. At least not yet. Tuesday, October 24 Of course, if you prefer to read a "reality-based" season preview (unlike mine), I suggest Mr. Nussbaum's fine write-up (part one and part two). Speaking of The Nuss, it sounds like someone has PLAYOFF FEVER! Chris Wilcox had a decent outing, although one would hope he would eventually score in double-figures at some point this pre-season (also,that 3-for-6 mark at the foul line ain't making anyone happy). Robert Swift continues to cement himself as the starting center, posting 6 points in 15 minutes while Johan Petro struggled, committing 3 fouls to go with 0 points and 1 rebound. Ouch. Seattle's interior defense must have been awful, though, as Thomas, Stoudamire, and Marion combined for 50 points and 24 boards in 71 minutes - telling numbers indeed. Bob Hill can talk all he wants about how he wants to give the youngsters a chance to prove their worth, but deep down he has to sense the danger in not having a veteran post player to defend. Monday, October 23 BEST-CASE SCENARIO: Denver implodes as George Karl finally wears out his welcome (shocking!), Minnesota continues to struggle to build a team around KG post-Sprewell and –Cassell, Kirilenko gets hurt ... again, the Blazers fully commit to the Greg Oden Sweepstakes, and the Sonics muddle through to 47 wins and the NW Division Crown (which ranks somewhere between Best Foreign Language Screenplay in a Short Film and a kick in the groin as far as career accomplishments go). They lose in the first round to just about whomever they play. WORST-CASE SCENARIO: The Sonics make it through November and December in decent shape, pulling into 2007 a hair below .500. In January the wheels come off, the Sonics stagger into the All-Star Break mired in an eight-game losing skid, after a dispute over injury status/playing time/foul prone-ness (take your pick) Danny Fortson gets into a fight with Bob Hill in the locker room, and, finally, the new owners point to the sagging attendance figures and call a press conference. BEST REASON TO BE EXCITED ABOUT THE SEASON: Mouhamed Saer Sene, aka the Senegalese Assassin. Sene will get bluffed into jumping early more frequently than you’d care to see, but his fantastic leaping skills and highlight-reel abilities will provide a few opportunities for Sonic fans to go nuts this year. BEST ROAD TRIP: Let’s pray the Sonics are still in the hunt come early March when they travel to play – in succession – the Knicks, Sixers, Boston, and Toronto. That’s about as easy as it gets for an East Coast swing. BREAKOUT NW DIVISION STAR: Carmelo Anthony should get the nod here, but he’s already so well known he doesn’t really fit (that said, I wouldn’t pass on Melo if I was picking a fantasy team). No, the real breakout guy should be Deron Williams of the Jazz, who’s already putting up solid numbers in the pre-season. If AK-47 is healthy, and Jerry Sloan doesn’t kill someone on the sidelines, the Jazz could be pretty tough this year. WHY CHRIS WILCOX IS WORTH THE MONEY: Power Forwards who can run and hit baseline Js do not grow on trees, and Wilcox has value in the NBA as a big man who can score and rebound, albeit inconsistently. Of note, Wilcox scored 20+ on six occasions for the Sonics after the trade with the Clippers. The Sonics went 5-1 in those six games, with the only loss coming against Orlando when half the team had the flu/food poisoning. WHY CHRIS WILCOX IS NOT WORTH THE MONEY: If you read the above paragraph, you know the Sonics went 5-1 when Wilcox went for 20 points. Read between the lines, though, and you’ll notice that Wilcox played 29 games for the Sonics, which leaves 23 other games when he didn’t score 20. Did I mention he scored in single digits nine times, or half again as many times as he scored 20? Or that he finished the year by scoring 8, 7, 9, 6, and 10 points? It’s all well and good that Wilcox is capable of averaging a double-double, but, as the man says, you can hope in one hand and crap in the other – guess which one will fill up first. BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION ABOUT THE SONICS: That going 14-12 to end the season means anything. After studying dozens of teams in similar situations to the Sonics in the last couple of years, it became obvious that a team’s record in the final two months of a mean-nothing season has about as much relevance to their performance the following season as the weather on Opening Night. It’s fine and dandy that the Sonics played decent ball the last spring, but it doesn’t mean jack this fall. If you don’t believe me, try this on for size: The Rockets and Warriors finished the ’04-’05 season with a combined 39-11 record. Last year? Both were home for the playoffs. Saturday, October 21 The fact the Sonics dropped a dud to the lowly Blazers last night - the team, along with Charlotte, most likely to get the #1 pick this coming June - at home, doesn't mean we're facing another season of ineptitude, right? Well, let me throw some numbers at you. In statistical circles, one term you'll hear often is "outlier." An outlier is any value in a set of values that is markedly smaller or larger than other values. See if you can spot the outlier in the following set of values: 40, 37, 52, 35 If you haven't guessed that 52 is the outlier, well, head back to math class. If you haven't guessed that 52 is the number of wins the Sonics posted 2 years ago, then you're not much of a fan. And if you haven't gathered that it's more likely the Sonics will post 37 wins than 52, well, you're naively optimistic about this team's chances. Read the gory details here about last night's loss. Friday, October 20 BEST FRENCH-SPEAKING PLAYER: You’d expect a 2nd-year guy to win this, but I’m going with the rookie, Mickael Gelabale. Petro still seems so raw that I don’t expect him to get more than 10-15 minutes a night, while Gelabale could wind up supplanting Damien Wilkins in the rotation and becoming the regular backup to Ray Allen. WORST STRETCH OF THE YEAR: Mid-December. The Sonics play consecutive road games against Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Memphis, before returning home to face Dallas. The Sonics would never have faced such a horrific Hannukah schedule if a Jewish guy owned the team ... STEP FORWARD: I’d love to say Robert Swift, but I still think he’s too young to really make the leap this year. I’d also love to say Chris Wilcox, and I suppose going from a string of DNPs in L.A. to averaging 8 points and 8 boards would be an improvement. I still don’t buy into Wilcox being an above-average PF in this league, but just the simple fact he’s going to get minutes this year means his numbers will improve, at least relative to the rest of his career. STEP BACKWARDS: I hate to say it, but Ray Allen is due for a come-down from his 25 ppg last season. His age (31) merits fewer minutes than the 39 he averaged last year, and shooting guards always begin a decline phase of their careers at around the 30-32 year mark. Allen is a remarkably-conditioned man, so perhaps he can forestall Father Time, but I’m not betting on it. FIRST PLAYER TRADED: The smart money is on Danny Fortson to be traded at some point this year – but will he be the first to go? Wilkins’ relatively inexpensive contract makes him palatable to other clubs, but Fortson’s presence on a team with a surplus of big men has him the most likely to go first. RECORD AT THE END OF NOVEMBER: 8-8. RECORD AT THE END OF DECEMBER: 14-18. TOTAL WINS: 37. Think I’m being pessimistic? Check the Vegas lines, folks. There are 3 teams with longer odds to win the title than Seattle (currently at 115/1): Portland, Charlotte, and Atlanta. People, when you’re in the same sentence with those clubs, you are in a world of trouble. Right now, the Sonics are sitting at 35 ½ on total wins this year in the sports books – personally, I think that’s overly negative, and I’d expect the Sonics to do better than that, but not a whole lot better. Thursday, October 19 For the first time in training camp, Danny Fortson participated in a scrimmage, which was open to the media. He fared well until getting frustrated and flooring rookie free agent Kenny Adeleke with an elbow.And, in case you missed it the first time around, here's our Dannny Fortson comic book in all its glory: Fortson, who has not played in a game since Jan. 23, then left the scrimmage, iced both knees and went into treatment. It looks more and more as if he will open the season on the roster and could receive playing time if his gimpy left knee holds up. Read the rest in today's Seattle P.I. Tuesday, October 17 Saturday, October 14 With no games to review, let's take a look at how the battle for the final roster spots are going for the Sonics thus far. As I see it, the following guys are locked in for the season: Allen, Lewis, Collison, Ridnour, Watson, Wilkins, Wilcox, Petro, Swift, Gelabale, Sene, Fortson. That's 12 people, leaving 2 or 3 open slots. Of those 12, they break down this way by position: PG - 2 SG - 3 SF - 3 PF - 3 C - 3 (Some guys can play multiple positions, so it's not faulty math on my part). The Sonics will likely carry 13 or 14 guys, including the "King of DNP-CD" Danny Fortson, at least until he's moved to somebody else by midseason. That means the rest of the guys on the training roster are competing for 1 or 2 spots. Here are the competitors (And wouldn't this make a better reality show than most of the crap out there? Really, do we need 2 nanny shows?) 1. Denham Brown, 6'6", SF, 8-1 2. Desmon Farmer, 6'5", SG, 20-1 3. Mike Wilks, 5'10", PG, 10-1 4. Milt Palacio, 6'4", PG, 30-1 5. Kenny Adeleke, 6'8", F, 50-1 6. Kareem Rush, 6'6", SG, 5-1 The last bit in each line is my guess at the odds of each making the roster. Palacio and Rush have a leg up on the rest with their relatively extensive NBA experience, but the fact Milt's only gotten 8 minutes in the first two games shows where he ranks in my mind. Wilks' presence on the roster last season should be an edge for him, and Brown's extensive minutes in the Portland game shows how the staff seems to like him. Obviously, this is a total crapshoot at this point, and the ends of the roster have (almost) zero influence on how many games the Sonics will win, but, hey, it's a Saturday and there isn't a whole lot else to talk about, so there you go. Friday, October 13 The lone remaining spot is for the "Wild Card," and your options are: Brent Barry (!) I'm sorry, but I don't want to live in a world where Brent Barry gets more votes than any of those 4 guys. For the love of all that is holy, get yourself to supersonics.com and vote as often as you can for any of the other 4 guys. Personally, I'll mark a big X for Mr. Sam Perkins. Collison contributed 20 points in a scant 24 minutes, his second consecutive impressive showing in the two pre-season games. In fact, comparing Collison to Chris Wilcox through two games, you get: Collison: 31 points, 16 boards, 4 fouls, 51 minutes Wilcox: 11 points, 13 boards, 5 fouls, 46 minutes Conclusion? Pre-season games don't mean squat. Still, it's nice to see Nick isn't racking up fouls like Alton Lister on crack anymore. Hopefully, it will be a trend he continues during the course of the regular season as well. In other news, Ray Allen broke the shotclock on a dunk, Luke Ridnour's thumb isn't broken but he'll still miss the next game, the Sonics will be playing in Collison's old gym, the Sonics' trio of young centers stunk up the joint last night, Bob Hill doesn't think Earl Watson should start, Gelabale impressed Hill by scoring in the post in the late stages of the game, and the Sonics have been outscored 45 to 18 from beyond the arc. Thursday, October 12 PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Rashard Lewis scored 13 of his 17 points in the third quarter and the Seattle SuperSonics defeated the Portland Trail Blazers 99-89 on Wednesday night in the first preseason game for both teams. Zach Randolph had 20 points and seven rebounds for Portland, which squandered an 11-point lead. Dan Dickau, acquired in a draft-day trade, scored eight straight points and gave the Blazers a 35-24 lead in the first half. Jarrett Jack and draft pick Sergio Rodriguez made consecutive 3-pointers to give Portland a 53-45 halftime lead. Lewis' third-quarter outburst helped close the gap to 70-67, and Nick Collison's layup gave Seattle a 73-72 lead. Read the rest here. Monday, October 2 Keep in mind that I’ve only been following the Sonics since the early 1980s, so apologies to fans of Spencer Haywood, Bob Rule, etc., as I just never saw them in action. 5. DERRICK MCKEY What? Derrick McKey? Pete, I thought this list was greatest dunkers, not most confounding small forwards! Well, gentle reader, let me educate you on the gloriousness that was Derrick McKey in his young prime. Tell me, what other Sonic bumped his chin on the rim? I regret that YouTube is barren of evidence, but, trust me, McKey’s leaping ability had few equals. 4. XAVIER MCDANIEL What McKey had in grace, the X-Man had in power. Whether it was an offensive board put-back slam, or the cruising-in-from-the-wing fast break tomahawk, X was arguably the most powerful dunker in Sonic history (non-Olden Polynice Division). My favorite Sonic dunk will always be his alley-oop against the Lakers in January 1986 on CBS. 3. DESMOND MASON You have to respect the only man to win the Slam Dunk competition in a Sonic jersey. D-Mase’s speed and agility meant any number of beautiful, under-the-basket wraparounds, fast-break sprints, and just dozens of fantastic jams. His between-the-legs, show-it-left-and-right move sealed the deal for his 2001 Slam Dunk title at the All Star Game. 2. TERENCE STANSBURY Ah, the Statue of Liberty: Seldom imitated, never duplicated. A forgettable career, but a remarkable feat, Stansbury was the true winner of the 1987 Dunk Contest, not the bald guy from Chicago. Stansbury’s dunk remains a thing of beauty, from the takeoff to the clenched fist at the end. I think everyone in my high school gym class at the time spent the next week trying to imitate that move. 1. SHAWN KEMP There are dunkers, and there is The Man. The fantastic dash through the Knicks in the middle of traffic ... the unbelievable dunk and quasi-kung fu move against the Warriors in the playoffs. Like ice cream, everyone has their personal favorite, but we all can agree that Shawn Kemp has no equal when it comes to dunking greatness. Sunday, October 1 Jason works for the Sonics and is as passionate about the game as we are. He also wants to get as many people to games as possible, so he's offering some special deals to Supersonicsoul readers: Hi everyone! We currently have seating available for season seats for the 2006-2007 season, 4 Games - $40 Total.If you want to help keep the team in Seattle, then do your part and buy some tickets. Wed., Jan. 10 Miami Tue., Jan. 23 Denver Wed., Feb. 14 Phoenix Tue., Mar. 13 Detroit Tue., Jan. 16 Cleveland Sat., Feb. 10 Sacramento Fri., Mar. 23 Minnesota Fri., Apr. 6 Lakers Seating is available in the $24 section, so it's a great value at almost 60% off. This also gives you guaranteed playoff priority and the privilege to add-on additional games at the package discount (This is the big benefit - add-on Opening Night, Chicago, Dallas, Spurs, etc...). Seating is limited. Contact me with questions or to order your seats--I'm happy to assist! Be sure to mention that you found my information on Supersonicsoul and I will be sure to get you down to the arena for a tour, complimentary game, and a great deal! Official Supersonicsoul Ticket Representative,

|Relationship||Family/ Pre-Marriage Name||First Name||Father’s Name||Mother’s Name||Occupation or Nickname||Place of birth/ Residence||Age or birth date||Place and date of death| |Grinker||Leib||Yosef||And family||Shkud, Sauliai||37||Sauliai Ghetto| |His brother||Grinker||Chone||Yosef||Malka Kravitz||Shkud, Kovne||1916||In the fighting. Priekula, Latvia, 22 Feb. 194(?)| |Father||Grinker||Yosef||Shkud||65||Shkud, July 1941| |Daughter||Grinker/her husband||Tsila||Sheva||Aharon||And her family||Shkud, Mažik||22||Mažik, 1941| |Daughter||Daughter of Tsila||Tsila||Mažik||1||Mažik, 1941| |Grinker||Michal Meyer||Yosef||Shoes||Shkud||50||Shkud, July 1941| |Wife||Grinker/Chatskel||Lina Leah||Housewife||Shkud||Alka Hill| |Daughter||Grinker||Bluma Eta||Baruch||Leah||Student||Shkud||1932||Alka Hill| |Daughter||Grinker||Chana Freida||Baruch||Leah||Shkud||1935||Alka Hill| |Husband||Grinker||Moshe Yitzak||Grain merchant||Shkud||Shkud| |Daughter||Grinker||Sarah Dvora||Moshe Yitzak||Dusya||Student||Shkud||1931||Alka Hill| |Son||Grinker||Ora Leizer||Moshe Yitzak||Dusya||Student||Shkud||1935||Alka Hill| |Daughter||Grinker||Chana Freida||Moshe Yitzak||Dusya||Shkud||1935||Alka Hill| According to Hana Shaf-Brener, there were eight Grinker families in Shkud. 1) Lieb Grinker, 37, son of Yosef, was married with a family. 2) Lieb’s brother, Chone Grinker, was born in 1916 to Yosef and Malka (nee Kravitz). According to Hana Shaf-Brener, “Chane Grinker fell in the battle near Priekule in Latvia in the Lithuanian 16th division of the Soviet army on 22.02.1945, a very cruel fate at the end of the war, not far from Shkud” (18). 3) Ben Tsion Grinker, 75, a merchant, son of Isaac and Charna, was married to Sarah (nee Merovich), 70. Jewish Gen’s Lithuania Tax and Voters lists indicates that Sora Grinker’s father was Simon, and that she was born in 1883. The Lithuania Marriages database records the 1936 marriage of Freide Tsire Grinker, born in 1909 to Leiba and Sora (nee Meierovich), to Cemach Gros of Mazeikiai. 4) Yosef Grinker, 65, had a son, Moshe, 40. Moshe, who worked in the shoe industry, was married to Leah (nee Chatskl), 38. Their children were Eliahu, 15; Elchanon, 13; and Chaim, 10. Yosel Wulf Grinker, son of Nokhum, appears several times in Jewish Gen’s Tax and Voters List database. The 1900 entry indicates that he was a shoemaker and was born September 14, 1874 in Moscow. 5) Aharon Grinker, 42, son of Yosef, worked in the shoe industry and was married to Sheva, 40. They had a married daughter, Tsila, who lived with her husband and one-year-old daughter in Mažik. 6) Michal Meyer Grinker, son of Yosef, 50, worked in the shoe industry. 7) Baruch Grinker was married to Lina Leah (nee Chatskel). Their children were Bluma Eta (1932), Aharon (1932), Chana Freida (1935), and Sarah (1939). 8) Moshe Yitzak Grinker, a grain merchant, was married to Dusya (nee Sheupak). Their children were Sarah Dvora (1931), Ora Leizer (1935), and Chana Freida (1935). Jewish Gen’s Lithuania Tax and Voters Lists database indicates that the Grinker family was already established in Skuodas from 1849. The Lithuania Marriages database lists the following Shkud Grinker marriages (in addition to those mentioned above): - Mikhel Meer Grinker, 60, son of Mausha and Khana Sore, married Beile Rokhel (nee Berien) of Liepaja in 1924 - Leib Zelik Faktor was married to Golde (nee Grinker). Their son Shleima married Dvora Shifra Jozef in 1939. Jewish Gen’s Yizkor Book Necrology Database records Aharon Grinker, Leib Grinker, Michal Meir Grinker, Moshe Grinker, and Yosef Grinker. L. Grinker (Leib?) was a member of Shkud’s Khevre Gemara: 7 Kislev 1936. In memory of the member Reb Moishe Taitz. The Khevre Gemara in Shkud says farewell upon his going up [aliya] to our Holy Land Seated from right to left: Pin, M. Sh.; Chatzkel, N; Taitz, Moshe; Kaplanski, Y; Natanson, Y. H’Rav Dafa; Shnshvaski, A; Melamed, Y; Yoselovich, Ts; Faktor, A; Hupsha, A; Grinker, L. Valert, A; Epstein, A; Piktur, A. D.; Urdang, A. B.; Minks, M.; Yankelovich, Y. (Photo Kehilat Shkud 27) A descendant of the Grinker family has published a photo essay, with mention of Shkud, in the New York Times; see it here. Yad Vashem provides the following information on the Grinker families of Shkud: Khone Grinkeris was born in Skuodas, Lithuania in 1916 to Yusel. She was a shoemaker. Prior to WWII she lived in Kaunas, Lithuania. During the war she was in the Soviet armed forces. Khone was killed in military service. This information is based on a Page of Testimony submitted by her daughter. http://db.yadvashem.org/names/nameDetails.html?itemId=1390284&language=en Benzion Grinker was born in Skuodas, Lithuania in 1880 to Eisik. He was a merchant and married Sara. Prior to WWII he lived in Skuodas, Lithuania. During the war he was in Skuodas, Lithuania. Benzion was murdered in the Shoah. This information is based on a Page of Testimony submitted by his niece. http://db.yadvashem.org/names/nameDetails.html?itemId=452696&language=en

Date of Award Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Nella Larsen, Anzia Yezierska, and Evelyn Scott were New York neighbors and literary contemporaries in the 1920s, yet they moved in very different social circles. From Larsen, the award-winning psychological novelist of the Harlem Renaissance; to Yezierska, the Jewish immigrant composing in Yiddish-English a boot-straps story of Americanization; to Evelyn Scott, the genteel-born Southern woman penning high modernist tales of scandal, these very different women nonetheless shared a common quality: they were all rule-breakers, pariahs in their hometowns, interlopers wherever they dare tread, who all penned controversial autobiographical works documenting their experiences as cultural outsiders in modern America. Finding no community, race, or class with which to align these authors and their life stories, contemporary critics defaulted into accusation of falsehood, immorality, and insanity. Their works could not possibly be true or sane, I argue, because they could not be classified. Byron, Lindsay, "Modernism from the Margins: Unruly Women and the Politics of Representation." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2013.

The opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Ahmet Ünal Çeviköz has pressed the AKP government for answers on how many members of Hamas have been given Turkish citizenship. The MP’s questions, formally tabled in Parliament to the Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay on Tuesday, follow press speculation that up to 12 members of the Palestinian group, widely recognised as a terror organisation, now hold Turkish passports. On 13 August, the Daily Telegraph ran a story about Turkey granting citizenship to senior Hamas members (‘Turkey grants citizenship to Hamas operatives plotting terror attacks from Istanbul’). Quoting an unnamed “senior source in the region”, the paper claimed seven of the 12 operatives had become Turkish citizens with passports, while the other five are in the process of receiving them. At the time, a spokesman for the Turkish government declined to comment on the Telegraph’s story, calling them “baseless claims against Turkey by a foreign government.” However, the claims were repeated by Israeli diplomat Roey Gilad to Reuters in a story published on Wednesday, 26 August. Gilad, Israel’s Chargé d’affaires in Turkey, said: “Some are in the process, some already got (the documents), but we are talking about around a dozen,” adding that the move was “a very unfriendly step,” which his government would raise with Turkish officials. A day earlier Çeviköz, Turkey’s former ambassador to Britain, quizzed the AKP government on whether the claims were true. Noting that “Hamas is recognised as a terrorist organization by many countries,” Çeviköz said that Turkey offering refuge to leaders of the group will not only “raise tensions” in the region, but also “hamper Turkey’s active role regarding the Palestinian issue.” Istanbul MP Ünal Çeviköz’s questions AKP government on Hamas The Istanbul MP and senior advisor to CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu asked Vice President Oktay multiple written question on Hamas and Turkish foreign policy: “Is the news that Hamas members have been granted Turkish citizenship true? In total, how many Hamas members have been given Turkish citizenship during the AKP’s time in government? Were the people granted citizenship also given Republic of Turkey passports?” Çeviköz probed whether the granting of citizenship came about because of “the support Israel has given to Greece and Egypt’s maritime jurisdiction delimitation agreement”, and asked whether “Turkey and Israel have had a conversation about this issue?” The ambassador-turned-politician questioned the wisdom of Turkey’s current foreign policy, arguing that the country’s national interests in the Eastern Mediterranean required the “normalisation of relations with Israel”, but instead the government’s strategy had left Turkey “alone and isolated.” He also asked the Vice President whether President Erdoğan’s recent meeting with Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, “corresponds with our country’s interests and security in the Eastern Mediterranean?” Haniyeh is understood to have arrived in Istanbul on 12 August. He, his deputy Saleh al-Arouri, and a number of other senior Hamas representatives met President Erdoğan in the city on Saturday, 22 August. Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MİT) head, Fahrettin Altun, the presidential communications director and presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın were also present at the meeting held at the Vahdettin Pavilion. — T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı (@tcbestepe) August 22, 2020 Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas The Turkish President has a long-standing relationship with Haniyeh and regularly meet. The two men last came together at the same venue in Istanbul in February, which also raised eyebrows. The one-time Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Haniyeh took over the running of Hamas in 2017 and has since relocated to Doha for his own safety. He refuses to recognise Israel, although under his leadership Hamas has agreed to accept the 1967 borders for a Palestinian state. Hamas was born during the 1987 Intifada, or uprising, against Israel. Regarded as the ‘Muslim Brotherhood of Palestine’, Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2006 – the last time elections were held in the Palestinian territories. Since its inception, Hamas has refused to accept Israel’s right to exist, initially pledging to destroy its Jewish neighbour. Hamas has fought three wars with Israel, and its militant supporters regularly launch rockets from Gaza, sparking a harsh response from Israel. The US designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997. Haniyeh, who headed the Gaza administration from 2006 to 2017, was added to the US terror list by officials in 2018. Turkey’s decision to host Hamas’ leaders has irked the Trump administration. The recent meeting in Istanbul led to a strongly-worded statement from the State Department on Tuesday: “President Erdoğan’s continued outreach to this terrorist organization only serves to isolate Turkey from the international community, harms the interests of the Palestinian people, and undercuts global efforts to prevent terrorist attacks launched from Gaza.” Turkey dismissed the criticism, issuing the following response from its Foreign Ministry: “Declaring the legitimate representative of Hamas, who came to power after winning democratic elections in Gaza and is an important reality of the region, as a terrorist will not be of any contribution to efforts for peace and stability in the region.” Turkish government’s inconsistency on treatment of Hamas and HDP The AKP’s support of Hamas contrasts sharply with its approach to the People’s Democratic Party (HDP). Despite being democratically elected, representatives of the leftist, pro-Kurdish party are accused by the Turkish government of having links with the PKK, a Kurdish terror group whose armed insurgency has cost over 40,000 lives since 1984. In the 2018 General Elections, HDP received 11.7% of votes, winning 67 seats from a possible 600. The results made HDP the third largest party in the Turkish Parliament. Yet hundreds of its members, including two former co-leaders Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, have been detained and prosecuted for ‘supporting terrorism’. In 2017, Yüksekdağ received sentences totalling six years after she was found guilty of a number of charges relating to “spreading terror propaganda.” The following year her HDP colleague Demirtaş was sentenced to four years and 8 months in jail also for making ‘terrorist propaganda’, following a speech he made at a Newroz celebration in March 2013. Of Kurdish heritage, Mr Demirtaş has consistently denied links to the PKK and denounced their violence. Main photo, top of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at the Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul, on 14 Dec. 2019. Photo © AA, Twitter / AKParti

On the First Anniversary of the Israeli-U.S. Massacre, THE PEOPLE OF GAZA NEED YOUR SOLIDARITY *Support the 3rd Viva Palestina Convoy and the Gaza Freedom March *Call, Email the Egyptian Embassy *Join Local Solidarity Actions Last Dec. 27, the U.S.-funded Israel war machine unleashed a blizzard of U.S.-made weapons of mass destruction on the towns and refugee camps of Gaza, the most densely populated place on earth. 1,500 died, many of them women and children. Tens of thousands lost their arms, legs, eyes, were paralyzed, orphaned or made homeless. The United Nations Goldstone commission found that the Israeli state had committed war crimes, but the U.S. government has blocked any international action on its report. Meanwhile the people of Gaza still go hungry, their children are malnourished, the sick die from lack of medicine, their homes have not been rebuilt because of the vicious blockade imposed by the U.S. and Israel and acquiesced in by Egypt and the European Union. U.S. Army Engineers are stationed on the Gaza-Egypt border to try and stop food, medicine and building materials from going through. People from around the world are seeking to break the blockade. The third Viva Palestina convoy led by British MP George Galloway departed London Dec. 5 with 200 people, 64 truckloads of humanitarian aid and 16 ambulances. The convoy grew as it crossed Europe, Turkey, Syria and Jordan to a tumultuous popular welcome. They are now up to 500 people and 210 vehicles--50 from Turkey alone. Some participants have come from as far as Malaysia. They plan to cross into Egypt today and enter Gaza on Dec. 27. You can learn more about their exciting journey at http://www.vivapalestina.org Two days later the 1,300 participants of the Gaza Freedom March, including Pulitzer-winning author Alice Walker and Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters also plan to march through the gates. They will also carry humanitarian aid, including school ssupples and winter jackets for Gaza's children. You may follow their progress at http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/article.php?list=type&type=416 The International Action Center urges full support for both delegations, http://www.vivapalestina.org/VivaPalestina and http://www.gazafreedommarch.org Gaza Freedom March and encourages people to be on alert to step up support and pressure on the Egyptian Gov, Isarel and especially the U.S. who pulls the strings and controls the entire region as these 2 historic delegations attempt to enter into Gaza. URGENT: CALL, EMAIL THE EGYPTIAN EMBASSY The Egyptian state, however, which receives large sums of miltary aid from Washington, has said it will close the Rafah crossing through the rest of December and January. It is important that people of good will contact Egyptian embassies and missions all over the world hear by phone, fax and email with a clear message: Let the international delegation enter Gaza. In the U.S., contact the Egyptian Embassy, 202-895-5400 and ask for Omar Youssef or email firstname.lastname@example.org Also contact Ahmed Azzam at the Palestine Division in Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cairo, tel +202-25749682 Email: email@example.com A list of Egyptian missions around the world may be found at RALLIES, MARCHES PLANNED IN U.S. Protests and rallies are also planned across the United States. In New York City, on Dec. 27, the International Action Center will join with Al-Awda NY the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, the Arab Muslim American Federation, the MAS Freedom Foundation, American Muslims for Palestine, the International Action Center, Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Dec. 12 Movement, New York City Labor Against the War and many others in a 1 pm rally in Times Sq. at 42 St. and Seventh Avenue, followed by a march through the crowded holiday streets to the Israeli mission. We will say the blockade must end, the flow of U.S. arms and dollars to Israel must stop and Israeli generals and politicians must be prosecuted for war crimes. George Galloway is expected to address the Times Square rally by telephone. In Chicago, the US Palestine Community Network, the Palestine Solidarity Group, Code Pink and others are organizing a Chicago Stands with Gaza rally on Monday, Dec. 30 at 5:30 pm at Grace Place, 637 S. Dearborn Avenue. A list of other local actions is on the http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/article.php?list=type&type=416Gaza Fredom March Web site. Get updates on

Dimona, Israel — Shalom Pariantes had pulled over his taxi next to Dimona’s shopping center to let some passengers out when an explosion just a few feet away rocked his car. “I heard the boom and then saw body parts all over the ground,” he said. “The whole car moved. Being in the car saved me.” In the wake of Monday’s suicide bombing — the first in the country in more than a year — Israeli politicians and commentators bemoaned that the writing had been on the wall ever since Palestinian militants in Gaza exploited the week-long open border at Rafah to move into the Sinai desert. Once in Egypt, they could sneak into Israel through a border that is routinely infiltrated by traffickers of drugs, prostitutes and African refugees. Hamas claimed responsibility for Dimona attack, an apparent signal that it is ending its self-imposed moratorium on attacks inside Israel. Residents of Dimona never dreamed that the violence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would strike at the heart of their sleepy, dust-blown town of about 40,000. Lying just a few miles from Israel’s nuclear reactor, locals considered themselves better protected than the average city because of the proximity to the strategic site. “This is a very sensitive city,” Pariantes said, gesturing up to an observation zeppelin he said was a permanent fixture in the skies above the city rather than a onetime appearance for the bombing. During the Lebanon war, a battery of Patriot missiles were positioned at the outskirts of the city while Air Force helicopters patrolled the skies, he said. “An attack in Dimona — I never dreamed of something like this. I feel like they’re trying to protect me.” Indeed, few locals who were in the immediate vicinity of the attack recognized the explosion as a terrorist bombing. Some thought it was a gas balloon bursting. Others guessed it was exploding tank shell from a military training base nearby. As bomb squads picked through the debris of the explosion site and the mangled remains of the attackers’ bodies, Dimona Mayor Meir Cohen was consoled by residents and government ministers who made a rare appearance in the city to survey the damage. One woman, Lyubov Razdolskaya, 73, who worked in the physics department at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, was killed in the attack. Eleven people were injured. “We’ll get back to the routine, but it will be a more tense routine,” said Cohen. When Israeli security officials warned of the terrorist threat following the Rafah border break, Cohen said that residents in the South assumed that Israeli towns and cities closer to the border faced the most immediate threat. “We thought it would stop before reaching Dimona.” To be sure, by Wednesday morning there were indications that the Palestinian bombers had reached Dimona from Hebron rather than the Sinai. But that hasn’t stopped the debate in Israel about what should be done about the 150-mile-long border with Egypt. Defense Minister Ehud Barak pledged a fence by the end of 2010, while the Israeli news media said that the construction of a border fence could run into the billions of shekels. “We need to take care of the border with Egypt,” Mayor Cohen said. “Where there is a fence, there is security. It may take billions but it’s an issue of life and death.” On the day after the bombing, Israeli security forces beefed up their presence around the country. Gidi Grinstein, president of the Reut Institute, said he expects a security fence along the border within two to three years, along with beefed-up military positions on the Sinai frontier. Grinstein said it was ironic that the police officer who killed the second would-be suicide bomber was a part of a unit assigned to stop illegal smuggling at the border. “So far it’s mainly been a law enforcement issue,” he said. “But now it’s a national security issue to be dealt with by the military.” Likud Knesset member Yuval Steinitz said the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that he chaired recommended building a fence along the border back in 2005. He estimated that the project would cost about $250 million, about one-tenth of the cost of the security barrier in the West Bank. The construction job would be easier technically and politically because it’s an internationally recognized border. So why was the recommendation never acted on? “People in Israel always believed that Egypt would behave itself, and if it did so, there’s no reason for a fence,” he said. “But this did not happen. Egypt has become an ally of Hamas.” Even though only one person was killed in the attack, the bombing was a rude awakening to Israelis who had gotten used to rocket attacks as the primary security risk, while forgetting the bombing fears of the height of the Palestinian uprising. Meir Javedanfar, a Tel Aviv-based Middle East analyst, said the attack was symbolic because Dimona had never been struck before. “We thought that terror was confined to Sderot, but now it’s coming to places we never expected,” he said. “By attacking Dimona, the terrorists were saying, ‘We can reach anywhere. No one is immune from us.’” On Wednesday, eight Kassam rockets slammed into Sderot. One struck a home directly, leaving six people lightly wounded, according to Haaretz. Israel’s army responded by hitting a Hamas office in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least seven people. Back in Dimona, a town known more for its double-digit unemployment than as a terrorist target, residents were still having difficulty digesting the attack. Irena Rabinovich, a 20-year-old unemployed mother of one, at first said she thought the explosion might have been the result of a fight between gangs in the city. “There’s a lot of crime here, like drugs and stabbings, but that’s play stuff compared to a suicide bombing,” she said. Rabonivich only realized the explosion was a terrorist attack when she saw police cars speeding to the scene. “People were running and screaming. I was horrified. I didn’t have any units left on my phone so I couldn’t call anyone.” Residents blamed the city’s population of illegal workers from the West Bank as accomplices in the killings. The attack spurred angry complaints that the police had not done enough to crack down on illegal laborers prior to the bombing. “There they are, do you see them standing next to the wall?” said taxi driver Pariantes, pointing to a group of Arab men. “I’ll never take another Bedouin in my car,” he said. “I’m just not taking any chances any more.” Watching TV crews file by outside his snack kiosk, Yair Hamoo, 32, remarked that he had seldom seen so many people in Dimona’s shopping district. “You never seen this many people here, not even on Independence Day.” The morning shift worker had gone home for the day, shaken by the trauma of the explosion, he explained. “We were enjoying the pastoral weather this morning,” he explained. “Then all of our lives changed in a moment.” More Stories Like This The Jewish Week feels comments create a valuable conversation and wants to feature your thoughts on our website. 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Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 I was a typical little girl. I liked rainbows and unicorns. I took horse riding lessons for a bit, then got into dance. I did ballet recitals in dodgy tutus, took jazz, tap, contemporary, had more leotards than I knew what to do with, performed in many-a-show. I went through my grunge phase and my rude girl phase, but for the most part, I was a good kid (admittedly, with a smart mouth, but a good kid nonetheless). I look back and wonder how my taste went from New Kids on the Block to the kinds of films, TV shows and books I’m into now. By all rights, I should be a drug dealing axe murderer at this point. I think I was 16 the first time I saw The Godfather. Then I got introduced to Goodfellas, learned every line, got my Karen impression down pat and immersed myself in the rest of Scorsese’s work. Throw in a little Tarantino and by 18 I should’ve been an expert in violence. Be it shoving someone’s head in an oven Goodfellas style, or wielding firearms bigger than my entire body and calling them ‘my liddle frens’ a la Scarface, should I have wanted to take someone out, I’d have had all the ammunition I needed (not literally though of course – I didn’t know of any arms dealers in my area). I read American Psycho at 17. It’s my favourite book but you can’t admit that in public because people back away from you slowly while dialling the police from their pocket and not making any sudden movements. As well they should – it’s a literary masterpiece but also a gruesomely violent step-by-step guide on how to become a full on psycho. My taste in TV isn’t much better. I got hooked on The Sopranos from episode one. Anything you want to know about getting an organised crime family together, just ask me. Alternatively, if you want to know how to dress like a gangster’s moll, I told you that already. Then The Wire came along and taught me all I need to know to set up a lucrative drug dealing business. I took very details notes throughout the five seasons and did briefly consider a move to Baltimore, primarily to molest Stringer Bell, of course, but I felt I could’ve been an integral part of that drug network (and Stringer Bell’s bedroom). As if all of that wasn’t enough, I recently got into Dexter, a series about a serial killer who only kills other serial killers (yes, it is as ridiculous as it sounds). And I find myself eyeing up kitchen knives and duct tape. In all other areas of my life I’m a heels-rocking, dress-wearing prim and proper stuck up cow and yet look at my taste in film and literature? Surely I should be watching period costume dramas or something? It doesn’t make any sense but at least I know if I ever find myself in the Baltimore streets, or a New Jersey suburb, or in conversation with a Cuban drug Lord in Miami, I’ll know how to handle myself. Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 I believe my love of Idris Elba is well documented on this site, is it not? You will not find a more dedicated fan of The Wire than me. You know how much I love him? I actually paid, cash money, to see Obsessed at the cinema. Yeah, that crappy movie he did with Beyonce? Yeah, I saw that. Paid money to see it. And it clearly wasn’t for any deep-rooted love of Beyonce, lemme tell ya. So, given how much I heart Idris, why are you all standing in the way of our love? Yeah, that’s right, I said it! You just don’t want to see us happy! When I was down in London over the weekend, I spent my friday night doing a whole bunch of nothing. I wandered around Notting Hill, stuffed my face at my favourite restaurant, caught up with a friend. All of which, I could have done without (no offense to my friend). Cut to Saturday and randomly, some of my Twitter peeps tell me that Idris was DJing/hanging out/generally looking like a fine specimen of a man at one of my favourite bars, Marketplace, the night before. You don’t understand. I used to hang out at Marketplace so much, it may as well be called MYplace. When I left for New York, I had my leaving party there. I’ve sat at and/or danced on every table. I’ve squeezed in the booths with way too many friends. I’ve backed it up on every inch of the dance floor. So how, HOW I ask you, was I not aware that Idris Elba, my love, was gonna be there on Friday night?! This is a travesty! Had I been informed ahead of time, I would have dug out my favourite heels and my best dress (the perfect mix of ‘class’ and ‘skank’) and strutted my way down there. I would have swayed my hips hypnotically to the beat of whatever the hell he was playing; jazz, soul, hip hop, afro-latino jazz fusion, grime, alt-rock – whatever, bring it – my booty will shake to it. I would have laughed at his jokes, leaned into him slowly, brushed up against him – hell, I would have run my full gamut of flirting tricks. And maybe, just maybe, he would have fallen for them. If not, I’m pretty sure I could have at least gotten a hug, or a picture, or escorted away by security. So next time people, don’t try to stand in the way of the non-existent, psychotic, blossoming love between Idris and I. A phone call, a ten-minute warning, something, anything, would be appreciated. Thanks! Monday, December 21st, 2009 Well, things got really crazy for me in the last quarter of 2009. Overwhelmed with the direction the world was going in (you know, global warming, financial crisis, the over-popularity of Uggs), I decided I needed to change things. So, I whipped the world into shape and I’m proud to say, as we’re about to go into 2011, everything’s looking rosy. Me and Idris Elba are married and he’s totally cool with me seeing Elliot Stabler from Law & Order SVU, Robert Downey Jr and any man who can speak French on the side. I had it written into our wedding vows that he’d find a way to resurrect The Wire for a few more seasons, so, there’s that. I met with world leaders to discuss energy efficiency and it was decided that rather than using central heating and such like, people should burn their Uggs to create a natural source of heat. President Obama personally gave me a terrorist fist bump of congratulations for that one. I had a sit down with Madonna. She managed to detach her crazed fans from her balls for a sec. We have negotiated a deal whereby she will retire within the next five years. She has also agreed to wear a knee length skirt every second wednesday. This will be increased each time she adopts another African baby. I started running masterclasses on ‘How to Dress Like a Lady.’ This was a major step forward in my ‘No Pants’ campaign (the co-founder of which is Casie Stewart). We have seen a significant drop in the number of women wearing running shoes as regular footwear, leggings, sweats, pajama pants, babydoll dresses and maternity wear on un-pregnant people. I banned use of the word ‘comfortable’ in regards to fashion for anyone under the age of 60. It’s taking people a while to come round to this, but we have seen more women enroll in my ‘How to Walk in Heels’ classes, which is encouraging. As part of his therapy, I slept with Tiger Woods to see what all the fuss was about. Results are still inconclusive. I think my major achievement of 2010 was having ‘bitch slap’ and ‘motherbitch’ added to the Oxford English dictionary. Additionally, now that bitch slapping is no longer a crime (except for the 6 US States in which it is still outlawed), society has become much more tolerable. Pent up frustration is virtually a thing of the past now that you can just give anyone a swift back hand when they’re acting up. So as you can see, my 2010 was pretty packed, trying to make the world a better place for you people. Well, must dash. Idris is in the kitchen, naked, cooking for me and I still have to treat the third degree burns he sustained doing that last week. He’ll never learn. Until next time, ask yourself, what did you do to change the world in 2010? Friday, November 20th, 2009 After an intense Nando’s roundtable discussion recently (that Peri Peri sauce inspires some deep soul searching), in which a few of my fabulous, talented and gorgeous friends (I don’t hang with ugly people) recounted their relationship woes, I got to thinking about how to ease the troubles we all seem to have finding someone we can tolerate being around long enough to sustain something decent with. And I found the answer….. That’s right amigos! I think it’s safe to say that since my last few relationships have registered pretty high on the worldwide richter scale of disaster, I don’t trust my own taste anymore. Seriously, since my past boos have included a crack head, a Napoleon complex-haver and a serial adulterer from The Village People, I have decided that I simply cannot be left to my own devices to meet men. I still can’t bring myself to do internet dating, mainly because it seems to take just as much time as real dating. My friend told me it took her two hours to wade through the questions required to register on one site. Screw that noise. Who has that kinda time on their hands? So, to cut out all that BS, I say, I would prefer to have an army of people just looking on my behalf. Go out into the wilderness (whoa, I take that back. Go out into the city – you know it wouldn’t work out with me and a country dude) and bring me back a husband. Here are a few guidelines to help you get an idea of the kind of guy I like. Preferably, the ideal candidate will be a mish-mash of all these things: This fella brings the ‘hubba hubba’ and regardless of what people say, I think ‘hubba hubba’ is important in a life partner. Sure, his character on Mad Men is a complete asshole, relationship wise, but he’s creative, great at his job and he’s a presence. I could do without all his excessive drinking and smoking though. Again, his character on The Wire is kind of an asshole, but as with Don Draper, he’s in a powerful position (given, it’s within a criminal organisation, but we’ll overlook that for now). I’m more attracted to his height and the way he carries himself. Do I really need to explain this one? He’s a sweet slice of salt n’ pepper lovliness. To me, Clooney is the epitome of a gentleman. He’s charming, he has style, class and from what I’ve seen, a pretty wicked sense of humour. My readers across the pond may not know who Stephen Fry is, but he’s an amazing actor and presenter. Sure, he’s gay, but whatever. This is probably the most intelligent man you’re ever gonna come across in life. He’d be hours, nay, a whole lifetime of entertainment. If I brought him home to my parents, they’d be very impressed, though they would, admittedly, have questions about why I’m dating a gay man. Anyone who rolls with me has got to be funny and if anyone can bring the funny, it’s my man Jon Stewart. If I’ve got to spend a lifetime with someone, I need to be able to laugh my way through it. Alright, so if you all could just get to work on that for me and report back with your findings, that’d be great. Mmkay. Thanks! Monday, October 26th, 2009 If you’re not watching Mad Men, I suggest you hop to it. It has nicely filled the void left by my previous obsession, The Wire. With the styling on this show, it’s hard not to fall in love with it. The lead female character, Betty Draper has a wardrobe to die for. Sure, she’s vapid, neurotic, self-centred and immature, but let’s look past all that for a second and focus on her banging garmentage (yes, I did just invent that word). The roller set hair, the matching lips and nail colour, the petticoats, the cinched in waist, gosh darnit, this woman even manages to make smoking look attractive! Oh how I wish I was a child again and could go play dress up in her closet. Not only is she the most stylin’ woman on the block, but she gets to be married to this dreamboat: *cue Barry White music* SweetLordInHeavenFatherOfAllThingsMercifulJesusOfNazarethJohnTheBaptist, how I want to do unspeakable things to him. Work it out Betty Draper *two finger snaps in a Z formation* I ain’t mad atcha. Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 Well, it’s come to an end. My vacation, that is, not my life (though you may be forgiven for thinking so, due to my lack of posts the past few weeks). As you read this, I am on a plane headed back to Toronto (probably desperately trying to resist the urge to put some screaming infant in a choke hold). - For those that are wondering, no, I did not go see this guy. - Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year, ain’t it? - Packing is a mother bitch. Seriously, I hate it. I’m having to leave two of my coats in England because I just can’t fit them in. No doubt my mother will adopt them and make sure they are cared for by wearing them at every available opportunity – I see you Mama! - My British boys know how to dress. It’s so refreshing to see guys who give a crap about their appearance. Turn it out fellas. I ain’t mad at ya! - To all my friends and of course, my fabulous family, thank you for showing me such a wonderful time. I miss you all desperately and I won’t leave it three years the next time, I promise. Love you long time. Monday, October 20th, 2008 I’m happy with my core group of friends. They’re a pretty cool crowd. Between friends here and in London, New York and Tokyo, I’m rolling pretty deep, but that doesn’t mean I can’t expand my amigo group. I got to thinking about who in the public eye I’d want to be friends with. If I track down these people, I will try to recruit them into the world of Bangs and a Bun, because my world is crazy fun y’all! You know you wanna be a part of it. So here goes: Why? Because she’s awesome. If anyone ever needs to be put in their place, I’ll just roll out JJ and let her go to town. And really, is your life really complete without an older Jewish New York woman in it? No, I didn’t think so. She dresses well enough to hang out with me. Plus, she’ll give me the ‘terrorist fist bump’ when she agrees with me. And her husband seems pretty cool too. Every girl needs her token gay. I’m sure he’ll happily criticise everyone’s dress sense and help me give make overs to those who may not be making the grade. The Entire Rock Steady Crew Because I need people to back me up whenever I feel like busting out the electric boogaloo. It’s always good to have one friend who is way dumber than you. If they’re a completely ignorant, immature, offensive asshole, it just serves to make you look better. Plus, Judge Judy can constantly cuss her out, which would make my day. Any of the Cosby Show kids Except for maybe Sondra, because she always seemed a bit lame. But Theo, Vanessa and Denise? Now, they knew how to have a good time. Snoop from The Wire I would never have to fear for my safety. Snoop will just nail gun your dead body up in a building if you mess with me. Who doesn’t want a friend like that? Maxine Gray from Judging Amy She has a quick wit, a great laugh and she looks like she gives good hugs and can cook up a good meal. Plus, she played Detective Cagney in Cagney & Lacey, which basically makes her the coolest person ever. It’s always good to have a rapper in your clique. Especially one who can give you a good insight into every conspiracy theory known to mankind. And if you ever come across an impromptu rap battle in the streets, throw this guy in there and you’ll get an insane amount of street cred. Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 The Wire has now officially ended. First Sex and the City, then The Sopranos, now this? Damn it HBO, stop crushing my dreams! I don’t know how I will get over the loss of The Wire. I will actually have to think of other things to talk about with my friends and that’s just a frikkin’ hassle. So much has been written about how it was the best show on TV, so I won’t harp on that point, other than to say, it really was the best show on TV. So, to mark the end of an era, I have compiled all my favorite moments from each season; the good, the bad and the ugly. (If you’ve never seen the show, go buy all five seasons on DVD and watch them, then read this post – I don’t want to ruin it for you.) The infamous Bunk and McNulty ‘Fuck’ scene This scene was probably the first to show the true genius of the writers. As Bunk and McNulty work their way through a crime scene, they use only the word ‘fuck’ (and variations thereof). They manage to tell the whole story of how this girl was killed without needing to use another word. (Put that in your pipe and smoke it South Pasadena!) D’Angelo’s near miss When D’Angelo’s told he had to drive Wee-Bey to Philly, he thinks he’s gonna get clipped. They go into Bey’s house and D, nearing tears, braces himself for the hit. When Bey turned the lights on, it turned out he just wanted to show D how to feed his fish while he was away. Wallace being killed by his friends Bodie and Poot is, to this day, probably one of the most difficult things I ever watched on television. The dynamic between these three characters had been such a driving force of the show and it is just heartbreaking to think that somewhere in America, there are young boys who actually have to make those decisions for real. Ziggy loses his shit After watching Ziggy try to carve a path for himself as a crook for most of the season, I found his turn of events quite shocking. He was a funny character, a harmless guy. When Ziggy was screwed over on a business deal he thought was a sure fire winner, he went back to the guy who screwed him, guns blazing. Watching him sitting in his car afterwards trying to light his cigarette, crying and hearing the sound of police sirens, you just knew that in that instant, his whole life had changed. Throughout the show Rawls has undoubtedly had some of the best lines, but for me, this was one of the greatest. When Bunk and Freamon return from questioning the crew of a boat and getting nowhere due to the number of languages on board, Rawls says ‘I don’t care if they’re speaking Mandarin Chinese with a cock sucker’s lisp.’ Classic. One word: Hamsterdam Interesting social experiment or the apocalypse? You decide. Stringer fesses up After managing to cover his tracks pretty well, Stringer, in a moment of anger, finally confesses to Avon that he was responsible for having D’Angelo killed. Needless to say, the news was not received well. Bernard’s comic relief After months of driving here, there and everywhere to buy phones for Marlo, Bernard and his annoying girlfriend are finally arrested. Sitting in the police station, cuffed, his girlfriend launches an endless tirade about how dumb he is. Bernard turns to the guy next to him and says ‘I can’t wait to go to jail.’ It’s so easy to get bogged down with all the serious situations in The Wire, that these little gems are priceless. Avon and Stringer’s goodbye Their friendship could be seen unraveling throughout the season, as they looked to take their operation in different directions. As they stand on Avon’s balcony reminiscing, knowing they are both trying to kill each other, makes for an incredibly icy, yet sad, scene. Snoop buys a nail gun I’m not ashamed to admit, Snoop scares the living crap out of me. Probably one of the most complex female characters ever on television, this scene, where she discussed the pros and cons of a nail gun with such ease, knowing that she was using it to board up the houses where she was dumping dead bodies, gave me shivers. Michael refuses Marlo’s money It was a small moment, but a big one. Showing that this boy, despite all the pressures around him, has a code of honor, was laying the ground work in the first of many parallels drawn between him and Omar. The way he shut Marlo up with just a stare showed that he was in for bigger things, however reluctant he may have been. Randy doesn’t just tug on the heart strings, he yanks those bitches right off He was branded a snitch, had his house fire bombed and his foster mother was killed in the blast. As Carver, who came to visit him in the hospital, walked away, Randy, his face scratched and bloody from the blast, just kept saying ‘you gonna look out for me Detective Carver?’ over and over. This scene ripped my heart out, stomped on it, chewed it up and spat it out. McNulty loses his damn mind After being so angelic in season four, McNulty gets back to his crazy ways in full force. The start of his downward spiral would be when he decides to tamper with a dead body to make it look like a murder. Let the insanity commence! Avon gets in bed with Marlo Not literally, obviously, but when Marlo goes to the jail to visit the Russian (a meet that Avon facilitated), and Avon throws up the west-side gang sign to Marlo at the end, you sense that shit is just about to get crazy. Gus fights the power When slimy reporter, Scott submits yet another made up story with conveniently invented quotes, Gus decides to drop it as the lead story. When confronted by the managing editor, he says casually ‘we have a sourcing policy here and I know it and I do not feel comfortable bending the rules in this instance,’ as he saunters out of the office. Watching Scott squirm was priceless. Snoop bites the dust When Mike pulls his gun on her, she doesn’t even flinch. She turns away from him, strokes the back of her head so he can get a clear shot and says ‘how my hair look Mike?’ Damn – she is the hardest of hardcore! Marlo’s cool exterior heats up When some loose lipped fool lets it slip to Marlo, while they’re in a jail cell, that Omar had been calling him out for weeks, Marlo completely loses his shit. ‘My name is my name!’ he shouts. It’s the first time you ever see Marlo lose his cool. And you just know that if they ever get out of that jail cell, that idiot who told him is the first to get capped. Dukie’s entire character arc From the time he was introduced in season four, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for Dukie. Watching him make such an effort to get on the right path, and how Mike was so protective over him, was just endearing. But as season five progressed, he became the very definition of being a victim of your circumstances. In the montage at the end of the final, episode when they showed him shooting up, well, it’s clear that Dukie took some lessons from Randy on how to rip my heart out, stomp on it, chew it up and spit it out. There are probably another fifty great moments I can think of, but those are the ones that stood out the most to me. What I enjoyed most about the show is that you really had to actively engage in watching it. The story lines could get so complex and intermingled, you couldn’t not pay attention. Each season they shone a light on a different aspect of society and showed that they all connect. Discussing this with a friend the other day, we came away concluding that the main message we got at the end of the show was ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’, which can be both positive and negative. Here’s to you Wire. You will be missed. Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 I’d like to discuss for a moment, if I may, boobs. Specifically, these ones: Holy mother of God! Now lets pretend I’m not talking about Aretha, because it’s almost blasphemy to do so, but this titty situation must be addressed. Do you see how that spaghetti strap is holding on for dear life? It defies the laws of physics how something so small can hold something so big. Each one of those puppies must weigh at least 20 pounds. Aretha wants R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Shit, how can you not respect someone heaving around 40 pounds worth of chest every day? Just as I use the term ‘Olsen’ as a unit of weight measurement (based on the assumption that one Olsen twin is equal to roughly 75 pounds), I hereby christen boobs of this magnitude ‘Arethas’. It takes a real woman to look at her fun bags (when they’re bone fide ‘Arethas’) and say to herself ‘I’m gonna forego the bra today and rock a spaghetti strap.’ For this reason, and so many more, Aretha Franklin, I salute you. Law & Order: VFU (Void Filling Unit) Man, I love me some Law & Order: SVU. I have a tendency to get obsessed with certain TV shows. I’ve been obsessed with The Wire since the first season and while waiting for the latest episodes to be uploaded online, my attention has shifted to Law & Order: SVU. I’m a fan of all the Law & Orders really. I especially like the ‘dong dong’ bell thing that signifies a new scene. I like to imagine it in my own life. Me waking up, ‘dong dong’, cut to me walking to work, ‘dong dong’ cut to me furiously tapping away on my computer. Maybe at some point, Ice T could pop up and arrest me or something. I was into Law & Order: Criminal Intent for a while, but the main guy in that gives me the night terrors. There’s just something about SVU. The Christopher Meloni/Mariska Hargitay combo is a winner. I like how he gets up in peoples faces and shouts during the interrogations and her, well, I just like how her hair changes every season. Though in real life, if female cops were as ridiculously good looking as she is, crime would soar ‘cause every perp would want to be arrested by her. (Do you like how I used the word ‘perp’? Yeah, I know, I’m all over this lingo). But one of the main reasons I like SVU is seeing how characters from some of my other favorite shows pop up on there. Christopher Meloni was on Oz, a previous obsession of mine. The priest and the crazy Nazi dude from Oz have both been on SVU as psychotherapists. The guy who plays the judge on The Wire has appeared on SVU a couple of times. Cedric Daniels of The Wire was a doctor on SVU and also played an undercover cop on Oz. Are you following? Maybe it’s just all about Oz withdrawals. When on earth will there be another show with excessive male frontal nudity? It’s been far too long. I think I’ve pretty much exhausted the SVU back catalogue at this point. Those new eps of The Wire can’t get on the net fast enough.

SPECIAL REPORT: U.S. AGENTS OF COVERT WAR IN AFRICA EXPOSED The "Policy Wonks" Behind Covert Warfare & Humanitarian Fascism This special report includes three unpublished video clips of interviewees from the Politics of Genocide documentary film project: Ugandan dignitary Remigius Kintu, former Rwandan prime minister Fautisn Twagiramungu, and Nobel peace prize nominee Juan Carrero Saralegui. Published: 8 August 2012 Revisions: 9 August 2012 Revisions: 13 August 2012 keith harmon snow Conscious Being Alliance From the 1980s to today, an elite group of Western intelligence operatives have backed low-intensity guerrilla warfare in certain African 'hotspots'. Mass atrocities in the Great Lakes and Sudan can be linked to Roger Winter, a pivotal U.S. operative whose 'team' was recently applauded for birthing the world's newest nation, South Sudan. Behind the fairytale we find a long trail of blood and skeletons from Uganda to Sudan, Rwanda and Congo. While the mass media has covered their tracks, their misplaced moralism has simultaneously helped birth a new left-liberal 'humanitarian' fascism. In this falsification of consciousness, Western human rights crusaders and organizations, funded by governments, multinational corporations and private donors, cheer the killers and blame the victims---and pat themselves on the back for saving Africa from itself. Meanwhile, the "Arab Spring" has spread to (north) Sudan. Following the NATO-Israeli model of regime change being used in Central & North Africa, it won't be long before the fall of Khartoum. SPLA Tank in South Sudan: An old SPLA army tank sits in the bush in Pochalla, Jonglei State, south Sudan in 2004. Israel, the United States, Britain and Norway have been the main suppliers of the covert low-intensity war in Sudan, organized by gunrunners and policy 'wonks'. Photo c. keith harmon snow, 2004. It is, oh! such a happy fairy tale! It begins as all happy fairy tales do, in fantasy land. The fantasy is one of human rights princes and policy 'wonks' in shining armor and the new kingdom of peace and tranquility, democracy and human rights, that they have created. That is what the United States foreign policy establishment and the corporate mass media---and not a few so-called 'human rights activists'---would have us believe about the genesis of the world's newest nation, South Sudan. "In the mid-1980s, a small band of policy wonks began convening for lunch in the back corner of a dimly lit Italian bistro in the U.S. capital," wrote Rebecca Hamilton in the recent fairytale: "The Wonks Who Sold Washington on South Sudan." Hamilton is a budding think-tank activist-advocate-agent whose whitewash of the low intensity war for Sudan (and some Western architects of it), distilled from her book Fighting for Darfur, was splashed all over the Western press on 11 July 2012. The photos accompanying Hamilton's story show a happy fraternity of 'wonks'---John Prendergast, Eric Reeves, Brian D'Silva, Ted Dagne and Roger Winter. What exactly is a 'wonk'? Well, looking at the photo, these 'wonks' are obviously your usual down-jacket, beer- and coffee-slurping American citizens from white America, with a token black man thrown in to change the complexion of this Africa story. Their cups are white and clean, their cars are shiny and new, their convivial smiles are almost convincing. There is even a flag of the new country just sort of floating across Eric Reeves' hip. Because of Dr. Reeves' 'anti-genocide' work in Sudan, Boston College professor Alan Wolfe has written that the Smith College English professor is "arrogant to the point of contempt." (I have had a similar though much more personal experience of Dr. Reeves' petulance.) "John Prendergast (L-R), Eric Reeves, Brian D'Silva, Ted Dagne and Roger Miller [sic]---pose for a photograph in this undated image provided to Reuters by John Prendergast," reads the original Reuters syndicated news caption for the posed image of the Council of Wonks. (U.S. intelligence & defense operative Roger Winter is misidentified as "Roger Miller".) The story and its photos project the image of casual, ordinary people who, we are led to believe, did heroic and superhuman things. What a bunch of happy-go-lucky wonks! Excuse me: policy wonks! And their bellies are presumably warmed by that fresh Starbucks 'fair trade' genocide coffee shipped straight from the killing fields of post-genocide [sic] Rwanda... where, coincidentally, Starbucks reportedly cut a profit of more than a few million dollars in 2011. This is a tale of dark knights, of covert operators and spies aligned with the cult of intelligence in the United States. Operating in secrecy and denial within the U.S. intelligence and defense establishment, they have helped engineer more than two decades of low intensity warfare in Sudan (alone), replete with massive suffering and a death toll of between 1.5 and 3 million Sudanese casualties---using their own fluctuating statistics on mortality---and millions upon millions of casualties in the Great Lakes of Africa. Behind the fantasy is a very real tale of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocides real and alleged, and mass atrocities covered up by these National Security agents with the aid of a not-so-ordinary English professor---their one-man Ministry of Disinformation---Dr. Eric Reeves. "After ordering beers, they would get down to business: how to win independence for southern Sudan, a war-torn place most American politicians had never heard of." Rebecca Hamilton thickened the plot, delving deeper into the intrigue and the extra-ordinariness of this happy Council of Wonks. "They called themselves the Council and gave each other clannish nicknames: the Emperor, the Deputy Emperor, the Spear Carrier. The unlikely fellowship included an Ethiopian refugee to America, an English-lit professor and a former Carter administration official who once sported a ponytail." How quaint! How absolutely Clark Kent! From the photo, I immediately recognized three of the five Council of Wonks members posed casually next to a car in some nondescript parking lot somewhere in America. There is John Prendergast, Eric Reeves, Brian D'Silva, Ted Dagne and... Roger Winter. (Not 'Roger Miller': the massive Reuters syndicate can't even get the wonk's name right.) "The Council is little known in Washington or in Africa itself." Rebecca Hamilton deepened the intrigue. "But its quiet cajoling over nearly three decades helped South Sudan win its independence one year ago this week. Across successive U.S. administrations, they smoothed the path of southern Sudanese rebels in Washington, influenced legislation in Congress, and used their positions to shape foreign policy in favor of Sudan's southern rebels, often with scant regard for U.S. government protocol." Smoothed the path of the Sudanese rebels? That's an understatement. That's not all they did. Faustin Twagiramungu, former Prime Minister under Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front government (1994-1995), speaks on U.S. intelligence operative Roger Winter: Wonks? What is a wonk anyway? Sounds excessively benign. Even charming. Not being an English professor-cum-genocide-savior or a national security operative or a gun-running covert intelligence asset myself, I looked the word up in my American Heritage dictionary, but it doesn't exist in my (apparently) antiquated copy. Seems the word 'wonk' is about as new as the country of South Sudan. "Look at the names mentioned by the story," says Dr. Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, one of many former Rwandan government officials who continues to be harassed by the regime of president Paul Kagame in Rwanda and watched by U.S. Homeland Security. "All of them have a good cover. They move from one job to another easily. The story suggests they are somehow unrelated to the U.S. government even though their employer is the U.S. government." What does this Roger Winter know about the Rwandan rebel 'Zero Network' and alleged CIA involvement in shooting down the presidential plane on April 6, 1994---assassinating the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, their top aides and the French crew? Was Roger Winter involved in the October 23, 1993 assassination of Burundi's Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye? "It is also known that Roger Winter, an influential American politician, was present at Paul Kagame's headquarters at Mulindi [Rwanda] a few days before the offensive launched in the night of April 6-7, 1994," reported Bernard Lugan, a prominent French historian and the editor of the online journal L'Afrique Réelle. "Whoever shot down the plane, the killing began within hours, as Kagame and his Tutsi army fought their way toward Kigali to stop the genocide they had helped provoke," wrote U.S. scholar-diplomat Stephen Weissman in 2004. While selling the establishment mythology where Kagame 'stopped the genocide'---which the RPF actually provoked and supported---Weissman also elaborates a very serious point. "Traveling with them, by his own account, was at least one American---the refugee's [Paul Kagame's] friend Roger Winter. Should Congress ever investigate America's role in the Rwandan holocaust, Mr. Winter would be a star witness." "Roger Winter was the chief logistics boss for [RPF] Tutsis until their victory in 1994," said Ugandan dignitary Remigius Kintu, "and he was operating from 1717 Massachusetts Avenue NW in Washington D.C. This was the nerve center of the operations against Rwanda." Ugandan dignitary Remigius Kintu speaks on U.S. intelligence operative Roger Winter: Storyteller Rebecca Hamilton set out to save Sudan from itself during her "Save Darfur" days at Harvard University, circa 2004, where she organized the campaign to divest Harvard from corporations doing business with Khartoum. Since then, doors have opened for Rebecca Hamilton everywhere she goes---though she was once detained in Khartoum. Surprised to be suspect as a 'journalist', Hamilton later chronicled her six-hour ordeal in the Atlantic Monthly, where she positioned herself as an innocent journalist detained by the Government of Sudan's "dreaded internal security agency". With her cell phone on mute she texted her husband to "contact [my] employer in Washington"---but she didn't tell us who that employer in Washington is. A "special correspondent for the Washington Post in Sudan," Rebecca Hamilton is also supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the New America Foundation. These institutions serve and advance the ever expanding Anglo-American Zionist Empire---multinational corporations and investment banks and currency speculators like Soros and the German Jewish firm Warburg Pincus. These entities have deep ties to establishment news corporations and their use of qualifiers like 'Pulitzer'---perceived to be synonymous with truth and integrity in investigative reporting---only serve to blind the 'news' consuming masses to these institutions' hidden agendas. They are also deeply tied to powerful Christian and Jewish interests, and lobbies. The New America Foundation is funded by all the big foundations (Ford, MacArthur, Pew, Bill & Melinda Gates, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Open Society) and the U.S. Department of State donates hundreds of thousands of dollars (in the $299,000 to $999,999 category) annually. Members of their 'Leadership Council' and 'National Security Advisory Council' include the prominent Council on Foreign Relations member Fareed Zakaria. An editor-at-large at Time, a Washington Post columnist and the host of CNN's foreign-affairs show, Zakaria is also director of The Aspen Institute. Zakaria was a columnist for Newsweek and editor of Newsweek International from 2000 to 2010. On August 10, 2012, Zakaria was suspended from several media positions for plagurism. Back in 2008, the New American Foundation funded another major agitprop piece on Roger Winter by Eliza Griswold in the New York Times Magazine. Another sanitized story, a bit more honest though, "The Man for a New Sudan" makes it clear that Roger Winter effectively served as a military commander for the SPLM in Sudan. Like Rebecca Hamilton's wonk fare, it is a story of a white knight in shining armor fighting his way to martyrdom, hand and foot, suffering and sandstorms, rag-tag rebels and roughshod rebellion, against the evil and superior Khartoum government. What western 'news' consumers fail to understand is that these left-liberal institutions hone and tune the 'news' that appears in venues across the political spectrum. 'News' stories like "The Wonks Who Sold Washington on South Sudan" are produced with the understanding that they will: [a] serve corporate interests; [b] advance themes of democracy and freedom; [c] shield western power brokers from criticism and scrutiny; [d] whitewash western war crimes; [e] demonize anyone perceived to be hostile to the western economic and financial systems; and [f] support economic, political and/or military warfare all over the world. These hegemonic objectives are achieved by overt and covert means, including: conventional warfare; intelligence operations; low intensity warfare; psychological operations or Psy-Ops; assassinations; coup d'etats; subversion; 'democracy promotion'; election-rigging; and other illegal tax-payer funded foreign interventions. Clean-cut American 'media' personalities and 'journalists' like Rebecca Hamilton and Eliza Griswold and Nicholas Kristof are used to manufacture domestic consent---to inculcate ignorance, apathy, confusion, complacency and patriotism---in the English-language (U.S., Canadian, European, Australian) infotainment consuming masses. They are also used to make us more ethnocentric. This is primarily achieved through emotionally potent oversimplifications: facts don't matter. The propaganda techniques used by these mainstays of American Freedom [sic] are no more or less manipulative and sinister than those we associate with Russia or China or the so-called 'Axis of Evil' states (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen). Like the bloodied victims (whether foreign civilians or U.S. troops), tortures, massacres and other war crimes and crimes against humanity are whited-out from the pages and screens of Western 'news' venues, leaving us with sanitized fantasy tales reinforcing our own sense of truth and justice, and the inherent goodness we all want to believe in. "The lives of countless men, women and children depend on the truth," says war correspondent John Pilger in his documentary film The War You Don't See. Like the non-coverage of the ongoing western-backed terrorism in Burundi, Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia and Uganda, "The Wonks Who Sold Washington on South Sudan" is a propaganda piece covering up the war we didn't see---and the war we don't see---in Sudan. The strategy to fracture and divide Sudan is similar to the strategy at work in the Congo, and it echoes the RPF's strategy of 'fight and talk' used to achieve regime change in Rwanda, 1990 to 1994. In the low intensity wars waged against Sudan (1989-2006), Uganda (1980-1985), Rwanda (1990-1994) and Congo-Zaire (1996-1997), it was not enough to try to destroy the organized military forces of the legitimate governments in power; a movement or group responsive to U.S. interests had to be created, legitimated, and presented to the target (domestic) populations as viable alternatives to the governments to be overthrown or replaced. For such purposes the U.S. and its allies (primarily U.K. and Israel) sponsored the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the National Resistance Movement (NRM), Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and the Alliance for the Democratic Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL). (Such terrorism has also occurred in northern Uganda---where Museveni's soldiers targeted the Acholi people.) SPLA soldiers and captured GoS Tank: SPLA soldiers stand near a Government of Sudan (GoS) tank they destroyed at "Kit bridge battle" in south Sudan in early November 1995. SPLA soldiers commanded by Gabriel Majok Nak (third left) on standby for deployment. Photo by Jimmy Adriko on December 8, 1995, courtesy of the New Vision newspaper Kampala, Uganda. These propaganda stories and the institutions that manufacture them also whiteout all Israeli ties to the carnage. Israel routinely advised and trained the security forces of the Mobutu regime in Zaire and the Hissen Habre regime in Chad and they backed both Idi Amin and Museveni in their guerrilla wars. Israeli MOSSAD agent David Kimche worked alongside Roger Winter to aide the RPF victory in Rwanda. Israeli commanders were spotted on the battlefields of eastern Congo-Zaire and the Israeli firm Silver Shadow reportedly armed the Ugandan People's Defense Forces in their alliance with the Congolese warlord Jean Pierre Bemba and his ruthless Movement for the Liberation of Congo. Israel backed the SPLM with defense and intelligence cooperation for decades. Israel backed the 'rebels' in Darfur, both the Sudan Liberation Army---an extension of the SPLM---and, more significantly, the so-called Justice and Equality Movement. Tanks and artillery equipment were off-loaded at the U.S. military port of Mombasa, Kenya, and driven across Kenya and South Sudan. Israel's support for the new South Sudan is no longer covert. In April 2012, just before the full-scale SPLA offensive in the disputed Heglig border region, Israeli and South Sudanese newspapers reported that Israeli aircraft have been delivering military hardware and mercenaries (from other African countries) in South Sudan to fight against the Khartoum government. South Sudanese soon after shot down a Sudanese MiG-29 fighter jet: the SPLA claimed that Khartoum "didn't know we have that capacity." In December 2011, Salva Kiir, South Sudan's new warlord president, chose Israel for one of his first official visits. In November 2011 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosted the leaders of Uganda and Kenya. During his December visit, Kiir held meetings with President Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. These are the same players backing the Dan Gertler companies behind the dictatorship of Hyppolite Kanambe (alias Joseph Kabila) and the Western-backed plunder and depopulation in the Congo. On July 23, 2012, in return for decades of covert Israeli support for the SPLA's low-intensity war, the SPLA regime running the new South Sudan signed over Sudan's water rights and "infrastructure development" to Israel. The deals were sealed by Israeli government and agents for Israeli Military Industries (IMI)---an aerospace and defense contractor fully owned by the Israeli government, and a prime U.S. military supplier. Israeli and South Sudan: Israeli Prime Minsiter Benjamin Netanyahu with South Sudan President Salva Kiir in December 2011. Meanwhile, the United States has routinely deployed covert forces in the Great Lakes, Chad, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Mali, Niger---all over the place. In October, 2011, president Barack Obama announced that the Pentagon was sending "100 armed advisers" to Uganda. An insult to the people's intelligence, these are not "armed advisers"---they are U.S. Special Forces. But U.S. forces are all over the region, from Camp Hurso in Ethiopia and Camp Lemonnier in DJibouti to the new AFRICOM base in Kisangani, Congo. Evidence of the Special Forces is obliterated by most news agencies. If and when the presence of the U.S. military is revealed, it is casually noted, downplaying their presence, as if it were routine. For example, the Pentagon's special "conservationist" J. Michael Fay dropped a bombshell in disguise in the story "Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma" in the March 2007 print issue of National Geographic. Ostensibly about elephants in Zakouma National Park in Chad, the story is more imperialist anti-Islamic propaganda related to the Arab militias on horses, hailing out of Darfur, known as Janjaweed. "I saw a large helicopter to the southeast." Fay builds the drama for the reader. "It made straight for our truck. We could run, but we couldn't hide. It was a Russian-made Mi-17 with a missile launcher, the same type that had mistakenly fired the day before on a column of Chadian and American soldiers north of the park." [10-a] Looking at the map, north of the park could be Chad or Sudan. What is a column of American soldiers doing in Chad? Or is it Darfur? Well, obviously! They are saving elephants! A few days later, Fay reports "[a] pair of French military Mirage fighter jets running sorties toward Sudan (more than a thousand rebels were retreating there) buzzed the Tinga, spooking a herd of elephants I was watching at the pool." Oh, and, by the way, "Marc Wall, the U.S. Ambassador to Chad, just happened to be visiting the park." [10-a] The article reveals all without revealing anything. The presence of French fighter jets, American soldiers, the U.S. Ambassador---who is out for a "safari"---provide proof of highly organized military campaigns that are rendered invisible by the propaganda system. "Nationhood has many midwives," reads the long caption appearing with many of the Council of Wonks story photos. But if the Council of Wonks are the 'midwives' of South Sudan's birthing process, their result has been a bloody abortion and a grotesquely deformed progeny whose 'leaders' are promoting ethnic hatred and selling the place off to the highest bidder. "Everybody is working to protect the Sudan People's Liberation Movement [SPLM], but the truth is the SPLM is doing all of these terrible things every day," says Luke Chuol, a South Sudanese human rights defender based in Canada. "These people from the U.S. and U.N., all they care about is to give the SPLA money and weapons." When South Sudan became the world's newest nation on 9 July 2011, the SPLA---the armed wing of the SPLM---became South Sudan's national army. Mr. Chuol, a member of the South Sudan's Nuer tribe, has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate crimes against humanity committed in South Sudan in May 2011 by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The Nuer community alleges that the specific and systematic attacks against the Nuer people constitute ethnic cleansing by the SPLA. In January 2011, the SPLA and governor Kuol Manyang Juuk of South Sudan's Jonglei state diverted 1000 guns meant for graduating police and delivered them to Murle tribesmen so that the Murle could fight their rival the Lou Nuer community. SPLA Commander-in-Chief General Salva Kiir---the first president of the newly independent [sic] South Sudan---was reportedly aware of the diversion of weapons. Following the SPLA's redistribution of weapons last July, massive ethnic violence in Jonglei state has created perhaps as many as 100,000 internally displaced people (IDPs), with ongoing clashes in the spring of 2012.Roger Winter & John Garang: Judging the youth of Sudan People's Liberation Army leader John Garang (L) and Roger Winter (R), this photo is probably circa 1985 (Winter would have been 42 years old). Garang was trained at Ft. Benning, GA, home to the notorious School of the Americas (from 1984). Caption created by Reuters: John Garang (L) shakes hands with Roger Winter, now an honorary adviser to the South Sudan government and one of the Council's original members, in this undated image taken in Sudan and provided to Reuters by Roger Winter. Nationhood has many midwives. South Sudan is primarily the creation of its own people. It was southern Sudanese leaders who fought for autonomy, and more than two million southern Sudanese who paid for that freedom with their lives. U.S. President George W. Bush, who set out to end Africa's Longest-running civil war, also played a big role, as did modern-day abolitionists, religious groups, human rights organizations and members of the U.S. Congress. But the most persistent outside force in the creation of the world's newest state was the Council, a tightly knit group never numbering more than seven people, which in the era before email, began gathering regularly at Otello, a restaurant near Washington's DuPont Circle." "The SPLA is looting everywhere," says Mr. Chuol, accusing the SPLA of behaving like an army of occupation and terror. "They are taking everything for themselves, acting like they are heroes. They are torturing, raping, and killing people, and burning down villages." The fairy tales about Roger Winter and Eric Reeves and the Council of Wonks have airbrushed such inconvenient truths from history. "South Sudan is primarily the creation of its own people," continues the ever-repeated Reuters caption, drumming home the new-old Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton propaganda line about 'Africa by and for Africans'. "It was southern Sudanese leaders who fought for autonomy, and more than two million southern Sudanese who paid for that freedom with their lives." "The reality," says Mr. Chuol, whose family and friends have suffered from the recent violence, "is that the U.S. and U.N. are abandoning the people of South Sudan, because they only want to focus on the problems of the Bashir government in Khartoum." The divide and conquer politics of Empire would dictate that rebel factions be set at each other's throats, enabling greater western penetration and control of the new South Sudan. From the very first days of their insurrection, the SPLM has committed massive atrocities, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide. It was the same story with Museveni's NRM guerrillas in Uganda, Kagame's RPF guerrillas in Rwanda, and with the Ugandan and Rwandan ADFL guerrillas in Congo-Zaire. Roger Winter was involved with each of these four major guerrilla campaigns. From the early 1970's to the present day he has moved in and out of foreign countries under the cover of the United States Committee for Refugees (USCR) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other entities. "Starting in the early 1980's, the United States began to reorganize the military establishment to conduct low-intensity warfare campaigns. The Joint Chiefs of Staff formed special low-intensity conflict divisions within the Department of Defense and within each military service, and also reintroduced political and psychological warfare branches. The Pentagon even drafted a Psy-Ops 'master plan' at the behest of a presidential directive, and the National Security Council set up a top-level 'board for low intensity conflict'." Getting beyond the infantile nonsense about "Emperor" and "Deputy Emperor" and "Spear Carrier," the roles of our Council of Wonks in creating conflict, shipping weapons, covering massacres, and producing propaganda for these insurgencies are not completely clear. The military and intelligence hierarchies they operate within are equally untransparent. Rebecca Hamilton tells a happy story of the origins of the Council of Wonks. It begins in 1978, when Brian D'Silva studied at Iowa State University alongside "an intensely charismatic southern Sudanese man named John Garang, who had been dreaming of a democratic Sudan... After graduation, D'Silva went with Garang to Sudan to teach at the University of Khartoum." D'Silva was a Ford Foundation visiting professor at U-Khartoum, but Rebecca Hamilton drops the reference to Ford, a known conduit to the covert U.S. intelligence sector and foreign interventions. D'Silva joined the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to work in Sudan in the 1980's. D'Silva's old schoolmate is John Garang, "a conscript in the Sudanese arm [who] led a mutiny of southern Sudanese soldiers," Hamilton tells us. Enter the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLM), "which led the fight for southern autonomy." In the early 1980's, Sudan was run by the CIA's man Jaafar Nimeiri, who was ousted in 1985, and USAID maintained tight ties with the CIA. From 1985 to 1989, the Reagan Administration maintained a strong allegiance to the unstable Islamic government prior to the ascension to power of Omar al-Bashir. USAID at the time was deeply involved in agriculture, especially interventions in plantations and gum arabic production. Gum arabic is essential for soft drinks (Coke, Pepsi, Fanta) and beer, and for ice cream and other foods, and Sudan has a near monopoly. Gum arabic imports were exempt from president Clinton's trade embargo of October 1997. Rep. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) sponsored the gum arabic loophole and Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.) backed it: N.J. is home to three major corporations importing gum arabic. USAID operations became more and more untenable from 1985, and were completely displaced in 1989 under the Islamic government of Omar al-Bashir. Such facts are unmentioned by Hamilton---heretical to a fairytale of U.S. policy wonks who "dreamed of democracy" in Sudan. Then as now, Brian D'Silva operated under the USAID cover. Of course, Sudan is also about oil. While the Council of Wonks minister of propaganda Dr. Eric Reeves was screaming about genocide in Darfur, he was also denying that massive petroleum reserves up for grabs in Darfur. [15-a] In his Washington Post article titled "Regime Change in Sudan," Dr. Eric Reeves called for the overthrow of the government of Sudan, by any means necessary, and noted that some "governing body" needed to be created to take its place. This is exactly what has happened in other "Arab Spring" countries---Libya, Egypt, Yemen---and was the modus operandi for the U.S. invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. These are effectively coup d'etats. "A proportionately representative interim governing council must be created externally but be ready to move quickly to take control when the NIF [National Islamic Front] is removed by whatever means are necessary," Dr. Eric Reeves opined. [15-b] Roger Winter appears on the wonk scene after a 1981 visit to Sudan "for a non-governmental outfit called the U.S. Committee for Refugees," says Rebecca Hamilton. Like the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) has a euphemistic name suggesting humanitarian motives, but both are deeply connected to the U.S. intelligence and defense community, and their work with 'refugees' is more about selectively monitoring populations on the move, gathering intelligence on political dissidents, identifying points of leverage or intervention in complex emergencies. Roger Winter then meets Francis Deng, "a respected legal scholar" at a prominent U.S. think tank, and, Hamilton tells us, Deng "calls up a cousin in the rebel movement to ensure that on future visits, Winter would have access to all the so-called liberated areas---the parts of Sudan held by the rebels---where he could gather direct testimony on the impact of the war." Nonsense. Like all Alice in Wonderland fairytales, the rabbit hole goes much deeper than we are told here. The true facts remain hidden in classified documents, waiting for some enterprising muckracker---completely unlike Rebecca Hamilton or Nicholas Kristof---to excavate by FOIA from the bowels of the U.S. National Security apparatus. "By the mid-1980s," Rebecca Hamilton tells us, "these three future Council members--D'Silva, Deng and Winter--were working in the United States as proxies for John Garang, trying to open doors for the SPLM in Washington." Enter John Prendergast, "a wayward college graduate in search of a cause" who had been traveling in the Horn of Africa." Caption by Reuters: Smith College Professor and South Sudan expert Eric Reeves is pictured at home in Northampton, Massachusetts June 29, 2012. Nationhood has many midwives. South Sudan is primarily the creation of its own people... blah, blah, blah." REUTERS: Matthew Cavanaugh. "By the early 1990s, the group's work was starting to pay off." Rebecca Hamilton distills the fairy tale down to platitudes. Ted Dagne "was seconded from the Congressional Research Service to the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, where he began to build allies for the southern Sudanese cause... By the mid-nineties, five men---Dagne, Deng, D'Silva, Prendergast and Winter---were meeting regularly at Otello's." Another key player in the covert network, and Roger Winter's protégé, was Susan Rice, William Jefferson Clinton's Assistant Secretary of State on African Affairs political hit-man [sic] on Sudan and the Great Lakes. According to Rebbecca Hamilton, John Prendergast "applied to work for Susan Rice"---sometime in the 1990's---and "she hired him." The Prendergast history is intentionally vague. "At 33, he was former President Bill Clinton's director of African Affairs at the National Security Council," wrote a Philadelphia magazine. It was 1996. The Clinton administration was sponsoring the invasion of Congo-Zaire, and famine was sweeping south Sudan---due in part to the SPLM using food as a weapon of war---but this is a clean and shiny profile of John Prendergast. Susan Rice hired Prendergast after his gig at the National Security Council, making him one of her special advisers at the U.S. Department of State. "While you sing [John Prendergast's] praises, the Congolese people who have been dying since 1996 have NO use of JP, though he might go by there and spread some crumbs around from the money he raises and lives by." Dr. Yaa-Lengi Ngemi, Congolese author of Genocide in the Congo, sent a letter to the posh Philadelphia tabloid. "WHY? Let me put it this way for you to understand: It's like raising money to feed someone in chains and who is being tortured everyday instead of denouncing and getting rid of the brutes torturing the man." Prendergast later worked for the International Crises Group, another intelligence think tank and agitprop NGO fronting for factions close to the U.S. government---described by Rebecca Hamilton as "an independent research group". Operating behind front groups like ENOUGH and Raise Hope for Congo, John Prendergast has been long involved in supporting and covering up the western defense and intelligence sector's involvement in low-intensity conflicts in Africa. Like the so-called "non-government organizations" or "NGOs" named RESOLVE, Save Darfur, Raise Hope for Congo, STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur), United to End Genocide, the Genocide Intervention Network and many more, these groups morph and reconfigure, always drawing massive funds from specious U.S. government front organizations like the Center for American Progress. Their brochures are fancy, full color productions, their organizing is funded, their messages are simple---as appealing as the Kony2012 video---watered-down-and-feel-good campaigns that displace the true grass roots movements for social justice in Africa. Rebecca Hamilton also deleted the key fact that Susan Rice and John Prendergast worked together to create the Pentagon's prized Africa Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI)---a euphemistically named entity created to project U.S. power in Africa---run by U.S. Army Special Forces Command (SOCOM). "By the late 1990s, Washington was not just providing humanitarian assistance to the southern Sudanese," Rebecca Hamilton's agitprop reports. "It was also giving leadership missions and training, as well as $20 million of surplus military equipment to Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea, who all supported the southern rebels. Prendergast said the idea was to help states in the region to change the regime. 'It was up to them, not us,' he said in an interview..." Operation Lifeline Sudan: An International Rescue Committee plane flying from the United Nations' base for Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) in Lokichogio, Kenya, lands in south Sudan's Jonglei State near Pochalla and is met by Anuak and Nuer refugees. The plane dropped a humanitarian mission to investigate attacks against Ethiopian Anuak and Nuer refugees in nearby Gambella state, Ethiopia, January 16-24, 2004.Photo c. keith harmon snow, 2004. Africa by and for Africans! Notice how Rebecca Hamilton distances the U.S. government from the already 15 plus years of covert low-intensity warfare facilitated---since the early 1980's---by Roger Winter. The military equipment is also described as 'surplus'---a ploy of plausible denial and disinformation that further downplays the covert support for a nasty and bloody low-intensity war in Sudan. Of course, there is no mention of Roger Winter's role in the low-intensity wars in Africa's Great Lakes countries. "The Council's Deputy Emperor, Eric Reeves, joined in 2001." Rebecca Hamilton writes. "Reeves was a professor of English literature at Smith, a small college in Western Massachusetts. He had no background in Sudan. But after reading about the humanitarian conditions in the south and attending a lecture Winter gave at the college, Reeves became the Council's most prolific writer. He published hundreds of opinion pieces and blogged detailed reports brimming with moral outrage against Khartoum." Dr. Eric Reeves is perhaps America's greatest emotional manipulator. Reading his texts, one is overwhelmed by superlatives and assaulted by inflammatory emotional language. "The brutal regime in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, has orchestrated genocidal counterinsurgency war in Darfur for five years, and now is poised for victory in its ghastly assault on the region's African populations." Add the delusions, the outright lies and invented facts provided from the field by the other members of the Council of Wonks, the arrogance and brow-beating of anyone who dissents against him, and the patriotism, and it is clear that Reeves demonstrates what Wilhelm Reich described as fascism. And then there is his petulant behavior. Reeves tolerates zero criticism or divergence from the party line. If he doesn't want to hear what someone has to say, and his mind is closed to alternative perspectives, he quite literally throws a temper tantrum: even Rebecca Hamilton wrote how he stormed out of a Save Darfur meeting. Dr. Eric Reeves refuses to sit on any panels with anyone who deviates from his sacred script, and he can be downright nasty. For example, on July 6, 2006, at Dr. Reeves' own Smith College, Reeves refused to participate in a panel on Darfur titled "Intervention, Regime Change and the Politics of Genocide" and he did not attend the event. The head of Smith's African Studies, Dr, Eliot Fratkin, was one of the panel members, as was this journalist. (Dr. Fratkin applauded the panel, at its conclusion, but Fratkin changed his position overnight and distanced himself the following day.) [21-a] At Smith College on December 9, 2010, when a journalist interrupted Reeves during the question and answers session following Reeves' lecture on Darfur, Reeves went berserk: the journalist was assaulted by the event organizers, and Smith College security issued the journalist a "No Trespassing for Life" notice for three colleges: Smith College, Mt. Holyoke and Hampshire College. The mass media spread Reeves' Sudan propaganda far and wide, and whole social movements have been engineered---from Mia Farrow and George Clooney to the Darfur Action Group of the Northampton (MA)-based Congregation B'Nai Israel Church to the Holocaust Memorial Museum---to mobilize constituencies and misdirect public action. The political calculus at work is based in a left-liberal hawkishness that has lost its moral compass, and this misplaced moralism is a cultural phenomenon that serves the powerful forces of Empire. This is what I call humanitarian fascism. The cover story is full of fictions, little lies and outright disinformation. While the resumés of most development and policy experts are typically findable on-line, the details of Prendergast, Dagne, D'Silva and Winter's careers are not so easily discoverable. For example, in the late 1980's and early 1990's, John Prendergast worked in southern Sudan for several so-called non-government organizations that, in fact, have very close ties to the foreign policy and intelligence establishment: Bread for the World and Human Rights Watch. Access to south Sudan was facilitated through the so-called 'humanitarian' wing of the SPLM, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA). From Nairobi---a hub for U.S., British and Israeli defense and intelligence interests in East Africa and the Horn---western agents fly to Lokichogio, on the Kenya-Sudan border, where a United Nations base offered support for the billion dollar western misery-cum-missionary enterprise, Operation Lifeline Sudan. Sudan in pictures: A racist, blurry, black, decontextualized New York Times Magazine photo that accompanied a Nicholas Kristof article. Very euphemistically named, Bread for the World is a Christian faith-based organization close to the heart of the Christian Coalition. Past and current Bread for the World directors have included U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.)(d. 2012) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA). Other directors include Clinton White House insiders Mike McCurry and---president Barack Obama's current Secretary of Defense and former CIA director (2009-2011)---Leon Panetta. "In 1995, Christian Solidarity International initiated a controversial program in Sudan called slave redemption," wrote Rebecca Hamilton. "The Zurich-based human-rights organization began paying slave traders for the freedom of southerners captured in raids by government-backed militias from the north. Christian Solidarity took journalists and pastors from the black evangelical community along on their missions, and stories of modern-day slavery filtered into church congregations and the U.S. media." Many Jewish and Christian political organizations and think tanks have supported the long years of covert low-intensity warfare in Sudan. The religious propaganda produced by the policy wonks sold western minds to support a Jewish and Christian fundamentalist war against Islam that would otherwise never have existed. The slavery campaigns amounted to one massive fabrication after another, Psy-Ops used against western 'news' consumers and the Christian and Jewish masses. Intelligence operatives Ted Dange, John Prendergast and Roger Winter shuttled U.S. politicians to SPLM territory to see the misery for themselves---misery that the Council of Wonks' Dr. Eric Reeves always attributed to a "genocidal counterinsurgency by the Government of Sudan." Nicholas Kristof took the flag and ran with it in such massive disinformation pieces as "The Secret Genocide Archive." Nicholas Kristof was rewarded with a Pulitzer Prize for his Sudan agitprop. Roger Winter took Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and another member of Congress (unnamed by Rebecca Hamilton) to meet SPLM commander John Garang on one of his visits to rebel-held areas of Sudan in 1989. Ted Dagne's "network of southern Sudan allies in Congress solidified," Rebecca Hamilton wrote. "He organized trips into SPLM-held areas for bipartisan delegations, including Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Frist and the late New Jersey Democratic Rep. Donald Payne." Donald Payne served on numerous top-level Congressional committees involved in African Affairs and he accompanied the Clinton's on the victory tour in Africa in 1998, he was arrested for protesting in front of the Sudan Embassy in 2001, and supported the Genocide Intervention Network, one of the Prendergast-linked intelligence agitprop groups. Payne was tied to numerous other Christian-right charity organizations---like Servant's Heart---working in Africa, and to the Africa Society, a pro-business intelligence and propaganda front group. Famines, starvation, internally displaced people and refugees flows are these organizations' stock in trade, and the war in south Sudan simultaneously took land out of agricultural production and created a market for U.S. corporations to dump surplus and sub-standard grains for a profit. Many of these organizations are today connected to Yoweri Museveni---former co-chair of the euphemistically named Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa (PCHPA)---and they operate in tandem with USAID, which is really just a Christian-based "soft policy" wing of the Pentagon that uses food as a weapon under the disguise of charity. Many of USAID's programs are highly invisible. Kigali, Rwanda, 4 July 2010: Paul Kagame decorates Roger Winter with special medals celebrating RPF victory; U.S. Rep. Donald Payne also received one of Kagame's medals. Donald Payne and Roger Winter were decorated by Rwandan president Paul Kagame at the July 4, 2012 celebration of the 16th Anniversary of the RPF's victory in Rwanda. Donald Payne, then 76, received only the UMURINZI "Campaign Against Genocide Medal for being "among 'very few' people in the world who recognized the Tutsi Genocide as the governments, media and individuals continued to debate." Roger Winter, then 67, received both Rwanda's URUTI Liberation Medal and UMURINZI medal. "Roger Winter is one of Kagame's most ardent supporters, and one of the most biased, and least credible," says Rene Lemarchand, long-time Central Africa expert and former USAID consultant (1992-1998). "It is not for nothing that Winter has been decorated by [Paul] Kagame for his past services as a praise-singer (griot) on behalf of his patron. He played a key role in 1992 in putting Kagame in touch with high-ranking bureaucrats in the U.S. State Department, and he kept in close touch with the RPF in subsequent years. I would trust him about as far as I can throw a piano. I believe you're right in saying that Winter worked as a U.S. intelligence operative. That's my gut feeling but I cannot prove it." "The silence is fathomless and overwhelming and eventually there will be no more sounds from this region," wrote Roger Rosenblatt in a July 1993 Vanity Fair feature article (later published as a book) that sold the U.S. policy line on Sudan in 1993. The article is a sales pitch, a provocative pornography of misery and violence meant to tug on western heart strings and open purses for western charity NGOs. Whether by accident or intention, depopulation of indigenous lands is one of the objectives of Empire, enabling foreign interests to more easily steal and occupy the land. "No side has a claim on morality in these wars." Rosenblatt prepares the argument for our SPLA support, taking the side sanctioned by the popular insanity, and in sync with the National Security apparatus. This is, after all, a war for public opinion at home, as much as for Empire in Sudan. "When [Government of Sudan] military convoys lose vehicles to rebel mines, they usually burn the closest village and murder its inhabitants." Rosenblatt is unwilling to expose the SPLM tactics in low-intensity warfare, where the people are used as human shields. "Soldiers routinely rape women displaced from their homes by the fighting; the SPLA has also been accused of rape and kidnapping." The GoS soldiers are guilty of rape, while SPLA soldiers are only accused. "Both the government and the SPLA have menaced relief operations and blown up trucks carrying food and medicine." So there are, in fact, two warring factions in this war! "The government has amputated the limbs of prisoners of war; so has the SPLA." "Yet nearly everyone [sic] agrees that the Bashir government has been the main persecutor in the wars." Roger Rosenblatt's script is still in use today! "Muslim fundamentalists armed and inspired by Iran, they are the theocratic cleansers of their country---a twist on the ethnic cleansers in Bosnia. They seek to "Islamize" the Sudan---as indeed Iran may seek to Islamize the entire Horn of Africa---by converting or killing off all the Christians and animists in the South. Their weapons are famine, political repression, the torture of dissidents, and outright slaughter." Yet nearly everyone does not agree. To conclude the upside-down and backwards charade, Rosenblatt proffered the thesis that "the U.S. government provided only intermittent humanitarian aid to the Sudan, either because it is loath to interfere with a sovereign government (this is how the political situation in Sudan differs from Somalia) or because there is no obvious geopolitical advantage in doing so in the post-Cold War environment." No obvious geopolitical advantage! No geopolitical interests! No strategic interests! "The silence is fathomless and overwhelming," indeed, and if "eventually there will be no more sounds from this region," it will be due to the massive corporate depopulation land-grab [Lebensraum] by Wall Street bankers, industrial philanthropists and other white collar predators. The example of Jarch Capital comes quickly to mind. Wall Street banker Philippe Heilberg's Jarch Capital, an investment firm, acquired 400,000 hectares in South Sudan in the last few years. These landholdings the size of Vermont were acquired in a deal with SPLM warlord Gabriel Matip. Jarch Capital came under some mild scrutiny when it was learned that Jarch executives include a former Clinton era Pentagon agent named Gwenyth Todd, and Joseph Wilson. In 1997, just before Clinton destroyed Sudan's Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory with cruise missiles, Joseph Wilson ran the National Security Council's East Africa Desk. Working under him was none other than National Security Council agent John Prendergast, America's humanitarian poster boy for Sudan and George Clooney's sidekick. "Whatever the causes of the war, it is southern civilians who have paid most dearly for it, and continue to pay," wrote Human Rights Watch in a November 1994 report. "In this second civil [sic] war, even the adults are hard pressed to survive where displacement, asset destruction, famine and disease are constantly recurring. Children, always the most disadvantaged in any war, have been additionally punished in Sudan by being separated from their families, where they might find a modicum of adult protection, supervision and concern. They remain at greater risk than adults." John Prendergast was one of several key researchers for the HRW report, based on research at refugee camps in Kenya, Sudan and Uganda from January to June 1993, and interviews in conducted in London, Cairo, Nairobi and Washington DC. The report concluded that "the SPLA has engaged in recruitment of boy soldiers and in the separation of children from their families... Since 1987 the SPLA has maintained large camps of boys separate from their relatives and tribes in refugee camps in Ethiopia and in southern Sudan. From these camps the SPLA has drawn fresh recruits as needed, regardless of the age of the boys." Not only were the SPLA "lost Boys" camps used for military recruitment: they were also places of death. Conditions were abhorrent. While the Operation Lifeline Sudan was paying huge salaries to western ex-patriots, and while Christian NGOs were shipping bibles to remote locations suffering famine, boys were living in absolute misery in these camps. Scores of thousands of children have died due to the indirect causes of the U.S. covert war. Roger Winter and the low-intensity SPLM war created the so-called "Lost Boys of Sudan"---not the Khartoum government, as we are always led to believe. SPLA child soldiers in south Sudan: photo courtesy of the New Vision newspaper, Kampala, Uganda. The Council of Wonks are all well aware of the atrocities committed by the SPLM. Like Human Rights Watch, and sometimes working for them, sometimes not, John Prendergast wrote about the SPLM campaigns of terror in south Sudan. In his book, Frontline Diplomacy: Humanitarian Aid and Conflict in Africa, for example, Prendergast explores how the SPLM uses food as a weapon, how they shuttle refugees around for their strategic and tactical advantage, using people as human shields, attacking relief organizations and enforcing starvation to leverage foreign intervention. Over the years however, Prendergast went silent on SPLM abuses. The government think tank U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP) funded Prendergast's Frontline Diplomacy project, just as they funded Philip Gourevitch to travel back and forth to see his friend Paul Kagame and produce the 'non-fiction' propaganda book We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda (Verso, 1999). The USIP funded other Sudan and Rwanda propaganda, conferences and policy papers. Speaking at a USIP conference titled "Religion, Nationalism and Peace in Sudan" on September 16-17,1997, Roger Winter reportedly demanded full-scale backing from the U.S. government for a war "to bring down the Khartoum government" in Sudan, adding, "even though I know it will bring about a humanitarian catastrophe." John Prendergast and Ted Dagne were on the same panel as Winter, and Council of Wonks member Francis Deng spoke on another panel. Over the past few decades, the human rights agencies became and more and more muted about crimes committed by the U.S., the U.K. or Israel---if mentioned at all---with resources and public relations increasingly concentrated on documenting the crimes of 'enemies' that are in the way of Empire. "The grand narrative of human rights contains a subtext which depicts an epochal contest pitting savages, on the one hand, against victims and saviors, on the other," writes Professor Makau Mutua. SPLM war crimes and crimes against humanity are documented in stark detail in the March 1990 Human Rights Watch/Africa Watch report Denying "The Honor of Living": Sudan, a Human Rights Disaster. Between 1984 and 1989, the SPLM attacked southern Garrison towns, disappeared and tortured, and shot civilian airliners out of the sky. In 1986, the SPLM attacked Ugandan (mostly Acholi) refugees in southern Sudan---forced out of Uganda by Museveni's NRM low-intensity war there---killing refugees and forcing at least 35,000 refugees back to insecurity in Uganda. In 1989 the SPLM attacked Ethiopian refugee camps on the Ethiopian border. Both instances were violations of international humanitarian law. As Operation Lifeline Sudan grew in scope, so too did the scale and magnitude of the crimes committed by the SPLM---and the sophistication of the western intelligence apparatus at hiding them. The Council of Wonks and the 'human rights' establishment and the misery industry increasingly closed their eyes to SPLM atrocities, funded by western taxpayers, and increasingly honed and tuned the propaganda corps to demonize the Government of Sudan in keeping with the savior versus savage narrative at work behind the new humanitarian fascism. Did the SPLM reform itself in the mid-1990s and post-2000 era? Starting in 1999, from his offices at Smith College, policy wonk Eric Reeves screamed louder and louder---ever more hysterical by the day---about the Government of Sudan's bombing campaigns, the climbing death tolls, the genocide, and about our moral imperative to facilitate "regime change" in Khartoum by any means necessary. Meanwhile, John Prendergast became increasingly silent about SPLM terrorism in Sudan in direct proportion to his proximity to the U.S. government. The closer Prendergast got to the National Security apparatus---and the perks of power and private profit---the quieter he became. Ditto with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and the western human rights corpus. The massive tome Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (1999), researched and written by Human Rights Watch agent Alison Des Forges, offers a scant 43 pages (out of 793 pages) on crimes committed by the "highly disciplined" RPF, and these crimes are often downgraded to allegations or unverified reports. Roger Winter is not once mentioned in the book. Alison Des Forges also worked as a consultant to USAID. Similarly, the 343-page Human Rights Watch book Behind the Red Line: Political Repression in Sudan (1996) offers a mere 20 pages (out of 343 pages) attending to SPLM crimes, and these 20 pages also include further "Crimes by All Parties to the Conflict." As human rights and so-called humanitarian NGOs have evolved, they have become ever more focused on presenting western civilization as saviors and our proxy forces as victims, in a contest with savages. In the case of the governments (and people) we wish to overthrow, the 'savages' are the Arab Government of Sudan, the Hutu government of Rwanda, and so on, and so forth. It is all too easy for affluent westerners to adhere to this narrative. It is "a project for the redemption of the redeemers," writes Makau Mutua, "in which whites who are privileged globally as a people---who have historically visited untold suffering and savage atrocities against nonwhites---redeem themselves by 'defending' and 'civilizing' 'lower,' 'unfortunate,' and 'inferior' peoples." Hamilton reports that Smith College professor Eric Reeves began working with the policy wonks---and the implication is he began working on Sudan---in 2001 after Roger Winter spoke at Smith College. In fact, it was the other way around: Eric Reeves began screaming about "genocide in Sudan" in 1999. If his Sudan crusade was inspired by Roger Winter, he has changed his story. "When the former executive director of the U.S. branch of Doctors Without Borders, Joelle Tanguy, told Reeves she thought Sudan needed a champion, she probably didn't expect it to be an English prof from Northampton, Massachusetts." John Prendergast wrote this while eulogizing Eric Reeves in his book Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond. "Fighting cancer and frequently working from his hospital bed, he has waged an often lonely but always Herculean struggle to ensure that the American public is aware of what is happening to the people of Sudan..." Reeves has stated he met Joelle Tanguy and adopted the Sudan cause "early in 1999". On April 1, 1999, Smith College hosted a lecture by Roger Winter organized by Eric Reeves. "Winter 'is a really distinguished presence in the world of humanitarian agencies,' says Smith English professor Eric Reeve, an organizer of the event..." On October 30, 2000, Smith College hosted a special ceremony where Roger Winter and the U.S. Committee for Refugees honored Reeves with an award recognizing Reeves "for his widely published work calling attention to Sudan's vast and ongoing humanitarian crisis." Eric Reeves Disinformation Graphic: 'They Bombed everything that Moved': a flagrant example of Dr. Eric Reeves' highly incredible anti-Khartoum propaganda. In Eric Reeves' hysterical perspective, virtually all violence in Sudan is attributed to the "genocidal counterinsurgency by the [Khartoum] Government of Sudan." Reeves' disinformation---especially his inflation and fluctuation of mortality estimates in Darfur (2003-2010)---has been roundly debunked. The charge of genocide in Darfur was equally specious---meaningless in the context used by Eric Reeves and Nicholas Kristof. In 2006, the U.S. Government Accountability Office in collaboration with the National Academy of Sciences convened twelve experts to review six sources of data on mortality in Darfur. The GAO study, reported to the U.S. Congress in November 2006, questioned the validity of three of the six 'expert' international sources providing estimates of mortality on Darfur, offering a "devastating critique of assumptions, source data and extrapolations behind the findings of the two most prolific high-end researchers associated with Save Darfur..." One of these high-enders was professor John Hagan, who authored the highly politicized "Atrocities Documentation Report" produced by an NGO called the Coalition for International Justice. The second high-end researcher was Dr. Eric Reeves. "Nine of the experts found Hagan's source data 'generally' or 'definitely' unsound, while ten experts said the same of Reeves' source data. Ten said Hagan's assumptions were 'somewhat' or 'very unreasonable,' and eleven said so with regard to Reeves. Eleven said Hagan's extrapolations were 'somewhat' or 'very inappropriate,' and all twelve said so in reference to Reeves." Worse still, the escalation of Save Darfur hysteria occurred in 2006, even as the violence in Darfur had greatly receded. Reeves' mortality estimates went up and down and up again, and he paid no attention to the GAO critique, but continued to scream about between 400,000 to 500,000 dead due to the "genocidal counterinsurgency" by the Government of Sudan. Given the cloudy assessments of the actual mortality---somewhere between the Government of Sudan's estimate of 10,000 and other reasonable estimates of around 200,000---the hysterical behavior of Dr. Eric Reeves is shocking. Of course, behind Reeves was the Council of Wonks. To his credit, Dr. Eric Reeves specifically acted as Minister of Disinformation for the Council's anti-Sudan campaign: he had nothing to do with the low-intensity wars in Uganda, Rwanda or Congo. Or did he? While the (extremely conservative) International Rescue Committee estimates of death tolls in the neighboring Congo were coming in at 3.9 million dead by 2004 and 5.4 million dead by 2007---some 45,000 Congolese dying every month---Reeves was inflating mortality statis on Darfur, monopolizing attention, getting shriller and shriller by the day, focusing the global consciousness on Darfur. Like Mahmood Mamdani---whose analyses of Reeve's manipulation of Darfur mortality stats was utilized above---Dr. Eric Reeves has protected Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame from scrutiny; the former by defecting attention from the SPLM's covert supply chain in Uganda, the latter by whitewashing the Rwandan Defenses Forces' (formerly known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front) combat operations under the African Union flag in Darfur. By falsifying consciousness on Sudan, Dr. Eric Reeves was also falsifying consciousness about the Great Lakes. Roger Winter and Ted Dagne and the other Council of Wonks members were Reeves' primary sources of information, and Reeves accepted their data and perspective all too happily. His reports, appearing anywhere and everywhere in the U.S. media, reeked of hysteria and outright lies. Reeve's understanding of a greater geopolitical context, such as the political fault lines of front line states (Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda) involved in Sudan's war (or the international geopolitical importance of countries like Libya) was unnecessary for the mission of propagandizing the western public and providing cover for the covert low-intensity war prosecuted by the SPLA and backed by Washington. New York Times Magazine caption: Winter meets a Darfur rebel [sic], Minni Minawi, in Juba, Sudan. "To this day [Reeves] carries his draft card from the Vietnam war in his wallet," wrote Rebecca Hamilton in Fighting for Darfur, "its status is marked '1-0'---conscientious objector." The irony is thick as the blood in South Sudan. While the media always underscores Reeves' supposed morality---was it a commitment to non-violence or a refusal to support an imperialist war?--- Reeves openly advocated more conventional U.S. military war against Sudan. His draft card in his wallet offers proof of his saintliness. Dr. Reeve's struggle with leukemia is also invoked as irrefutable evidence of his saintliness. Reeves' statements before the U.S. Congress sound like pro-SPLM military briefings. "The SPLA has not, so far, successfully attacked in a major way the oil infrastructure." Reeves is responding to U.S. Congressman Ed Royce, Chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Africa Subcommittee in March 2001. "There have been attacks on the oil pipeline as it approaches Eritrea. There have been attacks and seizures of individual wells, but the security is very, very extensive. The scorched earth warfare that the government of Sudan has conducted has created a cordon sanitaire that has made it virtually impossible for the SPLA to deploy resources that would allow for major military attack on the infrastructure in the Unity and Heglig fields." There is no rest for the wicked, and so the Council of Wonks will not stop their war until the National Islamic Front Government of Sudan is gone. It doesn't matter how messy it gets. "Security cooperation between Khartoum and Washington [Central Intelligence Agency] and London [Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)] has increased sharply in volume over the past two years, for instance in the number of documents handed over and the numbers of joint liaison meetings," reported Africa Confidential. The article stated obvious facts that the policy wonks have hidden. "Some Western strategists regard the longer term plan to engage the NIF regime on security, and also more widely in peace negotiations with the Sudan People's Liberation Army, as regime change by stealth." The same AC article reported: "Western intelligence sources briefed journalists that some teams of U.S. Special Forces units were operating in northern Sudan in pursuit of terror cells and Al Qaida units." In a speech before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights on June 16, 2011, Roger Winter---described as "the former U.S. special envoy to Sudan"---called for immediate military action against Khartoum in order to strengthen the South Sudan army and, ostensibly, to halt attacks on civilians. "Take a military action against a Khartoum military target now," Winter said, adding that the goal would be "to strengthen the SPLA in meaningful ways as a deterrent against Khartoum aggression, provocation and attacks against civilians." Like Reeves and the other members of the Council of Wonks, Winter blames all the violence on Khartoum and he inflates mortality estimates out of thin air. "Winter said that any commitments made by the Khartoum government are unreliable and that the government's actions had led to the death of three million people." No matter their hysteria, their warmongering, or their lack of credibility, these guys continue to be widely celebrated and published. Evidence suggests that the system appreciates them precisely because they obfuscate reality and inculcate necessary illusions. "We are, once again, on the verge of genocidal counterinsurgency in Sudan," screamed the mad doctor and indefatigable dink at Smith College, in his June 13, 2011 Washington Post Op/Ed titled "In Sudan, Genocide Anew?" "History must not be allowed to repeat itself." Irish Catholic gun-runner Daniel Eiffe is another shady intelligence operator who is never mentioned by Dr. Eric Reeves, and certainly a friend of Roger Winter and the Council of Wonks. "This year, the Republic of South Sudan officially became a state," reported Eoin Butler, in the Irish Times, "thanks in no small part to a diminutive former priest from County Meath [Ireland], who also has gunrunning, renegade militancy and newspaper publishing on his CV." "How did a diminutive priest [Daniel Eiffe] go from providing humanitarian aid for the victims of civil war, to taking up arms in support of one side?" Butler asks. Eiffe is the publisher of the Sudan Mirror, a pro-SPLA and pro-Christian South Sudan newspaper published with the support of Trociare and other international AID agencies. In the early 1990's, Eiffe was employed by Norweigan People's Aid, a gun-running NGO that uses humanitarian relief as its cover. Eiffe organized weapons and logistics for the SPLA through Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni in Kampala, Uganda. USAID has funded Norwegian People's Aid for years; USAID support in 2010, for example, was $8.5 million (while other U.S. government agencies gave NPA $6.9 million in 2010). Photo: Daniel Eiffe in Juba, Sudan. The rebel priest 'commander' Dan Eiffe's Sudan Mirror is also funded by USAID, ensuring that the people of the new South Sudan are properly educated about the wonders of their new found freedom and democracy. The Office of Transitional Initiatives (OTI), a subsidiary of USAID, in conjunction with the Sudan Development Trust (run by Eiffe) set up The Sudan Mirror and the Sudan Radio Service. USAID's OTI also works with PACT, another U.S. government NGO 'charity' front staffed by former U.S. government officials, intelligence and financial planners, including a close relative of the Bush family. Eighteen months after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement [sic] that ended Sudan's two-decade civil war had been signed, few Sudanese knew its details. This was precisely because the power brokers involved---including USAID and Roger Winter, U.S. government officials, and the leadership of the SPLA---do not represent the people or their best interests. "That began to change in April and May 2006, when USAID launched an initiative to help more than 150,000 people in five Southern Sudanese states access details of the agreement and participate more fully in implementing the peace. Documents in Arabic and English were distributed to all government officials in the south, and an official summary was developed and published in English and Arabic. The Sudan Radio Service created audio versions of the summary in seven languages---Moro, Arabic, simple Arabic, Toposa, Shilluk, Dinka, and Nuer---and the Sudan Mirror published 22,000 summaries to be included as supplements in its Easter edition." The Sudan Mirror has also been supported by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, a British government-backed organization, akin to the U.S. government's National Endowment for Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI), all involved in "promoting democracy and human rights" through subversive and clandestine programs aligned with NATO intelligence and defense operations. Daniel Eiffe's ties to Roger Winter and USAID are outlined in a 1998 expose by the right-wing Lyndon LaRouche publication Executive Intelligence Reveiw. "Eiffe himself operates out of Wilson Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, and has a forward base at Lokichoggio, Kenya, along the border with Sudan. Even in July, after the scandals around the NPA had exploded in Norway, Winter's U.S. Committee for Refugees brought Eiffe to Washington to lobby for money, a stance that was endorsed in July 29 hearings by the Africa Subcommittee of the House of Representatives, in which Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice called for funding non-governmental organizations operating outside of the United Nations' Operation Lifeline [Sudan]---a clear reference to the NPA." Sudanese refugees at the Ethiopian border: A makeshift refugee camp sports the usual western misery industry branding meant to stand out for fundraising purposes and product placement in western media productions. Miserable conditions in Sudanese IDP and Ugandan and Ethiopian refugee camps in South Sudan dictate high levels of disease and death, and whole generations have been lost to misery. Conditions at Sudanese refugee camps in Ethiopa, Kenya, and Uganda were equally miserable. Photo c. keith harmon snow, Pochalla, Sudan, 2004. In a 2009 radio interview, Daniel Eiffe stated that in June [sic] 1998 he stood in the U.S. Congress and said to the congressmen and women: "Southern Sudan is apartheid at its worst. Apartheid is a tea party in comparison to what happens in Southern Sudan." Eiffe confirmed that he was in Washington "meeting with Congressman Donald Payne, the head of the [Congressional] Black Caucus, he's very close to Clinton, he's a good friend of mine." Donald Payne was one of the Council of Wonks closest collaborators. A few key details about the Council of Wonks' Francis Deng are also in order. Sudanese diplomat Francis Deng is on the board of the 'charity' International Alert---which is also funded by the Westminister Foundation for Democracy. Other International Alert funders are USAID, Bread for the World, and the National Endowment for Democracy. In formulating the U.S. position on Sudan, Francis Deng worked closely with the prominent U.S. government official Elliot Abrams. "For example, on Sudan, we helped elevate the issue of religious persecution in southern Sudan," said Abrahms, then chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, "and for that matter in northern Sudan, to get it more attention from the president and the National Security Council and the secretary of state and make it a larger item in U.S. foreign policy." Elliot Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, and retired U.S. Marine Corps officer Oliver North were pivotal players in the Iran-Contra affair---all were serving under the administration of then U.S. president Ronald Reagan. In Francis Deng we find another choice topic for a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Deng has the perfect cover: he has for many years been the United Nation's Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Displaced Persons and, since 2007, the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. Deng began his long and distinguished career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: common sense suggests he is a Central Intelligence Agency spook. If Francis Deng is merely an honorable diplomat, then Americans are equally foolish in their acceptance of the drug-dealer-turned-Christian-savior cover story provided for Sam Childers---the infamous 'machine gun preacher' of south Sudan. A mercenary who could not possibly operate in south Sudan without the sanction of the U.S. and commanders Roger Winter and Dan Eiffe, Sam Childers has been backed by the Museveni regime and the SPLM---who put a unit of SPLA soldiers under Childers' personal command. Childers exemplifies the countless fronts in which militarized Christianity operates in South Sudan with both open and clandestine U.S. support. Of course, machine-gun preacher makes a great 'documentary' film for oblivious propaganda consumers and arm-chair human rights patrons. "God protects me in Africa," Sam Childers always says. Remember the trial of Henry Kissinger? Can a case be made that Roger Winter should be indicted and charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide? Where was Roger Winter in the 1970's? His public dossier suggests that he started with the U.S. Committee for Refugees in 1981, at the age of 38; he was director of USCR by the middle of the 1980's and transitioned to USAID working in Sudan from 2001 to 2006. Then he became some kind of Special Adviser in south Sudan, and they even created a special office for him in Washington. Back in the 1980's, Roger Winter also worked with USCR in Indochina at a time when U.S. intelligence and defense operations were assisting 'refugees' fleeing the Pol Pot regime after decades of U.S. state-sponsored terrorism there; these 'refugees' would have included a phalanx of political and military operatives who supported U.S. covert operations like 'Pheonix'. Winter's ties to guerrillas in Central Africa pre-date the SPLM war in Sudan. In the early 1980's Winter backed the National Resistance Movement (NRM) guerrilla war---led by Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame and other Hema-Tutsi elites---against the Milton Obote (2nd term) government in Uganda. Winter regularly visited Museveni's NRM guerrilla's in the bush. Winter is alleged to be one of the architects behind the false accusations blaming the Obote government for genocide in the Lowero Triangle. (The same tactic was used in Rwanda in 1992 to blame the Juvenal Habyariman government with genocide.) Most likely, Winter also advised the NRM in some of the nasty tactics in low-intensity warfare, including Psy-Ops and 'pseudo-operations'---where NRM guerrillas disguised as government forces committed atrocities---terrorizing the population. The terror tactics seen in Uganda appeared later in Rwanda (1990-1994) and again and again in the bloody Congo wars (1995-present). The signature of Museveni and Kagame's guerrillas is all over the Congo, where pseudo-operations and Psy-Ops have been used to blame RPF atrocities on someone else (FARDC, Mai Mai, FDLR, LRA, Interahamwe). For the duration of the 1980's Winter advanced the militant plans of the Banyarwanda---Rwandan Tutsi elites who had ruled over the Hutu masses but fled Rwanda in the 1960's and 1970's. Roger Winter and the USCR even funded their propaganda tracts advocating guerrilla war. Working with the Tutsi diaspora, Roger Winter and the Association of Banyarwanda in Diaspora USA organized the International Conference on the Status of Banyarwanda [Tutsi] Refugees in Washington, DC in 1988, and this is where a military solution to the Tutsi problem was decided. The U.S. Committee for Refugees reportedly provided accommodation and transportation for the event. "Roger Winter is an intelligence operative," says Dr. Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, a former Rwandan government official who fled Rwanda under threat of death in April 1994. "Winter organized the meeting of the Rwandan [Tutsi] diaspora in Washington, D.C in 1988. The USCR was one of the contributors to the RPF journal Impuruza." The best known of the RPF-Banyarwanda publications was Impuruza, created by Dr. Alexandre Kimenyi, a Rwandan Tutsi in the U.S., where it was published from 1982 to 1994. Like most RPF publications Impuruza circulated clandestinely in Rwanda amongst Hutu and Tutsi elite. This publication began the process of dehumanizing the Hutu people and set the stage for the ongoing genocide against them---a genocide facilitated by Roger Winter, funded by western tax-payers who have been betrayed by the military-industrial-media complex. "Winter followed the activities of the RPF in Uganda, including visiting the battlefield," says Dr. Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro. "He visited RPF forces in Rwanda before April 6, 1994. I met him first in Washington in 1988. The second time I met him was in Chicago in 1995 at a conference on Rwanda organized by a Rwandan Tutsi at the University of Illinois. Alison Des Forges was there too. Roger Winter tried to stop the conference from happening. Winter handed out pro-RPF literature prepared by the U.S. Committee for Refugees. Then he was in Congo [Zaire] after the RPF and AFDL launched their military offensive to topple Mobutu regime. After the overthrow of Mobutu his target became Sudan where he sought the overthrow of the central government, but then settled with the independence of South Sudan. In South Sudan he serves under the cover of an adviser to the government of South Sudan. So, what is next? He has accumulated success after success." Acting as a spokesman for the RPF and their allies during the earlier stages of the RPF guerrilla war, Roger Winter appeared as a guest on major U.S. television networks such as PBS and CNN at times when the RPF was committing atrocities (e.g. in northern Rwanda 1990-1993). Winter and Rwanda 'genocide' propagandist Philip Gourevitch also made contacts on behalf of the RPF with American media, particularly the Washington Post, New York Times and Time magazine. U.S. Rep. Donald Payne worked closely with them to support the RPF's low-intensity wars in Africa and the necessary propaganda in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Later, when the war in south Sudan shifted to Darfur, Donald Payne sponsored the hegemonic Darfur Genocide Accountability Act. Roger Winter and Jeff Drumtra, another USCR agent, released numerous pro-RPF policy statements and alerts during the RPF assault of 1994. Winter and Drumtra were amongst the first U.S. officials to advocate that the civil war in Rwanda in 1994 be declared a genocide against Tutsi civilians. After April 6, 1994, they also worked to delegitimize Rwandan interim government. "Effective policy requires a proper understanding of the root causes of the violence in Rwanda," Winter and Drumtra wrote in a USCR alert. "The U.S. media have generally mischaracterized Rwanda's massacres as amorphous, uncontrollable 'tribal violence' that Westerners cannot possibly understand or affect. Other reports mistakenly imply that the huge numbers of deaths are due to crossfire in the civil war between the government army and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)." Winter and Drumtra helped shift the simplistic media accounts from their focus on tribal warfare to a new focus on coordinated and planned campaign of genocide being committed by the Hutu power structure. The International Tribunal on Rwanda has never proved that the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda was planned by the "Hutu power structure" or "extremist Hutus" as has always been claimed. Roger Winter is one of the first to spread these ideas, which rely on simplistic reductionist arguments and distortions of the facts. On the other hand, Kagame's role in facilitating the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis is now becoming more clear. In taking the pro-RPF position he took, and Winter facilitated the dehumanization of millions of Hutus and set the stage for the invasion of Congo-Zaire two years later. The parallels with south Sudan are striking. Unclassified Roger Winter document: Dated May 3, 1994 and stamped "UNCLASSIFIED", this document demonstrates the pro-RPF advocacy of Roger Winter and his associate, Jeff Drumtra, under cover of the U.S. Committee for Refugees during the so-called '100 days of genocide' (April 6 to July 15) in Rwanda in 1994. "USCR urges the U.S. and U.N. to declare formally that the massacres in Rwanda constitute genocide as defined in international law," Winter wrote. "This declaration is an important step necessary for establishing the moral, legal, and political contact for forceful action by the international community: the international Genocide Convention of 1951 legally requires the international community to take action 'appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide'." Of course, there was no international action taken to stop the slaughter in Rwanda. Contrary to the disinformation campaign suggesting the United States knew what was happening and failed to act is the hard truth that the United States RPF proxy was prosecuting a terrorist war. The United States had no intention of stopping it, because we started it. It is the same story, slightly different, with the SPLM in Sudan. "No independent observers have accused the RPF rebels or ethnic Tutsis of involvement in shooting down the plane of President Habyarirnana on April 6," Winter and Drumtra wrote, producing some of the earliest disinformation befogging the double presidential assassination of Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira. Roger Winter steered attention away from the RPF (who were all Ugandans) and their western defense and intelligence backers. "No neutral international observers have accused the RPF of participating in massacres during the past month," Winter and Drumtra continued. The disinformation that the RPF was a disciplined army was spread far and wide through the western media, always repeated by western journalists who helped cover up the egregious atrocities of the RPF. "The RPF, which currently controls at least half of Rwanda, should be encouraged to maintain the discipline of its troops," they wrote, "abide by internationally recognized rules of human rights and honor its pledge to cooperate fully with human rights investigators of the U.N. and other agencies." Winter further called for the Pentagon to jam the radio broadcasts of the "extremist Hutu" radio station. He also referenced his ties to the Pentagon directly. "USCR urges the U.S. to use immediately its technical capability to 'jam' the radio broadcasts of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which Rwandan extremists have used to disseminate their racist, hate-filled violence. In recent days this radio station has broadcast messages to the militias and to the public exhorting them to accelerate the slaughter. U.S. military personnel have told USCR that the U.S. military has the ability to jam these broadcasts almost immediately." The May 3, 1994 communiqué makes it clear that Winter had easy access to Kagame and other RPF commanders or officials, including RPF cadres in the United States---relations that began long before May 1994. Winter called for immediate protection for Rwandan's currently in the United States, a critical step to provide domestic U.S. protection for Tutsis in the diaspora whom Winter was working with. The USCR disinformation insinuated that there was some distinct and distant separation between Roger Winter and the RPF and between Roger Winter and the U.S. military in Rwanda. In fact, as a covert operator, Winter moved in and out of western-backed guerrilla campaigns in Rwanda, Uganda, Congo and Sudan, always supporting the U.S./U.K./Israeli factions. Roger Winter's propaganda, routinely and unquestioningly published by such mainstay U.S. institutions as the Washington Post, included pro-RPF and pro-SPLM pieces that furthered the psychological operations generated by the Pentagon and its RPF and SPLM proxy forces in the region. At the height of RPF terror operations inside Rwanda (1994-1995) and Congo-Zaire (1995-1998), where millions of Rwandan Hutus and hundreds of thousands of civilian French-speaking Tutsis and millions of Congolese civilians were subject to the most egregious atrocities, Winter was whitewashing the RPF (UPDF) crimes and blaming the victims. "Take the case of the 120,000 suspected perpetrators of genocide now in Rwanda's jails," Winter wrote in February 1998. "Many have never been formally charged, a fact that most of my colleagues view as an egregious abuse of human rights and proof that Rwanda's leaders lack commitment to basic rules of justice. I see it differently. I regard their jailing as a human rights victory. Most of the country's judges, attorneys and investigators were killed during the genocide or fled the country, leaving no means of trying these 120,000 prisoners. But they are still alive and awaiting trial. They have not been gunned down or chopped apart in a frenzy of revenge for the genocide many of them committed. Instead, they have remained in jail while the Rwandan government tries to rebuild its judicial system. The detention of suspects for trial indicates a willingness to abide by fundamental human rights principles under difficult circumstances." In fact, the RPF did chop up Hutu and French-speaking Tutsi people in the coldest of cold blood, both out of sight of the world community in Rwanda from 1990 to 1994 and, as with the massacre of over 10,000 civilians at Kibeho and other refugee camps inside Rwanda in 1995---in plain sight of the entire world. Kibeho was so cold-blooded that the trenches that would become mass graves were dug days in advance of the RPF attack. Roger Winter routinely lied, distorted the facts, and produced disinformation to cover up the RPF atrocities---including the genocide against at least 300,000 Hutu civilians in Eastern Congo from 1995 to 1998. Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo: Rwandan refugee camps that spotted the eastern frontier of the Congo (then Zaire), around Goma and Bukavu, were attacked by the RPF and U.S. troops in the fall of 1996. The Kagame regime began sending guerrilla death squads into Zaire as early as the summer of 1994, when the massive refugee exodus from Rwanda occurred. Photo c. keith harmon snow, 2006. "After the genocide, we failed to push hard enough to expel genocidal killers from refugee camps," Winter wrote, in 1998, exercising the standard good-versus-evil, savages-versus-saviors dichotomy that has been used to wholly dehumanize both the former Habyarimana government leaders and the Hutu people more generally, and to facilitate the genocide against them, "and we shrank from the truth that it was worth risking bloodshed to force a separation between killers and legitimate refugees." The truth that we shrink from is that the former Habyarimana government leaders were under attack, and they had a right to defend their country and their families. Winter was meeting with the 'ADFL rebel leaders' in eastern Congo and defending them in the Washington Post even as the rebels were slaughtering Hutu people and Congolese civilians in the most ruthless campaign of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in recent contemporary history, and one that---some 14 years after the atrocities occurred---was finally, though tepidly, referenced as 'genocidal' in a 2010 United Nations "Mapping Report" for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "Some leaders despise their own citizens," Winter opined, in 1998, defending the guerrilla-democrats that Madeleine Albright and Philip Gourevitch and the New Yorker magazine lauded as 'a new breed of African leader'. "But sometimes governments are more inexperienced than evil." The so-called 'inexperienced' leaders that Winter was defending were Rwanda's Kagame and Uganda's Museveni (Ethiopia's dictator Meles Zenawi was typically included in this group) and the reference extended to SPLA guerrilla commander John Garang and ADFL puppet 'commander' Laurent Kabila. Paul Kagame's operational military tactics and methods of information control were far from anything we might define as 'inexperienced'. Kagame's doctrine of ensuring information shutdown was central to his strategy in the invasions of Rwanda and Congo-Zaire. "We used communication and information warfare better than anyone," Paul Kagame told Nik Gowing in an interview on 8 April 1998. "We have found a new way of doing things." "Many believe that this highly effective strategy of information control and access shut down was the result of Kagame refining the knowledge of information warfare he acquired during a U.S. Command and Staff course in 1990," wrote Nik Gowing, in a 1997-1998 study funded by the European Union. "Rwandan officials laugh off these suggestions. They say Kagame only spent three months out of a planned twelve months as a Ugandan officer on a training course at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. He cut short his studies to return to lead and plan the RPF advance into northern Rwanda after the commander, Fred Rwigena, was killed in action. However Kagame himself acknowledges the importance of the Fort Leavenworth contribution to his thinking, especially in information warfare and communications. Kagame confirmed that "central to my studies in Leavenworth" were "organisation, tactics, strategy, building human resources, Psy-Ops [psychological operations], information, psychology and communications among the troops." Nik Gowing's credentials are very interesting. From 1989-1998, Gowing worked variously as an international consultant, BBC World news anchor and diplomatic editor for Britain's Channel Four News. His reports were aired frequently by the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS, NBC's SuperChannel and CNN International. These are the same institutions that covered up Kagame's low-intensity guerrilla operations and subsequent crimes. In 1994, Gowing was a resident fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Nik Gowing was also a Visiting Fellow in International Relations at Keele University, a board member for the British Association for Central and Eastern Europe, a member of the Director's Strategy Group at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, and a governor of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy---the British think tank that is funding pro-SPLM propaganda in alliance with USAID and Irish gunrunner Daniel Eiffe. Nik Gowing's potentially volatile 1998 conference paper did nothing to hold anyone account for recent past abuses or to forestall the terrorism that the 'new breed of African leaders' would soon unleash on Central Africa. "The full picture of Rwandan, Ugandan and---arguably---non-regional involvement has yet to be uncovered," Gowing wrote. Like Samantha Power in her September 2001 Atlantic Monthly disinformation feature "Bystanders to Genocide," Gowing suggests that the many high-level sources he interviewed are honest and their statements can be taken at face value. "Extensive high-level interviewing for this study has provided evidence of limited political, logistical and advisory support by both regional and nonregional powers. Hearsay and circumstantial evidence is reported. However, despite widespread concerns at the time of writing there is scant documentary proof or evidence of either direct backing or complicity. Rwandan officials from Vice President Paul Kagame downwards deny emphatically any such relationship." Really? It seems that the evidence of foreign backing for the RPF/UPDF invasion was readily available. Notably, though Gowing interviewed and quoted many 'humanitarian aid' professionals on the ground in Central Africa, most are not named, and he never mentions Roger Winter. "There remain many 'whisky talk' suspicions about outside, non-regional involvement," he concluded. Both the U.S. and France deployed large teams of special operations forces in Central Africa. In Goma, at this time, a western war correspondent photographed U.S. Special Forces machine-gunning unarmed refugee men, women and children in what he described as "one of the most horrible examples of mass atrocities I have ever seen." He was later threatened into silence by U.S. officials. The U.S. military was all over Bujumbura, Kigali and Entebbe. "U.S. agents were seen with rebels in Zaire," reported the Boston Globe on October 8, 1997. "Active participation is alleged in military overthrow of Mobutu." Was this Roger Winter? To funnel selected intelligence to United Nations headquarters' Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), the U.N. had created a special multinational intelligence Situation Center (SitCen) in New York. The SitCen's new Information and Research (I&R) Unit existed from 1993 to 1999, providing "significant and useful intelligence about arms shipments, belligerent activities," noted Canadian military expert A. Walter Dorn, "and the status of refugees and [making] several prescient predictions and warnings." The SitCen was staffed and informed by Russian, French, British, and U.S. defense and intelligence officials seconded to the operation. "These individuals maintained substantial links to the intelligence services of their home countries, most having come from these agencies. They were 'the interface' with these intelligence services. In return for the loan of these officers and the information they provided, the nations sought the U.N.'s coded cables (situation reports) from the field, some of which may have made their way back to national capitals, a prospect that displeased some U.N. Secretariat officials." The U.N.s DPKO received credible intelligence documenting that Kagame's RPF forces were engaged in 'pseudo-operations' that are the signature of Kagame's and Museveni's guerrilla terrorism in the entire region: disguising themselves and their atrocities as the work of the 'enemy'---the Lord's Resistance Army, the Mai Mai, the FDLR, the Interahamwe, government forces of Milton Obote in Uganda or Juvenal Habyarimana in Rwanda---pick your bogeymen. "The I&R Unit reports describe night raids by the Zairian rebel [ADFL] forces....In an act of deception, the government of Rwanda stationed its forces 'under the disguise of Banyamulenge' in Zaire to protect hydroelectric plants that provide power to both Rwanda and Burundi (19 December 1996)." "The I&R Unit boldly asserted that the Tutsi rebellion was backed by 'American teams' (6 February 1997). Despite official U.S. support for the Canadian-led humanitarian mission in November-December 1996, the Unit alleges that the U.S. sought to undermine the operation: 'On the American request to deter the deployment of a U.N.-authorized Multi-National Force led by a Canadian General, the RPF [Rwandan army] along with ADFL [rebel group] elements lured the ex-FAR and Interahamwe in a combat operation north of the Muganga camp (Zaire)." "If these allegations were true," Dorn wrote, "it has a striking parallel with duplicity in the Congo mission in the 1960s. While U.N. forces were protecting the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba as part of a U.N. operation explicitly backed (and partly paid for) by the U.S., CIA operatives in the Congo were trying to assassinate him and later backed the Army Chief Joseph Mobutu as he seized the Presidency." "The U.S. position after the attack was clear: it wanted the mission aborted," wrote Dorn. "The U.S. estimate of the number of remaining refugees was almost 400,000 less than the consensus figures used by the humanitarian community. Lieutenant General Maurice Baril, the Multinational Force Commander, was suspicious of U.S. reports of numbers, which were too rapidly sliding downwards. Members of the I&R Unit had briefed him on what they believed was [U.S.] disinformation. Both the French and British officers in the Unit were tracking the numbers. France was providing figures from overflights with Mirage jets. The British officer was gaining information from U.N. agencies on the ground (e.g., UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, etc.). They both concluded that the U.S. numbers were far too low." "One is left to wonder if a strong early U.N. intervention could have saved the Congo from the subsequent chaos and loss of over three million lives," Dorn concluded, "or at least have mitigated the human tragedy." Had Kagame been stopped cold in 1998, millions upon millions of Congolese people, and uncountable Rwandan people, would likely not have been raped, mutilated or killed---and the Congo would be a very different place than it is today. Gowing's report reads like an after-the-fact apology of why and how journalists and 'humanitarian' NGO's couldn't report the truth about the mass slaughter of Congolese IDPs and Rwandan refugees. "I had no doubt it was genocide," he quotes one unnamed NGO insider to say. "We still had no doubt, but should we say it was genocide? No." According to the glowing Western propaganda, the new breed of African leader was supposedly determined to steer Africa in a new direction, and it would behoove the world to allow them some latitude in their excesses. "Central Africa's new leaders have the enormous task of reassembling nations that are among the poorest on earth, ethnically divided," wrote Roger Winter, "riven with corruption and saturated with arms and shadowy groups willing to use those arms to gain power." Roger Winter never failed to remind the good and caring media consumers of the West about the shadowy forces of evil who are 'saturated with arms' and---unlike the guerrilla forces of the SPLM or the NRM or the RPF (or Roger Winter himself)---willing to use these arms to destroy all the good that had been ostensibly achieved through Roger Winter's selfless dedication to human rights and statecraft. "The military in Rwanda is more willing to listen to criticism if we acknowledge the difficulties they face in waging counterinsurgency wars," Winter added, again casting the criminal aggressors as the aggrieved victims. Looking back at Winter's statements made at the time these crimes were fresh (1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, etc.), we see in his unabashed defense of the murderous ADFL guerrillas---themselves comprised mostly of the RPF and UPDF and some smaller numbers of Eritrean, Ethiopian and SPLM regulars---a conscious admission that massive atrocities had been and were still being committed. Yet Winter apologizes away all responsibility. Does Roger Winter ever suggest that the United States or Israel should acknowledge the difficulties that the Government of Sudan faces in waging its "genocidal counterinsurgency war" against the SPLM? "It seems certain that thousands of Rwandan refugees and genocidaires (those who commit genocide) were killed last year during the civil war [sic] that brought Congo's new leaders to power," Winter wrote. "Less certain is whether [Laurent] Kabila and his colleagues [Kagame, Museveni] actively sought to kill refugees---or whether the deaths resulted from poor military tactics, lack of troop discipline or the actions of foreign soldiers. A U.N. human rights investigation is examining those questions." Roger Winter had it both ways. He regularly described Kagame and the RPF as highly disciplined and responsible, good-intentioned and cooperative, open to human rights monitoring. Here he is dismissing the brutal slaughter and the hunting down and killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent and unarmed Hutu civilians---mostly women and children---on the grounds that perhaps the ADFL [read: RPF] were suffering from "poor military tactics" or "lack of troop discipline." We should excuse the RPF, faced with "the difficulties of waging counterinsurgency war," but when the Government of Sudan is faced with counterinsurgency war they are guilty of genocide. Pochalla, south Sudan: Suffering Ethiopian refugees get a sermon in 2004. Photo c. keith harmon snow, 2004. While we observe these rationalizations of cold-blooded murder, remember that Roger Winter ostensibly worked as an advocate for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), employed by an organization called the U.S. Committee for Refugees. According to his supposed job description---ever touted by the western press and U.S. State Department---Winter was an advocate for vulnerable people caught up in the maelstrom of war. However, he behaves instead like an apologist for murder who blames the victims and protects their killers. "For more on this story we are joined by Roger Winter, the director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, a private, non-profit organization advocating protection and assistance of displaced persons," reported National Public Radio icon Charlyne Hunter-Gault on May 17, 1997. "He spent almost two weeks with the leader of the rebel movement, Laurent Kabila, since the conflict began more than four months ago." Charlayne Hunter-Gault advanced several lines of disinformation already put in motion by the U.S. State Department and its subservient western media organizations. First was the idea Laurent Kabila was the 'leader of the rebel movement', the ADFL. This fiction was peddled with the utmost seriousness in the western press. Combined with the Psy-Op that this was a 'homegrown rebellion' against President Mobutu, this served to render Kagame, Kabarebe, Museveni, Salim Saleh and the real ADFL leadership invisible. Even more invisible, then, was the Pentagon's involvement. Second was the false theme that Roger Winter had only recently established communications with the ADFL 'rebels', and this around the time of the fall of the city of Kisangani---some eight months into the genocidal campaign against the Hutu refugees in Congo-Zaire's forests. In reality, Winter was in constant liaison with the U.S.-backed RPF rebels as they invaded Congo-Zaire from Rwanda. As previously noted, Winter's comraderie with the RPF power structure was established as early as 1988 in Washington D.C., and he was no stranger to RPF operations zones during the four year civil war (1990-1994) in Rwanda. Deflecting the gaze of western media consumers from seeing the truth---that this is a western-backed invasion led by a western proxy army in contravention of international law---Charlayne Hunter-Gault asks the standard leading question about Tutsis being under attack, falsely framing the discussion of war and plunder in Congo-Zaire around the need to protect Tutsi people from genocide of the kind that (we were all told) spontaneously erupted in Rwanda. "Because this started," Charlayne Hunter-Gault points out, "of course, when the Tutsis in the Eastern part of Zaire were threatened with expulsion by Mobutu, rose up in arms, and so [Kabila] joined that." "Exactly. What happened was, in my view, that what was triggered, the fuse was lit by this so-called planned expulsion of the Banyamulenge, this Tutsi population you're talking about," Roger Winter duplicitously explains. "But it's rapidly evolved far beyond the Tutsi issue or Rwanda-related issue, as a lot of outsiders would seek to make it. What it's become is a struggle for a new Zaire. That's what's unfolding right now. And it's important to have that as the context, not some exterior outside forces." Roger Winter's deceptions run deep. To begin with, the whole notion of Banyamulenge rights in Congo-Zaire is highly contested. Instead, the pro-Tutsi agenda uses the argument of an ever present threat of a Tutsi genocide in Congo-Zaire as carte-blanche justification for Kagame's military operations in eastern Congo. In the PBS Newshour interview with Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Winter revealed that he had visited 'rebel' bases, plural, a remarkable impossibility for your average humanitarian aid worker, made possible in fact by Roger Winter's close association with the rebels, the U.S. military and the intelligence establishment. This is the profile of a covert operator, a cold warrior, an Iran-contra gunrunner type outfitting rebels and providing a liaison for logistics and communications in low-intensity wars. Rwanda, Congo-Zaire, Sudan---Roger Winter ran a covert arms operation for the United States military, funding and supplying and advising guerrillas in-low intensity warfare. "Well, let me say when I was with [Kabila] the last week or so of January," Winter said, "it was very clear to me that young [Congolese] men of all ethnic stripes from all over the country were rallying to that cause. I went to some military training bases, and the young men who were training were not Tutsi. They were from Chaba. They were from all over the country, and exiles returning. He was setting up a civil structure to govern, as it were, the areas that were under his control, and the great bulk of the people were not Banyamulenge. They were from all over the country." In fact, the 'rebels' were most heavily drawn from the ranks of the RPF and UPDF, with assorted Ethiopian, Eritrean and SPLA regulars, and some Congolese Tutsis (Banyamulenge). In fact, there were also plenty of Congolese boys---the 'kidogo' child soldiers---and these were intentionally armed and sent to the frontlines where they were meant to draw enemy fire. The kidogo---the Sons of Congo---were sacrificed, in cold blood. Roger Winter was on the ground in eastern Congo during the RPF attacks on refugee camps, shuttling back and forth between the Kivu provinces and the U.S. embassy and RPF headquarters in Rwanda. According to professor Filip Reyntjens, one of the foremost experts on Central African affairs: on 16 November 1996, "the day after the attack against Mugunga refugee camp, Roger Winter organised a meeting between Laurent Kabila, the ADFL figurehead, and U.S. special envoy Ambassador Richard Bogosian, Ambassador Robert Gribbin, and a U.S. military colonel reporting to U.S. General Edwin P. Smith military and U.S. diplomats." Dr. Reyntjens exposes the false statements made by Ambassador Gribbin and General Smith. Major Richard Orth, a long time agent of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was an ardent RPF collaborator, to the point of embarrassing the U.S. State Department. U.S. Major-General Edward Smith stated categorically that aerial and satellite reconnaissance backed the US claim that almost all the refugees had returned to Rwanda. The Pentagon and U.S. State Department's recent production of satellite images for anti-Hutu asylum removals in the U.S. is striking evidence that the U.S. has superior intelligence about what was happening where and when. Knowing perfectly well that U.S. covert forces and military advisers were on the ground in support of the RPF invasion, Winter produced disinformation to counter international efforts to provide a multinational peacekeeping force to intervene to protect some 1.2 million Hutu refugees in eastern Congo-Zaire. In another USCR production co-signed by Jeff Drumtra Winter wrote: "We should only send troops to eastern Zaire if their purpose is to disarm Rwandan Hutu killers who participated in the 1994 genocide." Winter sold the same disingenuous line used in Rwanda in 1994: an international peacekeeping force would only strengthen the 'Rwandan Hutu killers'. "As long as the international force pledges not to confront the killers," Winter wrote, November 21, 1996, clearly working on behalf of the RPF and not for the protection of vulnerable Rwandan and Congolese populations, "the force would not be useful and could be counterproductive." Winter was not the only one who lied. U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson and Madeleine Albright did their share, lying through their teeth about the Pentagon's holocaust in Zaire. Winter then redoubled the lies, providing doublespeak about Pentagon forces being deployed to ostensibly protect Rwandan Hutu refugees that were forced back to Rwanda, and downplaying the numbers of returning Hutu refugees: "U.S. officials have indicated that a small American military contingent will help provide humanitarian assistance inside Rwanda to 600,000 former refugees who have returned home in the past week." Translated to tactical and strategic military language: The RPF wanted a clear path to dominate the enemy--eliminating as many Hutu people as possible--and achieve a decisive military victory. Hutu refugees were not only slaughtered in Congo-Zaire, but also on return to Rwanda. Roger Winter was blatantly supporting the RPF military campaign, while disingenuously arguing that it best served the interests of millions of Rwandan survivors. These were absolutely destitute human beings, ematiated, hopeless and sick after months of intentional starvation under an macabre UNHCR policy of intentional withholding of food in the camps in eastern Congo: the World Food Program rations were stored over the summer of 1996 and only disbursed to arriving RPF troops in September and October. These were the survivors of the RPF bombing campaign against the refugee camps--survivors of some 6 years of persecution and terrorism against them that began with the RPF invasion of October 1990. Kagame complained that an international force deployed to eastern Congo-Zaire might strengthen his adversaries and inhibit the RPF's absolute victory. These strategic objectives had previously been demonstrated to succeed: between April and July of 1994, Kagame threatened the international community promising that the RPF would attack U.N. troops if the United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR II) was expanded and strengthened. Instead, UNAMIR was gutted. As evidence of their belligerence--and their determination to annihilate the Rwandan masses--RPF troops engaged in combat with the French-led forces from the U.N.-authorized 'Operation Turquoise' dispatched on June 21, 1994 to create a safe zone' in the southern prefectures of Rwanda. Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) in North Kivu: The U.N. creation of FARDC 'integrated' brigades offered the perfect 'Trojan Horse' to facilitate Rwandan military infiltration of eastern Congo. Photo c. keith harmon snow 2005. Following suit in Congo-Zaire in 1996, Kagame's RPF troops and Pentagon backers similarly lobbied to prevent international forces from being deployed to provide any humanitarian protection for the millions of refugees. Roger Winter was their point man in Washington, their leading advocate in the propaganda diplomacy to win hearts and minds for the RPF plans, and he is culpable in the subsequent war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide that have occurred in the Great Lakes since, beginning with the first UPDF invasion of Rwanda of 1 October 1990 and up to the present day Rwandan occupation of eastern Congo. While the Pentagon and U.S. State Department and the U.N. Security Council feigned concern for some 1.2 million Rwandan refugees in eastern Congo-Zaire in the fall of 1996, they had no real intention of doing anything but stalling, enabling the RPF to advance the invasion as the Pentagon proxy. This involved U.S. covert forces, heavy weaponry provided by Washington, troop deployments supported by C-130 aircraft, and state-of-the-art Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) support, including massive satellite dishes installed on Idjwe Island in Lake Kivu and in the Ruwenzori Mountains on the Uganda border. Roger Winter's ploy for the RPF succeeded in forestalling a multinational intervention. The western press seized on the idea that western policy-makers could do nothing but stall and argue about who would pay for 'humanitarian' troop deployments. Winter and the USCR also engaged in the sinister campaign to convince the world that hundreds of thousands of refugees from Rwanda and Burundi--now mixed with hundreds of thousands of IDPs from Congo--were few in number, had all neatly crossed the border back to 'safety' in Rwanda and Burundi, or simply could not be found. Again, nothing could have been further from the ugly truth. "Uncertainty persists about the number, locations, and condition of Rwandan refugees in Zaire in the aftermath of violence in the past month. Several hundred thousand Zairians have also been affected by the violence," Roger Winter and Jeff Drumtra stated in the USCR report of November 21, 1996. Winter's USCR communiqué of November 26, 1996 responded directly to the international debate about the massive discrepancies in the estimates of the numbers of refugees (and IDPs) remaining in Congo-Zaire. However, Roger Winter further advocated that the only reasonable and effective solution to aiding these refugees (and IDPs) was to negotiate with the ADFL rebels for "improved access by humanitarian workers into eastern Zaire using Rwanda as a staging base for humanitarian supplies." This advocacy relied on the oft-stated premise that the RPF military were the good guys, that they had "stopped the [Tutsi] genocide of 1994," and it relied on the Psy-Op that the RPF was a disciplined, responsible and accountable fighting force that could be trusted to do the right thing according to international norms. In this disinformation communiqué, Winter proposed that the numbers of uprooted Rwandan, Burundian and Zairean people remaining in eastern Zaire were between 510,000 and 950,000. He also reported that the USCR had conducted nine site visits to eastern Zaire and Rwanda since 1994--making it clear that Winter maintained a constant presence in the region. While covering up the massive RPF atrocities and U.S. covert forces machine-gunning of Rwandan refugees and Congolese civilians from Bukavu to Kisangani and all the way across the vast Congo, the western propaganda system finally declared that the refugees had rescued themselves. Nothing could have been further from the truth. "Americans can be forgiven if they are frequently confused about foreign policy," wrote the U.S. State Department media conduit Johanna McGreary, who uses journalism as her cover . "Like last week, when the pictures and the words looked remarkably out of synch to anyone trying to make sense of events in Africa. There was Bill Clinton announcing that the U.S. would participate 'in principle' in an international military force to rescue more than half a million sick and starving Rwandan refugees caught up in brutal tribal war. Even as he spoke, hundreds of thousands of them appeared on TV screens, marching safely out of Zaire back across the border to the homeland they had fled two years [earlier]." Time Magazine November 25, 1996: "How Should we help? In Zaire, refugees rescued themselves." Amongst the most egregious and offensive examples of the contempt, arrogance and white supremacy of the capitalist media system, this 'news' feature was published even as hundreds of thousands of innocent refugees--mostly women and children--were being hunted down and killed by the U.S. proxy forces directed by Roger Winter. Over the next nine months, Hutu refugees who fled westward into Congo's forests were hunted all across the vast Congo, into Central African Republic and Congo-Brazzaville. With a bounty in U.S. dollars paid by UNHCR, they were even hunted in Gabon, Cameroon, Angola and Zambia. "In northwest Rwanda, reports suggest that government troops have killed thousands of people during counterinsurgency operations," Winter continued, not specifying the year(s) he is referring to, as he in turns performs mental gymnastics to shield the RPF and UPDF domestic terror operations inside Rwanda. The Kagame/Museveni war machine massacred at least tens of thousands of Rwandans (mostly but not only Hutus) as it invaded northern Rwanda from Uganda, 1990-1994, and these were not "counterinsurgency operations", but insurgency. Declassified documents produced by relief organizations during the so-called '100 days of genocide' in 1994 show that it was the RPF killing Hutus--and not genocidal Interahamwe or the Hutu Armed Forces of Rwanda (FAR) killing Tutsis--and dumping the bodies in the Kagera River of northwest Rwanda. Throughout the late summer and fall of 1994 the RPF continued to commit massive atrocities against the population, documented in part by the infamous Robert Gersony, a highly respected consultant hired by UNHCR, whose then unwelcome report remains buried in the bowels of the United Nations. The premeditated mass murders at Kibeho in 1995 followed. In 1996 and 1997 scores of thousands, at the very least, of refugees returning from Congo-Zaire (the survivors of the coordinated RPF attacks against refugee camps in Zaire) were slaughtered in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park. In the end, Roger Winter sounds more like the Council of Wonk's Goebbels-esque Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Eric Reeves. "What is less clear is the extent to which the killings are intentional massacres, or whether genocidaire insurgents are again using civilian populations as human shields in combat zones." 'Genocidaires' are Hutus by international consensus, and Hutus are genocidaires by international consensus, and genocidaire is the code word used to describe the local bogeyman ever out to destroy democracy in the Great Lakes theater. Does anyone see the irony in Roger Winter's suggestion that Rwandan genocidaire insurgents are "again using civilian populations as human shields in combat zones?" Such is exactly the modus operandi of the SPLM. Classic guerrilla warfare as practiced by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement has been premised on the SPLM's ability to disappear into the vast landscape and become invisible amidst the civilian populations of South Sudan. This is classic low-intensity warfare, and it is combined with modern propaganda, psychological operations, electioneering, and 'human rights' and 'democracy' promotion by means of the distrubution of large sums of cash, the purchasing of local agents and the commodification of civil society through punishment and reward. The recent "Arab Spirng" uprisings in Khartoum signal further destabilization by the U.S. and its allies. The SPLA have been armed and are being prepared to complete the mission of regime change in Sudan. It happened the same, slightly differently, in Rwanda. This is how the United States of America, Canada, Britain, our European allies, and Israel, have carved a 'newly independent state' out of the formerly autonomous sovereign nation of Sudan. This is how the same western alliance used low-intensity warfare to bring disaster capitalism to first Uganda, then Rwanda, and then the Congo. Wonkfare in America, warfare in Africa. It is time to issue indictments. ~ keith harmon snow is a war correspondent, photographer and independent investigator, and a four time Project Censored award winner. He is the 2009 Regent's Lecturer in Law & Society at the University of California Santa Barbara, recognized for over a decade of work, outside of academia, contesting official narratives on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide while also working as a genocide investigator for the United Nations and other bodies. He has worked extensively in the Great Lakes region of Africa. From 2004 to 2006 he worked as a consultant for Genocide Watch and Survivor's Rights International, and he traveled to south Sudan in 2004. He worked as genocide investigator for the United Nations in Ethiopia in 2005. Rebecca Hamilton, Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Steve Weissman, "Rwanda - Whose Genocide?" truthout, March 31, 2004. Stephen R. Weissman, formerly Staff Director of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, has been a senior governance adviser to the U.S. Agency for International Development, associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Ford Foundation program officer. Max and Paul Warburg and other associates financed the rise of Adolph Hitler. While German members of the Warburg organizations affiliated with I.G. Farben were tried and convicted at Nuremburg, neither Max nor Paul nor any of their top affiliates at the U.S. subsidiary of I.G. Farben were ever charged. See, e.g.: Antony C. Sutton, The Empire of I.G. Farben: Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, Clairview Books, 2010. The Aspen Institute has hosted Rwanda's president Paul Kagame, and it's board of directors include Nicholas Kristof (the Darfur, Sudan 'genocide' Pulitzer winner) and Madeleine Albright (former Secretary of State during the Clinton administration's covert operations in Africa). The Aspen Institute describes itself as an "international non-profit organization dedicated to informed dialogue and inquiry on issues of global concern." However, along with Fareed Zacharia--whose productions in Newsweek support some of the West's most flagrant Psy-Ops against Western 'news' consumers--are a whole phalanx of defense and intelligence operatives. Most notable in relation to wars and interventions in Africa include Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former CIA Director John Deutch, former Secretary of Defense William Perry (1994-1997), and New York Times Corporation 'journalist' Nicholas Kristof. Eliza Griswold, "The Man For a New Sudan," New York Times Magazine, June 15, 2008. For this story, all subversive guerrilla campaigns will be identified using the names of their political wings: SPLM, NRM, RPF, and ADFL. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) is the political wing of former commander John Garang's guerrilla forces called the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The National Resistance Movement (NRM) was the political wing of Yoweri Museveni's guerrilla forces called the National Resistance Army (NRA); after 1986, the NRA were renamed the Uganda People's Defense Forces (UPDF). The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was the political wing of Paul Kagame's guerrilla forces called the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). The ADFL refers to the acronym attached to the forces of the Alliance for the Democratic Liberation of Congo-Zaire, though these were comprised most heavily of RPA and UPDF regulars, virtually all of whom came from Uganda. Wayne Madsen, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999, Mellon Press, 1999: p. 463. See, e.g., keith harmon snow, "The Winter of Bashir's Discontent: AFRICOM's Covert War in Sudan," AllThingsPass.com, March 4, 2009. Daniel Siryoti, Shlomo Cesana, The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff, "Israeli 'Elements' reported to be Arming South Sudan Army," Israel Hayom, August 8, 2012. See: keith harmon snow, "Gertler's Bling Bang Torah Gang: Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo," Dissident Voice, February 9, 2008. Personal communication, Luke Chuol, July 31, 2012. William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, U.S. Intervention, and Hegemony, Cambridge University Press, 1996: p. 82. Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee, and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1994. USAID operative Brian D'Silva and Department of State operative Ted Dagne will not be addressed at length in this report. According to their own bios: Brian D'Silva has over 25 years of experience working on Sudan issues and in Sudan. He served as Ford Foundation Visiting Professor at the University of Khartoum and also with USAID/Sudan in Khartoum in the 1980s. In the 1990′s, he worked on Sudan issues from USAID's Regional Office in Nairobi. Ted Dagne is Specialist in International Relations, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade at the Congressional Research Service, the public policy research arm of the U.S Congress. Ted has also served as a Professional Staff Member for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and as Special Adviser to U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and to the Assistant Secretary of State, Department of State. Ted has conducted over 2,000 major studies on African affairs and he is the Associate Editor of the Mediterranean Quarterly Journal. James A. Chapman, et al, Agriculture and Natural Resources Strategy Assessment, Chemonics International, for USAID Project No. 650-0071-3-30123, December 1987. [15-a] See, e.g., keith harmon snow, Oil in Darfur? Covert Ops in Somalia? The New Old Humanitarian Warfare in Africa, Global Research, February 7, 2007. [15-b] Eric Reeves, "Regime Change in Sudan," Washington Post, 23 August 2004: p. A15. J.F. Pirro, "John Prendergast: A Larger-Than-Life Humanitarian With an Undying Mission," Mainline Today, November 16, 2011. Dr. Yaa-Lengi Ngemi and the CongoCoalition's letter to editor Hobart Rowland and writer J.F. Pirro were posted on the article on December 15, 2011, but were subsequently deleted. The letter is reproduced here in full: [Dear Hobart Rowland: About J.F. Pirro describing John Prendergast [JP]: Since 2000 when we published our book, GENOCIDE IN THE CONGO, we have struggled to raise the issue of Gongo genocide by attempting to expose the criminals, their sponsors, and their apologists. It has been a long struggle because those dying are Africans and Black while those benefiting are mostly whites outside of Africa. And, until a white person sees the little 9 year-old African girl being gang raped as his own little daughter or the 30 year-old woman who is gang-raped then mutilated then her genitals carved off and carried away as his own wife or sister, until then, white journalists and "activists" can only scratch each other's back, blow each other's trumpet in order to make themselves feel good, raise money, hobnob all over the world giving the poor and the downtrodden scraps left over after they have enjoyed the money they raise in the name of "doing good" or "preventing genocide and crimes against humanity" instead of STOPPING the genocide going on RIGHT NOW. Take your subject, JP, whom we have confronted in New York City (Columbia University) and Washington D.C. (a few times). While you sing his praises, the Congolese people who have been dying since 1996 have NO use of JP, though he might go by there and spread some crumbs around from the money he raises and lives by. WHY? Let me put it this way for you to understand: It's like raising money to feed someone in chains and who is being tortured everyday instead of denouncing and getting rid of the brutes torturing the man. To wit, your JP has NEVER denounced his former boss Bill Clinton who was behind the invasion of the Congo in 1996, in the first place (watch on Youtube "Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering the Truth", so you can get an idea; with apologies to a great friend of mine who, rightly, feels the video does not give the whole truth). Neither has your JP ever before denounced Paul Kagame--Bill Clinton's personal friend and Hitler-in-Chief--for the millions of Congolese dead at his hands, nor exposed Hyppolite Kanambe, the former intelligence officer in Paul Kagame's army who was set up in the Congo as "president", a.k.a. "Joseph Kabila". We confronted your JP and he couldn't defend his stance. Now he is beginning to "mention" Rwanda and Uganda; however, Enough Project continues with its line of business: Do not denounce Bill Clinton, Kagame, Museveni, Kanambe, or the multinationals, and do not call the world governments (who actually are behind the genocide in the first place) to either demand that Kagame and Museveni get out of the Congo and carry their Trojan Horse, Kanambe "Kabila" with them or that the world governments go in the Congo, as they did in Europe against the Nazis, and kick out the Rwandans, the Ugandans, and Hyppolite Kanambe who have been slaughtering the Congolese. We understand, of course, that the views of Black Africans like us won't make either your JP or his former master Bill Clinton loose his sleep over the millions of Conglese killed while they trot all over the place as "humanitarians". Thus the Genocide in the Congo goes on, the gang rapes continue, and Enough blames it on "minerals" and promotes laws on "minerals" (they won't even demand that the US Congress implements Law 109-456 that was signed by George W. Bush in 2006 because it will expose their sponsors. Just imagine, if, during the European holocaust, the world had talked about passing laws to denounce the use of Jews in the factories in Germany instead of denouncing and going in there to get rid of Hitler and his killing machine. Yeah, as you wrote, "whatever it takes to raise the funding", that's what Bill Clinton, your JP, and their likes are all about. And, whether the Clooneys, the Mia Farrows, the Ryan Coslings, and their likes embrace the Bill Clintons and your JP out of blind admiration or ignorance, that's between them and the Almighty GOD (I, too, voted for Bill Clinton twice, but I'd rather denounce him after I found out the Truth, than end up as the Rich Man in Hell begging Lazarus for some H2O through Abraham). Now, keep in mind that there are whites who, like Keith Harmon Snow, have decided that WE ARE ALL HUMAN BEINGS AND GOD'S CREATION so, they will denounce anyone, Black or white, who pussy-foot around instead of denouncing and acting to rid the world of those funding, promoting, committing, and apologizing for the GENOCIDE anywhere in the world like that of the Africans in the Congo. Them we embrace and pray that the Good Lord strengthen them and protect them. And, those like you, we pray that either you be converted to the Truth or may the Great God deal with you however he sees FIT. Prof. Yaa-Lengi Ngemi, President of Congo Coalition and author of Genocide in the Congo.] Rebecca Hamilton, "Special Report: The Wonks Who Sold Washington on Sudan," Reuters, July 11, 2012. Eric Reeves, "Genocide's Victory," Op/Ed, Boston Globe, December 8, 2007. "Fascism is only the organized political expression of the structure of the average man's character. It is the basic emotional attitude of the suppressed man of our authoritarian machine-civilization and its mechanistic-mystical conception of life." Wilhem Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (Die Massenpsychologie des Faschismus), 1933. Rebecca Hamilton, Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011: p. 139. [21-a] Five different perspectives on the ongoing crisis in the Darfur region explore the ethical and political questions behind popular calls for humanitarian intervention and regime change in Sudan. Panelists include: Co-Director of the IAC in New York, Sara Flounders; Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Elliot Fratkin; investigative journalist, Keith Harmon Snow; researcher on war crimes, Dimitri Oram; and Associate Professor of Anthropology, Enoch Page. This event on the crisis in Darfur was held on July 6, 2006 at Smith College in Massachusetts. Listen to the panel presentations reproduced on KPFA's Guns & Butter radio show in two parts on August 16 & 23, 2006: Part one: <http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/22236>; part two: <http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/22351>. See, for example: keith harmon snow, "Oil in Darfur? Special Ops in Somalia? The New Old "Humanitarian" Warfare in Africa," February 1, 2007; and "Merchant's of Death: Exposing Corporate-Financed Holocaust in Africa," Global Research, December 7, 2008. See, for example, the discussion of Nicholas Kristof's propaganda in: keith harmon snow, "Petroleum and Empire in North Africa: Muammar Gaddafi Accused of Genocide? NATO Invasion Underway," ConciousBeingAlliance.com, March 3, 2011. Personal communication, Rene Lemarchand, August 2, 2012. René Lemarchand is a French political scientist who is known for his research on ethnic conflict and genocide in Rwanda, Burundi and Darfur. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida, and has worked as a USAID consultant in Côte d'Ivoire (1992-1996) and Ghana (1997-1998). Roger Rosenblatt & Sebastio Salgado's story, "The Last Place on Earth," Vanity Fair, July 1993, was turned into a coffee table picture book published in December 1994. See, e.g., Ann Garrison, "South Sudan Independence? Really?" July 10, 2010; and Profile: Joseph C. Wilson, Africa Confidential, accessed December 11, 2010. Prendergast et al, Sudan: The Lost Boys: Child Soldiers and Unaccompanied Boys in Southern Sudan, Human Rights Watch, Vol. 6, No. 10, November 1994. Makau Mutua, Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. John Prendergast, Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, Hyperion, 2007: p. 142-143. Director of U.S. Committee for Refugees to Present Lecture, Press Release, Smith College, March, 1999. Prior to Public Talk, Smith Professor to be Honored for Sudan Advocacy, Press Release, Smith College, October 16, 2000. While warning the reader that Mahmood Mamdani's scholarship as regards Sudan and the Great Lakes of Africa is compromised by his formerly close relationship to Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame and the NRM during the bush war (1980-1986) and years after (1986-1996), the reader can find an excellent accounting of Dr. Eric Reeves' disinformation and manipulation of mortality statistics in: Mahmood Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics & the War on Terror, Pantheon, 2009. AMERICA'S SUDAN POLICY: A NEW DIRECTION? JOINT HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA AND SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION, MARCH 28, 2001, Serial No. 107-8. "Sudan/Britain: On Her Majesty's Secret Service," Africa Confidential, January 2005. "Former U.S. Envoy Calls for Military Action Against Sudan," Sudan Tribune, June 16, 2011. Eoin Butler, "Our Man in South Sudan," The Irish Times, Saturday December 17, 2011, <http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/magazine/2011/1217/1224309123073.html>. See: USAID Photo gallery, "Sudan: Disseminating the Peace," USAID web site, 2006, http://gemini.info.usaid.gov/photos/displayimage.php?pos=-894. "Sudan Mirror Sheds Light:" www.wfd.org/case-studies/sudan-mirror-sheds-light.aspx. 2009 interview with Dan Eiffe, publisher of Sudan Mirror, part 1: http://citizenshift.org/interview-dan-eiffe-publisher-sudan-mirror-nairobi-kenya; part 2: http://citizenshift.org/interview-dan-eiffe-part-2-publisher-sudan-mirror; and part 3: http://citizenshift.org/node/23679&term_tid=54. Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson, "Interview with Elliott Abrams: 'Religious Freedom is More Important Today'," Middle East Quarterly , Winter 2001. Christopher Hitchens, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Verso, 2001. "Pseudo-operations" were developed, defined and practiced during the so-called 'Mau Mau insurgency" by British military commander Frank Kitson, and their efficacy did not escape notice of the Pentagon. See, for example: Frank Kitson, Gangs and Counter-Gangs, London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1960; Frank Kitson, Low-Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency & Peacekeeping, Faber & Faber, 1971; and Kline, Pseudo-Operations and Counter-Insurgency: Lessons from Other Countries, U.S. Army War College External Research Associates Program, June 2005. See: keith harmon snow, "The Rwanda Genocide Fabrications: Human Rights Watch, Alison Des Forges and Disinformation on Central Africa," Dissident Voice, April 13, 2009. See, e.g., Roger Winter, "Power, not tribalism, stokes Rwanda's slaughter,"The Globe and Mail, April 14,1994 (reprinted by the US Comrnittee for Refugees, Washington, D.C.). Roger Winter and Jeff Drumtra, "Responding to the Rwanda Crises: Declare Genocide and Other Policy Steps," News from the U.S. Committee for Refugees, May 3, 1994--a six page USCR document "unclassified released in full" by the U.S. State Department on 8 June 2004. Roger P. Winter, "How Human Rights Groups Miss the Opportunity to do Good," Washington Post, February 22, 1998, p. C02. Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1993-2003: Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003, August 2010, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/ZR/DRC_MAPPING_REPORT_FINAL_EN.pdf Philip Gourevitch, "Letter from the Congo: Continental Shift," New Yorker, August 4, 1997. Nik Gowing, 'Dispatches from Disaster Zones': The reporting of Humanitarian Emergencies, Conference Paper, London, 27 and 28 May 1998. See: keith harmon snow, "Pentagon Produces Satellite Photos of 1994 Rwanda Genocide,"ConsciousBeingAlliance.com, April 6, 1994. Colum Lynch, "U.S. agents were seen with rebels in Zaire: Active participation is alleged in military overthrow of Mobutu," Boston Globe, 8 October 1997, A2. See: A. Walter Dorn, Intelligence at UN Headquarters? The Information and Research Unit and the Intervention in Eastern Zaire 1996, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 20, No. 3, September 2005, pp.440 - 465, <http://www.walterdorn.org/pub/31 >. Roger P. Winter, "How Human Rights Groups Miss the Opportunity to do Good," Washington Post, February 22, 1998, p. C02. Charlayne Hunter-Gault, "Zaire in Turmoil," PBS Newshour, May 17, 1997, <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/jan-june97/zaire_03-17.html>. Filip Reyntjens, The Great African War: Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996-2006, Cambridge University Press, 2009. Roger P. Winter and Jeff Drumtra, Military Deployment in Eastern Zaire Would be Misguided, USCR Press Release, 27 November 1996, <http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Urgent_Action/apic_112796.html>. Johanna McGeary, "How should we help? Humanitarian missions can't cure political conflicts," Time Magazine, November 25, 1996, <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985572,00.html#ixzz22DI97Mxt>. Written by: keith harmon snow Photography Credits: keith harmon snow Leave a comment Donate to this Project - Africa (16) - Asia (2) - Europe (2) - EVENTS (1) - General (1) - Immigration & Refugees (7) - Middle East (2) - SUPPORT (2) - VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDREN (4)

48°20' / 19°40' Translation of the Lucenec chapter from Pinkas Hakehillot Slovakia Translation of the Edited by Yehoshua Robert Buchler and Ruth Shashak Published by Yad Vashem Published in Jerusalem, 2003 Published by Yad Vashem Published in Jerusalem, 2003 Our sincere appreciation to Yad Vashem This is a translation from: Pinkas Hakehillot Slovakia: Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities, Slovakia, Edited by Yehoshua Robert Buchler and Ruth Shashak, published by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions. Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited. Translated by Shlomo Sné (In Hungarian Losonc, capital of the subdistrict in the Novohrad district, in south-central Slovakia.) Lucenec is first mentioned in a document dated 1262. During the Turkish invasion, it was heavily damaged, and only in the second half of the eighteenth century, after the Turks were repelled, did Lucenec gradually make progress. The majority of the population worked as leather and shoe craftsmen, but there was some trading in farm products. In the middle of the nineteenth century some factories were established there, mainly for processing agricultural products. At the end of the century a large ironworks was established, which employed 1,600 workers. During the period of the Czechoslovakian Republic, Lucenec was depressed. Some of the factories closed, and there was widespread unemployment. In the census of 1930, about a third of the residents registered themselves as Hungarians, and the rest as Slovakians and Jews. On Nov. 2, 1938, Lucenec was annexed to Hungary, and in March 1944 the Nazis occupied the town. On January 14, 1945 it was liberated by the Soviet Army. The History of the community A 1725 document mentions the first Jews, a father and son who had come there two years previously from Moravia. In 1727 the city authorities cancelled an earlier ban on Jews settling there, by the order of the Novohrad administration. It seems that there were no Jews for many years afterwards, as we learn from details of the 1768 Jewish district census. Some Jewish families who lived in the suburb of Tuhar, in the area of the estate of the aristocrat, Josef Silashy, are first mentioned in 1804. Israel Wohl, apparently the leader of the Jewish community, asked the nobleman to permit more Jews to settle on his property. Apparently he received a positive answer, for in 1822 Jewish families were already settled in a suburb of Tuhar. Wohl established a Hevra Kadisha and a Jewish community. It employed a slaughterer who was also a melamed. In the early years Jews prayed in a private house. In the 1830's the community established a small synagogue. More Jews settled in Lucenec in the 1840's, and in 1843 there were 47 families (133 people), and 53 lived in the area of Lucenec. Jews from 12 settlements in the area belonged to the community. The number of Jews in Lucenec and surrounding areas grew. In 1848 there were 73 families in Lucenec: 14 of them from Moravia and Czechoslovakia, and the rest from various places in Hungary. With the rapid growth of the number of Jews, the community developed too. In 1847 a cheder opened, with 13 children. In 1851 a private Jewish elementary school was established, and its curriculum included general subjects. After it closed in 1863, the community opened its own elementary school, with about 130 pupils. The first rabbi of the community was Rabbi Moshe Hoegyes. The majority of the Jews of the suburb gradually moved into the city, and the two Jewish groups merged into one community, whose leader was Moshe Shneck. That year the rabbi was Chaim (Heinrich) Moshe Goldzier, an enlightened man, and a proponent of reforms in the service and the communal prayer book. The Dayan at this time was Rabbi Avraham Brown. Rabbi Goldzier's position was a source of contention in the community. He was forced to leave the rabbinate of Lucenec, and left the city in 1858. His successor, (during the years 1859-1868) was Rabbi Yakov Koppel Zinger The Jews of Lucenec established some welfare and mutual aid societies, including Bikur Holim, Gmilut Hesed, and a Jewish Women's Union. (When it was established in 1877, it had about 300 members). There was also a Jewish girls' society (established in 1906), a Godfathers' Society (established in 1910), and some other societies. In 1849, under the rabbinate of Hoegyes, there was a fire in the synagogue that burned up everything inside, including the Torah scrolls and the archives. In 1867, when Albert Schmiedel headed the community, a Moorish -style synagogue in was opened in Lucenec. Its interior furnishings reflected the taste of the Reform Movement. Some Lucenec Jews who had opposed prayer and worship reforms left the community and conducted separate prayers. In 1868 the community had Albert Schmiedel represent the Jews of the district in the Hungarian Jewish Congress in Budapest. During the Hungarian Jewish split in 1869 the community of Lucenec defined itself as Status Quo, and in 1870 it joined the Neolog Movement. On the other side, those who left organized an independent community, and in 1880 it gained the recognition of the authorities in their community. The book of statutes of the main community was promulgated in 1878, and updated in 1896. The cemetery in Lucenec was a joint venture, but every community had its own section. In 1871 the cemetery was enlarged and in 1909 it was closed for burial, when a new cemetery was opened nearby. In 1881 the Neolog community opened a new elementary school with five classes. Its director was Josef Dumbar, and 242 children studied in mixed classes of girls and boys in 1884. The Orthodox community also opened an elementary school of its own in 1875. In the local Gymnasium (i.e. high school) the Jews were 40% of the total (although the Jewish part of the local population was less than 20%), and some of the Gymnasium teachers were Jews. The Neolog community was headed by Rabbi Dr. Moritz (Moshe) Diamant, who had published some very important writing, when Rabbi Yakov Kopel Zinger came to serve the Orthodox community of Lucenec. In 1883 he moved to the Trencin community, and Rabbi Tuvia Rosenthal, the author of Shoshan Emek (1884-1891) replaced him. Dr. Shlomo Shapiro, born in Humna, rabbi of the Neolog community, who followed Diamant, wrote some important books. His successor was Rabbi Dr. Bela (Voytech) Weide, who was in Lucenec from 1902 until his death in 1926. After Rabbi Zinger, the Orthodox community was headed by Rabbi Moshe Asher Eckshtein (from 1919 was the rabbi of Cered. The Dayan and More Tzedek was Rabbi Chaim Ginsberg, the author of Yismach Lev, who was elected rabbi of the Torat Haim Society in Budapest in 1910. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the Jews of Lucenec were very active participants in the local economy, and their contribution to its financial system was far above their percentage in the local population. In 1849 the Jews included: 19 merchants, 16 artisans, six saloon owners, plus three physicians, three teachers, a rabbi, and a shochet. In the second half of the nineteenth century, in accordance with the spread of the Jewish Enlightenment, the number of free professionals grew continuously, and played an important part in the industrialization of Lucenec. In 1854 a Jew named Scheller established a large metal processing factory, one of the first of its kind in the Empire. In 1884 Shmuel Shternlicht and Philip Shtein established a kitchenware and home oven factory. During the 1890's the Schlessinger family sawmill operated in Lucenec. In later years, Jews established more factories, among them a textile factory in a nearby town called Opatova, one of the biggest in Slovakia. Jews owned most of the local businesses. They owned 78% of the hundreds of businesses in the city, and they paid about 70% of the taxes of its population, but were only 22% of the inhabitants). Jewish involvement in the public and social life of the city became stronger when their economic involvement increased, and the spirit of the Enlightenment spread among them. They were active in cultural institutions and in sports, public, and cultural associations, as the social gap between the Jews and the non-Jews in the city gradually diminished. Already by the end of the nineteenth century, nine Jews were members of the City Council, and Jews were also nominated to posts in economic institutions and public administration. Some held senior positions. Some Jews who were very famous in their professions were born in Lucenec: Max Greenwald, who was later known as Mikshe Gedo (1905-1945), a mathematics professor; his contemporary, the doctor and researcher, Zoltan Brill (1905-1945); the composer William Bukovy (1932-1968); and opera singer Kato Kovach (1902-1991). Many of the Jews of Lucenec were conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, and 19 of them were killed in battle. The Jews between the Two World Wars In November 1918 there were anti-Jewish riots in Lucenec. There were massive assaults on Jewish homes and shops, and property was looted and destroyed. The rioters were repelled by a group of Jewish youths, headed by soldiers who had returned from the front. At the beginning of 1919, the Czechoslovakian army entered Lucenec. The army authorities arrested some of the Jewish self-defense leaders, and brought them to trial using live ammunition during the riots. In the 1921 census there were 2,168 Jews (17.4 % of the city population). Only 524 of them defined themselves as Jewish, and the others considered themselves Slovakian or Hungarian. The Neolog community included 480 family heads that paid the community levy in 1920. The head of the community was Karol Schneller. The annual budget was 123,000 crowns. Its regulations were updated in 1926. In 1929 the community joined the liberal community organization, Yeshurun. Its institutions included: a synagogue, cemetery, community building with apartments for the rabbi and community workers, an old age home, and a five-class elementary school that taught in Hungarian. The schoolmaster was Ignatz Barker. In the academic year 1927-1928 the number of pupils was 159, including some Orthodox children. In 1925 a new Neolog synagogue was inaugurated in Byzantine style, seating more than 1,000. The new synagogue was one of the biggest in Slovakia, and soared above the roof line of the city. In 1926 after the death of Rabbi Dr. Bela (Voytech) Weide, Rabbi Dr. Ludwig Kuhn was elected Neolog rabbi of Lucenec. The authorities did not ratify his nomination because he was not a Czechoslovakian citizen. For a short time Rabbi Dr. Ernst Waldman held the office. After him came Rabbi Arthur Rashovsky, author of some books of Jewish studies. (He was killed in the Holocaust in 1944.) There were about 70 Orthodox heads of families (about 250 people) in Lucenec in the 1920's. In 1929, with the increase in Jews in the city, membership grew to 351. The community was headed by Shmuel Klein and employed two others during those years. The Rabbi was Hillel Onsdorfer, one of the Mizrachi leaders in Slovakia. Its institutions included a Bet Midrash, Talmud Torah, and a Beis Yakov school for girls. Both communities shared the cemetery and Jewish elementary school. In 1930 an orthodox synagogue, (13x 24 meters) in opened in the city. The Orthodox community also had some charitable and mutual-assistance organizations. The 1920's were the start of the Zionist awakening in Lucenec. By 1919 branches of the General Zionists and Poalei Zion were established in the city through the initiative of Dr. Isidore Klein. A leftist group composed of members of Poalei Zion under the leadership of Dr. Alexander Hertz merged with the Communist Party in 1921. Also active was Mizrachi, the Revisionists, Maccabi Sport Association (from 1934 it was headed by Dr. Ladislav Zinger, and it had hundreds of members), and a large WIZO branch. The youth movements were: HaShomer Kadima (established in 1924, later called HaShomer HaZair), Maccabi HaZair, Betar, (established in 1929), and Bnai Akiva (from the 1930's). HaShomer HaZair established a pioneering training farm in 1928 for its older alumni as preparation for making aliyah. Some young people made aliyah before the beginning of World War II. (The Jews of Lucenec bought 250 Shekels before the Fifteenth Zionist Congress in 1927, and 136 Shekels before the Seventeenth Congress in 1931). Local Jews collected 7,600 crowns, donations to the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet), for planting a grove in Eretz Yisroel. It was named for the President of Czechoslovakia, T.G. Masaryk. The members of the Orthodox community established a branch of Agudat Yisroel in Lucenec. Headed by Dr. Oppenheimer, the Jewish national party took part in the elections to the City Council. In 1927 it was the third party in size in the city, and three of its members were elected to the city administration. In the 1938 elections, two of its representatives were elected to the city council, and the third, Gage, an engineer, was elected part of the city administration. Thanks to the influence of the Jewish members of the council, streets in the city were named for Dr. Theodore Herzl, and Rabbi Dr. V. Weide. In these years the Jewish involvement in general public life was at its height. Generally there were ten Jewish members of the city council, and there was also a good Jewish representation in other public bodies. In the 1920's Dr. Leopold Kessler was the deputy mayor, and afterwards legal advisor to the municipality. The rabbi, Dr. Bela (Voytech) Weide, and another three Jews, were members of the municipal educational committee. The majority of doctors and lawyers were Jewish. In 1921 there were 18 Jewish lawyers, 9 doctors, a veterinarian, two pharmacists, 5 engineers, three owners of estates, and many building contractors. Among the heads of the health services, were the district physician, Dr. Giza Vildman, and the municipal veterinarian, Dr. Oygen Lantard. Head of the local sport association was Dr. Alexander David. Oygen Hertzog was the head of the Merchants Association in Lucenec. The dentist, Dr. Alexander Hertz, was one of the founders of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia, and head of the Communist Branch in Lucenec. He was elected Deputy Head of the district, and during the 1930's represented his party in the Senate in Prague. As in the past, at this time trade was the main source of income of the Jews, and the second most important was artisanship. In 1921 there were 147 shops and businesses, 48 workshops, and four factories that belonged to Jews. (According to the data of the local Chamber of Commerce about business licenses issued this year.) |Type of Business||Number |Restaurants and Taverns||32||17| |Watches and Jewelry||10||5| |Wood and Heating Materials||9||7| |Kitchen Utensils and Glassware||7||6| |Horses and Farm Animals||7||5| |Iron Materials and Hardware||7||5| |Books and Paper products||7||5| |Leather and Shoes||5||4| |Alcohol and Spirits||4||3| During the Holocaust About 2,100 Jews (17% of the population of the city) lived in Lucenec on the eve of the Second World War. The Neolog community had about 1,400 members (388 families). Dr. Adolph Kameny headed it, and it employed eight workers. The Orthodox community was smaller. Then it had 59 families, employed four workers, and possessed a synagogue, Beis Midrash, community house, and old age home. Its head was Adolph Bak. The Jewish school remained jointly operated, and had 83 pupils. Rabbis Rashovsky and Unsdorfer continued in their offices. On November 2, 1938 Lucenec and towns around it were annexed to Hungary. On November 10 the Hungarian army occupied the city. The Jews were targets of agitation, and as the time passed they lost their fundamental rights. They were accused in inflammatory articles in newspapers, especially from 1940, of circulating Bolshevik propaganda, and supporting the Czechoslovakian republic. Some Jews were arrested and tortured, and Hungarian policemen murdered one of them, Voytech Cohen, during his interrogation. The Neolog rabbi, Rabbi Rashovsky and the head of the Hevra Kadisha, Dr. Bichler, were brought to trial in 1941, accused of desecrating the flag of Czechoslovakia on the old age home. In 1941 many Jewish youths were impressed into forced labor battalions. The majority, especially those who were sent to the eastern front, lost their life. In March 1944, when the Germans occupied Hungary, other harsh laws, both economic and general decrees were levied on the Jews. The aim was to isolate them from the rest of the population, and pull them out of the economy. Hungarian authorities ordered the closing of the Jewish school in April and all Jewish organizations except the community itself, although some institutions were abolished. A Judenrat was established in Lucenec at the beginning of May 1944. On May 2 there was an order to concentrate all the area's Jews in a ghetto, and in some streets in a poor southern neighborhood, Flour Mill Valley, whose buildings were emptied of their non-Jewish tenants. The concentration of the Jews in the ghetto was completed by the middle of May. The population density was enormous, about 5 people per room, and the health situation was horrible. Only a few Jewish families who were defined as distinguished were permitted to stay in their homes outside the ghetto. The Jews suffered from poverty and hunger. The head of the district, Shandor Horovat, visited Lucenec on May 19. He checked the concentration processes, and set the dates of expulsion from Lucenec to the camps in 1941 together with the German S.S. Commander At the end of May 1944, some 80 youths from the ghetto were recruited into forced labor under the auspices of the Hungarian Army. The expulsion of Jews in the sub -district began on June 12, 1944. The Jews were concentrated into a local brick factory, and from there they were expelled in two transports to Auschwitz. Among those who were expelled were the two community rabbis, Rabbi Arthur Rashovsky, and Rabbi Hillel Unsdorfer. After the War Immediately after the war about 400 Jewish survivors from the town and vicinity were gathered in Lucenec immediately after the liberation. They revived Jewish communal life, and Samuel Rosenberg headed it. Alexander Sved was his substitute rabbi. The renewed community had a soup kitchen for the needy, and some other public institutions. Public prayer was renewed in the Orthodox synagogue, which was the first to be reconstructed. In May 1948 the reconstructed Neolog synagogue was inaugurated, and a big crowd from all over Slovakia came to the ceremony. There was also a ceremony unveiling the memorial tablets for Lucenec and the vicinity, in memory of Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust. Since then, until the 1960's, there was public prayer in the Neolog synagogue. Zionist activity was also renewed after the war. The local Zionist leaders were Dr. Hyash and Z. Klein. Young people participated in the Bnai Akiva and Zionist youth, which had pioneering training groups. 100,000 crowns were collected in 1947 as donations to the Jewish National Fund to plant the Czechoslovakian Martyrs Forest in the hills of Jerusalem. About 1,000,000 crowns were collected in 1948 for the fund for the Haganah. About 300 Jews lived in Lucenec at the end of 1948. Around half of them made aliyah in 1949. During the stoppage of aliyah at the end of the year, 156 Jews remained in the city. Powel Yonash was head of the renewed community for many years, and Rabbi Mikholsh Gross was a deputy rabbi. The city authorities converted the Neolog synagogue into a storeroom during the 1960's. The Orthodox synagogue was destroyed in 1969, and since then public prayer continued in an improvised prayer hall. Part of the Neolog synagogue was also destroyed during that time, but a few years ago the municipal authorities began to reconstruct it. The Jewish cemetery of Lucenec serves local Jews until now, and it is in good repair. The mortuary in the old cemetery in the suburb of Tuhar was declared a historical place. There is still a little Jewish community in Lucenec, with about 50 members. Yizkor Book Project JewishGen Home Page Copyright ©1999-2014 by JewishGen, Inc. Updated 08 Dec 2014 by JH

Estranging Identity: A Child Holocaust Survivor’s Struggle with Jewishness By Selina Antonucci, Ashley Clarkson, & Katie King (Produced by Erica Lehrer and Monica Eileen Patterson for CDK Productions) This audio installation is based on testimony by Dr. Yehudi Lindeman, a Dutch child survivor of the Holocaust. It traces his lifelong struggle with his identity, stemming from his experience of persecution as a Jewish child separated from his family and in hiding during the Nazi occupation of Holland during World War II. The installation urges visitors, regardless of their own backgrounds, to reflect on the question of identity and the role of communities of memory in its formation and representation. Despite the Nazi imposition of a racialised notion of “Jew” as a core component of their genocidal policy, popular discourses of Holocaust memorialization also often take the term “Jew” for granted, as a stable and clear identity category. But close attention to individuals’ life stories can reveal complex negotiations with available identity categories across their lifespans – particularly in cases of identity categories that have been sites of profound stigmatization and struggle. Yehudi Lindeman’s testimony troubles the notion that Jewish survivors could simply “return” postwar to stable Jewish identities they had inhabited in the prewar period. Indeed, Yehudi’s experience unsettles key images of Jewish victimhood; not only did Yehudi not see himself as a victim, he was painfully ambivalent about Jews and his own Jewishness during and after the war, in part an artefact of the anti-Semitism he himself had been subject to as a youth. The effects of Yehudi’s wartime experiences on his sense of self stayed with him long into adulthood and shaped his life’s work. For many years Yehudi did not consider himself a Holocaust survivor, and to this day has difficulty identifying himself by his family name. Our goal in this project is to convey the complexities of identification, and particularly the ways they are further complicated by war and persecution. This piece was created for the Advanced Public History seminar Curating Difficult Knowledge at Concordia University in Winter 2011. The recorded testimony used in this project was made available courtesy of Yehudi Lindeman, as part of the Montreal Life Stories project. Selina Antonucci is an Honours in Public History with Internship student at Concordia University with an interest in European Medieval and Oral History. She is currently interning at the Jewish Public Library and working on an upcoming spring exhibit based on the works of the late photographer Norman Epelbaum. Ashley Clarkson is an honours Public History student at Concordia University, interested in Social and Oral history. In 2009 she was awarded the Gordon Ritchie Scholarship in Canadian History. Kathleen King is a recent graduate of Concordia University with a Specialization in Cultural Anthropology. Her area of interest is in African studies, global development, and immigrant and refugee rights in Canada. Currently she is an intern at Life Stories Montreal, helping to gather the testimonies of Montrealers displaced by war, genocide, and other human rights violations.

(Redirected from The Bible) Part of the Thelema & Religion series The Bible is the primary sacred scripture of both the Jewish and Christian religions. These scriptures are compilations of what were originally separate documents (called "books") written over a long period of time. The first selection, which later formed the Jewish Bible (Tanakh) consisted of 39 books, and falls into three sections: The Law (Torah), The Prophets (Neviim), and The Writings (Ketuvim or Hagiographa). The Christian Bible reordered much of the Tanakh and added a few more books, calling it the Old Testament. Later additions after the birth of Jesus (27 Books) make up the New Testament. |Table of contents| Structure of the Bible The Hebrew Tanakh and the Christian Old Testament are largely the same except in order, although some versions of the OT include books that the Tanakh doesn’t. This article focuses on the Christian Bible (see Tanakh for more on the Hebrew Bible). The canonical list of the Books of the Bible differs between Jews, Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox, even though there is a great deal of overlap. The general structure of the Bible, including all the various components are: The Old Testament or Septuagint - Genesis – Exodus – Leviticus – Numbers - Deuteronomy - Historical books - Joshua – Judges – Ruth - 1 Samuel - 2 Samuel - 1 Kings - 2 Kings - 1 Chronicles - 2 Chronicles - Ezra - 1 Esdras - Nehemiah - Tobit - Judith - Esther - 1 Maccabees - 2 Maccabees - 3 Maccabees - 4 Maccabees - Wisdom books - Job – Psalms – Odes – Proverbs - Ecclesiastes - Song of Solomon - Wisdom – Sirach - Psalms of Solomon - Major prophets - Isaiah – Jeremiah – Lamentations – Baruch - Letter of Jeremiah - Ezekiel - Daniel - Minor prophets - Hosea – Joel – Amos – Obadiah – Jonah – Micah – Nahum – Habakkuk – Zephaniah – Haggai – Zechariah - Malachi The New Testament - The Gospels - Matthew - Mark - Luke - John - History of the Apostles - (The Letters of Paul) Romans - 1 Corinthians - 2 Corinthians - Galatians – Ephesians – Philippians – Colossians – 1 Thessalonians - 2 Thessalonians - 1 Timothy - 2 Timothy – Titus - Philemon - (The General Letters) Hebrews – James - 1 Peter - 2 Peter - 1 John - 2 John - 3 John - Jude The Old Testament The Hebrew scriptures of the Bible—portions of which contain stories traditionally held to be historical accounts of much of the early history of the Hebrew Nation—teach that there is one God, Jehovah, "Creator of Heaven and Earth" who created Man "in his own image", and details the relationship between Man and his Creator. The Old Testament has as many as 52 Books, depending on which version you look at, and is also called the Septuagint—Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures from the second century B.C. Most Protestants omit some of these works, roughly following the second century A.D. Jewish canon called the Tanakh, but with some re-orderings. Within Christianity, there is not complete agreement on what the Christian Bible contains, that is, on the Biblical canon. However, this only extends to a few books—there is no dispute as to the majority of books of the Bible. The relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament is not fully agreed upon among Christians. The degree to which the Old Testament and its laws applies to Christians is disputed. Very few Christians, for example, follow the dietary laws within the Old Testament, whereas almost all Christians believe that the Ten Commandments are applicable. The New Testament contains many references to, and quotes from, the Old Testament, especially in relation to the fulfillment of prophecies concerning the promised messiah, whom Christians believe to be Jesus Christ. In Christian theological views, this expectation, present fulfillment and eschatological fulfillment of the divine, eternal kingdom under the headship of Jesus are the thread running through both Testaments. The Pentateuch, Greek for "five containers", is the equivalent of the Hebrew Torah, is a Hebrew word meaning teaching, instruction, or especially Law. The Torah does not contain a complete and ordered system of legislature, but rather, a general philosophical basis, and a great number of specific laws, including the Ten Commandments. These laws are often reminiscent of the existing customs in the ancient middle east, but have important conceptual variations from them. The book of Deuteronomy is different from the previous books; thus sometimes the first four books of the Bible are known as the Tetrateuch. The first six books of the Bible as a unit (The Pentateuch immediately followed by the book of Joshua) is sometimes referred to as the Hexateuch, as the book of Joshua picks up directly where Deuteronomy leaves off. The New Testament The New Testament, sometimes called the Greek Scriptures, is the name given to the part of the Christian Bible that was written after the birth of Jesus Christ. The term is a translation of the Latin Novum Testamentum, meaning "The New Covenant" or Testament. It was originally used by early Christians to describe their relationship with God and later to designate a particular collection of 27 books. For Christians, the NT is both a primary source of religious doctrine and a foundation for their spiritual beliefs. Some religious sects, notably, several of the Protestant Christian sects, believe the Bible to be the ultimate and authoritative guide in all spiritual matters, by a principle referred to as sola scriptura. The earliest of the books of the New Testament was 1 Thessalonians, an epistle of Paul, written probably 51, or possibly Galatians in 49 according to one of two theories of its writing. Of the pseudepigraphical epistles, critical scholars tend to place them somewhere between 70 and 150, with 2 Peter usually being the latest. In the first three centuries of the Christian Church, there was no New Testament canon that was universally recognized. Nevertheless, by the 2nd century there was a common collection of letters and gospels that a majority of church leaders considered authoritative. These contained the four gospels and many of the letters of Paul. The New Testament canon as it is now was first listed by St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in 367, in a letter written to his churches in Egypt. That canon gained wider and wider recognition until it was accepted by all at the Third Council of Carthage in 397. Even this council did not settle the matter, however. Certain books continued to be questioned, especially James and Revelation. Even as late as the 16th century, theologian and reformer Martin Luther questioned (but in the end did not reject) the Epistle of James. The Bible and Thelema Aleister Crowley had grown up on the Bible, which resulted in many quotes and references to it running throughout his major works, including The Book of the Law. He writes of the Bible in Confessions: - I did not hate God or Christ, but merely the God and Christ of the people whom I hated. It was only when the development of my logical faculties supplied the demonstration that I was compelled to set myself in opposition to the Bible itself. It does not matter that the literature is sometimes magnificent and that in isolated passages the philosophy and ethics are admirable. The sum of the matter is that Judaism is a savage, and Christianity a fiendish, superstition. (p.72) Nevertheless, he often employed aspects of the Bible. As Dionysos Thriambos points out in his essay, "The Utility of the Bible to the Student of Thelema," anyone familiar with The Book of the Law will recognize certain Biblical passages, such as: - "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."—Matthew 10:16, (see AL I:57) - "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still."— Revelation 22:11 (see AL II:57) And the Greek for Will (Thelema, Θελημα) appears about forty times in the New Testament. Dionysos Thriambos explains: - This word is of a particular, Biblical provenance. The Greek New Testament has forty instances of the word Θελημα, of which 32 refer to divine will, and seven refer to human will—although three of these are the will of a figure representing Jesus' "Father" in a parable. One single instance in II Timothy 2:26 is noteworthy for describing the Θελημα of "the devil." - In fact, the word Θελημα occurs in one of the best-known gospel passages, the only actual invocation prescribed by Jesus, the "Lord's Prayer," as it appears in Matthew 6:10, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will (Θελημα) be done in earth, as it is in heaven." Crowley wrote two updated versions of that prayer, in The Book of Lies chapters 2 and 44. In each case, "Thy will is done" is included to indicate transcendence of the earlier formula. Crowley mentions the Bible as a useful text for Thelemites. He lists it in the A.'.A.'. reading curriculum, describing it as “The Bible, by various authors unknown. The Hebrew and Greek Originals are of Qabalistic value. It contains also many magical apologues, and recounts many tales of folk-lore and magical rites” (Book 4). - The Skeptic's Annotated Bible (http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/) —a brilliant and funny version of the Bible annotated from a skeptical point of view. - The Bible Tool (http://thebibletool.com/) - contains a huge collection of bible texts, commentaries, glossaries, and dictionaries. - The Bible Gateway (http://bible.gospelcom.net/) - Free online Bible in many translations and encompassing literally 40 different languages. - King James Bible (http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/10) - plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg - The New English Translation (http://www.bible.org/netbible/) - The first Bible made for the Internet. - The World English Bible (http://www.ebible.org/) - a Public Domain (no copyright) Modern English translation of the Holy Bible, based on the American Standard Version of the Holy Bible first published in 1901, the Biblia Hebraica Stutgartensa Old Testament, and the Greek Majority Text New Testament. It is in draft form, and currently being edited for accuracy and readability. - The Polyglot Bible (http://davies-linguistics.byu.edu/polyglot/) - allows the user to view parallel versions of the Bible in numerous ancient and modern languages. - "An Interpreting Dictionary of Scripture Proper Names" (http://www.ccel.org/bible_names/title.html) - from Hitchcock's New and Complete Analysis of the Holy Bible - Wikipedia. (2004) Bible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible). Retrieved Sept. 22, 2004. - ___. (2004) Pentateuch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentateuch). Retrieved Sept. 22, 2004. - ___. (2004) Books of the Bible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_the_Bible). Retrieved Sept. 22, 2004. - ___. (2004) New Testament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament). Retrieved Sept. 22, 2004. - Crowley, Aleister. (1979). The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. London;Boston : Routledge & Kegan Paul. - ___. (1997). Magick: Book 4.' 2nd ed. York Beach, Me. : S. Weiser. - Dionysos Thriambos. The Utility of the Bible to the Student of Thelema (http://www.hermetic.com/dionysos/bible.htm). Retrieved Sept. 22, 2004.

Please note that first-year membership dues are charged at one-half the above noted amount. Please return this application, along with payment of 75% of the applicable dues (unless other arrangements have been made) to MOUNT FREEDOM JEWISH CENTER, P.O. Box 202, Mt. Freedom, NJ 07970. Call the Shul Office with any questions (973) 895-2100. Fax # (973) 895-2232.

Sheldon Lavin serves as the Chairman and CEO of OSI Group. The company is leading in the meat and food industry in production and procession of quality meat and foods. Besides, Mr. Lavin is the President of OSI International Foods Ltd. The leadership and contribution of the Sheldon Lavin have enabled the OSI Group to grow significantly to a global level where its popularity is high. It is evident that the success and achievements of OSI are as a result of Sheldon Lavin efforts towards the company. Mr. Lavin is well conversant with accounting and finance since that is the area of his expertise that has led him to the success. Most of the workplaces that Sheldon Lavin has served comprise The Sheba Foundation as well as Northeast Bank serving as the director. Though there are so many other prominent organizations that he has served and the legacy that he has left behind is recommendable. Moreover, since he joined the OSI Group, the company has been performing well in the industry. The fact is that there are numerous of awards that the company has received since Sheldon Lavin became the Chairman and CEO of the OSI Group. Also, Mr. Lavin has received The Global Visionary Award from India since the efforts, and great work that was done by him was recognized. The award was due to the creation of thousands of jobs to people and making the OSI Group lead in the global market. The company has as well acquired some other companies through expansion of its services to customers globally such as Baho Foods, Flagship Europe. Through the acquisition, the OSI Group has gained the largest market share in the meat and food processing industry. Furthermore, Lavin is a philanthropist that makes a lot of contributions to charity organizations. There are so many organizations that he participates in providing charities such as the Jewish United Fund, United Negra College Fund and Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago and many others. Conversely, Sheldon Lavin serves on the board of trustees in the Ronald McDonald House Charities where he is the Chairman and CEO. Mr. Lavin likes it most when he sees others prospering in life and through that passion he helps whoever seeks assistance from him. He has enabled a lot of people to realize and achieve their dreams in life by mentoring them and following their progress. Sheldon Lavin is a role model for many entrepreneurs out there that want to be successful in life. To know more click: here.

Over 100 Charities Unite to Warn That Tory Plans for UK Aid Risk Britain Turning Its Back on the World A potential merger of government departments could put the UK's life-saving aid budget at risk. More than 100 charities of all sizes from across the UK are joining together to call on the UK government to not make planned changes to the way UK aid funding is spent. The issue lies in a reported merger of the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), as part of a wide-spread Whitehall shake-up following the Conservative election victory. But charities have united with senior Conservatives to urge Prime Minister Boris Johnson to keep DfID as a separate department and make sure that the Secretary of State for International Development keeps oversight of how the UK’s aid funding is spent. It’s part of British law that the UK will spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) every year on supporting the world’s most vulnerable people — which is really something to be proud of. Meanwhile, the Conservative party manifesto ahead of last week’s election said the party would “proudly maintain” the 0.7% pledge. But there is a growing problem with how UK aid funding is being spent. DfID is one of the best spenders of aid money in the world for accountability and transparency, which means that they’re the department to make sure aid funding is always being spent towards the aim of poverty alleviation. But around 30% of the aid budget is now being spent outside of DfID, by other departments and cross-government funds — including the FCO, the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, and the Conflict Stability and Security Fund (CSSF). That means that less UK aid money is reaching the world’s poorest people, according to a recent report by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. The National Audit Office has also found that the lack of transparency and accountability in other government departments (that aren’t DfID) means there’s uncertainty about whether or not UK aid is always being used most effectively. Meanwhile, Johnson has previously said the UK aid budget should be spent “more in line with Britain’s political, commercial, and diplomatic interests” — including backing a report last year calling for DfID and the Foreign Office to be merged. The controversial report sparked concern among the aid sector at the time, by calling for aid funding — which should be spent on ending and alleviating poverty — to instead be diverted to the Ministry of Defence and even the BBC World Service, which the report said should be funded “entirely from the overseas aid budget.” So charities from all across the UK are trying to stop the merger happening, to keep DfID as a separate department, and to ensure that UK aid is always being spent with a focus on supporting the world’s poorest people. “Merging DfID with the FCO would risk dismantling the UK’s leadership on international development and humanitarian aid,” say the charities, including Global Citizen, in a statement. “It suggests we are turning our backs on the world’s poorest people, as well as some of the greatest global challenges of our time: extreme poverty, climate change, and conflict,” the statement continues. “UK aid risks becoming a vehicle for UK foreign policy, commercial and political objectives, when it first and foremost should be invested to alleviate poverty.” As well as Global Citizen, organisations signing onto the statement include: World Vision UK, ActionAid UK, Oxfam GB, STOPAIDS, Women for Women International UK, War on Want, Amref Health Africa UK, World Jewish Relief, Islamic Relief UK, Tearfund, VSO, the Kambia Appeal, TackleAfrica, and Mothers Union. You can help us stop this merger happening, by taking action with us here to urge Boris Johnson to keep an independent DfID and help ensure that UK aid is always reaching the people who need it most.

March 7, 2018, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Congregation Shaare Emeth 11645 Ladue Road St. Louis, Missouri 63141 MakomSTL is a weekly adult learning program for Shaare Emeth members and the wider community that offers free and tuition-based Jewish learning classes at Shaare Emeth on Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. For current class listings, please visit our MakomSTL page at http://www.sestl.org/learn/makomstl/.

Declaration of Independence from Israel This report gives a summary of why Israel has become basically a "dependent" of the US and why this dependence enrages the Arab world. Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid. The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state. Israel was born at midnight May 14, 1948. The U.S. recognized the new state 11 minutes later. The two countries have been locked in a deadly embrace ever since. Washington, at the beginning of the relationship, was able to be a moderating influence. An incensed President Eisenhower demanded and got Israel’s withdrawal after the Israelis occupied Gaza in 1956. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes bombed the USS Liberty. The ship, flying the U.S. flag and stationed 15 miles off the Israeli coast, was intercepting tactical and strategic communications from both sides. The Israeli strikes killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. The deliberate attack froze, for a while, Washington’s enthusiasm for Israel. But ruptures like this one proved to be only bumps, soon smoothed out by an increasingly sophisticated and well-financed Israel lobby that set out to merge Israel and American foreign policy in the Middle East. Israel has reaped tremendous rewards from this alliance. It has been given more than $140 billion in U.S. direct economic and military assistance. It receives about $3 billion in direct assistance annually, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. foreign aid budget. Although most American foreign aid packages stipulate that related military purchases have to be made in the United States, Israel is allowed to use about 25 percent of the money to subsidize its own growing and profitable defense industry. It is exempt, unlike other nations, from accounting for how it spends the aid money. And funds are routinely siphoned off to build new Jewish settlements, bolster the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and construct the security barrier, which costs an estimated $1 million a mile. The report goes on to show how this perceived favoritism towards Israel by the US causes the Arab world to be unable to differentiate between Israeli policies and US policies: Few in the Middle East see any distinction between Israeli and American policies, nor should they. And when the Islamic radicals speak of U.S. support of Israel as a prime reason for their hatred of the United States, we should listen. The consequences of this one-sided relationship are being played out in the disastrous war in Iraq, growing tension with Iran, and the humanitarian and political crisis in Gaza. It is being played out in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is gearing up for another war with Israel, one most Middle East analysts say is inevitable. The U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is unraveling. And it is doing so because of this special relationship. The eruption of a regional conflict would usher in a nightmare of catastrophic proportions. The alliance, which makes no sense in geopolitical terms, does makes sense when seen through the lens of domestic politics. The Israel lobby has become a potent force in the American political system. No major candidate, Democrat or Republican, dares to challenge it. The lobby successfully purged the State Department of Arab experts who challenged the notion that Israeli and American interests were identical. Backers of Israel have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to support U.S. political candidates deemed favorable to Israel. They have brutally punished those who strayed, including the first President Bush, who they said was not vigorous enough in his defense of Israeli interests. This was a lesson the next Bush White House did not forget. George W. Bush did not want to be a one-term president like his father. Israel advocated removing Saddam Hussein from power and currently advocates striking Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Direct Israeli involvement in American military operations in the Middle East is impossible. It would reignite a war between Arab states and Israel. The United States, which during the Cold War avoided direct military involvement in the region, now does the direct bidding of Israel while Israel watches from the sidelines. During the 1991 Gulf War, Israel was a spectator, just as it is in the war with Iraq. President Bush, facing dwindling support for the war in Iraq, publicly holds Israel up as a model for what he would like Iraq to become. Imagine how this idea plays out on the Arab street, which views Israel as the Algerians viewed the French colonizers during the war of liberation. Read more at the link...

Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. —Tao Te Ching, Chapter 46 The Doctor awakens with a start. Heart racing, fingertips pulsating, he leaps from the bed where Nino lies awake, twisted in the sheets, staring at the ceiling with blind eyes and cold heart. Sweat pools underneath his back and saliva runs along his cheek. His hair is wet. His skin glistens. He wears nothing but tattoos that testify and imprison. Weary from yet another scene, the Doctor decides not to ask about the dream that shook them both awake. As he puts a thick robe over his pale, hairy body and slides his shapeless feet into a pair of slippers. He grabs the pack of Newports off the nightstand, lights one casually then sighs in dismay. “What?” Nino demands without turning his head. His body is rigid. His eyes are sealed in protest. The Doctor does not say a word as he exits the room. “Get me some water!” Nino yells at the figure that retreats down the hall. Then he lays his forearm over his eyes, his head throbbing in pain. From deep inside, the echo of laughter rings in his ears. The sound surrounds him, enveloping him in dissonance. His arm moves away from his eyes. His hands cover his ears. His jaw is clenched so hard that soon it aches. As his chest rises and falls under labored breath, the name written in the skin of his left breast comes alive as a shadow glides across the ceiling, a reminder of the two that never met, of hellos unspoken and goodbyes never said. He shifts violently onto his stomach trying to break away from the pain of this moment. The adrenalin unleashed by the dream circulates through his blood, amping him up. He begins to pound the pillow, softly at first, mumbling under his breath. His throat is dry, his eyes are wet. His legs itch, they twitch, and unconsciously they begin to kick. It is too much. He gets out of bed yelling, “GET ME SOME WATER!” Seeing how the Doctor ignores his command, Nino’s pride rises and he wastes no time in deliberating his fate. Fuck this! he says to himself as he grabs his clothes. Fuck this guy! he curses as he pulls on his jeans. Fuck his money! he insists as he grabs his sweatshirt and raises the hood. Then he thinks better of that pledge and snatches a couple of twenties out of the Doctor’s wallet. Fuck this house! he promises as he puts on his boots, crosses the room, and walks out the door. Summer in New York is a symphony of lilac skies. The universe is blotted out, no longer visible to the naked eye. All that exists is the air, humid and thick with unfulfilled wishes while crushed dreams litter the streets like so much debris. The sour smell of the gutter greets Nino like an old friend. How you doing, man? Ain’t been too long. Thought you might have come up but I guess I was wrong. Hey, man. What, you ain’t got nothing to say? You too good to talk to a brother like me? Well don’t forget, I know where you started and I know where you’ve been. No one knows you better than me. I been here from the beginning and I ain’t going away. I know all of your secrets. But don’t worry, I ain’t gonna say. Ain’t no one care, anyfuckinway. Nino’s eyes flash, his hands clamp into fists. As he turns his head in disgust, his eyes alight on a couple walking across the street. The girl is young, maybe twenty-one, and her body is soft and fresh, ripples of sweet, supple, luscious flesh. Long black hair hangs down her back and swings in time with the gentle sway of her hips. He watches her walk, seeing her breasts bounce quietly as she wavers along. He can hear the tinkle of bells in her laugh and (somehow) the sound of her joy softens his anger. She walks with a guy in his mid-twenties. Skinny with narrow shoulders and a sunken chest, the guy moves with the confidence that sexing a foolish girl brings. He takes a swig out of the bottle that he carries in a brown bag then stops to say something nasty to the girl. Nino watches as her face changes from light to dark and he notices her shoulders tense before she fires something back. The guy’s confidence falls and in its place comes contempt. Shame and hatred unleash a spite of bad blood, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. Spit, he must spit and get it all out. “YOU’RE A WHORE!” he yells, resentful and proud. Nino sees pain etch into the girl’s face as she turns to walk away but the guy grabs her upper arm, pulling the fragile limb towards him with a hard jerk. Her body snaps as she falls back and the guy wears a hostile smile like the crown of victory. He knows women are whores and treats them all the same. He laughs at how they love to be debased not realizing his sadism betrays his deepest vulnerability. The guy is in her face, rum-soaked breath pouring from his lips. The words he speaks can no longer be heard as he turns his back on Nino, who watches intently as the girl struggles to free herself . “Let go of me!” she yelps like a half-starved kitten. His hand grips her flesh harder until she squeaks in pain. “Shut the fuck up!” he demands, raising his other hand and striking her across the face. Her head whips back and she topples over. Down. Down to the ground. She hits the concrete with a dull thud, her knee and hand slam first to block her fall. But all she can feel is the hammering of her heart. She is about to damn this guy to the depths of the earth when she hears a strange voice speaking for her. “What the fuck it wrong with you?” Nino demands. “How you gonna hit a girl? You weak, faggot, you fucked up right there.” Fist connects to skull and all that is heard is the sound of the guy falling like a sack of rocks. Nino laughs happily and looks at the girl. Her face is windswept in disarray as feelings of terror, confusion, and relief course through her veins. He puts his hand out to help her stand; she looks up at him, blue irises obliterated by pupils dilated in fear. “Sorry about that,” he murmurs when he realizes that she will not take his hand. Then he drops to the ground, pats the guy down, pulls the wallet, and casually thumbs through it. After pocketing the cash, Nino puts the wallet back where he found it and stands up again. The girl is on her feet, standing but not moving, taking strong sips of air under a veil of radiant black hair. She looks at Nino with wonder. A hero? A criminal? A New Yorker, for sure. “Thank you,” she croaks, surprised by her voice. She tries to speak again but the words are barely more than a soft moan. She feels dizzy, nervous, nauseous, sick. She takes a few steps away from him and vomits in the street. With the loss of this dead weight, she feels more at ease. She pulls a stick of Big Red out of her purse, unwrapping it slowly with fingers that tremble and shake, then folding it into her mouth where the hot and pungent flavor of cinnamon burns her throat. She spits the gum out of her mouth and on to the street. Water, it is cold clean water that she needs. She looks around for a bodega and notices the stranger remains close. “Thank you,” she says again, this time in normal voice. “I don’t know what I would have done…” Anxiety darkens her face as she looks at him. She tries to be discreet but he is watching her, carefully, like he is taking notes. When their eyes connect, her stomach drops and a flurry of butterflies flutter through her belly, carefree. Their wings beat with light, feathery strokes inside her belly, tickling her with the taste of destiny. It feels so good she begins to get lightheaded, woozy, and her balance, what little exists, is threatened by his presence. She is overcome by emotions, mixed, shaken, stirred. Too much is happening and her reaction becomes slurred. She wants to leave but she is unable to walk away. Something magnetic holds her in place. Drawn into her eyes, Nino feels as though he were falling, the ground beneath his feet giving way. “You are beautiful,” Nino says with a tenderness he did not expect. She returns his gaze, shyly at first, feeling her heart beating powerfully under her breast. As the fear fades, it is replaced by something she has never known. Protection? Could it be? Could a man want to shelter her rather than punish her for simply being she? She does not know; she does not trust but she feels safe for all of once. Safe despite (or because) he exudes danger and (it seems) he is on her side. Something pulls her toward him, something that she cannot comprehend, something that tells her to trust this dark knight of noble heart and iron fist. A demure smile graces her face, her eyes glowing under lashes that flicker and flutter like birds of paradise. She is entranced by his visage, feeling as though she stands before an oasis, a mirage. “My name is Jade,” she says, opening herself up to something she does not understand. Jade. Her name echoes in his soul and he gives thanks to God for the goodness that He bestows. Nino introduces himself, extending his hand with his palm out. She places her hand in his, her breath taken away when their fingers touch. “May I walk you home?” Nino asks. “Yes, please. I’m on Sixth; it’s not far.” With her at his side, Nino moves with a pride of purpose that swells his chest. It has been so long since he has been with a woman that Nino nearly forgot what it was to feel like a man. He steps discreetly behind her and crosses over so that he is walking on the outside, affecting the role of protector, while also claiming her as his own to all who know the rules of the street. As they walk, they say little, quietly sharing each other’s space. They are alone, together, feeling an easy sense of tension, each lost in their own lives. The night is quiet and it is calm. Yellow cabs cruise, homeless men snooze. It is as they say in Grand Hotel: “People come, people go. Nothing ever changes.” Photograph by Francis Wolff Billie Holiday Performing in Esquire Jam Session at Metropolitan House 1944, New York When they reach her block, Jade stops on the corner, a hundred feet from the glass-paneled lobby where the doorman is perched. She lives in a white brick building that spans the entire block, an architectural style so ubiquitous that no one ever takes notice of it. She calls it the “White Castle” with a tongue in cheek. She also calls it “The Jewish Projects” but not to Jews ’cause they get uppity. What she means to say is that these buildings are the finest in mid-century modular construction. She has noticed that her floor is not level, that the walls are thin, that the building is only wired for electricity in the middle third. There is something cut-rate (well, let’s just say it, cheap) about the quality of her home. These White Castles line the streets of New York south of 96th. They are co-op buildings originally designed to accommodate a new market, the single career woman of the 1960s. Nearly forty years later, they are a study in bourgeois living at the turn of the twenty-first century. They provide shelter for people who like cookie cutters, coloring inside the lines, and wearing uniforms. People like her parents, people whose only interest is order and control. Jade’s apartment clocks in at 425 square feet, a home of respectable size given New York standards. One night, while she was pleasantly high, she looked around her apartment and began to laugh. It was a laugh that turned into a cackle and then silenced into a sneer. It was the mask of superiority overlaying a creepy fear. For she noticed her apartment had the same proportions as a shoebox… and that’s just weird. That’s when she saw it in her mind’s eye. New York is a warehouse. Tens, hundreds, thousands, millions of little shoeboxes stacked one on top of the other, lined up side by side. All these lives lived, invisible to the naked eye. True, windows are the eyes of the soul of the home (to mangle a metaphor) but windows look out more than they look in. They do not reveal the daily dramas playing out inside those boxes. Six million stories in the naked city, and that’s just on a Tuesday evening. As Jade thought about shoeboxes, she dreamed of stripping away the long wall so that the floor became a stage and the box became a diorama, like the ones she used to make in the fourth grade. Here is a scene from the story of Little House on the Prairie, everything perfectly positioned. Figures drawn on paper, cut out, and propped up; clouds made out of cotton balls, glued to a blue sky crafted out of construction paper. Yes, Jade giggled to herself, My apartment is a diorama and I am a paper doll. She moved into this White Castle five years ago, when she was twenty years old. It was something spectacular, her only dream realized: escape from the ties that bound her to the carrot on a stick. Jade has been bred to be a donkey, a stubborn beast of burden fixated on a single thing. I. Me. Mine. Gimme Gimme Gimme, like the Cure sang. Her fixation on freedom, her dream of escape, her desire to be independent manifested itself in real estate. She had been going to a private college, one without illustrious name but famous for being the most expensive school in the country, which was ironic since the classes were inane. Just what was being paid for? That’s hard to know. By the time she was ten, she dreamed of having her own apartment. Anything would be better than living in that house. Ten years later, the opportunity came. She decided to take her college fund and invest it in herself. She would go to City College, which cost a tenth of what the private school had. And with the remaining money, she would rent an apartment. Well, things didn’t work out exactly like that. Instead she ended up with a fifteen-year mortgage. “You don’t own me,” she cried in despair. But she was wrong. They did own her. They always had. When her parents bought the apartment, it was the early 90s and the City was in shambles. Four years of the Dinkins administration saw the City fully submerged. Crack and AIDS and crime were rampant and everyone accepted this as fact. You came to expect bad things to happen and you steeled your resolve not to be next. Property values were low. It was a buyer’s market. Once upon a time an apartment in the West Village could be had for fifty thousand dollars and handed over to girls who were barely legal and unemployed. Girls who wanted to run away but were much too scared. So instead they got their parents to finance their freedom on five percent interest and pretend that was okay. But since Giuliani has taken power, everything has begun to change. The City, once a haven for hedonism, is slowly becoming a police state. Homeless men are disappearing off the street, forced into shelters or forced into jails. People are getting arrested for smoking weed on the street, locked up on a Friday and let out on Monday like that’s cool. Quality of Life, he calls it, that Mayor of ours. Nightclubs are shut down. Prostitutes no longer walk the streets and have begun working on the Internet. You better not be drinking out of an open container, jumping the turnstiles, or writing graff. But the most important thing you can do in Giuliani’s New York is not be black. Rest in Peace Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond. The City has entered rehab, like a junkie who has found God and become righteous and starts spreading the Word during morning rush hour on the trains with a voice that booms from a deep bass within the chest while a hacking cough persists, making some people nod their heads and others clutch their purses tightly in their fists. The City is getting a facelift, like a dame who thinks it’s not too late, focusing on surface over substance, with a Disney store opening in Times Square. What so many loved and so many despised—the organic, iconoclastic, cross-cultural vibes—are being muted into an expensive shade of beige. Buildings go co-op. Property values begin to rise. Europeans buy pied-a-terres. The strivers and the strugglers are forced out by rent increases and make their way into the boroughs. There’s a little artist community starting in Williamsburg, some old school Polish and Puerto Rican neighborhood out in Brooklyn. It’s official: you’ve got to move out of Manhattan if you want to live in New York. After five years of living without paying a single bill, Jade has become, well, jaded to what life is about. As the years pass, her passion for freedom and self-determination has eroded from razor sharp to blunt edged. She has become fat, lazy, and complacent of mind though not of physique, for it is upon her body that an all-pervasive anxiety wreaks. But she cannot see the correlation between being a recipient of parental handouts, a sense of entitlement, and a failure to realize her dream. Instead, she runs this way and that, anything to avoid self control and assuming responsibility for her life. For example, tonight. It’s a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Jade has nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nothing to do, no one to see. Nothing is asked. Nothing is expected. She is floating through life without direction. So she creates drama. Theatrics. Scenes. It feels familiar. Like home. Like love. Whatever that means… A torrent of curiosity and anxiety washes over her. Unconsciously, she raises her hand to her cheek and presses the flesh lightly. The nerve endings tingle and twinge as a sensuous pain shoots through her face. There is something she cannot explain, some pleasure this bruise brings. There is a validation here, a feeling that somehow she has been proven right. Just what that is, she cannot say but she feels vindicated all the same. Jade looks at Nino’s hand, wondering if it hurts the way her face does, wondering if when he touches his knuckles he will feel the pain and pleasure and pride that violence brings. With these thoughts, a feeling of self-consciousness steals across her breast. She wills herself to focus on the moment, asking softly, “…and what do you do?” “I fight,” Nino proclaims proudly, throwing his shoulders back and thrusting forth his chest. As he rubs his fist with his left hand, the dull ache a souvenir of his most recent work, he breaks off eye contact and thinks of that guy sprawled out on the street. A powerful feeling of self-worth suffuses his being, giving him a sense of dignity that he rarely feels. To defend a woman is not merely an honor, it is the duty of every full-grown male. Photograph by Colleen Plumb Apartment on Morse When he can, Nino refrains from doing real damage to his opponent. His need is to dominate, lest someone try to command him. This is what women don’t understand. Men are programmed to seek the top post, to be the Alpha Male. And if they can’t do it physically, they do it in other ways, the quest for power and money being the most obvious. But Nino, he has always been disenfranchised, living in the margins and falling through the cracks. He was dealt a hand; it was a house of cards. What remains from this game is the knowledge that all he has is who he is. Only he’s not sure what that is anymore. Once upon a time Nino had it all, sitting on top of the world and enjoying the view. He was the prince, nay, he was the King of all he surveyed and he had land, he had woman, he had child—he had everything he ever dreamed. But nightmares are also dreams, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, and when the Wheel of Fortune turned, what was promised was lost. And so he returned to the world from which he came, the world of tooth and claw, nail and fang. He dreams of fighting professionally to be a part of something bigger than himself where he can train and learn and live to serve a greater purpose than… this. But this is all he has and all he can do, and no longer does Nino have the drive nor the inclination to get back into training. Too much has happened in the past year and he’s still reeling, cold and numb and confused about what it all means. Too much has happened and he’s no longer sure of the fucking point. But it is on nights like tonight where Nino is reminded of something else, of the person he once was or never was but wants to be. He thinks of how good it feels to hurt a man and there is no remorse, no shame, no fear. There is pride and something else. Worth. It’s like, he matters. He knows he can’t save himself. He knows there is nothing to save. But maybe he could save Jade, if only for one night, and that makes Nino feel good. A feeling of pleasure warms his skin and tingles in his chest and as he looks into her eyes, Nino feels the heavens shift. And it’s like he can hear something, a sound so far away it is but a distant echo and a silent refrain. And it is a lyric but he cannot hear the words and he looks into her eyes but it is too dark to see their color. And everything is suddenly very soft and sweet and there is the smell of crushed flowers and sugar cookies and Nino smiles softly. Everything is a beautiful shade of fade, muted under a sky of lilacs and violets. And the street lamps shine down, obscuring the stars above. But something in Jade’s eyes sparkle, reminding him of… what? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even care. He’s happy that her energy feels familiar, as though he belongs here tonight. And he look into her eyes once again but the sparkle he saw is really a spark and it shocks him, hard, as a glint of flame sets off the fire alarm. And where he smelled flowers he now smells ash and she assaults him with a barrage of questions that she cannot ask. Fight? Really? Why? I don’t understand. I don’t even know how to try. Her thoughts reach him, though he does not know how. Her thoughts are in his head and he does not know how to get them out. He looks away, trying to break the spell, afraid that she might guess how he lives, where he lives, what he does for money. So he lies. What else can he do? He knows she does not want the truth. Girls don’t want to know. They only hear what they want to hear. Ain’t no one trying to hear his troubles except the court-appointed psychiatrist. But such conversations are privileged and Nino knows this and believes discretion is the better part of valor, even if he has never heard this phrase before. He keeps it simple, mostly so he won’t fuck up. Besides, it’s not like what he is saying is not true; it’s just that it hasn’t happened… yet. A feeling of peace sweeps through him and restores him to a sense of inner ease. Nino continues speaking with the utmost authority. “I practice Aikido. But I love mixed martial arts. That’s my dream. I’ve been studying since I was six and I want to join the UFC.” The image of Mike lying unconscious on the pavement flashes in Jade’s mind. Where she once felt safe, she now feels vulnerable. Out of the frying pan she flies, unsure whether she is landing on a cool granite counter or heading straight for the fire. Unthinkingly she begins to chew on her thumb, tearing away at little pieces of skin to ease her discomfort. The more her finger hurts, the calmer she becomes until she tastes blood on the tip of her tongue. The taste of blood reminds her of something else and Jade drops her thumb to her side, pressing the wound against her leg. As she does this, Nino watches her face, particularly her eyes. He sees how they constrict with his words and he imagines the thoughts whirling through her mind. A feeling of guilt overcomes as he imagines she can see inside his soul to the memories submerged like shipwrecks, torn up galleys and broken hulls preserved forever in the ocean’s depths. Silent, still, and cold. His hands grow clammy with the fear of being exposed. He quickly changes the subject, needing to keep his emotions under control. He points to the tattoo of the four-claw Chinese dragon tattoo on his neck. “You see this? This is Tianlong, the holy dragon that guards the Heavenly Palace. In China, dragons are symbols of power and wisdom. It was originally the symbol of the Emperor. It’s the opposite of what we’ve been taught to believe, that dragons are evil. Dragons are the most beautiful, powerful creatures in the world. They bring good luck to all those who respect them. But most people shouldn’t get this tattoo. It’s too strong for them to carry.” His words flow through her, warming her, disarming her, charming her with his confidence. Jade listens as Nino speaks, feeling a sense of relief as her feet land on the cool granite counter. And as he speaks, she hears the deep timbre of his voice in the back of her knees. Her imagination opens to the heavens, dreaming that he is a prince, the heir to some great reward not of this earth. She dreams he is a warrior, strong, courageous, and noble; and his quest is to free the princess from the chains that bind her to the ocean’s depth. She imagines he is a poet, the creator of verse and the channeler of spirits, a mystic with the gift to spin words from straw and turn them into gold keys. And those keys would unlock the box where her heart once beat. And inside the box he would discover something incredibly deep. And as Jade regards Nino, a flash of light eclipses her vision and she no longer sees what stands before her but instead is regarding something else. It is a man and a woman and they are back lit so that all that is revealed is the silhouette of two people very much in love and moving toward each other. And in her vision, Jade sees that the man is hurt and he is removing his breastplate so that the woman can trace her fingers across his heart. And as she traces her fingers something happens and the image disappears. And Jade is left standing still, looking at Nino, wondering if he saw that too. But Nino doesn’t seem to notice and Jade feels very strange and dismisses the image from her mind and returns to the words Nino speaks. He is talking about dragons as though they are a good thing and this is something she never considered: the things we dismiss as beasts could be our saviors. The things we do not understand are not to be feared but to be treated with reverence and respect Jade considers this silently and decides that there is a reason they have met, though what that reason is remains to be seen. And with this knowledge, limited it is, Jade feels as though carefully ensconced in a velvet-covered jewel case. And with this newfound sense of protection, a wanton energy vibrates deep. “Can I see it? The tattoo I mean?” Jade asks, feeling kittenish, nuzzling her chin along her shoulder and looking up at him. Seeing her eyes looking eagerly at him, Nino assents, his shoulders relaxing as he turns his head. Tianlong reveals himself, majestic and indomitable, taking flight along his flesh. This intimacy, at once intimidating and innocent, stirs something inside of Jade. Without thinking she traces the S-curve of Tianlong’s form and her fingertips linger along his skin, tingling like the softest kiss. But her sweetness scorches his skin; a searing pain punctures his heart. Nino jerks his head away as though he has been hurt. He turns away, averting his eyes, and his stomach churns urgently. Empty it has been, the bile burning internally. His mouth fills with saliva but he cannot swallow and so instead… he spits. A big wad of saliva lands on the pavement. It sits there, evidence. Something just happened. What the fuck is it? Frozen by shock, numbed by confusion, Jade cannot think clearly. Feelings of horror and remorse assail her nerves. Her affection spurned, she retreats inside herself as fears overwhelm her in full force. He’s angry at me? I make him sick? I should go. No. Something is wrong. It’s not me. Is it me? It is me. No. It’s him. Something is wrong with him. Why did he pull away? I don’t understand. What is going on? Why do I care? I can’t take it. I’ve got to get out of here. Inundated by words, every thought becomes its own concern, every concern creates its own emotion, every emotion demands its own action but no action is taken. Her mind is muddled, poisoned by and protected from his pain. At last she manages a word. “Sorry,” she mumbles and though she feels contrite she is unable to keep the frustration out of her voice. Nino plays it off, unwilling to acknowledge anything has occurred. He pushes all emotion away, forcing himself to be indifferent to the pain. His face is stony, his eyes steely, his body deadens and he walks away. Without a word, without a look back, he returns to from whence he came. Photograph Found on Tumblr Image Source Unknown and end your problems. —Tao Te Ching, Chapter 20 Jimmy sits at the front desk, perched like an owl seeking a mouse. Eager. Hungry. Wanting. Needing his fill. He glances out the glass doors, looking up and down the block, hoping for something—anything—to occur. He watches as the wind blows and some young punk slinks along, walking quickly down the street with his chin tucked into his chest. Nothing to see here, folks. Keep it moving. Jimmy wants action, adventure, the (melo)drama of daily life. He feeds on the theater of the unconscious. The complexities of the humanity fascinate and disturb. Jimmy is a voracious voyeur, satisfying his appetite by working as a night porter at an apartment building on West 12 Street. He knows everyone’s business. People in this place are snitching—on themselves. They come downstairs, in the middle of the night, drunk and high, stoned and lonely souls. They hang out at the desk when they come back from clubs, or failed dates, or their parents are out of town, or their wives are away on business trips and they cannot be alone. So many apartments, people are always moving in and out, new tenants, sublets, dogs, children, divorces, new wives, stepchildren, elderly parents, relatives from out of town, the list goes on. It has gotten to be like a hotel, with regulars. Same old folk are sitting in overstuffed chairs at the center of the lobby, watching the parade through the glass-paneled wall that overlooks the street. Same old white guy in the green flack jacket smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee from a mug by the parking sign at the gutter; he just had a baby and doesn’t want to smoke in the house. By befriending the tenants, Jimmy has gained access to a wealth of knowledge, gossip, intrigue. He would like to say he has heard it all but there’s always more to hear. What he most enjoys are the people who cover their tracks, the people who look one way and live another. Appearances, they do deceive. What is beneath the surface, that’s Jimmy’s area of expertise. He knows that the leather queens on the eighteenth floor are men of their word. He knows how the drunk on the second floor got that way. He left his suburban home and moved down to the Village, hoping to erase himself. But that didn’t happen. Now he wanders around the streets wearing middle management suits that haven’t been cleaned in years. Flies gather around him, just like they do in the comics. Jimmy knows how the young lady on seventeen had three abortions. He knows how the teenager on fourteen lost his virginity. He knows that the old woman in the penthouse is a lesbian. Well, that’s not a secret but she’s from the old school where female companions were not spoken of as romantic partners. He knows that when her companion died twelve years ago, the old lady stopped circulating in the world. Now she sits at the top of the building, alone with no children, no family, no love in her life. She is a success but what of it? What are knowledge and treasures without someone with whom to share? For a very long time, Jimmy was on his own, doing what he wanted to do until he got caught up. He used to think the best thing in life is party and bullshit; he makes the sign of the cross and sends one up to Biggie Smalls (Rest in Peace Christopher Wallace). But when his son was born, Jimmy became a man. He understood what it meant to love someone else. From that day forward, he knew the truth: this was ’til death do us part. Ain’t no one else ever came close. Yea, Jimmy got married. He knew, That’s the thing to do. Ain’t no bastards in this world, except the fathers who leave their children and not the other way around. Once he became a family man, he stopped hitting the clubs and bars but he wouldn’t stay home after dark. Dark is in his blood, flowing through secret channels that make him feel alive. Night is the time the masks come off and the real person finally shows. Give me your tired, your horny, your drunk, Jimmy smiles to himself, thinking about the kooks, the cranks, the oddballs, the nuts, the fruit loops, the wackos, the lunatic fringe that once populated this neighborhood back when he was in high school and he used to come down from the Bronx to shop at Postermat, Unique, Canal Jeans. The girls sneered “Bridge & Tunnel” at him in the clubs but he always got the best of them somewhere around four a.m. That’s when the cocaine was gone and their hair lay flat and their feet hurt and they were tired, horny, and drunk. And when the masks came off, so did their clothes and, truth be told, for all their urbane affectations, they were no different than his girl at home. So he married his girl and not the clubheads. She was preggo and he needed a gig. Got himself a Union job and a uniform to boot. Sitting at a desk of faux black marble suits Jimmy well. He wears a black suit with white piping and a matching cap, white button-down shirt and black tie. Dig me working in the Vill! he thought when he got the job. Eight years later, he knows the score. These fancy folk aren’t nearly as high and mighty when you have smelled their dirty laundry up close. And it is that funk, that foul stench that turns his head time and again for there is no greater equal than the sins of Man. Jimmy drums his fingers across the desk and sighs softly to himself. All he can expect tonight are the husbands coming home after “working late at the office.” These guys, they always have that look on their face. They sing or they mumble, “Goodnight, Jimmy,” but the truth shines bright, like a beacon in the night: I got some and it wasn’t the wife! The glee of getting away with it extinguishes all signs of guilt, if only for the moment, in the victorious afterglow that adultery brings. Mr. Chestnut, a resident of Apartment 15F, struts into the lobby. He is in his mid-40s, a sales executive at a pharmaceutical company. He has been working closely with douches, explaining to his accounts the beauty of the product. “Women,” he will tell them, “are the weaker sex. They are insecure and needy, that’s why they spend all their money things that they are told will make them attractive to men. No woman needs any of the things she buys and if she stopped to think about it, she would see it’s a vicious cycle designed to destroy her body, mind, and soul. “Now take these here douches, it’s a goldmine! Women know men smell real bad but men don’t care so guess what, no business deodorizing your balls!” He will pause here for the laughs, which always come. “Now women, we can tell them anything. We can say, ‘Honey, your breasts are too small,’ and the next thing you know, she will go out and buy double D implants. We can tell women, ‘A gentleman prefers blondes,’ and she’ll race to the hairdresser and come back ready to get it on like you’re President Kennedy and she is Marilyn Monroe.” Having built a confederacy through his series of shallow observations, Mr. Chestnut is ready to let them in on the secret of his success. He will lower his voice to draw them close, speaking in confidence. “But if you really want to keep a woman in the palm of your hand, tell her she smells like the Fulton Street Fish Market.” He will say this with a knowing leer, inviting the hearty guffaws of chauvinism to appear. With these words he ensures that any lingering awkwardness about the subject is replaced by a feeling of mental and physical superiority. And so he continues… “You know how scared women are that you love their pussy more than their heart?” Heads will nod in confirmation as he throws in this aside, “I mean, you know that’s true, whether they’re your whore or your baby mama. The pussy, it has its rightful place. It is there to serve us, whatever our needs. But in order to keep your woman in check, you’ve got to make her fear that what she has between her legs is worth less than the next chick. “Now here’s the beauty of the douche—it is actually the cause of that horrible smell! Yes! Imagine that. For a few days, the woman will feel springtime fresh but all douches do is destroy a perfect ecosystem and make way for the germs to invade and funk up that box. Now you may be asking yourself, What does that mean for me? Well, I’ll tell you, buddy, it means she is now a customer for life! This woman is so humiliated and demoralized by the fact that it has been proven that she is filthy animal that she will buy our product in bulk, believing that it is she that is the problem—and not the product itself.” His smile will light up the room. “And gentlemen, rest assured, our product is FDA tested and approved. This is nothing buy money in the bank. Pure gold.” The clients will nod in agreement, seeing nothing but green and wanting a piece of the paper that grows thick on the tree. This is why they work in douches—without ironic detachment, I mean. Striding through the lobby, Mr. Chestnut looks at his watch. It’s late, damn late. Everyone will be asleep, including his wife who has been taking sleeping pills for the past six months right around the time his affair with Sheila, the sales rep from Newark, began. “Goodnight, Mr. Chestnut,” Jimmy speaks with deference, observing how the tail of his shirt rides out of his pants, silently loathing the way a guy like this gets after-hours ass. “Goodnight Jimmy,” Mr. Chestnut says before running his fingers through his hair, inadvertently activating the memory of how Sheila had grabbed his head with force just as she came all over his cock. He felt his body heat up into a blush and, with a fever running from his chest up his neck, dampening his armpits and getting him hard all over again. Mr. Chestnut scooted through the lobby to the elevators where he could have a moment to collect himself. Jimmy watches the rat scurry around the corner with little interest. He is thinking of Mrs. Chestnut. She has four kids, two nannies, and a full time job that keeps her in grey suits and sensible shoes, belying what little remains of her good looks. When they first moved into the building seven years ago, she had smiled the smile that newlyweds share: the joy of discovery, the ecstasy of passion, the pleasure that is found in becoming one with your beloved. Mrs. Chestnut was once possessed with the beauty of innocent youth, a vision of loveliness that lay upon her face like morning dew on a blade of grass. But that dew had long since dried and in its place, a desiccated stalk now lives in with Mr. Chestnut in Apartment 15F. Is it that she is too busy or too burned out to see the truth? Or is it that she knows what is happening and is agreed to remain in a marriage on these terms? What kind of woman would stand by her man while he stuck it into the kind of woman who sleeps with married men? But there are plenty of married women who get around like Tupac Shakur. They cover their tracks well, sure to not get caught. Lie, lie, you lie so well, that is the refrain that is sung in silence. They have no guilt for they have no qualms about betraying the vows they made before God. They possess a righteous sense of entitlement, using cheating as a way to privately settle a score. And of their affairs nothing may ever be known by anyone else, not even that the husband is not the father of their child. You know how it goes. Sometimes Jimmy wondered, What is the point of getting married at all? What does marriage mean when it is based on love, the most fragile emotion of all? Most people look outside themselves, living in a dream. They want so badly to believe appearances are what they seem. But marriage was never meant to be an arrangement based on love. Only love! Love? What is Love? Is it a Deee-lite song? Will that reference lose all meaning after my generation is gone? Jimmy had love for his wife but he was never in love with her. She never took his breath away when he lay eyes upon her. He never felt his heart pound, his hands grow damp, the butterflies release in his belly at the thought of Her. He knew she was a good woman. He knew she was faithful to him and to God. He knew she would never betray him and she would follow his lead. She allowed him to be the Man, and that’s all that mattered. If you don’t have it all, that’s because it’s not meant to be. For Jimmy, it was simple. He needed a woman who was willing to lock it down in the eyes of God and the government so that his seed would be cared for until fully grown. Now that he is married, Jimmy tries to be faithful and what that means is he does not go out looking for pussy, but should pussy find him, well… anything is possible. Women today act like men, out to get theirs, no questions asked, not even, Hey baby, you ever had an HIV test? It has gotten to the point where it’s become vulgar, coarse—almost a business transaction—the way we interface with strangers to negotiate the most intimate of terms. Of course, when the time is right, nothing is wrong. Marriage hasn’t changed him. Jimmy remains the same. And perhaps that is because he chose a woman to become the mother of his child rather than a woman to be his wife. He’s given up on the idea of True Love. That’s fine for chick flicks and romance novels that lonely girls read on the train. But that’s okay, his son has his mother and his father living together. Inevitably, they’ll get divorced but for now everything is as it should be, a happy compromise. But Jimmy is no fool and he knows that his working at night is a blanket statement. The ultimate cover up for everything, because come what may it can always be attributed to It was late. It was late, I didn’t mean to wasn’t thinking you know how it is I haven’t slept I’m just so tired I couldn’t think didn’t think didn’t mean it c’mon baby don’t be like that Jimmy has had girls smoke him up on his breaks. He has had girls invite him back to their crib and one woman was so bold as to offer a blowjob under the desk. While he was on duty. In the dead of night. And she was sober, mind you. She knew what she liked. But he refused, graciously. If there was one thing he wasn’t going to risk was his job for an orgasm. Leave that to the President, please. And it’s strange but whenever he refuses women that seems to make them like him more, and he wish he had known this when he was in high school, because it would have gone a lot better if he didn’t have to work as hard. But maybe this is karma and maybe he’s due a little dividend, so these days he is treated like something special by the women of this building, some of whom get up at four a.m. because they are old and cannot sleep and they make him a pot of fresh coffee and bring it down to him at five and chat before he gets off at six. “To get you home safe and sound” they say with a twinkle in the eye and rollers in the hair before they beat a quiet retreat back upstairs. And so it is that he has got it good. He loves his chair, his desk, his nest, Jimmy, the night owl of West Twelfth Street. “Good evening, Miss Fontaine,” he says, springing to his feet as Jade walks through the glass doors. He has always liked this girl though he is not sure why. There’s something about her attitude, her posture, her presence that catches his eye like a fish on a hook, dangling helplessly, caught by an illusion he cannot name. Jade has a regal way of carrying herself, as though she were an old Hollywood film star. She holds her chin just so as she sweeps through a room, barely making eye contact as though everyone is invisible. Her stride is such that it could be described as a long legged gait, except Jade isn’t particularly tall, maybe five-five or five-six, but she casts a shadow as long as the Empire State Building. At the same time, it is clear from what he has glimpsed of her habits that she cares for nothing, including herself; it is almost as though she is hell bent for leather and eternal damnation, which ever comes first. Jade lifts her eyes at the sound of Jimmy’s voice and looks deep into his own. Her face is swollen and red, and her voice is low as she barely mouths the words, “Good night.” She walks by the desk with the slow and heavy footfalls that the vanquished know deep in their heart. Watching her pass, Jimmy feels a chill run through his bones as though someone has stepped over his grave. After she leaves, he searches for understanding, scanning his memory for clues. He has heard about how the eighth floor smells of weed smoke ever since she moved in but that doesn’t mean anything at all. Potheads are everywhere and most of them are docile folk. But Jade doesn’t appear as quiet or calm unless you consider that she is sitting in the eye of the storm. Jimmy reflects on the little he knows and remembers one guy who seemed to be her only friend, a queen who went by the name of Miss Fred. Miss Fred was a man with a cheap face and expensive shoes who always caught an attitude at the front desk. “I am sorry, but you must be announced,” Jimmy would say in the most officious manner, to which Miss Fred would reply,” Get over yourself honey, this ain’t the Waldorf Astoria.” Then he would swish past the desk as though he were wearing a ballroom gown. And though Jimmy’s fists would itch, he would take a deep breath before picking up the phone to let Jade know that little troll was on the way upstairs. Yes Ma’am. Jade kept to herself within the building, making no acquaintances, establishing no comraderie. Jimmy can’t remember any girls coming by to visit. But guys came by and went, all hours of the day and night. Jade had a thing for derelicts, criminals, and druggies; she probably entertained some homeless men, too. They would step to Jimmy acting rough but he could tell they were out of their element, uncomfortable around all these middle-aged, middle-class white folk. He took notice when their voices got louder and their chests puffed up and they turned away from the desk to survey the lobby and made eye contact with some of the residents, staring them down like Fuck you, bitch. Jimmy would see them come and, sometimes, Jimmy would see them go. And, sometimes, they would make a second or third appearance and, sometimes, they would be replaced by somebody new. A different face didn’t change the fact that they were all of the same and Jimmy couldn’t figure it out—where are Jade’s parents and why do they let her live like this? No one seems to know. No one had ever seen them. And the part of Jimmy that is a father wanted to get their contact information. And call them. And ask, “Do you know what is going on? Can you make her stop? Can you cut her off? I am worried about this girl. How come you aren’t?” And the part of Jimmy that is a father wants to reach out to Jade, to take her by the shoulders and shake her gently, or maybe, just maybe, slap her hard across the face. Snap out of it! he wants to roar but that would be crossing the line. So he keeps to himself. The Dark Princess, Jimmy has dubbed her to no one else. He knows he is one of the few to feel this way. He knows that Jade has made no allies, no friends, as she sets herself apart from everyone, as though she is above it all. He knows that Ms. Fishbein, her next-door neighbor, is out for blood having begun a quest to have Jade censured by the co-op board, that with enough applied pressure, perhaps she can force Jade out the front door. Photograph by Alvin Langdon Coburn 1910, New York Ms. Fishbein (Judy, to her friends) lives in the apartment next to Jade. She was short of stature and wide of hip and low of breast and flat of rump. She wore sensible shoes and the thick stockings of a schoolgirl with wool-blend skirts in shades like grey and taupe. Her sweaters were of the cowl neck variety, and were sometimes belted around the waist, resembling nothing so much as a sack of potatoes wearing a pair of Spanx. Her hair was grey and cut sensibly so that if she awoke late, she wouldn’t need a brush to set it in place. She wore no make up and carried a large purse and a plastic bag inside which she carried her lunch. Egg salad sandwiches with extra mayonnaise, a yellow apple, and a carton of milk, each and every day. Ms. Fishbein liked to think of herself as respectable, above all. And when the threshold for acceptability was brought down too low for her to limbo beneath, well… that’s where problems began. Ms. Fishbein wasn’t one to compromise her quality of life for anyone at all. She cheered Mayor Guiliani as he swept the City clean of the filth. She admired his will to power and his disciplinarian ways and if truth be told, she found him sexier than most. She loved the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. Ms. Fishbein tried to set things straight between herself and Jade, knocking on her door the first week Jade had moved in to introduce herself. “I notice you are playing your music very loud. That’s not how things are done here,” she said looking over her glasses and down her nose with all the intended disdain that gesture presupposes. Jade stood in abject horror as she observed this troll trying to tell her how she was to be living now that she was on her own. You’re not my mother, Jade seethed with her eyes as she gently turned up her smile to extra bright. Flashing those high beams gleaning off her teeth, Jade snarled kindly, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’ll remember you for it.” And as she spoke those words she noticed her neighbor did not look her in the eye but instead was craning her neck trying to see behind her. Jade stood her ground firmly and offered her neighbor nothing other than the sight of the door moving towards her as it closed in her face. Ms. Fishbein was livid, a fragrant shade of beet red crept across her cheeks as she stood in the doorway, perfectly still, unwilling to give an inch. This girl is trouble, mark my words. What kind of parents would allow their child to move into an apartment unsupervised? They must have been dying to get rid of her. In my day, a girl was lucky if she could afford an apartment like this. She did for self. She got a job; she didn’t take handouts. I mean, of course, she could get married and start a family and keep a house, and here Ms. Fishbein’s nose wrinkled in revulsion and disgust. Start a family! Imagine that. Her mind immediately went to the penis and she thought of it hanging there, flaccid and foolish. It served no purpose, it had no merit. It was simply a statement of fact, a tube for urine and nothing else. Ms. Fishbein turned away from Jade’s apartment and began strolling back to her own with a foot light of step and a pride all her own. She felt a moral superiority to men and to the women who loved them. She knew what love was; she knew what it was worth. She knew the delusions and she knew the sins. And she knew that she, Judy Fishbein, was a saint floating in a sea of sin. And with her superiority she set adrift and she smirked with derision at the flaccid penis. And once she did that, she released what had been contained and what was limp became hard and stiff and proud. And as it became bigger, Ms. Fishbein’s heart began to pound and her stomach cramped and her palms became damp and her throat became dry. Unconsciously, she licked at the corner of her lips and unconsciously she swallowed deep in her esophagus. And her throat was no longer dry but instead it was wet and she cursed the penis for asserting itself. And she cursed the tiny hairs that she could see on the shaft. And she cursed the testicles that lay beneath, firm and within her grasp, like the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, ready and ripe. And she cursed the man to whom all of this was attached. And so it was in a matter of a couple of days that Ms. Fishbein once again heard this awful music pounding through the wall. But this time when she heard the beat, she heard something she did not expect. She heard the squeaking of furniture and the rhythmic motion of breath. She heard signs and moans and gasps and pleas and Please and Oh God and Fuck Me. And she heard these sounds at ten in the morning and at ten at night. And she heard the music, all day every day and it sounded like anger and rage and wrath and vitriol. It sounded like karma and it sounded like it had come due. But Ms. Fishbein was not one to go quietly into the night. She had come to far to quit without a fight. Unconsciously she found herself listening at the door, at the wall, for any sound, any sound at all. She listened carefully to the for Jade’s coming and goings, and then she began to take notice of things, things that were happening and things that were not for soon enough reality became a fantasy of sorts. Ms. Fishbein was straining, seeking, searching, lurking, needing a reason for what she could not understand. What had begun as revulsion and superiority had segued into an obsession of sorts and it came to a head one day earlier in the summer when Ms. Fishbein called the cops, telling them that she heard loud screaming, crying, and thumping on the floor in the apartment next to hers. She grasped the phone in her hand so tightly her knuckles became while and as she breathed heavily into the receiver, she became giddy from her power to change other people’s lives. With a rush, she spoke, her words stumbling over the next as she relayed to 911 the nature of her call. “That girl—and I use that term loosely—she does drugs all the time. And I hear this loud yelling then the sound of something—or someone—hitting the ground. Then the yelling stopped, and there was silence. And I got scared. I mean, she has strange men coming and going at all hours of the night, so maybe something happened to her. I know, I shouldn’t be a hero but I just couldn’t stand the thought of her lying there hurt. I went to check on her (because I am a good neighbor and that’s what good neighbors do) and when I knocked on the door, I got no response. Nothing. I put my ear to the door and heard nothing. No one. Could you send someone over? I am concerned.” But when the cops arrived they found nothing except Jade quietly writing a paper for school. Jade had said that she had been home alone, and that no, there had been no noise, no fight, no scene. She invited the police in and let them look around, but there was nothing to see, no trace of anything unseemly to be revealed. Jade didn’t seem surprised that Ms. Fishbein had called the cops. She felt something wasn’t quite right with her neighbor but she didn’t give it any thought. As the police exited the premised they saw Ms. Fishbein standing in her doorway in that strangely uncomfortable way that nosy people have of sticking only their head out and leaving their body inside. Ms. Fishbein watched the cops as though they were working for her, and as they closed the door to Jade’s apartment, Ms. Fishbein started to talk. “Well, what happened? Was she dead? I mean, is she okay? I mean, what happened? Did you find drugs?” The cops walked down the hallway to question Ms. Fishbein, who swore that she was not imagining things, that she heard a huge kerfuffle and it made her nervous. “Why didn’t she answer the door when I knocked?” Ms. Fishbein asked rhetorically. “Why didn’t she speak to me? I was concerned.” And with those words, the policemen exchanged glances. They had met many a shrew in this town before, women whose lives were passing them by and what they had to show for it was a couple of degrees hung proudly upon their walls. They hadn’t any family. Maybe an ex-husband and a bitter divorce. No children because they had careers. And their figures were long ago lost. In the place of a waistline was a donut or muffin to and a high-fructose indoor lifestyle that showed upon their faces. “You must understand, I am concerned. I have established myself,” Ms. Fishbein asserted, unprompted. “I am an administrator in a hospital where I oversee the fundraising efforts. It’s an exhausting job and it is very important, you understand, that I be able to rest when I come home. I work hard day and night and for that what do I get? I live next to this…this…harlot,” and here she spat out the word. Her heart was thumping in her breast as she spoke and her breath was being drawn in rapid gasps. Her voice became shrill as she continued her rant. “I saved up for years to buy this apartment; it is my oasis in a city filled with filth and crime. I worked long and hard to get this place—it wasn’t just handed to me like it was handed to her. I never asked my parents for a dime.” Back in Ms. Fishbein’s day, American women didn’t have much of a choice. They had to get a job, or get a husband, or dream that they could have both. They had to chase the American Dream, which is to own a home, ironically upon the land once populated by people who did not believe in land ownership. And it is stranger still that this small piece of land should be one of some four hundred shoeboxes in a White Castle on Sixth Avenue. The nature of apartment buildings runs counter to nature itself, and the herding of people like cattle into spaces like these is questionable at best. But these people were not raised to question. They were trained to obey and so, like farm animals, they of broken spirit live and die without leaving a trace. To counter this oblivion, many of them seek self-importance masquerading as peer recognition and use their careers to position themselves. And it is here that they join a chain of command that demands that, again, they must meet someone else’s expectations. But so many have already quit their own lives, given up those dreams they had so long ago as a child. I want to be a fireman. An astronaut. I want to be a painter. I want to sing and dance. I want to be a doctor. I want to save lives. Well, I can fundraise at the hospital. That’s close enough. So many people have leveraged their happiness for the sake of the status quo that if you ask them what would make them feel good, most of them would say, “A day off.” To do what? “To sleep.” That can’t be happiness but it can be true. What happens when your livelihood is dependent upon producing something for someone else when the person at the top was the most deeply compromised of all? Women like Ms. Fishbein, the officers noticed, have a resentment that they project onto the world. Once upon a time, these women seethed with disgust. How dare he talk about me! I do not exist for his pleasure. They would fume, boil, bubble, and churn… until the looks stopped coming their way. And when the looks stopped, when the appraisals faded into the shade and became nothing but a distant memory, these women would notice where the glances were being cast and direct their anger that way. Ms. Fishbein continued speaking to the police, unaware that her righteous concern had metastasized into a bitter rant, unaware that the police were now looking at her with frustration and concern. Ms. Fishbein didn’t pay attention to the reactions of the people to whom she spoke. She just continued speaking, as though everyone agreed with her point of view. “What makes her think she is special? She is nothing but a cheap floozy. Look at that outfit. When did streetwalker become chic? A whore, a slut. That’s all she is. I mean, if I were to dress so cheaply, everyone would be looking at me. But I don’t. I won’t. I have self-respect. I’m not some nobody. I am the Assistant to the Director of Fundraising at St. Vincent’s Hospital. People respect me.” One of the cops took pity on her distress and answered kindly with a little advice. “Listen, Miz Fishbein, I know how it is. You’re an important woman and you want to be able to come home to a peaceful place. You live in a bee-you-tea-full building. This place here musta cost you a pretty penny. And it’s a good investment, so much as the people you live with are invested in it. And I am sure this girl has problems but they might not be legal ones. So I’ll tell you what. Best thing to do is write a letter to, whas-it-called, the co-op board. Buildings like this are made to take care of the problems on the inside. They want you to be happy. Write to them. Call them. Set up an appointment and air your grievances through the proper channels. We are the police. We investigate crimes, not personal matters.” The cops walked away, relieved to have closed the case. And as they passed by the doorman at the desk, they gave him a nod and let him know everything was okay. And so it was that their visit made Jade the flavor of the month. And the doorman began to debate and to choose sides. Team Fishbein vs Team Fontaine. It was evenly divided. Both women struck a chord inside these men’s hearts, alternate disgusting and attracting them with their shortcomings and their assets. Jimmy was Team Jade, and after this scene he began to ponder and philosophize because he wanted to understand, Who is this girl and what is she up to and why doesn’t anyone know what is going on. I mean, after all that he has seen and heard, this girl has it all—so why is she scrapping her knuckles on the bottom of the barrel? A conundrum it has become. Image from Tumblr Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear. —Tao Te Ching, Chapter 13 Jade steps into the elevator. She presses the number 8, then, unable to wait, she slips off her shoes. She has been wearing heels for much too long and can no longer feel her little toes. When the elevator doors open, she drags her feet along the plush carpeting, enjoying the feeling of soft, synthetic fibers brushing against her soles. The hallway is bright, much too bright for #&% in the morning, and the nubby cream wallpaper glows like a tunnel underground. “This looks like a prison,” some guy once observed as they walked through this hallway. Jade did a double take, feeling vulnerable to knowledge that she did not understand. His words stayed with her, echoing in her mind like the disembodied spirit of Man. Her door. Sometimes she went to the wrong one. 8N. Yea, that’s not her but after a long night or too many drinks, sometimes she tried to insert her key into someone else’s lock. She would stand there, confused, trying to make sense of it. Something was different. Her lock didn’t have a plate over it. She would waver in a daze, until it hit her. 8M, that’s me. Next one over. Jade stands at the door to her apartment, key in hand. 8M as in Men. Men, glorious men, have proven to be the most powerful way to devise her fate. Criminals. Derelicts. Homeless. Gorgeous. Yess. She is caught in a cycle she can’t seem to break. Ever since Andy, she has been rebounding from one guy to the next, unable to see the trap she has set for herself, unwilling to acknowledge how futile the cycle is. No matter what happens, she remains the same, worse for the wear but essentially unchanged, unable or unwilling to stop playing this game. Over and over and over again she spins, spiraling out of control. Next stop? You don’t want to know. A little perspective might help. Let’s take a look at that guy Nino knocked out. His name is Mike. Mike is some random guy that Jade met on the street one night. It was a couple of weeks ago, some time in July. She had been standing on 44 Street, talking to the doorman outside Sardi’s. She had just gotten off work and had nothing to do, so she was talking that nonsense that people with no direction so often do. She noticed a guy coming down the street, headed straight towards her. He was that kinda good looking that heated her up like nothing else could. They locked eyes, and this time Jade did not avert her gaze. But neither did she smile. As he passed, she drew a breath that she held and didn’t release. And as she did this she looked away, nervous, unsure of herself, and strangely afraid. Some call it coy, the way she averted her eyes. But there was a genuine sense of discomfort, a feeling of attraction and revulsion at the same time. Once he passed, Jade let herself exhale. The air came rushing out of her chest and her shoulders release an anxiety that she could not place, but she was beginning to feel distraught. For each and every man she desired was making her sicker than the last. Still, the sickness was addictive. The highs of the lows, the lows of the highs, the up and down eternally crashing in on itself, likes waves of the tides. Emotions flowed through her, much too freely at times. And by freely I mean overwhelmingly, overwhelming her. These emotions that do not flow calmly, they thrash and they lash and they hurt. They are not waves but riptides, opposing other currents and producing a turbulence that is all their own. And with the pull of the moon every month, Jade was continuously losing control. And so there she stood, she spotted that same guy walking in the other direction, and she decided with a big smile upon her face, This is meant to be. This is my Fate. She called him over. They started to chat about nothing at all. His name was Mike. She smiled, looking into his eyes, then looking anywhere but at them as she spoke. She searched around for something, something that would bring them close together. “Wanna get some weed?” she asked easily, speaking on the one thing that never failed. Jade spends most of her time around people with drugs for drugs because what other purpose than escape? From the pain, from the mundane, from the ineffable sameness that has clouded her brain? Because, as far back as she can remember, she has always been insane. And that’s the thing. She isn’t quite sane. That’s what her parents taught her, in clinical terms, being psychologists and all, using their knowledge to do harm. It was the same scene, played over and over again for years. Her father would find something petty as an excuse for warfare. And when she would react with anything less than total submission, he would hold himself aloof and talk down to her. “You’re not rational” he would say, with smug superiority as Jade stood before him with tears running down her face, convinced she was losing her mind. At seven years old. Subtext, pure subtext, the tricky hand of a criminal whose greatest crime is still not illegal, because apparently you can medicate a person for disorders they do not have. And convince them that what they believe isn’t actually happening. “I believe you believe it,” her mother oozed in the patronizing tones of an enabler. But Jade was not one to give in, so she fought back until she was cut down to size, minced into nothingness by sharp tongues and dangerous minds and dark hearts. And once she had been reduced and dismissed and abandoned, she went into her room to cry, and to punish, but there was no one there except herself. So she began to cut, and with every cut she felt relief, as she imagined that she was bleeding out the demons, their rusty stains proof of her filth. And the scars, the marks she left, they reminded her of all that was ugly in her soul and every time she looked upon them she knew the truth as it had been told. The more she cut, the more she bled, the better it began to feel, until one day it became a pleasure that she looked forward to with something like zeal, a fervor, a fever, a desire to self harm that made her warm and weak. And as she stood silent through the assault, as her father’s words pierced and punctured and cut, as her mother stood there in silent and tacit agreement, Jade began to disassociate. She left the room where she stood upon a carpet of great prestige and price, and she floated away into a netherworld where she could feel the blade slice through her flesh. And as her father ranted, she drifted further away and began fantasizing about what part of her body she would soon defile. Would it be her inner thighs, so tender and sensitive to the slightest touch? Would it be her lower abdomen, so pale and so soft? Would it be her breasts, so new and so firm? Or might she take a chance and cut into something visible like her arms? The thought of leaving a mark that might be seen seemed so subversive and so mean. It felt as thought finally she had power over—something. And at the thought of her power, a smile crept across her lips, a quiet, an unspoken joy revealed to no one, and that made her father mad, almost crazed. “WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SMILE ABOUT?” he roared. And Jade snapped back into reality, realizing that he was come perilously close to opening Pandora’s Box and sharing what was hers with the people she feared most. And just as the smile had appeared, it vanished, and in its place came the tears. And she would berate herself for the shame of her joy and the joy of her shame, and she would remind herself that she was crazy, unfit, certifiably insane. And she would think very carefully about how to guard this secret from them, for she knew that if one wrong word was spoken that she, just like her sister, might be disappeared. Privately, she called her father Pinochet, and her mother Eva (Peron or Braun, depending on the day). And though she could never think of it she knew that her parents’ greatest success was destroying the daughters they made. Originally she was one of two, but now she was one of one. And if she weren’t careful, soon enough, she would become one of none. So she would retire to her room and quietly begin to cut and she would taste the iron upon her tongue as she licked the wounds clean. And the taste of her blood reminded her of something else. Of something from the depths of the earth. And though she could not name this, it returned her to herself. And she sat silently blotting the blood as it wept from her leg. In time the cutting created no feeling. And soon she became numb. But not numb enough to stop. And not numb enough to go on. And that’s when she discovered drugs. And with drugs she discovered sex. And with sex she discovered a special kind of access to something she didn’t understand. But sex (usually) required another person, a man, and that makes her nervous. Because she needs them to love her, and she needs them to hurt her, because isn’t that the same thing? But she also needs the pain to stop. To not think is to be free. And free from her thoughts is all Jade has ever desired. She stands in front of her door to her apartment in an abysmal state, her feet inflamed, her face tender, her knee aching, her heart angered. As she turns the key, she thinks to herself, 8M as in Meltdown—yea, whenever that comes. Photograph Found on Tumblr Image Source Unknown If you want to be straight, let yourself be crooked. —Tao Te Ching, Chapter 22 Jade awakens with a start. Her eyes burst open as if she has heard an alarm but there is no noise, there is no sound, there are no cars on the street in the city that never sleeps. There are no drunks baying at the moon or screaming in need. The silence is deep and into its still waters all life recedes. Her eyes are wide, her throat is dry, and the sheets are damp. Her temperature drops precipitously as a chill shoots through her body and her skin is covered in gooseflesh, every hair is standing on end as tension flows freely through her veins. She does not know if she has slept or not; she only remembers coming out of the shower and laying on her bed, her hair wet and spread across the pillows, her body bare as the day she was born. She hasn’t eaten since when? She does not remember. Maybe breakfast, maybe lunch. It might have been a slice of pecan pie, eaten so slowly she didn’t notice it going in her mouth. Lately everything tastes like cardboard and sits like lead. Food is fuel but Jade runs on empty, (mal)nourished by a diet of cortisol and adrenalin. A cold chills her bones during the hottest month of the year. She is unsure if she slept, unsure if she fed, unsure of anything besides the exhaustion that sweeps over her as she swings her legs off the bed. Dead girl walks to the window that has no shades; her life, such as it is, a public display. Wearing only her great grandmother’s wedding band, her fingers so slim it fits her thumb, she opens the window beside her desk and leans out into the stale air, breathing it all the way in. The sun hovers on the horizon as if considering its options. But options are the illusion of Man for Nature controls the program. The sun begins its relentless climb and leaves in its wake a full array of rainbow sorbet colored streaks. Raspberry and orange, lemon and lime, the sweetest berry-colored hues blend into each another as the new day arrives. Jade pulls herself back into the apartment, feeling despondent and vulnerable and broken apart. Melancholy creeps over her, stealing across her skin and burrowing in, deep down it goes. At the center of this Tootsie Pop is a chasm so great it has become a black hole, turning in on itself as if to swallow her whole. She is raw and exposed; all she feels and all she knows pours from her pores and clings to her skin; shame is the perfume of the living dead. Her hair, only straight under the heat of a blowdryer, has returned to its natural state. Before falling asleep the hot shower she took restored satin ringlets to their rightful place, hanging in her face and down her back like a Pre-Raphaelite painting. The crisp light of morning does not flatter her youth. Her eyelids are puffy and a vague shade of purple lingers beneath. Her skin is pale, dull, and swollen, and the hit she took last night shows proudly. And despite her best efforts to eradicate her frame, to emaciate and maim, the gentle curves of her body still remain. Soft undulations of flesh linger and rest, her breasts full, her waist long, her legs toned and defined after years of walking the streets, Jade is endlessly on her feet, going from here to there with no purpose except to pass (time) away. Her body has become a map of desire, a guided tour of the shame. Tears of self-loathing flood her eyes and run down her face, wet, like everything else. She sits at her desk, her shoulders shaking, her chest aching, unable to catch her breath, a cry of pain escaping her lips, the sound of a kitten lost in the rain. Single words assail her brain but none of them fit into a coherent thought. Unloved. Rotten. Degenerate. Trash. Damaged, Reject. Kill Yourself. As the sun rises, it dissolves the click and her brief respite of dreamless sleep fades away as the ceasefire comes to an end. Her mind returns to fight a war it cannot win as memories pellet and pound her like cannons turned against themselves. The walls of her castle have been breached; the horses run wild in fear. Flames lick their lips, insatiable, relentless, coming near. But it is not the ineffable truth that precludes her escape but it the lies she holds in her heart that tempt the Fates. Something haunts her, something she cannot reach. In her peripheral vision she sees the sharp edges of shadows leering, jeering, cheering their success. Their laugher makes no noise but vibrates powerfully inside her chest. Her breathing constricts and her fingers begin to tingle as a feeling of panic sets in. What is it? What is it? Photograph by Lilla Szasz Faces of Desire The tears are pouring now, without stop. They rush like a river that has overcome a dam, a flood that threatens to wash everything away except where all this pain began. With the release of her tears comes the heaving of her chest, breath so labored it is as though she is going into cardiac arrest. Her heart, it burns, it breaks into a million little pieces all crying for love. She wants to scoop them up into a tight hug but they are sharp, shattered bits with jagged edge and with every touch they charge deeper into her flesh. Everything hurts as though it will never end, not even in death, though just the thought of death soothes her twitchy nerves. As she is crying, she slides to the floor. She was taught to beg on her knees, not to stand on her own. It is to this posture she returns when weakness overcomes her soul. It is on the ground where she feels most at home, doubled over in pain and all alone. She needs a tissue because it’s starting to get messy, so she starts crawling along the parquet tiles toward the bathroom. She goes so slowly she notices little things like a tiny insect traveling in the same direction as she. She notices the flesh around her fingertips is as red as the nail polish that is chipped and peeling away. She notices that her knee hurts from when she landed on it last night. She enjoys the pain and leans into it to feel the nerves throb in protest. She keeps crawling until she reaches the bathroom and feels the cool tiles under her palms. Then she tears a piece of toilet paper and blows her nose. She tears another piece of paper and blows again. Then another piece of paper and wipes the tears from her face. She discards the used tissues in the toilet bowl, flushes, and leans back against the wall. She draws her knees to her chest and hugs them tight. Her back relaxes as her head drops forward. She sits like this for some time, though how long is unclear. Time has no meaning when there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one to be. As Jade’s breathing stills, the only sounds are those coming from the street below. Taxis honk angrily at each other while buses whoosh along in their lanes, picking up passengers who hate to ride on the trains. Pedestrians rush along, juggling coffee cups and briefcases, silently cursing the person in front of them for walking slowly. Jackhammers start up the street on a construction site, setting everyone on edge. The relentless rat-a-tat-tat of steel tearing apart concrete bespeaks the violence of Man in the name of progress. New Yorkers are proud that they have learned to tune things out but just because the front door is closed doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways in. Tension mounts when the jackhammer begins anew. The sudden sound snaps Jade out of her catatonic state and she opens her eyes, confused. Without thinking, she rises and walks toward her desk, grabbing a cigarette out of the pack. The nicotine relaxes her, filling her lungs with thick smoke. The taste of smoke on her tongue, the smell of it in her hair, the feeling of it surrounding her like a cloud, this mundane experience returns her to what she has become: a machine of perpetual motion. Unable to stop, unable to start, unable to do anything except continues down a path from which there is no escape. The sun’s early rays streak through her windows. She has no drapes, no coverings of any sort, not since the night that, coked up, she tore the filthy beige blinds off the wall. Maybe it is seven, or maybe it is eight. On this Wednesday morning, the City is coming to life. Rush hour and such, Jade is pleased that this is not her life. Not that her current situation is any better but if she is going to be a slave, let it be on her terms. Weed, now that’s a good master. Kind and benevolent and worst cast scenario? Paranoia, but who can tell? Jade refills the Absolut bottle, then lights the bowl. The smoke floats like a spirit; it moves with a meaning she does not comprehend. In the light of the summer sun, Jade watches this spirit move through the air. It is all things at once: wispy and plump, translucent and opaque, body and soul coiling and curling before melting away. So fixated on evanescence is she that the harsh sound of the buzzer makes her jump, literally, two inches it might have been, off her chair. The doorman buzzes long and hard, as though she were in the east wing of her shoebox. “Yesssssss?” Jade says into the receiver, suppressing a giggle when she realizes how stoned she sounds. “Good morning, Miss Fontaine. Nino is here.” Jade shakes her head imperceptibly, almost as if she has a twitch. What? No! Yes! What? “Please send him up,” she answers with her heart in her throat. Jade spins about in an elegant frenzy, putting on a pair panties, stretch jeans, and a tank top, spraying herself with Chanel No. 5. She applies lip gloss, then lights a cigarette, trying to act casual. Then she remembers her hair. It’s… everywhere! She catches a glimpse in the mirror and sticks out her tongue, evoking Medusa like the emblem on her jeans. With this thought, the memory of the murder of Gianni Versace last summer washes over her in a sickening surge; it is the image of a slipper lying abandoned on steps of stone splattered with blood. This photograph, so primitive and so profound, has bonded Jade to a man she never knew yet somehow communes with in another realm. Fashion, she believes, is the most integrated of all arts, for in the act of adorning ourselves, our lives become an indelible part of the creative process. And though it sounds silly, even frivolous, to suggest that through the experience of fashion we may know others as they want us to know ourselves, for Jade to place her feet in a pair of heels, to swish her hips in stretch jeans, to shimmy her titties in a tiny tube top, to decorate the body she has been given with earrings that dangle and belts that sparkle, to add a splash of color here, a shiny object there… this knowledge is among the most intimate she has ever known. It is the designs that make her body move this way or that, which allow her to feel, to understand what it is to be a woman in full. It is in the balance upon those stilettos, in the constriction and flow of her flesh, the way in which she sits and stands and saunters, that Jade feels the feminine within. And in that same way, she feels soft and delicate without this armor. Standing before her mirror with a naked face and unstyled hair, bare feet and breasts free, Jade is self conscious but too tired, too wired, too inspired to care. I mean—Nino?! What is he doing here? Photograph of Catherine Deneuve in Luis Buñuel’s “Belle du Jour” True purity seems tarnished. —Tao Te Ching, Chapter 41 The doorbell does not ring. Instead a fist pounds against the door. Jade takes a deep breath and counts to eight before opening up. Nino leans against the nubby wallpaper opposite her door wearing the same clothes he had on last night. Everything about him feels casual, like they have done this many times before. He looks relaxed yet it is clear he has not slept either. He looks into her eyes shyly then steps forward with a Kool-Aid smile. He scoops her into his arms and gives her a big hug, holding her as close as close can hold. With his touch, Jade feels her body become taut. One arm rises mechanically, doing a little pat-pat on his back. She in unable to engage for she is set on stunned and she needs to override her autopilot dysfunction. Nino notices none of this. He has one thing on his mind and when he takes her in his arms, all his tension dissipates as he feels the resounding calm of her heart. He can smell the tobacco in her hair, the marijuana in the air, and underneath it all, the hint of something pure. He presses his nose into her neck and she giggles and squirms and he smiles and lets go and resists the urge to kiss her cheek a thousand times. “So, this is where you live!” Nino says, stepping forward in an authoritarian way. He walks into her apartment and heads straight to the window, opening it wide and sticking his head out. He takes in the view of people hurrying, scurrying to work. He thanks God this is not his life then pulls himself inside, turns around, and rests with his back to the window. Watching Jade watch him, Nino asks for a cigarette. Lighting it, he mentions, “Your doorman doesn’t like me.” “They don’t like anyone,” Jade assumes. “Especially not the guys who work the morning shift. They’ve been working here more years than I’ve been on earth. Guys like that, they act like this building is theirs. And maybe they’re right.” Nino doesn’t care. He sits at her desk and eyes the Absolut bottle with interest. “Can I get you something? Water? Coffee? Weed?” Jade asks, a demure belle du jour. “Come sit here,” Nino says, pointing to the other chair as he takes a pull off the cigarette. All of a sudden, Jade is nervous, feeling a loss of control. He has come back to her as though he never left, as though he always meant to be here. She looks at him sprawled across her chair; his legs are wide open as though offering himself to her. Does he expect something? Did he come here for sex? Who shows up at eight in the morning trying to get laid? Well, there’s always a first. Jade watches his cigarette burn down to the filter as it balances precariously between his thumb and index finger. His eyes are shut and his head nods serenely as though he has fallen asleep. She walks towards him slowly, unable to resist his allure. She sits down and regards him in the morning light as his ragged beauty warms her body in a delicate blush. His skin is a pale shade of caramel, the rich golden undertones hungering for the sun’s sweet kiss. His hair is darkest chocolate, almost mahogany, kept neatly in a fade. His features are sharp and distinct, heavy eyebrows, deep set eyes, high cheekbones, Roman nose, full lips, and square jaw held by an eloquent neck. His ears are small and discreet but his hands are big and rough and don’t fit his frame. His frame is sleek and matches his form, that of a lightweight boxer who dominates through intimidation and finesse. There is something frightening about these hands that bare deep scars across the knuckles and down the backs into his forearms. To see these hands at rest is the pregnant pause; potential creates tension and the air around Nino crackles with an electric charge. Jade is unnerved by how he both disturbs and excites her. She continues to look at his hands with the curious hunger of the carefully starved. Nino’s eyes open unexpectedly and he sees her checking him out. This makes him smile to himself and his lips part unconsciously, widening slowly to show his teeth. Radiance surrounds him; it is the aura of the unknown. A thorny halo streaked in black and gold reveals itself, diaphanous and hovering around his head as he sits with his back to the sun. In her presence Nino feels centered and a peace, so very much at ease. Without memories or thoughts, there is only pure feeling: the flame that burns without destruction, the light that shines without blinding, and the warmth of being home wherever you are. But Nino doesn’t know how to live this love. It is too much. He doesn’t deserve it. No, the only love he deserves isn’t love at all but it feels real good and that’s close enough. His love has become a habit, a fix. An addiction is what it is. Top of the line, bottom of the barrel. Giddy up on that horse. After he left Jade last night, Nino hopped the 6 and went up to the Bronx to catch a ride with his tio Tonio who was staying in Parkchester with Carmela, a girl who paid for everything. Envy crushed through his guts, thinking of how Tonio had it all. A woman who could provide a man all that he desires: money, sex, food, shelter, clothes, a car, and toys. Maybe friendship, maybe love—or maybe, Nino thought, those things should be negotiable considering how much they cost. But a woman who knows how to raise her ass, shut her mouth, and pay the bills? Heaven on Earth, that’s my word. A smirk lurked in the corners of his mouth and a smug sort of respect transformed Nino’s envy into pride. Yea Tonio! That’s how to do it! Three months after serving his bit, Tonio locked down all the trappings of the good life. That’s a Man, Nino thought. A man got his when a woman knows her place. She’s got to hold it down so that he can live. On the train, Nino warmed to his theme, dreaming of a world where girls would do his biding and back talk was not allowed. His wishes became law, his demand became duty, and the girls were happy because they no longer had to think for themselves. They looked to Nino as their father to protect them from harm, the harm they did unto themselves and others when they believed their own words lies. In his dream Nino saw a row of girls on their knees before him. Their heads were hung low but their eyes were raised to meet his own. He looked down on them with pity, with anger, with desire for he could see their damp breasts swelling under a torrent of tears that fell from their cheeks. But in this dream, Nino heard something he did not expect. He heard the little giggle of pleasure that once emanated from Jia’s lips. The sound reminded him of chimes tinkling in a far away garden. Close enough to be heard, distant enough to be lost, the jingle of her bliss filled Nino with nausea at once. His head began to spin and everything before his eyes went black. Doubled over in pain, he vomited on the floor of the subway car but all that was in his stomach was a can of Bud that he stole from a bodega. What was once beer now ran in rivulets of rusty peach foam as the train pulled into the St. Lawrence station. Nino lurched out of the car and staggered toward the railing on the elevated platform, taking large gulps of sticky air into his lungs, tasting the acrid stomach acid that burned the back of his throat. He braced himself against the railing and dropped his head in despair. The word came as a command. NO. He felt his chest tighten. He gulped again. NO. NO. NO. It was like emphysema, he took in large swallows but he could not exhale. His lungs were so full that the pressure forced his heart to pound violently. He gulped again. The pain was a relief. His head was spinning. His stomach was empty. His legs began to twitch. GO. FUCK THIS. GO. Nino pulled himself away from the railing, tearing his palms off one at a time. He stumbled forward but did not stop until he reached Tonio’s crib. As he approached the door, a dog started up with a very strained, high-pitched bark that came at a hundred yips a click. Why do women love the most annoying creatures: little dogs and cats? The thought of their foolishness made him angry all over again. The anger made his head ache and his stomach cramp. He had to calm down before he ruined everything. Taking a deep breath, he remembered why he came and that only made him more anxious. Sweat gathered in his armpits and glistened on his brow. He rang the bell hard, assuming the dog already woke everyone up. Carmela answered the door. She didn’t look too good but she didn’t look too bad either. Her blonde hair was tucked under a silk scarf. Her brown eyes were concealed behind puffy lids but her giant breasts refused to hide and strained against the confines of her pink silk slip. Photograph by Bruce Davidson New York, 1959 “Nino!” she exclaimed and opened the door. “Please come in! Are you okay? You look sick. Pobrecito, can I get you something to drink? To eat? Take off your shoes, sit down, relax. I’m going to get you some coffee. What would you like for breakfast?” Carmela did not wait for an answer. She swished that big ass of hers into the kitchen and got to work while Nino sat on the sofa, resting his head in his hands. She returned with a mug of Cafe Bustelo and a pack of Newports. “Start with this, and I’ll be back with breakfast real quick. Oh! and Tonio went out last night and he hasn’t come back. But you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.” He was about to thank her when the front door burst open and Tonio came in, smiling to himself about a job well done. He saw Carmela in the kitchen and gave thanks to God. Never would he have ever believed the Lord would have sent him an angel but there she was, cooking breakfast before he even came home. “You are sooo good to me!” he sang and for a moment Carmela looked confused. She had not been expecting him to come home before she left for the job but she could make it work. “Mi amor, this food is for you and for Nino. He just got here a minute ago. He looks terrible. He needs your help.” She knew what this meant even if she could not say the words. She knew the score and she kept her mouth shut. She never had the desire to change Tonio; he was a beast without conscience and that made her weak and wet and warm. Like all animals that live on the streets, he knew when it was time to go home, even if several nights passed before he returned to her merciful arms and alms. That he would not be domesticated, that he could not be tamed, that he was big game and not some little house pet, all this turned her on. When he first left her for nights on end without word of where he was going and when he would return, she went crazy with lust and frustration; bewitched by his abandonment she fell apart. But in a short time she understood she had to pick one of these two people to be. She chose lust and freed herself from all expectation beyond sex—and she was a happier person for it. With the understanding that being respectable was for other people’s benefit, Carmela had adapted her persona accordingly. At the bank where she worked for nearly a decade, she was a model of professional efficiency and social pleasantries. She took pride in all things she did, knowing that she was always being judged, always being compared to the perfect example of womanhood. Her name was Mary: our virgin and our whore. Perhaps you think it’s just a coincidence the share the same name? I think not. Carmela was taught her purpose as Woman was to serve Man and the best way to do this was to anticipate his needs. Power and pleasure, beauty and leisure, these were to be found in the body and home she kept faithfully. Throughout her life, Carmela had been painstakingly instructed as to the ways of Woman. But the ways of Man? This she learned by watching her father, a product of the old country who brought those ways up north. Her father learned the ways of the world growing up in a brothel; his mother worked there until she expired. And while she was there, she got pregnant but what of it? Even if she had known who the father of her baby was, what good would that have done anyway? Fallen women were only in demand as much as they had no demands of their own and no one wanted to claim her or her son. Carmela’s grandmother, Violetta, had been a beautiful young girl, so much so that her parents understood her market value and sold her into prostitution at the tender age of twelve. Violetta had already known the ways of Man, having been gang raped by her cousins when she was only six years old. She was warned never to speak of what had occurred and she became mute, awkward, terrified of the world. No one noticed (or cared) that this darling girl had receded into herself for at this time girls in her country were treated like animals at best. Some where whipped and some were adored but all were thought to be lesser than Man and kept in the barn. As Violetta matured and her body filled out into voluptuous curves, her parents saw there was money to be earned. One less mouth to feed was cash in pocket, as were the ten dollars they received for selling their daughter. In the brothel Violetta learned that submission was the price she had to pay to stay alive. She understood that the more docile and coy she became, the safer she was. It was day by day; no past, no future, no hope. Please remember, there but for the grace of God go every girl on this planet. The world’s oldest profession isn’t prostitute; it’s pimp. Don’t think it’s not. Trussed up like a Christmas goose, she shined her lips and rouged her breasts. Her curves continued to expand where they were most wanted and the flower of her youth gave her a charm that men so desperately wanted to crush. There was something about the space in which a girl was neither a child nor a woman that appealed to the men as though it were a path to salvation of sorts. For in this act was the essence of corruption as they sought to exchange their guilt for her innocence. “Eres una puta sucia!” they sneered, stuffing themselves back into their pants, leaving her lying on a crusty blanket with her legs shamefully spread. And Violetta, fresh as three-day old flowers, began to show the earliest signs of a sickly decay. Complicated and compelling is the girl who has been cut from her roots, brought to market, and sold to anyone who can afford the rate. Turning twenty, thirty tricks a day began to wear her out—not just the body but the soul itself. She felt an ache deep inside, the pain of the broken spirit, the truth that no one cared if she lived or died. It began to obsess her, her emptiness, until one night she had a dream. God came to her and filled her womb with His light and suddenly, she felt no pain. She awoke with a smile, the first smile she had known since she was a small child, before the ways of Man destroyed her life. In her womb she carried this baby to term and when this baby was born she named him Jose for the husband she had never known. She raised her baby amid the comings and goings of her daily routine, no longer empty, having someone who was hers alone. As he grew in age, Jose proved himself to be a hustler, playing fetch for the customers and earning their rewards. The customers were charmed by this young boy and one or two of them took it upon themselves to instruct Jose in the ways of the world. When he was fourteen, Violetta became ill. She had cancer of the cervix but nobody knew. It was exceedingly painful for her to work but she did what she had to do, ensuring that whatever money she earned would go to her son. In less than six months she was dead and Jose was on his own. He looked at his options and realized there were none. Jose took up with an older woman who decided to move to New York after her sister found a tiny apartment in Parkchester. He became the man of the house, so to speak, operating as a pimp for these ladies. In time, the sister became pregnant and he decided she would keep it for no one would ever take his seed from him. His baby was born, golden and sweet. He named her Carmela and for the first time thought about his future in New York. The pimp game was profitable but it was also exhausting, so he sold his girls and found himself a new home. He married a quiet woman who would raise Carmela. A year later they had a son, Jose Jr. Jose Sr. did not want his children to know about his past. He wanted them to have the childhood he never had. His wife was a God-fearing woman and she raised the children in the way of the Church, teaching them they were born of original sin and they were doomed since birth. As a girl, Carmela understood that her destiny was not that of her brother’s and this made her angry, for she had inherited Jose Sr.’s calculating ego. Her father had modeled himself after the Almighty, believing his powers extended beyond earth and into the universe. As such he did not hold himself accountable to anyone, neither to his wife nor his children—nor to himself. He provided what he wanted when he wanted, but more often then not he took from others as only the entitled can take. “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine” was his epitaph. He lived a life beyond reproach yet karma never kicked his ass. Photograph by Lilla Szasz Comrades, part of a series When Carmela was in high school, she fell in love for the first—and last—time. His name was Juan and he was what was commonly known as a “super senior”, meaning he was doing year five. Juan had all of the charisma and attitude that her father possessed, but he lacked the craftiness that allowed Jose Sr. to escape punishment. Thus Carmela discovered that Juan had been having sex with her best friend for over four months, that they had forged a bond so deep that neither of them were willing to break it off. Juan had even gone so far as to suggest they have a threesome; that’s when Carmela ran from her own house screaming. She was found hours later walking mindlessly down the street, alternately crying and laughing like an escaped mental patient. Something had broken that day, something pure had been tainted by betrayal. And in its place a new girl was born, a girl who no longer could trust anyone, believing that those who came close would do the most harm. That day Carmela connected with a malevolent spirit, and joined the kingdom of eternal darkness, forever its witness. It was at this time that her father told her unsparingly, “Forgive him, he is a Man” and that was the final word on the subject. And so Carmela was taught the way of the world into which she had been born. So long as Woman covered for him, Man could have his cake and eat it too, and that she, as Woman, was here to bake and frost and serve it to him every day. But possessed of her father’s arrogance and his pride, Carmela could not accept that this was her destiny in life. If men were allowed to cheat then why not she too? Naturally she could not do this openly, nor did she want to. She thought it far more amusing to maintain a pristine reputation for all those looking on her with judgment; let them think her good, for she was so good it hurt. She was good in the kitchen and good in bed; she was good with the bills and she kept her mouth shut. Not just about what Tonio did… but about the things he would never know. To give her man what he needed, Carmela made sure that she was being pleased. Not just with sex (though a crooked smile slipped across her lips when she thought of the studs she kept in her stable) but with support. The financing was impressive and she never failed to giggle about how many men were willing to spend their paychecks in exchange for so little. What is sex for so many but a display of power and a system of control? Woe to the man who dominates, for he is addicted all the more. Carmela played the game carefully, knowing Tonio was triggered by the slightest perceived infraction for more than anyone she had ever known, Tonio was the reflection of her father. He had possessed a sense of entitlement that outweighed her own and in seeing this manifest, she felt the urge to submit to him in every way but one. She would give him everything he desired except her heart (but his was so deeply buried, it is doubtful he even noticed the absence of hers). They met on the street right after he got out of jail. She had been passing him by when he called her out. His eyes burned through her flesh, hungry for a taste, and in his hunger Carmela could smell the testosterone burning through his skin. Chiseled like a sculpture, hard as stone, eyes cold, heart frozen, he grabbed her and held her close, telling her she was his woman and made sure she played her part. She would take care of the bills and he would take care of her. “Don’t worry about the details,” he told her. “That’s none of your business.” As he spoke these words, she felt a chill run down her back and her arms began to tremble. Fear engulfed her being and she bowed her head in submission. He grabbed her arm and held it so tight she cried out like a dog in pain. “Tu sabes,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.” She took him to her house, a small one bedroom on the ground floor of a multiple family residence. Carmela had selected everything on her own, from the five-piece furniture set in pastel florals, chrome, and glass to the lush wall-to-wall carpeting in a color she thought of as Georgia Peach Cobbler. Her bedroom was done in black lacquer and gold, with a fan-shaped mirror as the headboard. The mirror was witness to secrets she never told, stories from not so long ago, memories that were always and forever her own. She had been renting the apartment since 1992 and was proud of her success. She was not the traditional daughter, living at home to take care of her parents until her husband came along. She was the first person in her family to attend and graduate college—Lehman College, no Associates Degree for her. She studied Spanish literature for the pleasure of reading the classics in her native tongue. No translations would ever compare to the thrill of reading Don Quixote as it was originally written; the book was a gift to the woman for whom no man like that had ever existed. For Carmela, Cervantes constructed an alternate universe into which she would slip, fantasizing about the kind of man who had never lived. But dreams were for sleep and not waking life so Carmela did what she had to do, she got a job so she could be stand on her own two feet. She never wanted to rely upon a man in any way, knowing how they could betray her once feelings came into play. As there were no jobs calling for her write essays on the use of metaphor in the prose of Miguel de Cervantes, she took a steady job as a teller at a bank in midtown, right near Grand Central Station. She loved the bank with its regular hours and its quirky cast. She had expected the people to be straight and narrow, and on the surface perhaps… On the surface, everything was impeccable. Professional. Impenetrable. Just what you would expect from the person handling your cash. But what kind of people dedicate their lives to money? The kind who need to hide in plain sight. It is always what you cannot see. And so it was with Carmela that she maintained respectability for the benefit of other people. But for herself, she found the edge that kept her fresh. She needed someone strong who could stand beside her father and challenge him man to man; she craved the kind of creature who might threaten and defeat Jose Sr.’s prowess. It reminded Carmela of a story she once heard, a story of the pride. It was the story of the alpha male, the majestic and beautiful lion. He ran the family. The females served his every need and in turn they were protected. Should any of them have babies with another male, the alpha killed those that weren’t his, forcing the females back into heat so that he and only he could impregnate them. Add to this, it was the females who worked, who formed a cadre and together they stalked and killed their prey. Then they brought it home to the male so that he would be the first to feast upon the flesh. But what most interested Carmela was the story of how he came into power. Adolescent males were pushed out of the pride before they became old enough to be a threat. And these lonely males walked the earth, looking for females of his own. And more often than not, he came upon a pride. It was up to the young male to step to the alpha, to call the old man out. They fought to the death, winner take all. And, as Nature had it, the youth would often win. And then he became the master, the dominant force that everyone served. And he ruled the pride as the king until one day a young male came, to challenge him for all that he had built in his lifetime, and in this challenge he too would be killed. Carmela would shiver when she thought of this. Never envy powder, for you do not know what it took to get it, nor do you know how it shall be lost. Better to be one of the females, hardworking, protected, safe. It’s not that Carmela didn’t love her father, and it’s not that she did. It’s that she feared him more than anything else on earth because he maintained the power to eclipse her world. She longed for the day that she would find that young lion who she could serve. There was something about Tonio that reminded her of the lion. She could see his rise to power and envision his fall just the same. But what she wanted most was to see how her father would react to her choice in men. He’s a man. Forgive him. These words echoed in her head nearly twenty years later. How dare her father take the side of someone who was not his flesh and blood. For this she would make him pay, even if Jose Sr. never knew what it cost her heart. Bringing Tonio home gave Carmela a rush. She luxuriated in the sting of his palm as it fell upon her flesh, taking care not to let him know how much she craved his dominance. She delighted in his comings and goings, for never knowing where he was or when he would return made her secret assignations all the more thrilling. She reveled in the danger of defying each man by playing the game better than any of them ever could. And in this way, she unknowingly avenged the spirit of Violetta, a woman of whom she knew absolutely nothing for her father never once discussed his life on the island with her. Violetta’s spirit stayed close to her family; she watched Jose Sr. very carefully. She was sure to stay out of his way, for there was something about him that let her know he understood she was near. She saw that though he was not a good man, he was a strong man, and that was enough. But it was her granddaughter that needed her most, and she did her best to protect Carmela from herself. Violetta saw Nino arrive and something inside her broke apart; she saw the scars of abuse etched deep inside his heart. Dry tears never fell from the eyes that watched him stagger into her granddaughter’s home. She fell before his knees as he sat upon the sofa until she realized that her presence sent chills through his bones. She pulled herself back, not wanting to leave him, and willed Carmela to give him love. Violetta had watched the two grow close over the past month, both of them in need of something good. She smiled the smile that has no teeth and no lips as she watched her granddaughter give Nino comida y cafe. Proud that her girl still had the heart, she floated around the house quietly singing a song. Photograph by Jean-Claude Claeys A song came into Carmela’s head and she couldn’t stop the refrain from repeating time and again. She started singing it to herself as she cooked breakfast, feeling wonderful that she could help Nino, if only in the smallest way. For he was the kind of boy she admired, the one she knew would never betray. And yet, she knew nothing about him, nothing at all…but she felt his pain. As Carmela whipped up a storm in the kitchen, Tonio walked through the door. He was in a glorious mood, his skin was shining like the sun, his shirt smelling of liquor, sweat, and sex. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and strolled into the living room where Nino was sitting with his head in his hands. “You got any?” Nino mumbled with the last remnants of his strength. “Of course! I got you, you know that!” Tonio slapped him so hard on the back, Nino coughed like he had been choking on a chicken wing. “Carmela! Get my stuff! So Nino, what’s good? You look like shit.” “Ain’t nothing good,” Nino said and lit a cigarette. The sweet taste of tobacco soothed his frayed nerves. Smoke expelled through his nose, floating into the air and disappearing near a gold-framed painting of Jesus done tastefully in pastels. He looked Jesus in the eye as if to stare him down but Nino knew he wouldn’t win this (or any other) round. He mechanically made the sign of the cross, asking for forgiveness for his anger at God and Man. “I ain’t slept in two, maybe three days,” Nino said. “I just been walking around, looking for vics; got some change off one sucka after he took a fist to the head. He was one of those white boys who think they tough, hitting girls cause they too pussy to throw down. Last night I seen him smack this beautiful girl to the ground; I came up on him and he never knew what happened. He probably still there now.” Nino smiled fondly at the memory of that nigga getting his. He hated to see women get hurt and thought that only punks ever raised their hands against a girl. What kind of man could be so weak? Faggots, that’s what they are, Nino thought to himself. And though he loved to fight, for money or for vengeance or for sport, the opportunity to save a lady from abuse, the chance to set things straight so that the faggot knew what it felt like to lose? That made him feel like a king. Up from the gutter, he sprang. Into action, into life. Now, beaming with pride, Nino threw in this little aside: “Yea, I took his money and his girl…” “What’s up? You tap that?” “Nahh. Not yet. Something about her; she ain’t like that…” He trailed off, confused, remembering how walked away from her after she touch his neck, angry and ashamed to have felt hurt by her curious caress. “Well you ain’t gotta hit it but she gotta suck your dick. If she don’t, she gonna think she’s somethin‘ special and you know these hoes ain’t shit. Remember that last one, the chinky bitch? Yea, she fucked you good ’cause you didn’t put her in her place. Now if that was me, I would have set her straight. No bitch of mine is ever going to play me for a sucka.” With these words, Nino recoiled in silent anguish; his face masked the pain that ruptured his heart. His expression remained stoic and unmoving, unwilling to give Tonio ammunition to use against him at another time. But despite his self-control, his body betrayed his turmoil as his muscles tightened into a knot, his legs tensed and ready to spring, his arms aching and poised to swing. His jaw clenched to keep his tongue in check. Nino closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. He told himself to chill so he didn’t knock this nigga out. “Yo, where’s it at?” Nino asked with studied nonchalance, changing the subject like he don’t give a fuck what Tonio thought. “CARMELA!” Tonio hollered. “VEN AQUI!” “Ay dios mio! I’m coming! Don’t worry. I got your shit right here,” Carmela said as she came into the room and handed Tonio a box. From it, he took out a little bag and cut four fat lines on the glass-covered coffee table in front of the sofa. Tonio took a bill out of his wallet and rolled it up, did two lines, then handed the bill to Nino, who snorted as quick as he could. The drugs disconnected him from the past and from the future, making the present an infinite void. His features relaxed and his muscles released, his body sank back into the sofa in a state of total peace. A small grin spread across his face like cool butter on warm bread. His heart began to drop into the quiet murmur of a babbling brook as all thoughts and memories finally stopped. In this state of euphoric silence, his soul was set free and drifted out of his body and towards the soft glowing energy that floated overhead. Something enveloped him in warmth and kindness, like a grandmother baking cookies on a snowy winter day. He knew that he was being spoken to; he could hear a woman’s voice reaching towards him, whispering Nino. He knew that other words were being spoken but he couldn’t make them out. Instead of struggling, he relaxed and floated along the ceiling, wafting through the room like he was on a raft in crystal blue waters, sipping margaritas and getting his dick sucked. He lay back luxuriating in the life upon which he had been bestowed, thanking God for all that he was given, the good, the bad, and the ugliest moments he had known. Heroin could do that, you know, it can let light into the darkest place of the heart. And what had become a prison was that no more for the walls had come down and the captive was liberated from his own confinement, finally able to feel Ell Ohh Vee Eee as time became infinite. “Yeaaa,” he said real calmly. “I needed this. Thanks bro. You always look out. I love you, man.” “Word,” Tonio said, taking Nino’s loyalty for granted. He was focused on more important things, thinking about how his nephew had been alone for too long and seeing how badly he was hurting living this way. Tonio felt a sense of responsibility, seeing as how Nino had been abandoned by his sister at such a young age. He tried to take Nino under his wing but the boy had resisted and the wall between the continued to grow as Nino set forth on his own path to hell. Tonio understood that Nino was proud and he admired this. But all the same, he was much too young to look so wrecked. Tonio thought the best thing would be for Nino to get himself a good woman like Carmela, a ride or die bitch who would keep his stomach full and his balls empty, no questions asked. Inspired by his revelation, Tonio started on it again, asking, “So what you gonna do about that ho you met last night?” Drifting through the room in a state of bliss, Nino’s heart filled when he thought of Jade. He could feel how soft and vulnerable she had been, how desperately she needed a man to protect her, and how beautiful it would be if he could give that to her. But it was too soon, Nino was not ready, for the moment his heart began to open, a door in his head slammed shut. His soul sank back into his body and returned to the world. Nino was wondering about Tonio. Why is he all up in the business? Tonio didn’t know about the Doctor or any of the men, but he knew about Jia and he played that like a gun to the head. Maybe he should get another woman, just to get Tonio to shut the fuck up. And Jade, who the fuck was she? She took a hit and rolled with it; she didn’t complain at all. Not like these other bitches he knew, always talking shit, always with something to say about who they were and why they were better than the next whore. But Jade came close, too close, and that made him nervous. It reminded him of Jia, of his mother, of… Fuck that. Nino was a man with no past, none that he wanted to remember. He answered Tonio, saying, “Yea she told me to come by. You should see where she lives! In the Village, in a high rise. She gotta be paid, living in a place like that.” “That’s how we do. Free rent. Free food. Free pussy. And no rules. Get the fuck outta here. Make that bitch your slave and start living good. You look like shit.” “Let me get a Newport,” Nino said as he pulled himself together, taking the hint. He guarded his voice against a simmering resentment that lurked beneath the surface. “Take the pack. Carmela got cartons in the kitchen. She never lets me do without. You need a woman like her,” Tonio said as surveyed his kingdom with pride from his seat on the sofa, the throne of the American Man. With those words, Nino was out. On his own once again, he drifted through the streets like a ghost, walking slowly and frequently stopping to take in the velvety air of the new morning. He stood on the sidewalk for some time, nodding in and out, before he remembered where he was going. Eventually, he got back on the train and headed downtown. With his eyes closed, he fell into a trance and allowed the words to be spoken, the words from which he ran. The words echoed in his head and ricocheted through his heart. No eres mi hijo. And don’t come back again. Photograph by Marianna Rothen When the male and female combine, all things achieve harmony. —Tao Te Ching, Chapter 42 The echo is louder now and stirs Nino out of his transcendent state. When he opens his eyes, he realizes he is in Jade’s apartment and notices that she is checking him out. She looks fresh and clean. He loves how her long black hair is now a mass of wild and unruly curls that spring from her head and do as they wish, twisting whichever way they feel best. They frame her face and fall across her shoulders, and for the first time Nino notices her eyes, the warm and healing blue of a summer sky. He moves forward slowly and looks deep inside. Then he laughs unexpectedly. “I can see myself in your eyes,” he says and starts waving at his reflection like a little boy. A giggle slips from Jade’s lips and in her smile there is a question but she does not know what it is because in his presence, words disappear, thoughts evaporate, and eternity is all that that remains. His energy at this moment gives her the most profound sense of peace and be stills all her fears; she feels safe, protected, and embraced. Yet something is amiss. Jade is remiss to speak. It is difficult for her not to fill the air like a chirping bird for she consumes words, words, and more words with every waking moment. She writes, she reads, she speaks, she thinks; words are the basic unit of her existence, added and subtracted from her fortress, brick by brick. It is these words that define her existence, that lead her to believe things simply because logic is plastic. Of anything meaning can be made and once established, it ensures argument cannot shake faith. Words can transform experience, conjure emotion, and construct meaning in our lives. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Something about Nino renders Jade speechless and this fascinates her like no one she has ever known. Perhaps it is his proximity that overwhelms her senses, his body vibrating energies she feels deep in her bones. But there is something about suffering that has made Jade feel other people’s emotions in ways that are unhealthy. Her boundaries were violated, but she unconscious of what this means. She feels something that is too intense, one-sided, and very destructive. But the real problem is, she easily becomes attached to and repulsed by that feeling. Thus, she lacks the ability to make people feel that she understands who they are and what they need—and to love them without asking for anything in return. His psychic waves are scrambled, almost as though he has encrypted his energy to protect it from any interpretation but she feels a potent force lying deep within, muted by surging pain. He smiles as easily as he scowls, and the speed at which his emotions shift leaves her dizzy and confused. And frustrated. Last night he took off without a single word. This morning he arrived at her front door as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Who does this? In her presence, he feels equal parts magnificent and modest as he basks in the seeming splendor of the middle class. Her elegance thrills him with the smallest effects, whether it is the way her pinky hovers in the air while lighting a cigarette or the way she softly switches her hips when she walks to the kitchen for a glass of water. Nino wants to rest his weary head in her lap of luxury. Tonio was right. Women are the land of milk and honey. “Your life is a bed of roses,” he smiles again, delighted with this discovery, for at the center of her apartment lies a bed adorned with two dozen red silk roses wrapped around the wrought-iron head and footboards. He eyes the crisp sheets and the mountain of pillows piled one on top another. The bed of roses becomes a birthday cake, all rich and thick and frosted sweetness. Nino unlaces his boots and places them under the chair. Jade thinks nothing of this until he stands and pulls his sweatshirt over his head. Naked to the waist, Nino’s arms, shoulders, and chest are adorned with tattoos, indelible emblems of his life upon this earth. On his right shoulder is an exquisitely rendered pair of hands clasped in prayer, holding a rosary, and bearing the legend, “Only God Can Judge Me.” Jade looks at these words, barely aware that she is staring. Entranced by his audacity, her eyes are liberated from all modesty as they comb every inch of his dulche de leche flesh. His chest is smooth, hard, and hairless. On his left breast is a name written in a script so ornate, Jade can not read it unless she moves closer but she resists this urge for she does not want to violate his privacy. Underneath the name, there is text that is easier to read. Very simply it states: R.I.P. (1996). She flashes back on Nino rejecting her advances on the corner. Her eyes dart away, afraid to be seen crossing into unfamiliar territory. She continues her tour across his form, feeling her hunger grow, her mouth wet and warm as the sweetest ache begins below. His body tapers into chiseled abs: one, two, three, four, five, six, belt, jeans. The top of another tattoo reveals itself, it is a series of Chinese characters written vertically. It occurs to her he might want something from her and she is nervous with her heart beating in her throat. Something inside her pulls back; its hold is tenuous, like a child’s tooth about to fall out. She wants to let go but everything about Nino is unknown. The nervous energy grows stronger and she chews her thumb until she pulls away some skin and draws blood, releasing tension through the pleasure that can only be found in the creation of pain. The taste of metal traipses across her tongue and swims down the back of her throat. Jade sucks her thumb until the bleeding stops. Photograph Found on Tumblr Image Source Unknown

The saying “the third time’s the charm” has never been so popular among Israelis as the Jewish State fights its third major conflict with Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip in five years. With rockets targeting all of Israel’s major cities for the first time in history, everyone here seems to agree that it’s time for a paradigm shift — that the goals of this conflict should amount to more than just buying time with deterrence before a fourth round of even deadlier violence. Israel’s quandary: Hamas probably weak enough to eradicate — but whoever takes their place will likely be worse One of the biggest dangers Israel faces as it cracks down on the Hamas terror group is that it could be too successful. Hamas is convinced it has everything to play for and little to lose in an escalating battle with the Jewish state. Its government in Gaza is bankrupt, increasingly isolated and friendless, and at risk of being seen as impotent. A war against Israel will burnish its “resistance” credentials and gain it support at home and in some foreign quarters. So with more than 700 rockets already fired from Gaza, Israel can only expect more in the coming days. Even a ground invasion targeting terrorist commanders, command and control structures, tunnels and weapons is unlikely to produce an immediate ceasefire. The Obama administration and other regional players have wrongfully suggested that the ceasefire understandings reached following the last round in 2012, known as Operation Pillar of Defense, should be restored to end the current conflict. For those seeking peace, such logic brings to mind Einstein’s infamous definition of insanity, with regard to repeatedly making the same mistake and expecting different results. Though they are forbidden from voicing opposition to Hamas, most Gazans likely share Israeli sentiments that this round must be the last one. Hamas’s rockets now threaten 80% of Israel’s population, hitting the country’s economy hard at the height of the tourism season. Gaza is in its worst state since Hamas took power in 2007, and the Islamist group’s governing ability is crumbling at the hands of a joint Egyptian-Israeli blockade, unprecedented regional isolation, and the rising tide of Al-Qaeda inspired jihadists. Having failed at slowing its political marginalization with the recent reconciliation agreement with its Fatah rivals, Hamas took an existential gamble by entering into a conflict with Israel. By drawing the spotlight on suffering in Gaza once again, Hamas aims to shame Egypt into opening the Rafah border crossing and coerce the Palestinian Authority into paying the salaries of over 42,000 increasingly angry government employees in Gaza whom Hamas has been unable to compensate for the past three months. Using its unprecedented rocket arsenal, attack tunnels, drones and commando raids, Hamas sought to salvage its image among the Palestinian populace ahead of general elections still slated to take place next winter. But for the time being, the only result of Hamas’ gamble has been the destruction and death brought upon Gaza by Israeli aircraft seeking to target rocket launchers and deploy punishing strikes on the homes of Hamas leaders. Due to Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, Hamas has been unable to inflict mass casualties with their rockets, while every threatened “surprise” cross border raid has been thwarted by the Israeli military. Despite the IDF’s performance, there is a quiet consensus in Jerusalem that military solutions to bring long-term quiet are limited. A ground incursion is likely to only accomplish what cannot be done from the air, and that is to stem, not eradicate, Hamas rocket fire and force the group into a ceasefire. Only a complete recapturing of the Gaza Strip could bring an end to the rocket fire, but would cost Israel crucial international legitimacy, treasure and politically-threatening troop casualties. Lastly, with Fatah unwilling and incapable of taking control of Gaza, dismantling Hamas would make it possible for even more dangerous jihadi groups to fill the void. There is, however, a rare opportunity for a regional arrangement which could ultimately bring an end to the cycle of violence in Gaza. As part of any ceasefire, the international community should demand that Hamas dismantle its rockets and those of other fringe groups in exchange for a lifting of the blockade by Israel and Egypt. Israeli government officials are increasingly citing the Syrian example of a successful case where a credible threat of military force succeeded in extracting destabilizing weapons from the region, in a sign that Jerusalem may be warming up to such an agreement. Hamas’s rejection of Egypt’s latest ceasefire offer on earlier this week proves that the group does not feel sufficiently threatened to make the concessions that would allow for a lifting of the Gaza blockade Critics in Israel and abroad are likely to cite the failure of attempts to disarm Hezbollah as part of UN resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Lebanon War. This time, however, is different. Unlike Hezbollah, Hamas no longer has an open border with which to smuggle advanced weapons and other materials. Though Hamas is becoming increasingly adept at manufacturing its own rockets, it knows that such weapons cannot fill the stomachs of Palestinian children, or put their parents back to work. Hamas is almost entirely dependent on a lifting of the blockade to maintain its seat of power in Gaza, and should be presented with the choice of either abandoning its program or undergoing a complete collapse. Hamas’s rejection of Egypt’s latest ceasefire offer on earlier this week proves that the group does not feel sufficiently threatened to make the concessions that would allow for a lifting of the Gaza blockade. Unified international pressure, including from Hamas’s last remaining backers Qatar and Turkey, is needed alongside assurances that its political stature in the Palestinian arena will be preserved. A UN-mandated multinational force assembled by moderate regional governments should be deployed to oversee the disarmament. If Hamas’s rule collapses, this force would be able to facilitate the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza. For those seeking stability in the eastern Mediterranean, time is running out to mobilize this daring yet doable solution. Israel will continue to intensify its military operations in Gaza until the rockets stop or international pressure swells as a result of civilian casualties, forcing its hand and allowing Hamas to escape without demands to disarm. In a true testament to its character, Hamas is hoping for the latter scenario — anything to preserve its rockets for the next round of destabilizing violence. Daniel Nisman is president of the Levantine Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Tel Aviv. Ron Gilran is vice-president of Intelligence at the Levantine Group.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes can usually count on the firm support of the ultra-Orthodox umbrella group Agudath Israel of America. While Hynes has been lambasted over the years by child abuse survivors and their advocates for his handling of sex abuse cases, Agudath has generally backed what it sees as his sensitive handling of abuse cases in the community. Not this week. The Forward asked Agudath what it made of the D.A.’s blanket refusal to name 85 Orthodox Jews charged with sex crimes. The D.A.’s office denied the Forward’s Freedom of Information Law request by claiming that all Orthodox Jewish sex abuse suspects should have their identities protected because of the community’s “tight-knit and insular” nature. Rabbi David Zwiebel, Agudath’s executive vice president and a legal expert, defended the D.A.’s right to evaluate whether to release the names of offenders on a case-by-case basis, according to Agudath spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran. Such an evaluation could take into account whether naming the suspect might allow the victim to be identified. But a blanket policy of withholding names of perpetrators should not be “across the board” in any community, he said. Meanwhile, some of the most prominent advocates for child-sex abuse victims criticized Hynes for his remarkable claim that Orthodox Jews accused of child sex crimes should enjoy a blanket protection from being identified. The head of a group named in honor of Megan Kanka, the New Jersey girl whose 1994 murder inspired the passage of the eponymous laws mandating community notification about sex offenders, said the policy would leave children “more vulnerable.” Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was abducted and murdered from the family’s home in Petaluma, Calif., cut to the heart of the matter. “The public has the right to know,” he told the Forward. Now that the largest umbrella group for ultra-Orthodoxy also says it does not agree with Hynes, one has to wonder: Who does?

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- The Celebrity Life of Ben Shapiro and the Ben Shapiro Net Worth 2018 - Introduction To Complete Ben Shapiro Biography: - Early Life Of Ben Shapiro And Some Facts About Him: - What Is The Ben Shapiro Net Worth? His Net Worth, Income Sources And Life Style: - The Personal Life Of Ben Shapiro with Wife and Kids: - His Road To Success, His Complete Story, Achievements And Ben Shapiro Net Worth 2018: - Ben Shapiro Public Appearances, Controversial Statements, And Aftermaths: - Ben Shapiro Speaks At The University of Missouri (2015): - Ben Shapiro’s Lecture At The California State University (2016): - Ben Shapiro Makes An Appearance At The DePaul University (2016): - Frequently Asked Questions: The Celebrity Life of Ben Shapiro and the Ben Shapiro Net Worth 2018 The world changed after the attacks of 9/11. The way people in America used to see the world changed with it. This further gave birth to different events that to more changes on the international grounds. This included deployment of troops around the world, the invasion of Afghanistan, Attacks on Iraq and many other events. These series of events changed the way the American people shared an opinion about the rest of the world. The American people had a new perception of the type government they elected. All of this is keenly watched by Think Tanks and analysts that are associated with the media all over the world. Their opinions are heard and talked about by people all over the world. One of such individuals is known as Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro is one of the biggest names amidst the American political commentators and journalists. He is famous for being a young individual who does not only have eyes on American politics. He is an author, lawyer, and editor-in-chief of Daily Wire. Not only this, Ben Shapiro Net Worth in 2018 has reached to around $4 million and to around $4.5 million at the age of 34. 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Apart from the luxurious lifestyle that is because of a successful career and the Ben Shapiro Net Worth 2018, he lives a life built on principles. He is always clear about his needs and vision for his future. Ben Shapiro and Ben Shapiro’s wife practice Orthodox Judaism. They have a strong mind and a professional appearance every time when he is on TV, at work or with his family. He is well spoken and has a strong mind which is evident in his work as a columnist and an author of more than 17 books. His rise to fame is because of having an influence in almost every field of life. These include his career as a journalist, writer, lawyer, media celebrity and political career as a Conservative Party member. The Personal Life Of Ben Shapiro with Wife and Kids: Ben Shapiro lives a very subtle and scandal-free life both as a celebrity and as a married man in his personal life. In the year 2008, he was married Mor Toledano, in Acre. Mor Toledano is an of the Israeli-Morrcon descent. Ben Shapiro got engaged to Ben Shapiro’s girlfriend Mor in the year 2007 after dating for quite some time. Ben Shapiro has a family with 2 children as of yet. His kids comprise a daughter who was born in the year 2014 and then was blessed with a son in the year 2016. His daughter’s name is Leeya Eliana Shapiro. Leeya suffered from the atrial septal defect during her early childhood days and had to go through an open heart surgery procedure in the year 2015. Mor Taledano was a medical student when the couple started dating. Ben claimed that she has started off with the career in the field of medicine in one of his recent tweets. When Leeya was 6 days old only, Ben wrote a letter for his daughter which can be read on sources over the internet. It shows his love and dedication that Ben Shapiro has for Ben Shapiro’s family. His Road To Success, His Complete Story, Achievements And Ben Shapiro Net Worth 2018: After completing and becoming a graduate of the Harvard Law School, Ben Shapiro provided legal services to some of the major clients. Many of his clients are part of the media industry. He did so by establishing a firm and providing independent legal consultancy at his company. The firms’ name was Goodwin Procter LLP. But Ben had his eyes amidst the stars. He had that intellect that urged him to give up his full-time career as a legal consultant. He decided to pursue a career as a writer and focused on issues that mainly involved issues in American politics. This resulted in Ben Shapiro becoming one of the nationally syndicated columnists. This became his record while he was still getting his education at the University Of California, Los Angeles which is also known as UCLA. At the same time, he also proceeded with getting his books published starting from the age of 17. His books have always been must read and one of the bestsellers on Amazon and many other platforms that include many successful titles like: - Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth published in the year 2004. - Generation Sex: Exposing The Full Frontal Assault On American Innocence published in the year2005. - Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future published in the year 2005. - Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House published in the year 2008. - Primetime Propaganda published in the year 2011. - How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans published in the year 2013. - The People Vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against the Obama Administration published in the year 2014. - The Left’s Phantom Wars published in the year 2015. - Terrains 2015: Mapping Learning Environment Evaluation Across the Design and Education Landscape: Towards the Evidence-Based Design of Educational Facilities published in the year 2015. - A Moral Universe Torn Apart published in the year 2016. - True Allegiance published in the year 2016. - Say It’s So: Papa, Dad, Me, and 2005 White Sox Championship Season published in the year 2017. - The Establishment Is Dead: The Rise and Election of Donald Trump published in the year 2017. - America 2030: What the End of the Free World Looks Like, and How to Stop It. This got published in the year 2017. - And We All Fall Down published in the year 2017. - Evil in America published in the year 2017. - Soul Sick. (The book is expected to be available in the year 2019) In the year 2012, Ben Shapiro tapped into journalism and served as the editor-at-large of Breitbart.com. This is a conservative website founded by Andrew Breitbart. After four years of service, he resigned from the position because of criticism that the publication was not able to do enough for Michelle Fields who was allegedly assaulted by one of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager. Later, Ben created Daily Wire which is a conservative news website as the editor in chief. He precedes the website with a podcast called “The Shapiro Show”. Also, he is a regular guest on almost all major talks that air on News channels and is followed by people on Facebook (3.7 million), Twitter (1.3 million), (157,833 subscribers) and Ben Shapiro’s Net Worth 2018 that is valued at $4 million. Ben Shapiro Public Appearances, Controversial Statements, And Aftermaths: Ben Shapiro has a huge fan base that comprises of the American Youth that follows him and listens to his lectures that he delivers online and on campuses. Ben Shapiro’s lectures and reviews are famous of their logic and bash students and individuals who oppose his thoughts and work. He also uses social media platforms like YouTube and many other platforms that become viral. Ben Shapiro debates and lectures are more focused towards different issues. He supports Israel. Also, he stresses on maintaining a different approach towards foreign policy as well. He encourages freedom of speech and other aspects of Conservatism. He has spoken at more than 35 campuses during the year 2016 and 2017. Some of these speeches Ben Shapiro Speaks At The University of Missouri (2015): Ben Shapiro was invited to speak on “The Truth Is A Micro Aggression”. It was meant to cover almost all aspects of life at the American colleges and campuses. It also highlighted the behavior of the students of the current era and things they come across in and beyond the campus life. The theater that was supposed to hold the lecture was full of students and more than 400 students attended the lecture. The lecture was also covered via Live-Stream and was viewed by more 129,000 students worldwide. Ben Shapiro’s Lecture At The California State University (2016): Ben Shapiro made an appearance to deliver a lecture at the California State University. The university is one of the most prestigious universities in LA. Here he conducted a lecture outlining the topic “When Diversity Becomes A Problem”. The major aspects of Ben Shapiro’s speech pinpointed aspects of micro-aggression and factors and elements that are becoming a hindrance to freedom of speech. He considers aspects like skin color as other values of the diversity of thought are being set behind. The speech received heavy criticism and resistance by students. Student protestors demanded that the university should cancel the speech and be labeling it as “hate speech”. The President of the University named William Covino responded to that and the speech eventually got canceled around three days before it was scheduled to happen. Ben responded to it by saying that he would be attending this lecture anyway and threatened the university to file a lawsuit if the event would be canceled. William Covino had to step down and allowed the lecture to take place. On the day the speech was supposed to be held numerous protestors who were students at the university blocked the doors of the theater by forming a human chain and a serious protest started on the campus. Anybody attempting to cross the doors was shoved away and a few fights started in the lobby. However, several students made their way to the theater through the back doors. The protestors found that out and those doors were also blocked as well. Soon Shapiro made it to the theater too and began his lecture until the fire alarm was pulled up by a protestor. Ben Shapiro carried on with the speech and termed William Cavino as a “coward” and the protestors as “fascists” and “Spoiled Brat Snowflakes”. After Ben was done with the speech, he had to be escorted via a secret way by the police and his bodyguards. The people inside that theater were asked not to leave as they were an angry mob outside that was preventing the attendees to leave. However, after a few months, a lawsuit was filed against the university. Ben Shapiro Makes An Appearance At The DePaul University (2016): In the year 2016, Ben Shapiro was invited at the DePaul University where he was a guest at the College Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom. The event also featured Christina Hoff Sommers. They focused on different aspects of free speech at college campuses in America and ways the Trump’s Election as America’s President has affected that. Ben Shapiro was banned on official grounds from visiting the campus to speak or attend the event. Ben Shapiro promised that he would attend the event no matter what. When he arrived he was stopped by public safety officer at the campus and told him that he would be arrested if he will try to appear at the hall. Ben called Sommers, who was also there at the event and told her that he would shift to a nearby location where he would speak. Sommers and the audience present there moved to Ben’s location and joined him for the speech. Apart from all of the above, Ben Shapiro has controversial views regarding Muslims, Israel, African Americans, Liberals of the Current Age. Ben Shapiro’s Net Neutrality speech received a lot of bashing by different technical individuals on social media. Also, the Rosie O’ Donnell Ben Shapiro feud took strength over Twitter which turned out to be a huge debate full off strong language and Ben Shapiro’s sarcastic replies. Also, Ben Shapiro’s Black Panther reviews seemed to be a little racist and had a different view of the movie. Despite the fact that the movie’s hype is highly justified as far the storyline is concerned. The Ben Shapiro University of Utah visit in 2017 also ended up in a lot of protests and unrest. Many students who resisted and reacted to his session did not support his opinions and Conservative views. Ben Shapiro’s views that are reflected in his speeches and lectures are highly resisted by the American youth. Most of them who are students at different colleges, etc. At the same time, his life story and the way he became a gold standard individual is outstanding. When it comes to taking inspiration from and looking for people who achieved success at a very young age, Ben Shapiro is a true inspiration. Ben Shapiro has an amazing personality and intellect that led to his current success, Ben Shapiro’s Net Worth in 2018 and lifestyle and the fame he has today. He speaks on affairs and problems that the American Youth has to face in the modern world. Frequently Asked Questions: Where Is Ben Shapiro From? Ben Shapiro, who is famous an author, journalist. He is also an individual famous for being one of the most profound American conservative political commentators. He is from Los Angeles, California. He is famous to have Ben Shapiro Net Worth 2018 that ranges at about $4 million to $4.5 million. Who Is Ben Shapiro? Ben Shapiro is an American Conservative party supporter and editor-in-chief of a conservative news website of The Daily Wire. He is also known as one of the most controversial political speakers, author, and lawyer. In a very short time, Ben earned himself some amazing reputation and money in the Ben Shapiro Net Worth 2018. He is also an author of many books on different aspects of politics, etc. How Much Is Ben Shapiro Net Worth? Ben Shapiro Net Worth 2018 that ranges from about $4 million to $4.5 million. Things that make up the Ben Shapiro Net Worth in 2018 include his amazing career as a conservative American journalist and author. His career as the editor in chief of Daily Wire. Apart from that, he has an annual salary of $500,000 and a range of luxury cars that is worth $580,000. He also has many other assets that make up the Ben Shapiro Net Worth 2018. How Much Is Ben Shapiro Worth? Ben Shapiro, who is known to be one of the famous political commentators on American politics. He has a keen eye on global politics and political atmosphere of America. He is known to be the editor in chief of Daily Wire and journalist. Ben Shapiro Net Worth in 2018 is estimated $4 million and is also recorded at $4.5 million according to many sources. How Old Is Ben Shapiro? When Was He Born? Ben Shapiro was born in Los Angeles on the 15th of January 1984. Ben Shapiro parents are Jewish and migrated from Russia and settled in LA. He is one of the high hitting journalists, author and American Political commentator from the conservative party. Ben Shapiro’s Net Worth in 2018 was recorded at $4 million and according to some sources it is $4.5 million. His age as of yet Is 34 years old. Ben Shapiro Net Worth in 2018 is estimated $4 million and is also recorded at $4.5 million according to many sources.

Last weekend, for the first time in more years than I would like to admit, I participated in the Limmud NY conference, held (appropriately, for those who believe New Yorkers are inherently imperialistic) in Stamford, Connecticut. Limmud is now a global “brand” for dozens of conferences held annually around the world, including the “mother ship” that takes place in England each December. Limmud NY is North America’s largest, with more than 700 participants, and it’s distinctive among Jewish conferences in several ways. It has no theme – except for the theme of Jewish learning itself. And Jewish learning is defined very broadly, from text study to Jewish cooking. It’s remarkably diverse and inclusive, with teachers and participants of every age, background, and affiliation. And, it’s democratic: There are invited presenters (of whom I was privileged to be one), but it’s also open to anyone to submit a proposal to speak. image courtesy of Yossi Hoffman Photography For obvious reasons, there’s no way to sum up a Limmud conference or even pick out a single dominating thread. I was intrigued, though, that one of the topics I chose to present on, the ostensible tension between particularism and universalism, reappeared in various forms in several other sessions. The phrase “universalism vs. particularism” is itself a shorthand for a number of different issues. Sociologically – and this certainly came up at the conference – Judaism’s or the Jewish community’s “particularism” is often cited as a barrier to engaging young Jews with Jewish life. Judaism’s particularist claims, embodied in the concept of Jewish peoplehood and the notion of a special responsibility of one Jew for another, are seen by some as parochial and ethically unjustifiable. When particularism translates into a call for endogamy, it’s even seen as “racist.” On the other side, there are those who argue that without a strong sense of peoplehood and an affirmation of Jewish distinctiveness, we not only put our survival in peril, we lose the capacity to be the “light unto the nations” that our ethical mission demands. On a more philosophical level, the issue may appear in the form of the question of whether Judaism is a universal religion with a message for everyone, or one intended and relevant only for Jews. The flip side of this is another question: Does Judaism have anything distinctive to say anyway, or is it not the case that all religions (and other non-religious philosophies) ultimately promote the same universal values? We need to take these concerns and questions very seriously. In fact, in our open society, how we deal with the dynamics of universalism and particularism may be the single most important factor in determining what Jewish life will look like in the decades ahead. At our foundation, we believe that universalism and particularism are not in irreconcilable tension with one another. We believe that Jewish Wisdom speaks to universal concerns with a particular voice through what we call “Jewish Sensibilities.” And, we believe that Jewish life can be open and embracing of all while preserving the special character that comes from being part of a community with a distinctive story and history. No question, though: How to make the Jewish blend of the universal and the particular work in today’s world is a challenge. What do we say to the young person who wants to know why we should give priority to Jewish causes in our philanthropy (should we?) or why it’s important that the Jewish people survive or Israel remain a “Jewish state”? What do we say to the individual who asks why we should go out of our way to help others when so many Jews remain in need? How do we answer the claim that all religions are alike, or that we would be better off if, as John Lennon imagined, there were “no religions too”? And, what about those who insist that only Judaism has the truth and that we need not pay attention to what any other tradition has to say? The questions aren’t going away; how will we answer? Чистота заключена в буквальном значении имени - Капля Росы. В ушах зазвучал голос старого канадца. Капля Росы.

Iranian radio revives Papal-Jewish conspiracy theories Tuesday, November 14, 2006 Iranian state broadcaster Voice of Islamic Republic of Iran has published a report on its English-language web site outlining a theory of an alleged conspiracy involving Pope Benedict XVI and former U.S. secretary of state Dr. Henry Kissinger. The report revives earlier claims of a Papal-Jewish conspiracy reported by some media outlets in Arab and Muslim countries. Commenting on a recent private audience granted to Dr. Kissinger by Pope Benedict XVI, the Iranian broadcaster described Kissinger as "anti-Christian" presumably because he is Jewish. The Iranian radio stated that "this is not the first time the Vatican, which claims to be champion of Christianity uses foreign, anti-Christian experts." Citing a report by the Italian daily newspaper La Stampa, the Iranian radio reported that "the Leader of the Catholic sect of Christianity, Pope Benedict XVI has called on former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, a Jew who does not believe in either Prophet Jesus (peace upon him) or his Virgin mother, Mary (peace upon her), to become a member of the Vatican’s consultative council on foreign policy." Iranian radio further claimed that the previous Roman-Catholic pontiff, Pope John Paul II, also consulted with foreign "anti-Christian" experts, in this case the former U.S. national security adviser, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski. Like the previous pope, Dr. Brzezinski is both Polish and Catholic -- the fact acknowledged by the Iranian broadcaster. Dr. Brzezinski's last name was misspelled on the Iranian radio web site as "Berzhinsky." Dr. Kissinger was born in Germany, which is also the birthplace of Pope Benedict XVI. Young Henry Kissinger and his immediate family managed to escape Nazi persecution of Jews by immigrating to the United States in the 1930s. As a proof that there may be an anti-Muslim conspiracy involving Dr. Kissinger, the Iranian broadcaster asserted that one of the most important topics of his contacts with Pope Benedict XVI "are related to resurgent Islam, which is claiming more and more adherents around the globe." Pope Benedict XVI came earlier under severe criticism in Muslim countries for his comments about the history of Islam made during the visit to his native Germany in September 2006. Some media commentators in the West also criticized the pope for his comments as contributing to religious tensions, while others defended his right to discuss the history of Islam. The Jewish-American Anti Defamation League reported that media outlets in Muslim countries claimed there was a Jewish conspiracy behind the pope's comments. In reviving the Jewish-Papal conspiracy theory, the Iranian radio did not explain what makes both Dr. Kissinger and Dr. Brzezinski "anti-Christian" and why the popes would knowingly consult on a regular basis with people holding anti-Christian views. Commenting on the Iranian broadcast,FreeMediaOnline.org, a California-based nonprofit media watch organization supporting press freedom worldwide, reported that audiences which tend to believe broad propaganda claims are not likely to question logical and factual inconsistencies such as those contained in the Iranian broadcast. Iranian media reports with anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli claims often have factual mistakes and are frequently written in ungrammatical and difficult to understand English. - Ted Lipien. "Iranian Radio Revives Papal-Jewish Conspiracy Theories" — , November 12, 2006 - "Stories Kissinger, Pope's Advisor!" — , November 11, 2006 - "Arab/Muslim Media Allege Jewish Conspiracy Behind Pope's Comments" — , September 19, 2006 - Dr. Aref Assaf. "Pope is Wrong" — , September 17, 2006

Pope prays for stronger ties between Vatican and Islam during second leg of his three-day visit to Turkey. Pope Francis has taken part in a Muslim prayer alongside the Grand Mufti of Istanbul on the second leg of his three-day visit to Turkey. Francis stood on Saturday morning with his head bowed and hands clasped in front of him in a two minutes of silent prayer inside the 17th-century Sultan Ahmet mosque, aiming to show respect for Islam and encourage stronger ties between the two faiths. “May God accept it,” Rahmi Yaran, the Grand Mufti of Istanbul told the pope at the end of the prayer. Earlier, Yaran gave Francis a tour of the mosque which is famed for its elaborate blue tiles and cascading domes and better known as the Blue Mosque. Francis then visited the nearby Haghia Sofia, which was the main Byzantine church in Constantinople – present-day Istanbul – before being turned into a mosque following the Muslim conquest of the city in 1453. The Haghia Sophia is now museum, although some Islamic groups want it to be converted back into a mosque. A few dozen well-wishers outside Haghia Sophia waved a combination of the Turkish and the flag of the Holy See The Bible explains that many antichrists have walked into the world. One of the ways to discern them, is to study their doctrines. They will eventually deny that the Jewish Messiah has come in the flesh. Islam outright reject that God of Israel exist. No need to underline that their “allah” do not have a Son. For Muslims it is all about the moon “god” of Mecca. When we see the Pope pray towards Mecca, it is a bona fide proof of the Pope’s submission to Islam. How can the Pope do this? The Pope also reject that the Jewish Messiah has come in the flesh. The Vatican claim that both the father and mother of their “Christ” are divine beings. The mother of “Christ” is a sinless Roman pagan goddess, the Queen of Heaven. Since this “Christ” of Rome has no human parent, he has not come in the flesh. Few people will worship Him in spirit and in truth. When he returns, only a remnant of God will still obey Him. I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? The Christ of Rome is not the Son of Man. He is a copy-cat, one of the most dangerous antichrists. These few verses from the Bible exposes the anti-christ’s among us. 1 John 4:2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. 2 John 1:7 I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. Anti-christ’s of different kinds will eventually join hands, and create a new universal (Catholic) brotherhood of “peace”. They have all accepted a spirit that is not from God of the Bible, but a counterfeit spirit. The worst of them all, is the Roman Catholic claimed to be “holy spirit”. This spirit leads the catholics into blasphemy against God of the Bible, in the name of “Christ”. They are led into sin and blasphemy against the true Holy Spirit, a mortal sin that can never be forgiven. ” but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” The Bible explains that people who mock God in the name of “Christ” will never be lead into repentance. When they face trouble they rather curse God, and continue to worship their idols. It is truly a pitfull state of existence, children being cursed by their parents from birth. Millions of Catholics have been rebuked and told the truth, but are neither willing, nor able to understand and repent. The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. May Jesus the Messiah have mercy on all these souls, the Pope leads towards the eternal fire of Hell. May someone preach boldly to them, and snatch some of them out of the fire. Amen. Written by Ivar

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by Akiva at Mystical Paths Shemitta is the 7 year growing cycle and mitvah in the Torah, where on the 7th year a number of special rules apply about leaving the land fallow, specifically the Land of Israel. (Similar to resting on the 7th day, for Shabbat, we allow the land (and ourselves) to rest on the 7th year.) Nowadays, when most of us are not farmers in the Land of Israel, there are not too many practical impacts to one's life, especially if you are outside of Israel. But, here are two you should pay serious attention to... 1. Forgiving of Debts. There are a number of specific required mitzvot relating to the forgiving of personal debts in the 7th year. While there are differences of opinion on whether this activates at the beginning of the shemitta year or at the end, if you have personal debts owed to you that you're not prepared to forgive, you should consult your competent orthodox rabbi immediately about a pruzbul. Immediately means BEFORE the start of Rosh Hashanah. 2. Consuming the produce of the Land of Israel. Fruits (and vetitables) of the 7th year are considered to have a special level of holiness, and therefore special rules. G-d forbid, one should not avoid Israeli food products or the fruits/vegetables, rather one should learn a bit and/or consult one's competent orthodox rabbi. Hirhurim has a nice brief overview here. Naturally, this only applies to Israeli produce from Jewish farms harvested after Rosh Hashanah. The Lubavitcher Rebbe specifically noted in the past... We must encourage, motivate and stimulate the proper preparations for the observance of the laws of Shemittah in Eretz Yisroel. Many of the pertinent laws apply during the period starting with Rosh Chodesh Elul. The observance of Shemittah incurs financial sacrifices on many levels, for this reason it is good and proper that everyone should contribute, as soon as possible, to the "Keren HaShemittah" (fund to support the observance of Shemittah). In this way the donor will be counted among the "guardians of Shemittah," who are referred to as: His messengers, armed with strength that fulfill His word, to obey the voice of His word. - (Tehillim 103:20) ... Another important practice connected to the Shemittah year applies in contemporary times for all Jews in Eretz Yisroel as well as in the diaspora. This is the "Pruzbul" contract which transfers all debts receivable to a rabbinic court. The Alter Rebbe writes in the Shulchan Aruch: Every G-d-fearing individual should be strict to make a Pruzbul in which there is no loss and which is easy to do. He should gather three qualified men and form a Bais Din and he should make the following declaration: "I hereby transfer to you all debts receivable which I have, so that I may be permitted to collect them whenever I wish." ...the proper time for the enactment of the Pruzbul is at the close of the sixth year before Rosh Hashanah of the seventh (Shemittah) year. - (Shulchan Aruch Harav, Choshen Mishpot, Loans, 1:35-36) It is likewise a mitzvah to publicize this rule in all places. Since the appropriate time for the Pruzbul is Erev Rosh Hashanah, it will be good and proper to make the Pruzbul immediately after Hataras Nedarim (absolution of oaths) on the morning of Erev Rosh Hashanah; at that time the three competent people will be available. L'Shana Tova, may Hashem grant you a good year! Support the Path! - Posted at Mystical Paths, MPaths.com. BS"D - בסיעתא דשמיא

'The First Time I Put On Tefillin Since The War' An emotional group bar and bat mitzvah ceremony was held on Monday at Jerusalem's Western Wall (Kotel). The 87 participants were not 13- and 12-year-old boys and girls - they were elderly Holocaust survivors who had been robbed of the ceremony signifying Jewish adulthood by the Nazi regime. The unique event was set in motion nine months ago, when workers and volunteers of Magen David Adom's (MDA) Holon station began volunteering at the local "Europe Britania" club for elderly in the city. Members of the station met with elderly weekly through the club, and got to know their stories. Two months ago, while remembering their experiences in the Holocaust, a number of the elderly noted that they never had a bar or bat mitzvah due to the Nazi persecution. Upon hearing this, MDA workers decided to hold a late ceremony for the elderly survivors. The plans bore fruition on Monday at the Kotel (Western Wall); "there we split into groups, each group traveled in the area and afterwards we held bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies with (the survivors) at the synagogue adjacent to the Kotel," said Ilan Teller, responsible for the MDA volunteers in Holon. "The men put on tefillin (phylacteries), donned talit (prayer shawls), and went up to the Torah, according to the ritual. The women, who were in the women's section, threw candies at the participants and had the ceremony exactly as the youth do," added Teller. Teller noted that Kotel Chief Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich took part in the event, blessing the survivors, and that each one of them received a certificate from the club attesting to their having reached the age of Torah commandments. "Yesterday was the first time I put on tefillin since the war" One survivor who finally got to hold his bar mitzvah, 80-year-old Yaakov Eckstein, noted that he was born in Hungary, and at the age of ten was put into a ghetto. From there he was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen death camp. "When I was freed by the Russians, I was already 11-and-a-half. After we searched for relatives and friends in Hungary and discovered none of them had made it home, we were forced to return to Germany," recounted Eckstein. "When I was 13, it didn't even cross my mind to have a bar mitzvah. It wasn't a possibility. In 1948, I immigrated to Israel with my brother, and since then we are here," added Eckstein. "Since the day I was freed from Germany I didn't pray or step in a synagogue. Yesterday was the first time I put on tefillin since the war." MDA Director General Eli Bin remarked "there's no doubt that with the help of MDA Holon station workers and volunteers, Holocaust survivors and those pursued by the Nazis got to experience something that will hopefully ease, if only a little, the trauma they experienced and their lost childhoods." Bin noted that MDA is collecting donations to feed the elderly for the Passover holiday, and helping solitary elderly throughout Israel.

In a key scene in "Masterpiece Theatre's" "Daniel Deronda," adapted from George Eliot's 1876 novel, the hero attends a Zionist meeting. "Isn't the way forward through assimilation?" asks Deronda (Hugh Dancy), an orphaned aristocrat unsure of his roots. "When we pretend to be what we are not, we lose a bit of our souls," Mordecai, a Jewish mystic, replies. If the early Zionist movement seems an unlikely topic for a Victorian novel, Eliot ("Middlemarch," "Silas Marner") was an unlikely Victorian novelist. "She raised eyebrows," said "Deronda's" Jewish producer, Louis Marks, who spearheaded the teledrama with screenwriter Andrew Davies. Born Mary Ann Evans, Eliot began shocking people when she rejected Christianity at age 22, according to Marks. She was further shunned when she moved in with her married lover in 1854. Although the unofficial editor of the influential Westminster Review, she was never publicly acknowledged because she was a woman. In 1859, she began publishing a string of acclaimed, socially conscious novels under the pseudonym George Eliot. Her final novel was "Deronda." "As an outsider, she identified with the Jewish experience of oppression," Marks said. "She was outraged and disgusted by the degree of anti-Semitism that existed in English society," Davies, Marks' longtime collaborator, said. Eliot began writing "Deronda" after befriending the German-born scholar Emmanuel Deutsch, the prototype for the fictional Mordecai. An official in the Jewish manuscripts department of the British Museum, he taught Eliot Hebrew and about the then-nascent idea of Zionism. When he was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the 1870s, he went off to die in Jerusalem. "That inspired Eliot," said Marks, whose daughter lives in Beersheva. "His return to his roots perhaps moved her to create Deronda, a man also struggling to find his roots." The producer said the novel inspired early Zionist leaders such as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and aristocrats who backed Britain's Balfour Declaration, the first political recognition of Zionism. With war erupting in the Middle East, he believes its message is equally relevant today: "Many people are worried about Israel's survival, and 'Deronda' makes people aware of what is at stake," he said. The two-part drama airs March 30 and 31 on KCET. We welcome your feedback. Your information will not be shared or sold without your consent. Get all the details. Terms of Service JewishJournal.com has rules for its commenting community.Get all the details. JewishJournal.com reserves the right to use your comment in our weekly print publication.

A Heartbreaking Picture of Rare Genius Shows America Without Jews Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is the best film of 2014, and one of the least Jewish movies ever made There’s a scene in Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s acclaimed new film, where three generations of the extended family chronicled in the story sit around one evening singing and playing guitar (I think it’s “The Old Black Crow”). They’re at the very modest rural house of the protagonist Mason’s paternal grandparents celebrating his 15th birthday, and the camera pans from face to face to reveal what they share as a family and what the culture of this family is. These are people who are just a generation or two from living country-music lives in country-music places. You just know their ancestors fought on the Confederate side in the Civil War (there’s also that name “Mason”) and that their ancestors were not plantation owners, slave owners, but poor whites. The scene contains something revelatory about a group of Americans—and while it brought tears to my eyes, I also knew it was a place I couldn’t enter. Boyhood is not only the best movie many of us may see in 2014—it’s one of the least Jewish serious movies around. It is not just that there are no visibly Jewish characters, but that it depicts a world in which Jewish culture has left hardly any traces besides the Old Testament. Boyhood is about white-bread America, and its matter-of-fact-ness about this setting is part of its greatness. The film’s WASP-iness comes with the territory, which is middle-class Texas life. There are only a few African Americans and Asians on screen; more Mexican-Americans. After all, it was once their land. The non-Jewishness of Boyhood is also in the particular problems of this family: Olivia, the mother, marries three times, first to a charming, feckless wannabe musician, then to two alcoholics. Olivia’s first husband, Mason Jr.’s father, Mason, left her to work on an Alaskan fishing boat and write music. Olivia’s third husband is a corrections officer. The kids go to college, but it’s assumed they’ll go within the University of Texas system to save on costs. Grandparents bestow birthday gifts of a hunting rifle and a personalized Bible. Snacks are white-bread sandwiches and celery stalks filled with peanut butter. There’s an evangelical church service that is presented head-on, without snickering. So is the Pledge of Allegiance, and—something I hadn’t known about—a shorter pledge to the State Flag of Texas. Not for nothing do they call it the Lone Star Republic. This is not my slice of America, but it’s a very big slice. And it’s one of the first times it has appeared on screen in such straightforward profundity. Linklater doesn’t think he’s smarter than his characters, or that we are. He is, after all, directing his own daughter, who plays Samantha. Nor does he think these people are purer or better than anyone else. They are just his people. Nor does Linklater judge America, though his characters sometimes do. Mason Sr. excoriates George W. Bush for the Iraq war, and Olivia’s third husband, whom we meet as a recently returned, sympathetic Iraq vet, claims his unit treated the Iraqis like fellow human beings but that the unit that relieved them undid their good work in three days. The majesty of Boyhood consists in its taking for granted its American landscape in both its beauty and ugliness just as the greatest European movies take for granted theirs. Houston appears on screen as banal as it does in real life, though with its moments of beauty; the stupendously awful urban sprawl isn’t dwelled upon as any kind of extraordinary discovery, but neither is it ignored. Same for young and old Mason’s sacred space, the National Parks of Texas, particularly Big Bend, where the movie closes. Boyhood shows us people who assume that life is a matter of working hard and taking the licks that fate brings you without whining. It also looks upon the world as a blessed place where good can happen and where it makes sense to ask, as Mason does, whether elves exist. One of the blessings Linklater celebrates is art—for this family, it takes the form of rock and country music and photography. Another is family love. There is an almost Tolstoyan grasp of human imperfection and the way families provide a space not only for grotesqueries but also for tolerance. (I happen to be re-reading War and Peace now, so the comparison comes faster than it might otherwise.) There’s sex in Boyhood, there’s a sense for the sweetness of young couples discovering their pleasure in each others’ bodies, but there’s little eroticism: white-bread America again. Mason’s Austin weekend trip with his high-school girlfriend Sheena includes going to hear country music and a visit to an all-night diner. I began by saying I could not enter the space of Boyhood—and this is true. If I were to meet these characters in San Marcos, where Olivia teaches, I’d stick out no matter how much I tried to blend in. “Where are you from?” they would ask, also meaning, “what ethnicity are you—you look like you could be Mexican, but you have an East Coast accent and are clearly not from around here.” (They’d say the same to an Italian-American or Greek-American.) I don’t envy these lives, which are harder than mine. But I am in awe of Linklater’s compassion and even-handed humanity, which are the qualities in the American grain that offer the greatest blessings—for me as an individual, as an American, and as a Jew. Like this article? Sign up for our Daily Digest to get Tablet Magazine’s new content in your inbox each morning. As a new bride-to-be, I can’t look away from tonight’s episode of the reality TV series starring Andi Dorfman

Patriarch: Serbs must return to Kosovo The most important request of Serbia in all talks about Kosovo needs to be the return of Serbs, Serbian Patriarch Irinej has said. Patriarch Irinej (Tanjug, file) “One of the first steps and items in the talks, today and tomorrow, a condition and request we need to set is the return of a large number of Serbs to Kosovo and Metohija,” he said at a ceremony marking the ninth anniversary of pogrom against Serbs in Kosovo. Irinej noted that 240,000 Serbs had been expelled from Kosovo and that it was the country’s obligation to help those who still lived in Kosovo and the displaced to return to their homes. He added that one should not despair over Kosovo’s faith and that Kosovo “is, will be and will remain Serbian as long as it is in our thoughts”. “If some audacious power makes us lose Kosovo and Metohija, we will always have an example of the Jewish people who waited for Jerusalem for 2,000 years and finally got it,” the patriarch noted. He underscored that nobody was held accountable for the violence against Serbs that lasted from March 17 until March 19, 2004. “I am sure that if we had something like that, the whole world would have known it. Books and books would have been written and stories about the evil would have been told,” the patriarch said. He added that Orthodox churches and monasteries had no value if there were no Serbian people in Kosovo. “If we survived five centuries under Turks, we will survive this as well. We must not despair,” the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) said. The manifestation dubbed “Crime without Punishment”, which was held at the National Theatre in Belgrade was organized by the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo. The event was attended by Prime Minister Ivica Dačić. Today marks nine years since the March pogrom. In just three days, Kosovo Albanians expelled more than 4,000 Serbs and destroyed numerous churches and monasteries. March 12, 2013 | 09:45 | Source: B92 | Comments: (21) | Send comment BELGRADE -- Ten years ago today the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Serbia and Democratic Party leader Zoran Đinđić was assassinated. March 14, 2013 | 20:25 | Source: Tanjug | Comments: (9) | Send comment BELGRADE -- Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Patriarch Irinej on Thursday congratulated Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio on his election as Pope Francis I. March 14, 2013 | 14:10 | Source: Beta | Comments: (17) | Send comment BELGRADE -- Serbia is among the leading countries in Europe by the mortality rate, according to a report on health in Europe for 2012, carried by Beta news agency. March 15, 2013 | 11:44 | Source: B92, Beta, Tanjug | Comments: (18) | Send comment ZVEČAN, NIŠ, PRIJEPOLJE -- Rivers have overtopped their banks in central Serbia and Kosovo, causing floods and numerous problems. March 15, 2013 | 18:18 | Source: Tanjug | Comments: (9) | Send comment BELGRADE -- The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Belgrade Stanislav Hočevar says the Holy See "has always been on the side of justice". March 15, 2013 | 16:53 | Source: Beta | Comments: (1) | Send comment VRANJE -- Vranje Deputy Mayor Bojana Veličkov says an agreement has been reached with representatives of the U.S. Embassy and B92 Fund to build a safe house in the town. March 15, 2013 | 20:23 | Source: B92 | Comments: (3) | Send comment BELGRADE, NIŠ -- The head of the OSCE in Serbia has called for "respect and civility in public dialogue", after a debate organized with the assistance of the OSCE was disrupted. March 11, 2013 | 16:27 | Source: Tanjug | Comments: (1) | Send comment BELGRADE -- Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić on Monday signed the book of condolences at the embassy of Venezuela in Belgrade. March 13, 2013 | 13:54 | Source: Tanjug | Comments: (6) | Send comment BELGRADE -- Milovan Suvakov and Veljko Dmitrašinović have made a breakthrough in the three centuries-old problem known in physics as the three-body problem. March 15, 2013 | 13:43 | Source: Tanjug | Comments: (3) | Send comment BELGRADE -- The PTT Museum in Belgrade has organized an exhibition to mark 130 years since the first telephone line was established in our country. March 12, 2013 | 10:00 | Source: Tanjug | Comments: (13) | Send comment BELGRADE -- Political comrades and supporters laid wreaths on Monday in honor of Slobodan Milošević, late president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia. March 13, 2013 | 16:00 | Source: Tanjug | Comments: (4) | Send comment BELGRADE -- The Ministry of Justice has condemned in the strongest terms the decision of one of its employees to post a photo of the sniper rifle used to kill Zoran Đinđić. March 13, 2013 | 18:49 | Source: Tanjug | Comments: (0) | Send comment GENEVA -- The World Economic Forum in Davos has honored 199 young global leaders from 70 countries, including United Nations General Assembly President Vuk Jeremić. March 17, 2013 | 12:54 | Source: Beta, RTS | Comments: (0) | Send comment BELGRADE -- A man suffered only minor injuries when a train hit his car in the Belgrade suburb of Vrčin on Sunday morning. March 16, 2013 | 13:33 | Source: Tanjug | Comments: (0) | Send comment INDIAN WELLS -- Serbia's Novak Đoković reached the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells by defeating Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 2-0 (6-3, 6-1) late on Friday.

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From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia By pure definition, a roller coaster is anything that may seem rebellious or appear dangerous when in fact, it's perfectly safe for family fun as long as you're over the height of 48 inches. Using this definition, it can be determined that Linkin Park is the typical example of a roller coaster. Society's definition of the roller coaster is that it is a form of mass-transit system for small- and medium-sized cities. In principle, it is similar to a bus or monorail, in that passengers pay a small fee to board and be transported elsewhere. With roller coasters, however, passengers are also sent through double-backwards corkscrews, 85-degree death drops, underground tunnel plunges, and triple-twistback loops, often at speeds of over 100 miles an hour and with G-forces approaching space shuttle launch (or crash) levels. Many cities are reconsidering the installation of coasters, due to the number of heart attacks, pregnant woman injuries, and scalding-hot-coffee-spill disfigurations, but they're just pussing out. Roller coasters are also located in theme parks like Disneyland, Six Flags over Somewhere Really Flat and Boring, Fantasyland, Disneyland 2, Duff Gardens, Vekomaland, The Pleasure Dump and Grue Park. The majority of them are made out of steel, and given names like "Smegma" or "Mind Eraser" or "Deathmachine" or "That thing over there". People love to ride them, for the simple reason that prostitution was made illegal. They tend to generate long lines and vomit. Roller coasters provide near death experience without actually dying. To achieve this the engineering team spend several minutes doing stress and strain graphs to ensure the safety of the riders depends on just one bolt. Statistically, roller coasters are very safe. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that 1.34 park guests required hospitalization per fortnight, and it is considered more dangerous driving to a theme park than riding coasters, especially if you travel in a French car. edit Roller Coasters in the United Kingdom A revolutionary idea to capture the thrills and excitement of the first roller coasters from the time before wheels were invented, has been embraced by Thorpe Park in Staines, London where they removed all the bearings from the wheels on a coaster named Colossus to give it that rough, poorly maintained feel. Oh, well, at least it's better than the crap you get in America. .:K.S.Q:. edit Examples of Marketing Techniques Park chains are always thinking up creative names for new rides, to encourage people to visit and ride them. Different park chains have different methods of naming their rides. Six Flags parks, for example, usually have ride names that contain a superhero name and one of more of the words 'escape', 'flight', 'ultimate', 'ride', and 'knight'. Disney coasters must be named after a mountain, and Cedar Fair rides names tend to end in "Hawk" or be very generic, with names like "Crypt", "Flight Deck" or "Station". Different park chains also have different ways of theming their rides. Disney, for example, likes to have really expensive theming that most people do not notice, while Six Flags parks are happy with dropping the ride into a parking lot. Cedar Fair, however, themes their rides by placing many trash cans around the ride and in the station. The world's largest coaster is Six Flags Great Adventure's "Kingda Ka Ka Ka Yea!" themed after Dr Rockzo. It simulates cocaine by shooting you at a speed of 130mph and making you ask for your life back before it shows you the top of the world and makes you face down your fear of clowns. Being unpowered, the coaster needs some way to get up the first hill, assuming it has not eaten beans recently. The lift hill accomplishes this. It is simply a hill with a chain or rope that hooks onto the train and pulls it up the hill. In the South, lift hills can also be powered by a bunch of people pulling on a rope. Instead of using a lift hill, some coasters launch with the use of beans, linear induction motors, water, or hydraulics. Hydraulic launch coasters (like Kingda Ka Ka Ka Yeah! at Six Flags Walmart) launches the train at a high-speed in order to climb a giant penis. These rides often break down due to malnourishment of beans. A roller coaster will continue to run until it breaks. This is the purpose of a brake run. On some rides, the brake run is the best part of the ride, when decelerating from 100mph to zero in a fraction of a second. Blocking is a system that reduces the length of queues of people wanting to ride. Blocking refers to a ride operator blocking the entrance to the queue, preventing people from riding. He will take a load of verbal abuse and if he's lucky to survive the day will go home with $0.25, at the end of the week, for his family. Block Brakes refer to when the operator needs to take a lunch break and another operator has to cover the duty. The idea of a roller coaster started out when cavemen discovered that they could get a thrill by riding on dinosaurs. A recreation of this ride still exists in the Jurassic Park section at Universal Studios. When the dinosaurs became extinct, cavemen consulted Arrow Dynamics, who then built the first real roller coaster. It consisted of a large drop down the hillside into a small loop. It was then that the concept of whiplash was invented, and this is still used today. edit Alternative Theory The roller coaster was invented on December 32nd, 1885 by John Roller Coaster, a railroad engineer from England. Some historians have suggested the French invented the coaster, but this was quickly dismissed as no one really likes the French. The idea for a multi-axis transport system was conceived after John had another uneventful trip to work on a steam train, thus the roller coaster was born. John set to work incorporating his ideas into the rail link to Waterloo station England he was designing. Unfortunately, the general public didn't believe the human body could handle the gravitation forces and many boycotted the new section of railroad track,that and the fact people didn't want to do a 360 degree inverted loop pulling 5.6G at 6am while trying to drink coffee. Many people were injured during the riding of the new coaster track due to inadequate safety belts on steam trains, but all was not lost: Alton Towers bought the track for its new theme park and renamed it The Corkscrew As engineering progressed through the early 1900's, so did roller coaster design, and soon tall wooden structures appeared all around the world. Coaster fans started to notice exciting trouser movement occur during riding these thrilling rides so this type of coaster was nicknamed The Woody. Most large roller coasters have the ability to run two or more trains at once. This, of course, is an improvement on the original design taken from Southwest Trains who to this day still have difficulties running a multi-train rail network. People ride roller coasters because they are dangerous, yes they want to die. Roller coasters are often known as the suicidal ride. There are safety systems to give the illusion of safety. All the components of a coaster are controlled by a PLC (Pretty Large Computer) running Windows XP. If the PLC has a problem, the ride breaks down, and the operator needs to restart the ride (usually by hitting Control-Alt-Delete). Other controls that ride operators have include "Stall in loop", "Release restraints", and "Jump track". Safely signs are near then entrance to every coaster stating if you are drunk, high on kittens or are too short, to bypass the experience of riding on the roller coaster. This is the main reason there are no theme parks in Scotland. edit Types of coasters that you should think twice about riding There are three types of roller coasters: Wood, Steel, and Plastic. - Wooden roller coasters are really old, and will probably fall apart. They don't normally have loops, but the general public is not aware of this. One notable exception is Son of Son of Beast the Zoominator. Types of wood include Popsicle sticks, Lincoln Logs, and Douglas Fir. The world's longest wooden roller coaster, the Beast, is currently being eaten by the world's longest termites. - Steely Dan These coasters tend to go upside down or be really big. - Plastic coasters were developed by CCI in 1492, and are regarded as the worst ever built. All of them were blown up when CCI died. Plastic coasters have recently been revived by Knex. edit Rider Experience - Stand-up - A stand-up coaster is one that actually stands up. Unfortunately, the seating makes it difficult for males to ride comfortably. - Inverted - Inverted coasters complete the course with the trains dangling along in full view. They were originally invented during the French Revolution as more fun alternative to the guillotine, but were abandoned shortly after the inventor was decapitated while retrieving his hat from underneath one after an execution. DO NOT LET ONE STRIP. - Floorless - Floorless coasters have no floor. They are sometimes built over water or in outer space where a floor is not necessary. Not to be confused with flawless (perfect) coasters. - Pipeline - A pipeline coaster is like Space Mountain on a log flume with the exception that you go through a very small drainpipe, and into the sewer. The ride is built in a sewer system complete with foul smelling water. Not to be confused with Wild Mouse roller coasters. - Hyper - A hyper coaster is big, tall, non-looping, and forgot to take Ritalin this morning. Do not provoke it. - Liquid - The first Water Coaster opened at Six Flags New Orleans in August 2005. Since then, designers have designed coasters that use other types of liquid, including beer and urine. edit Height Specific Some coasters are categorized by their height. - Hypocoaster - Any coaster that is less than 2 feet tall - Kilocoaster - Over 100 feet tall - Hypercoaster - A coaster that is more than 200 feet tall - Megacoaster - Any coaster that is more than 200 feet tall - Gigacoaster - Any coaster more than 300 feet tall - Stratacoaster - Any coaster more than 400 feet tall - Stratacaster - A guitar manufactured by Fender - Terracoaster - Any coaster more than 500 feet tall - Petacoaster - Coaster 500 + feet tall - Exacoaster - Coaster 600 + feet tall - Killa - coaster - A coaster so tall many are at risk of death The Americans, always wanting to go bigger and faster, invented the hypercoaster. The first of its kind (Xcelerator at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California) reached 1.26566 vertical miles and a launch speed of 0-Mach 2 in 2.6 seconds. This started a race to see who could make a faster, higher ride. Not being out done by the Yanks, Thorpe Park in Staines, England started constructing a world record beater. Unfortunately, they employed aerospace engineers to design and construct the ride. 20 years later, at the grand opening of Stealth, a small child pointed out to the excited theme park owners that in fact it was the smallest and slowest hyper coaster in the world as the highly trained engineers had mis-read the scale and constructed a 46m high ride instead of a 4.6-mile high ride. Stealth can still be seen being repaired on a daily basis from the M25 with a powerful telescope. Contrary to all this, Stealth is a very good ride, reaching heights of 62 metres (205 ft), speeds of 80mph, and is an amazing ride, from a certain point of view. edit Track Design - Bobsled roller coaster - A roller coaster made of ice, comes in many different fruity flavors! [details needed] - Racing Coaster - A roller coaster that has two parallel track runs in which two trains run side by side and appear to be racing, though this is only an illusion. Many injuries have occurred as a result of riders attempting to slap riders in the other train. - Dueling roller coaster - An offbeat version of a racing coaster, but this one is designed the the trains pass each other in a head-on configuration. Riders tend to get injured by the collisions between the two rides. - Figure 8 roller coaster - Track follows a figure 8 pattern, which led to the inspiration of the "Figure 69 Coaster" - Moebius Roller coaster - A roller coaster, which when cut in half becomes twice as long. - Out and Back roller coaster - The train goes out, turns around and comes back to the station. Typical of older style Camel-Hump style coasters (though many riders state that they never got to hump a camel while riding them), but they can also be steel. - Double Out and Back - Two out and back coasters joined together. - Triple Out and Back - Three out and back coasters joined together. - Shuttle roller coaster - A roller coaster that doesn't have a complete track, allowing the train to fly off if it is launched too fast - Side friction roller coaster - A roller coaster that does not have wheels - Spinning roller coaster - A roller coaster that is mounted on a slowly revolving platform, similar in principle to a revolving restaurant. - Suspended roller coaster - A coaster that screwed up too many times. If it does one more bad thing, it will be expelled. - Twister roller coaster - A roller coaster after a tornado hits it - Wild Mouse roller coaster - A roller coaster that is themed to rodents - Corkscrew roller coaster - A roller coaster that opens wine bottles. - Waterwing roller coaster - A coaster that is learning to swim. Not to be confused with Aquatrax. edit Arrow Dynamics Arrow invented the roller coaster. Their arsenal includes such amazing rides like Screw Coaster at Nara Dreamland, Matterhorn, and RC Cola Big One (innovative in that it was the world's first soft drink themed coaster.) Arrow was also innovative in that it used coat hangers to design track layouts. Arrow also invented the concept of headbanging, and has licensed the technology to TOGO and Vekoma. Unable to keep up with competition from Vekoma, Arrow declared bankruptcy and was later bought out by the Splinters & Steel (S&S) company. Before the bankruptcy, Arrow went out with a "blow" out by introducing X*3^64 , the worlds first 64th Dimensional Roller Coaster. Arrow's rides have also been used in South Carolinan prisons as a replacement for lethal injection. Though, that has been replaced recently with watching the ladies of "The View" rub each other with lotion while the blonde one talks about Hello Kitty being sexist and how she wants to smother it with gravy. The former president of Arrow commented on the closing of the company with, "Please don't bother me while I'm eating my Cinnamon Toast Crunch." edit Bolliger and Mabillard B&M started out in the monorail business, and this is reflected in their design. Rides include Batman - The Water Ride at Six Flags New Orleans and Scam at Six Flags Magic Mountain (notorious for its innovative parking lot theming). B&M divorced from Intamin AG (we are not sure why, but it might have to do with loss of sex) in 1984 and went on to one-up Intamin farting coasters with B&M roaring coasters. Some of their coasters have their mouths stuffed full of sand to keep them from roaring. Almost all B&M coasters seat four people in each row, so that the train looks shorter to reflect their penis size. edit Custom Coasters International CCI doesn't exist anymore. CCI was one of the greatest wooden coaster design firms on Earth. They designed greats such as Tremors at Silver Woodie Theme Park and Boulder Dash at Lake Comcast. However, they did build shitty coasters as well, like the infamous Thunder Challenge Racer Express Thrill Ride Adventure Coaster at McDonaldland Amusement Park. However, this is the park's fault, not CCI's. Gerstlauer was founded in 1945 by a douchebag in Northern Europe who named his company Gerstlauer just so that no one can spell or pronounce it. Years before, he went on a journey to find out what a clitoris is and maybe buy some groceries, too. On his journey he discovered how to make painful torture devices that he would later convert into wooden coaster trains. He also learn from a Native America tribe in Mexico how to make rides have great, steep drops and be boring as shit after that. Giovanola takes advantage of B&M's lack of copyright laws. In order to give their lawyers evidence that they didn't actually copy B&M, they put little steel poles on the track that work as pointless ladders. Also they copy Intamin's trains. edit Gravity Group These people came from CCI and started building woodies again. While GCI makes rides that look twisted and badass, GG makes rides that are badass. A few tricks they do: 90 degree banking, turns banked the wrong way, hills that are designed to crush your nuts into the restraints, and something else that wasn't that important, otherwise I would have remembered it. edit Great Coasters International Great Coasters International (GCI) left CCI in 1997. For possible reason, see Sex, loss of. Anyway, they started creating wooden coasters by a proprietary technique, which makes the rides look like a tornado hit them. GCI also invented the Millennium Flyer trains, although they don't actually fly and last longer than a millennium. Intamin rides do not kill people. They are dangerous though (especially when the restraints fail due to the rider being "of exceptional size") and therefore people flock to ride them. Intamin was innovative in creating their unique farting wooden coasters and creating the Top Thrill Phallus rocket coaster. Intamin's roller coasters all carry the Intamin Curse, which makes them brake down from a week to two months every two months. Disney Intamins are an exception to this curse, since they are boring, have no new technology and are run by Nazis. Though Intamin's coasters are known for the highest death rate in the amusement business, they are most pleasing to guests, as they simulate a strip club while riding and thus, make you "wet your pants"... then you fall out. Intamin is also the catalyst to stupid Intamin vs. B&M threads on coaster forums that go nowhere real fast after the 5th post. They are also known for El Toro, the number one masturbatory tool amongst coaster enthusiasts (second most used is Chap Stick). They have an intense zig-zag fetish. One day while Mack van Germanperson was toasting some Toaster Stroodles, he developed a raging hard-on that could only be cured with pictures of orgasmic zig-zags. He then dedicated the rest of his life to building zig-zagging Wild Mice rides and looking for vulnerable teens to cam with on teen forums and chat rooms. Today, they have an entire park in Germanyland called Europa Park, which is their bitch. In other words, Mack uses the park to showcase their shitty, redundant rides and in return Europa Park puts on some make-up, wears something tight, rents a hotel room and shows Mack a real good time. But over the years, Europa Park hasn't been completely faithful to Mack. In 2001, Europa Park was alone at a bar and got hammered. Then Bolliger and Mabillard walk in and decide to take advantage of the drunk park lying on floor covered in beer and her own urine. Then, 9 months later on March 23, 2002, Silver Star was born. edit Maurer Söhne Maurer Söhne is mainly influenced by Intamin. Their X-rated cars seat 2-a-row and have 3 rows. In every row, a hooker sits in the right seat while pornographic audio is played through a "3 dimensional" stereo system (to simulate sex perfectly) and small TV screens play Hentai porn infront of every seat. Their innovative lapbars, also influenced by Intamin, crush and break the riders hip but firmly hold them in place, to give the rider a better view. Paramedics await at the exit of every ride. Every other month, the restraints open mid-ride to winning guests. Their spinning coaster models are shunned by Intamin and Mack. Mack, because it steals their wild mouse thunder, and Intamin for a safe restraint system. Maurer Söhne makes Turtle Trains, which are spinning cars themed to the shells of turtles. Zombie Boys highly rank this ride and continue to say "I like turtles" when asked about the ride or their face paint. Pinfari was a manufacturer that put out many Zyklon rides. [Citation not needed at all, thank you very much] They tried to make big mean looking coasters but were only able to produce little dinky dick coasters. In 2007, Pinfari attempted to build a 5,302 foot 'OmegaCoaster' but failed miserably after head designer Giuseppe Franco decided to quit the business and turn to hair products for men. Schwarzkopf rides have lots of loops and simple restraints. As a result, people tend to fall out and Schwarzkopf rides are no longer being built. Schwarzkopf also builds portable roller coasters. Some are so portable that people have managed to smuggle them onto planes. Notable portable coasters include Viper, King Kobra, Slitherin', and Ripper, which leaves riders with ripped underpants after disembarking. Schwarzkopf no longer makes roller coasters, instead concentrating on the hair product business, though their presence is still seen on large billboards at numerous Six Flags parks. Unfortunately, Schwarzkopf is no longer in business. The company closed for good and owner, Anton Schwarzkopf, died from Parkinson's disease a few years later. edit S&S Power S&S took over Arrow after making a deal with Arrow stating they would make rides with amazing potential, however only make one every 15 years. They apply Arrows revolutionary breaking system on all their coasters, such as Hypersonic XLC's notorious break run, infamous for being a quiet, smooth and graceful ending to a ride lasting almost a whole 2.3 seconds! S&S also revolutionized ride capacity on Hypersonic, ensuring quick lines and customer satisfaction. S&S was working on the fastest roller coaster ever that races against F1 race cars at the Nurb... Nurburguh... Nurbugerking race course in Germany. It features side-by-side racing action with the F1 cars and experiences realistic crashes. The ride is named "Das Doodle Shnoodle", German for "The Cunt Puncher". In return for dropping the atomic bomb, Japan burst onto the scene with TOGO. Their Manhattan Express roller coaster in Las Vegas tries to imitate the Las Vegas Experience by luring you with hot looks, raping you and beating the shit of you, and leaving you not remembering what happened then asking for money afterwards. They are notable for creating wooden coasters out of chopsticks. In Japan, TOGO rides are smooth as glass. In America, they are smooth as broken glass. Vekoma produces smooth running unique rides such as the Boomerang, Boomerang - Coast to Coaster, Le Boomerang and Zoomerang. Perhaps their most innovative creation is the "box coaster" (see right). Vekoma is also notorious for about 2,000,000 rides called SLCs (Sudden Loss of Consciousness), which are all actually the same ride, but are named differently to confuse the small-town hicks which these rides are built for. Though recently, their rides have improved after they decided to change their restraints from over-the-shoulder-harnesses to a single anal dildo restraint. It has been very successful in Neverland Ranch and parks in China and will be incorporated into Six Flags Magic Mountain's 2010 coaster, Gay Rape Ass Fucker: The Ride, which will debut in their "Wiggle's World" section. This company is not well know from being in a comma from making rides no one knows about. There only know coaster is at some park in the middle of the dessert and can only be seen if you have a mirage. The Tower Coaster it is called generally is launched up a giant penis like tower which then creates sperm which flows out of the penis while dropping down the vertical part of the hill. These coasters go upside down and rape you with their lap bar restraints. edit Parts of a Coaster - The Lift Hill - Being unpowered, a coaster needs some way to get up the first hill, assuming it has not eaten beans recently. This is accomplished by attaching a chain to the train and pulling it up. - The First Drop - The first drop usually occurs right after the lift hill and is where the train gathers speed and converts potential energy (in the form of donuts) into kinetic energy. The first drop is usually the biggest. The more ACE (American Coaster Enthusiasts) members on the train, the more potential energy is available. - Hills - A hill is a piece of track that goes up, then down. Even bigger hills are called mountains, and some coasters even have valleys too. It usually delivers airtime, which is defined as "time you are in the air." It is a common element on coasters, except most riders are unaware of it because they are too busy bashing their heads on the restraint. Hills with airtime are also the number one cause of oversized vaginas in America (second in Canada to whoriness.) - Loop - A piece of track that goes upside down. It is also known by the General Public as a "loop dee loop." This is derogatory and if anyone near you says "loop dee loop", please hit them. If a coaster gets stuck, it's usually in the loop and everyone falls out due to a major flaw in a ride's engineering that Nobody tried to fix.. - Corkscrew - A smaller loop that looks like a corkscrew if you are high. It is also the name of an Arrow design featuring two of them. A good example of a corkscrew is Screw Coaster - Boomerang - A wacko loop that looks like a loop and a corkscrew or an inverse cobra roll. A Boomerang is also a type of coaster that goes backwards and forwards (as it does not have enough kinetic energy to complete the course), leaving the riders stranded upside-down. - Cobra Roll - Looks like a cobra if you are drunk. It was invented by Oscar Wilde. Some people mistake them for Boomerangs - Batwing - First found on Batman - The Ride (hence the name), the Batwing is similar to a Boomerang element - Incline Loop - A loop that is too drunk to stand up straight. First invented when engineers at Arrow tried to build a regular loop and it tipped over. - Helix - A loop that is having a nap. According to Six Flags, any ride with a helix is, in fact, a looping coaster. Also invented by Arrow, who made an engineering error when attempting to build an incline loop. - In-line twist - The track rolls over while going in a straight line. Much like a dog, however the roller coaster doesn't get a treat. - Zero-G Roll - A turn that has no gangsters on it whatsoever. - Barrel Roll - The train, upon entering this element, turns into a keg of beer, rolls over once, and then turns back into a train, hence the name. They usually don't do this anymore because treats were not forthcoming. - Bowtie - This element was created by French scientists who thought this resembled a bow tie, and is today only used by Arrow to attract ACE members, as it actually resembles a pretzel. - Killermatic (of) 3000 - This attachment is only some special rollercoasters and has had special appearances on TV in When Rollercoasters Attack, When Magicians Don't Escape From The Track On Time and might have been the cause of the famous 'Joseph 'Crashstarter' Henshaw's Crashermatic with new Killermatic (of) 3000 for added death'. - Station Attendants - They're what staple you in, scream in your ear and make the ride crash; go ahead, give them the finger next time they reach for your crotch with a de-manitizer (a.k.a. lapbar). Beware of them, though. They'll try to rape you as they check your restraints. - Whore in the back seat - That little bitch who will constantly find it funny to scream as loud as she can. But she was kind of cute... edit Coaster Enthusiasts Some people are crazy enough to actually enjoy roller coasters. These people are called roller coaster enthusiasts, or Dainan Rafferty fanboys and are all male. One such group of these people is the American Coaster Enthusiasts. Not only do they love coasters, but they also love gravy and all-you-can-eat buffets, though their ultimate fantasy is a gravy buffet. ACE Members are also known to suffer from prolonged periods of virginity, oftentimes extending into their 40's or 50's. Some speculate this phenomenon is a result of the fanny packs that typically adorn their crotch-regions (or possibly the fact that they have overwhelming B.O. and their breath smells like farts), effectively blocking any sexual advances that may *miraculously* occur. ACE Members are also very likely to have oversized vaginas (see above), obesity, and "fun sized" penises. Famous enthusiasts include Buddha, Fabio, Aerosmith, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jesus, Santa, Suddam Hussein, that one gay guy from the coaster site, Jacob Erle, and my invisible friend, Señorita Choco Taco. Andy Hine, the chairman of the Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain, greets his fellow enthusiasts with the Roller Coaster Handshake. And don't forget Don Helbig. That guy is a legend. edit The Credit System For coaster enthusiasts, every roller coaster counts as "credit". Even clones. Roller coaster enthusiasts count their credits in precise excel documents. It is not uncommon for enthusiasts to fly halfway around the world to ride a new kiddie coaster, only to be denied riding because he was too fat. edit Coaster Enthusiast Online Community If you find yourself on a roller coaster enthusiast forum, you will notice a few important details. The first is that the majority of posts consist of virulent bitching about certain park chains and/or airtime on roller coasters, (see: RCpro.com). The second is that a startling number of coaster enthusiasts are creepy as hell. In fact, several descend from long lines of child molesters, naturally being drawn to venues where children of all shapes and sizes congregate in hopes of merriment. If you choose to be in the company of such enthusiasts, be warned: your anus is at extreme risk of penetration. One can easily repel such creepy enthusiasts by simply reaching your 18th birthday, at which time they usually lose total interest. Beware of the Man at Right, he will steal your childhood. He will also eat your babies, and if you don't have babies it is because he ate them (but not before raping their tiny buttholes), and he also likes porn, and coaster butt rape. He is also known to invite other "coaster enthusiasts" to his house to drug them and then perform sexual acts on them. In the summer of 2011, the Coaster Enthusiast meme made its debut. The meme features a 30-something year old loser wearing swim goggles in the queue line of Intimidator 305. It is also known for most coaster enthusiasts to be part Jewish in some way. From being full Jewish to having a Jew in your family twice removed to the third power of X*3^64 from Six Flags Magic Mountain. So yes, you're a Jew.

JCC book luncheon goes virtual with three-week program This year's Adolph & Rose Levis Jewish Community Center annual Book & Author Luncheon is going virtual — and as a three-week long book fair. With a little help from a number of Florida JCCs. The yearly in-person luncheon got nixed because of coronavirus pandemic social distancing requirements and restrictions. "We decided to replace it with the Florida JCCs Jewish Book Fest so that everyone could stay home and stay safe while still participating in great literary events," said Stephanie Owitz, Director of Arts, Culture and Learning for the Levis JCC Sandler Center. "We reached out to other Florida JCCs with whom we have partnered in the past and created this program together. Due to this collaboration, we were able to attract some terrific speakers and equally interesting moderators." The opening event on Thursday feature Thane Rosenbaum who will be interviewed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Rosenbaum, who grew up in Miami Beach as the child of Holocaust survivors, will discuss his book Saving Free Speech… From Itself. In the book, Rosenbaum states that certain limits on free speech are not only constitutional and in line with previous case law but are essential for the maintenance of civil society. On Sunday, Oct. 11, lawyer and feminist trailblazer Jill Wine-Banks will discuss her memoir The Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President. Wine-Banks was the only female prosecutor during the Watergate scandal and was the first woman to serve as US General Counsel of the Army under President Jimmy Carter. The Florida JCCs Jewish Book Fest also includes a Florida Author Spotlight presented by the Miami Book Fair, an addiction panel including Michael Douglas’ son Cameron Douglas, a fiction forum, multi-generational Jewish stories from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jonathan Kaufman, plus "perspectives from authors on manhood, women in a changing world, resilience in the face of adversity, transgender stories through mothers’ eyes, and more." “While we eagerly await welcoming our patrons back into our ‘home,’ we are encouraged by the opportunities that this virtual book festival presents our community,” said Owitz, Director of Arts, Culture & Learning. Florida JCCs Jewish Book Fest will close on Sunday, Oct. 25, with New York Times bestselling author Brad Meltzer and illustrator Christopher Eliopolos, who will be sharing insights from their I Am biography series. The Book Fest Fast Pass is $75 and includes access to all special events and virtual author meet-and-greets. Individual tickets are $10 per program. The full program of events and a link to purchase tickets may be found on each community’s respective JCC website. Patrons of the Levis JCC Sandler Center can visit can click here to purchase tickets to Florida JCCs Jewish Book Fest among other literary events throughout the season.

We have the historic witness of the Agape, or Love Feast, and the breaking of bread in the early church. In this sermon, Brother Curt Wagoner speaks of three aspects: “the encounter of the suffering Christ,” “the encounter of the shared Communion,” and “the encounter of salvational confidence.” The Lord’s Supper unites believers on a common ground in remembrance of Christ’s death. It is because of the confidence we possess in salvation through Jesus Christ that we can break bread together without condemnation. Opening prayer by Finny Kuruvilla: Father, we thank you for this opportunity that we have to hear your Word. We ask that you would use Brother Kurt mightily. May the passion that he has for you radiate through his Words. May it cut us to the heart, and may we be shaped according to the power of your Word at work through your Holy Spirit. We ask that we would all be attentive. We ask that you would give Brother Kurt clear words to speak, and we look forward to how we’re going to be changed as a result of this message. Pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Message by Curt Wagoner: Amen. Thank you. I want to invite you to turn again to Acts chapter 2. And let’s read these verses that have been covered multiple times already this weekend beginning in verse 42: And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. By now, those are very familiar verses to us. And the title of the message this evening is “Encountering Christ in the Breaking of Bread.” We have two references in these few verses to the breaking of bread. We have the reference in verse 42, which says “and in breaking of bread” and we have the reference in 46, verse 46 which said “and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.” I ask you tonight: Do you think that verse 42 and verse 46 are speaking precisely about the same thing? I pondered that and I wondered, “Is the same thing in view in verse 46 that’s in verse 42?” There seems to be a bit difference in emphases and these two verses. Verse 42 speaks about the harmony that existed among the disciples, and verse 46 speaks about the fact that as they were together, they were going from house to house. One place it’s emphasizing the harmony, the other place it’s emphasizing the “house to house” experience. When we speak about breaking bread, I’m just going to think about how we use it in our vernacular. When we speak about breaking of bread, we do that with different senses. It’s sometimes used, this expression “breaking bread,” to simply signify fellowship, especially spiritual fellowship. Sometimes we use the expression “breaking of bread” in the sense of sharing a meal together. And sometimes we use these the expression “breaking of bread” as we speak about the fact that when God’s people come together and commemorate the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, we break the bread of Communion to each other. “Encountering Christ in the Breaking of Bread.” I want to just emphasize that the breaking of bread launches us back into an encounter that Jesus had with his disciples. I speak about the evening in the upper room when Jesus gathered the 12 together, and in that setting they broke bread together. Or in a more sense, Jesus broke bread to them. I want to just review those events for a little bit this evening to kind of give us some basis, some Scriptural basis as we think about “Encountering Christ in the Breaking of Bread. There can be no question but what Jesus intended that there will be a meal partaking of in the upper room. You’ll recall that he had sent two of his disciples, and he had told them to go into the city. There they were to meet a man bearing a pitcher of water. Matthew 26 verse 46, I think is the Scriptural reference. And he said, you speak to him, speak to the goodman of the house, and you tell him that the master hath need. And that man will have a large upper room furnished and made ready for the Passover. And so the Bible says that the disciples those, two disciples did as Jesus said. And a very concise phraseology, it says they made ready the Passover. They made ready for the Passover in the upper room. When Jesus gathered his disciples together in that setting, however, it would have been about 24 hours prior to the time of partaking of the Passover meal. Jesus’ death on the cross at the hour he expired would have been at the hour the Passover lambs were slain. Careful examination of scripture gives us this understanding. As we read the accounts of the synoptics especially and also John, but as we read the Gospel accounts of the events that took place in the upper room, we began to gain some insight that the meal that was for partaken there was not actually the Jewish Passover. The Passover have been prepared, the ingredients were there, but Jesus in particular of that meal was partaking of something other than the Passover. I can think of Scriptures like John 13:1, where the Bible says, “Now before the Feast of the Passover…” and it describes Jesus in the upper room. Or the Scripture in John 13 verse 29, “…as Jesus had dipped the sup and had given it to Judas and he had left the room, the remaining eleven disciples, apostles, supposed that Judas had left the room because he had gone to purchase those things they had need of against the feast” indicating the Feast of the Passover was yet future at that moment. Or you can think about passages like John 18:28 the describes how that the Jewish leaders did not want to enter in because they did not want to become defiled ahead of the feast. Those are only three Scriptural citations that emphasized to us that the meal that Jesus partook of in the upper room that evening was not the Jewish Passover. As Jesus partook of this meal with his disciples, with the apostles, partaking of that meal, the Bible says, at the end of the meal “Jesus took the bread and the cup and he gave to those disciples.” Matthew 26 verses 26 and 27 says as they were eating, Jesus took bread. Look 22:20 says that a bit clearer and in that passage it says after the expression about the partaking of bread “Likewise also the cup after supper.” So the bread and the cup that evening were partaken of after the meal, after supper. In other words, the supper was eaten prior to the bread and cup. There’s an understanding that’s so many people overlook, fail to acknowledge, and that is that there was a fellowship meal there in the upper room that evening. In fact, as you read the accounts of the early church, you’ll find that the fellowship meal was kept in the early church for the first few centuries of the Christian era, and it was finally abolished because of excesses, I believe, at the Council of Carthage. You can look up that citation that reference to be sure. This meal was referred to as the Agape. It was sometimes referred to as the Love Feast, the meal partaken of by the church as they met together. Peter makes reference to this in Second Peter chapter 2 verse 13, and he speaks about those who were assembled with the church and he says “Spots they are and blemishes in your feasts.” That’s Second Peter chapter 2 verse 13. Jude makes reference to this in the 12th verse of his epistle when he speaks about those individuals, those unbelieving individuals who are “spots in your feasts of charity.” Paul makes reference to this. First Corinthians chapter 11 verse 20 and he speaks about the meal that the Corinthian church was keeping, though with great deal of excess, and he speaks about it as being the Lord’s Supper. And so we have the witness of the Apostle Peter. We have the witness of the Apostle Paul. We have the witness of Jude. We have the historic practice of the early church indicating that the Agape or the Love Feast was a meal that was kept when the church came together, the apostolic church, and their breaking of bread. As I examine this passage in Acts chapter 2 verses 42 through 47, but especially verses 42 and 46, I really think that there’s not a great deal of difference in emphasis. There was a fellowship meal that I think is in view in verse 42, verse 46 and there was the commemoration of the suffering Savior that I believe is in view in verse 42. As you look at all of the Scripture accounts, the New Testament accounts about the breaking of bread, most of them – this is not exclusively true – but most of them point clearly to the commemoration of the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus as the church comes together, breaks bread, and shares the cup of Communion. And so tonight, we’re going to look at Encountering Christ in the Breaking of Bread and we’re going to think about it in this sense of the Communion, the time when the church comes together and breaks bread and shares the cup of Communion. I’m going to turn to a passage of Scripture in First Corinthians chapter 11, and I want to read a few verses there to give us some basis for some comments as we think about the encounter of the suffering Christ. I’m going to break this message down into three different encounters. And the first of them is the encounter of the suffering Christ. Verse 23, First Corinthians chapter 11: For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. The encounter the suffering Christ is that you and I, as we break bread together, as we encounter Christ in the breaking of bread we would discern the Lord’s body. We would discern what Christ has done for us. The Lord Jesus, the suffering Christ who died at Calvary to provide redemption for our sins. The encounter the suffering Christ. You’ll notice in those few verses, in verse 24 that Jesus gives a clear command, and he says, “Eat.” It’s written by the Apostle Paul. But Paul is quoting Jesus and he says that Jesus said, “Take, eat” a clear command to eat. You’ll notice in verses 24 and 25 that this eating or this breaking of bread and partaking of bread was to be done with a specific focus. It was to be done in remembrance of him. Jesus said in verse 24, This do in remembrance of me, and verse 25 After the same manner also, he took the cup when he had supped saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood this do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me. It’s always to be in remembrance of Jesus, “In remembrance of me,” Jesus said. This breaking of bread, the encounter of the suffering Christ, is especially clear in verse 26 of First Corinthians 11 when he says, the Apostle, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you do show the Lord’s death till he come is to portray, to show, the death of Christ and his to be perpetuated until the Lord returns in the clouds of glory. “Till I come,” he said. Encountering the suffering of Christ. And finally as we think about this passage in 1st Corinthians 11, you’ll notice that it’s to be done with sobriety and reverence. Again beginning in verse 27, sobriety and reverence. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily… without sobriety, without reverence, irreverently, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord … but let a man examine himself. Look within, consider the faith, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily (irreverently) eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. Jesus commanded it. “Eat it,” he says. And he told us how to eat it, “in remembrance of him.” And he told us as we did so we would encounter the suffering Christ, and he told us that it must be done with sobriety and reverence. This is an institution of a memorial of Jesus’ suffering as we break bread together. You know, God has a variety of ways of impressing our hearts and connecting with our spirits, and we’re physical individuals, and we live in a physical world, and one of ways that God uses to speak to us, to fellowship with us, to commune with us, is that he uses our senses. And it’s such a blessing that God works this way. The sense of hearing is important. We’ve been hearing a lot of really good Bible-based teaching this weekend, and we’re going to hear some more. The sense of hearing is important. The Apostle says in Romans 10:14, he says how shall they hear except there be a preacher? He says, How shall they hear without a preacher? We gain. We are blessed. We grow. We encounter Christ as a result of hearing, the sense of hearing. But as we break bread together, as we share that experience, do you know that God uses all five of our senses? We are spoken to, we hear, of course. But we also see. We look at that wafer, that piece of bread, and we see what it is. We touch it. We taste it. We even smell it. God uses all five of our senses to impress the reality of the encounter the suffering Christ as we break the bread of Communion together. The five senses, you know. We heard a message this afternoon about “Encountering Christ in the Apostles’ Doctrine.” There’s an interesting passage in the book of Hebrews. At the last verse of Hebrews chapter 5 verse 14, says something like this, By reason of use our senses are exercised to discern both good and evil. And the very next verse, which is the first verse of chapter six, actually speaks about the apostles’ doctrine. And so this idea of God using our senses to encounter Christ in the apostles’ doctrine is Scriptural. This is part of the apostles’ doctrine to exercise our senses. The encounter of the suffering Christ. I don’t suppose I need to tell you tonight that Jesus suffered intensely when he went to the cross. This suffering of Christ at Calvary was a very intense degree of suffering. He suffered both in body and in soul. The Bible says in Isaiah 52 verse 11 that “his visage was so marred more than any man.” This was not a common crucifixion. Crucifixion was a terrible thing. It was a horrible death, but the prophet says that his message concerning Jesus was so marred more than any man. I want to take you back to the prophet Isaiah and I want to turn instead of chapter 52 to chapter 53, and I want you to notice something that the prophet is very clear about in this passage of Scripture. It’s a beautiful, beautiful passage. Some folks have referred to it as the Gospel of Isaiah. There can be no doubt that it’s betraying the coming Messiah, the suffering Messiah, beginning with about verse 13 of chapter 52. But as we think about the encounter of the suffering Christ, what Jesus experienced at Calvary was not only a suffering of the body, but it was a suffering of his very soul. Notice the last three verses of Isaiah Isaiah 53 which say thusly: Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors. And he bear the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Now, did you notice there in those three verses the references to the suffering soul of Jesus? Three times in three verses the Bible says here about the soul of Jesus, his innermost being, the soul of Jesus, the encounter of the suffering Christ. It says in verse 10 that his soul was made an offering. The offering of a soul. Jesus offered up his soul to his Heavenly Father. In verse 11 it speaks about the travail of his soul. It wasn’t just travail of the body and travail of the mind, it was the travail of Jesus’ soul that is spoken of here. Verse 12 says “He hath poured out his soul.” The outpouring of the soul. This is the doctrine of the kenosis, the emptying of Christ, as he poured out his soul unto death. And so we have the clear statements in Isaiah 53 about the offering of his soul, the travail of his soul, and the outpouring of his soul. The encounter of the suffering Christ. This is not just – this encounter with the suffering Christ, and these passages that I’ve just read tonight are not intended for us to only think about what Jesus did for us. We are to encounter him. Encounter him. And this is perhaps portrayed as clearly as anywhere in the words of the Apostle Paul when he writes in Philippians chapter 3, verses 10 and 11, and he says, That I may know him and the power of his suffering, the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. The Fellowship of his sufferings. The encounter of the suffering Christ. We must be willing to suffer, dear ones tonight, brother and sister, old and young alike. We must be willing to suffer with Jesus. The encounter of the suffering Christ. This is the doctrine of the Apostles, being willing to suffer with Christ. This was the call of the Lord himself. Many, many times he spoke of this truth. I think about a time as the apostles were returning from the first missionary journey. The Bible says in Acts, chapter 14 verse 21, When they had taught many they returned again to Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that with much tribulation we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. You can’t get there any other way, it doesn’t sound like, as you read that passage. If you’re going to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven, you’ve got to be willing, you’ve got to be forewarned, and fore-equipped to be willing to suffer with Jesus. The encounter the suffering Christ. And there are thousands, and tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of individuals who are experiencing this in reality today around the globe. The encounter of the suffering Christ. Willing to suffer, willing to die for him. Well, that’s one of the primary points that I wanted to make tonight, the encounter the suffering Christ. I want to also speak about the encounter of the shared Communion. I spoke about the fact that the breaking of bread, I believe, is pointing primarily to the commemoration of the Communion. And so let’s think a little while about the encounter of the shared Communion. We may have time to do this. I want to turn back to the first chapter of Acts, and I just want to emphasize something that’s already been stated, but I want to add my voice as a voice of emphasis to this, this weekend as we worship together. And that is in the first part of the Book of the Acts, there is a continuing, ongoing reference to the fact that the apostolic church was frequently together, and they were with one accord. Notice these references: - Acts chapter 1, verse 4, “being assembled together with them” - verse 6, Acts 1, “when they therefore their come together” - Acts 1, verse 15, “the number of names together were about a hundred and twenty” - Acts chapter 2, verse 1, “when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place” - this passage in Acts 2, verse 44, “all that believed were together” - verse 46, “continuing daily with one accord” - chapter 3, verse 1, “Peter and John went up together” - verse 11, chapter 3, “all the people ran together” I’m probably not referring to all the “together” and “one accord” statements in these passages, in these chapters. - verse 31 of chapter 4, “they were assembled together” - verse 32, “they were of one heart and one soul” - chapter 5, verse 12, “they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch” I think that’s enough references in these five chapters to illustrate to us tonight that the apostolic church, it was important to them to have this sharing experience of being together and being of one accord. Frequently in these five chapters you’ll find that the church was coming to a common place. You’ll find that they had a common purpose. You’ll find they had common possessions. These were just the experiences of the apostolic church, a common place, a common purpose, and common possessions. The encounter the shared Communion. It’s often times been said that Communion signifies a common union. Now that expression is so true Biblically. However, I’m not saying tonight that the word Communion means common union. I’m just saying that the way Communion is used in Scripture, in the New Testament Scripture, speaks about the fact that Communion means to have common union. It takes more than one, more than one individual to have this encounter of the shared Communion. The breaking of bread is to be done on a common level. All the people of God come together, and they break bread together, just a common level. None exalted, lifted up above the other. Common level. First John chapter 3, verse 17. John is not speaking about the breaking of bread precisely in this passage, but he speaks about the necessity for the commonality or the common level among the church. He says this: But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? The common union, the common level, the common experiences of life. We cannot shut up our bowels of compassion. We’ve got to look at our brother. Look at our sister as we see the need. We want to share with them that which God has given to us. The encounter the shared Communion. The Lord’s table is a great equalizer, a great equalizer. A significant portion of the Earth’s population is still enshackled by the caste system, and higher caste will not eat with lower caste. In those kinds of settings, the Lord’s table takes all of that away. There is no caste system when the people of God come together. This is a wonderful blessing when those who esteemed to be more important, and those who are considered to be less important, they come together on one level and they encounter the shared Communion. There are, I suppose to all of us, certain expressions in Scripture that just really resonate with us. And I suppose that you have Scriptures or expressions that resonate with you, that that if I were to look at them, they would not connect quite so closely with me. But one of those expressions in Scripture that just resonates with my spirit and my soul is the expression of a very simple English word, the word “all.” “All.” I speak about the great equalizer. I speaking about the encounter the shared Communion. The “all” statements of Scripture – and I’m going to use a word here that that I use with caution, because it’s used in a variety of ways, but I but I’m going to use it tonight in this sense and the word is “inclusive,” by the way. The word is “inclusive,” and what I’m talking about when I speak about the word inclusive in this setting tonight is the fact that the “all” expressions include each of us. Think about passages of Scripture like this: Romans 3:23, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Or second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 15 when the Bible says, Christ died for all. Or think about 2nd Peter chapter 3, verse 9, what Peter says, God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Or first Timothy chapter 2, verse 4, where Paul says that, God would have all men to be saved. Or this passage the second Corinthians chapter 9, verse 8, and I love this passage. “God is able.” Do we doubt that tonight? God is able to make all grace abound toward you that ye always having all sufficiency in all things. Oh, I love that passage! That ye always having all sufficiency in all things. All sufficiency. All have sinned. Christ died for all. All are to repent. God wants all men to be saved. And God has provided all sufficiency for all of us. Everything we need. All sufficiency The encounter of the shared Communion. The “all” statements. The inclusive “all” statements of Scripture. That ye always having all sufficiency in all things may abound unto every good work. is the way that verse finishes. As we think about the encounter of the shared Communion, as we think about the privilege that we have to break bread with each other in our local church settings. That ye always having all sufficiency in all things would work together. Would work together. Abounding unto every good work. The purpose of trials, and I’m not going to speak about this with a complete sense of understanding, but I’ve lived long enough in life to recognize that trials are a great equalizer. We push them back. We push back against them. We run from them if we can. We do not like trials. But dear ones this evening, trials and troubles and difficulties of life are a great equalizer. It’s when I have a trial that my brother steps up and blesses me. It’s when you have a trial that’s your brother steps up and blesses you, or your sister. Trials are great equalizer. Trials accomplish more, difficulties accomplished more in on lives than I suspect we will ever know this side of heaven. And when we get there, it really won’t matter anyway. But suffice it to say that trials are a great blessing. I love this passage in Romans chapter 5, verse 3 through verse 5, where the Bible says this, the Apostle Paul. He says, “Tribulation worketh.” “Tribulation worketh.” Remember we’re abounding unto every good work. Tribulation worketh patience, and patience worketh, it worketh experience, and experience worketh, it worketh hope, and Paul says, And hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us. The love of God is she’d abroad in our hearts, dear once tonight as a result of trials. The Encounter of the shared Communion. The purpose of trials. The great equalizing effect and dynamic of the purpose of the encounter of the shared Communion and the purpose of trials. The third part of the message that I’d like to speak some about tonight is the encounter of the salvational confidence. And that might be an interesting mixture of words, but let me just begin to talk about the salvational confidence that we have in Christ. Remember that passage that we looked at, and referenced briefly just a few minutes ago in First Timothy chapter 2 verse 4 which speaks about how God would have all men to be saved. There’s another expression somewhat like this, but it’s a different pronoun that’s used and this is in Romans chapter 5 again, in verses 8 and 9 where the Bible says there that, God commendeth his love toward us in that while were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died for us. Not just all, but he died for us; make it personal. He died for me. He died for you. Christ died for us. The encounter of the salvational confidence; Christ dying for us. And that passage goes on in Romans chapter 5 in verse 9 and it says this, Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him. Confidence. Salvational confidence. We shall be saved from wrath through him. It shall happen. We shall be saved from wrath through him. Christ died not only for all, but he died for us. The doctrine of assurance has one of the most precious doctrines in all of Scripture. Christian assurance, I’m speaking about. And this is referenced in a variety of passages. But let me just sight this one: Philippians chapter 1 verse 6 where Paul says as he writes to the church at Philippi, and he speaks about the confidence that he has in them. Remember, we’re looking at the encounter of the salvational confidence. Paul says this, Being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it. Make no mistake about it tonight. If God has his way, the good work that he has begun in your heart, in your life, he will perform it. He is faithful. It’s up to us whether or not that happens, but we can be confident in our God. He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ. The assurance – the doctrine of Christian assurance. Having this confidence, having the encounter of salvational confidence in no way implies that you and I have any room for boasting. Paul says this later on in the book of Philippians in chapter 3 verse 3. He says concerning his own self, he says, I have no confidence in the flesh. I want to say tonight that I have no confidence in this flesh. And I think you do the same. We have no confidence in the flesh. Our confidence is of the One who created us. Our confidence is in the One who gave his Son to die for our sins. Our confidence is in the One who raised Jesus up from the grave. Our confidence is in the heavenly Father at whose right hand the blessed Lord Jesus sits even now interceding on our behalf. Oh, the intercessory presence of the blessed Lord Jesus at the right hand of the throne of God. No confidence in the flesh. No cause for boasting. You know, really, all we are – it doesn’t matter how many experiences we’ve had in life. It doesn’t matter how old we might be, it doesn’t matter how seasoned and weathered we might have become through the trials of life, we are simply earthen vessels. I want to turn and ask you to turn with me to Second Corinthians chapter 4, and I want to read a few verses here about the earthen vessels, beginning in verse 7. Paul says this, We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. And I’m going to use my own translation here in these next couple of verses, but it says this, “We are pressured, but not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not deserted. Pummeled, but not destroyed.” It’s the p’s and d’s of the Christian experience. The King James says, We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you. As you think about the encounter of the salvational confidence, just think about the truths that the apostle is conveying to the church of Corinth. He says, I say it again: we are troubled on every side. We are pressured every side the troubles were coming at us, this side, this side, back and front, the top, the bottom. We are troubled on every side, the pressures of life. We are pressured, but not distressed. We are perplexed. As we think about it, as we ponder an encounter, we are perplexed, but we are not in despair. We are persecuted. Jesus said there’s a blessing in that. The Beatitudes: Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad… Not exceedingly. Exceeding glad. For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Moving on past gladness. Exceeding glad. Persecuted, but not deserted. God will never forsake us. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. The promise of Scripture is clear. Persecuted, but not deserted. Cast down. I picture in my mind a scene of two men in a boxing ring, and one is just pummeling the other. The one is cast down. He has been pummeled, but not destroyed. And that’s the way the enemy likes to do to us. He likes to beat us up, beat us down. So many times we are pummeled, but dear ones tonight, we’re still here. We’re not destroyed. Praise God for that! Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. The encounter of the salvational confidence. The Scripture says concerning the apostles – that reference was made this morning to Acts chapter 4 verse 31, that when these individuals had had the encounter of the salvational confidence, the Bible says at the end of that verse, “They spake the word of God with boldness.” “They spake the word of God with boldness.” We have the blessed privilege of encountering Jesus Christ. We have the blessed privilege of entering into the presence of God in the name of Jesus. And the Bible says that we’re to do that boldly. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 16. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We come there with the desire to obtain mercy, but the Bible says when we get there, we receive much more than mercy. We receive grace from God, “that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” We come boldly to the throne of grace. We all have seasoning experiences of life, and I may be speaking to you and what you think are rather idealistic terms tonight as I speak about being bold for Christ. I’ve been seasoned a bit in life. I remember a time some years ago that I had stopped by a gas station one morning. I think I was going to get a cup of coffee or something of that sort, and I got the coffee and walked up to the counter to pay. As I did so I realized that the man in front of me was engaging in some banter with the clerk behind the counter. I don’t recall exactly what it was that he was that he was doing there. But before he left he said “Oh, I need…” and then I forget whether it was some lottery tickets or whether it was some tobacco products or whatever it was, and the clerk said, “Are you sure you want that?” He says “Oh, yes. I know I want that.” He said, “Everybody’s got to have at least one vice.” And he began to turn around towards me, and he looked at me and he said, “Is that right?” And I said, “No, it’s not right. You don’t have to have vices. And that man turned back to the clerk and he said, “I guess I asked the wrong person that time.” And I thought about that, and I think he asked the right person, not because of who I am, but because the Word of God was on my tongue and I was quick to respond. I spake the Word of God with boldness, and you can do the very same thing. I never thought about it. It just came out the way it came out. Speaking boldly for the name of Jesus. As I think about the standard, and as I think about the idealistic tone to what I’ve just shared, as I speak about the encounter of the salvational confidence, I want to speak to some of you in this assembly tonight that I suspect may be challenged by this teaching. I recognize that our constitutions vary, and I recognize that there are probably individuals here in this assembly who have a lack of assurance. Maybe you’re more of a timid nature. Maybe you would be described by the expression “wallflower” or something of that sort. I want to speak heart to heart to you tonight. If that’s you, I want to tell you that this man standing up here in front of this pulpit tonight is by nature a very timid individual. That’s my natural inclination – or, it was. I was so timid. You’ve heard the expression of being afraid of your own shadow. That’s just about the way I was. I didn’t want anybody to focus or rivet attention upon me. I remember as a young lad, adolescent, being so timid and so afraid that I was afraid to walk into a church building because I suspected that people would turn and look at me. That’s how afraid I was. And that lingered; that continued. In fact, when I was about twenty years old, I had an uncle that was a minister of the Gospel; I shared that with a brother this afternoon. He was a minister of the Gospel, and he had a heart attack. He was recovering, and he was invited to an out-of-state preaching assignment, several states away actually. He talked to his doctor and his doctor said there was no problem with his heart and going to preach, but he wasn’t given the privilege to drive. And so this uncle asked me – I was unconverted about twenty years of age – he asked me if I’d be willing to drive him to this preaching assignment, appointment. And I said that I would do that. Now remember, I was about twenty years old, and we drove out there. It was just fine, and spent a day or so ahead of the weekend. And then on Saturday morning, we made our way to the meeting house and we got there, and I just locked up. I froze. The fears just assailed me. And I was so afraid that I could not get out of the vehicle. I sat in that vehicle for the Saturday morning worship service. I sat in that vehicle for the Saturday afternoon worship service. I sat in that vehicle beshackled with fear for the Saturday evening service. The same thing happened on Sunday. I was too petrified, too afraid, too timid to get out of that vehicle and encounter individuals that I didn’t know, or even some that I perhaps did know. I was just afraid. That’s who I am naturally. You might ask as I stand here tonight with not a quiver in my knee, and not an ounce of nervousness within me, you might ask, “What happened?” Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I had an encounter with Jesus Christ. When I became born again, I no longer had to pretend. I no longer had to protect the image. I could be who I was, and I’m not telling you that it went away immediately. I’m not speaking that way tonight. But I’m telling you things begin to change at that moment in my life. And it was when I was called to the ministry that God took away that fear. God took away that timidity. God took all of that away. And that’s the reason why I’m able to stand here and preach from this pulpit this evening. You see, this is not my natural talent. This is something other than that. People use the two terms “talents” and “gifts” interchangeably sometimes, and I wish we would not do that. God has naturally talented each of us. He’s given you, brother and sister, old and young alike, he’s given you some natural talents. But God delights in giving spiritual giftings to his children. And that’s only an illustration of one of the ways in which God spiritually gifts the encounter of the salvational confidence. Ephesians chapter 3 verse 12, Paul says, In Christ Jesus our Lord, we have boldness and access with confidence into this grace, this faith wherein we stand. In Christ Jesus our Lord, we have boldness and access with confidence. The encounter of the salvational confidence. Jesus is a gracious Master. Jesus is a gentle Shepherd. Jesus is the One who sustains us in trials. Jesus is the One who sits there at the Father’s right hand interceding for us. Jesus is the One that we hoped, we intend, we hope – and I use that word “hope” in the sense of the Christian doctrine of assurance – that we intend, we hope, we have the assurance of meeting someday with open arms as we encounter Jesus in living reality in that great and glorious morning, that resurrection morning. And so the encounter of Christ in the breaking of bread. The encounter of Christ in the breaking of bread. They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread. And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added unto the church daily such as should be saved. Isn’t that a wonderful expression, “Such as should be saved.” Who should be saved? Well, you should be saved. If you’re sitting here on these seats tonight in this tabernacle, and you’re not saved, you should be saved. The Lord’s adding to his church daily such as should be saved. The encounter of Christ in the breaking of bread. We’ve looked at the encounter the suffering Christ. The encounter the shared Communion. The encounter the salvational confidence. All of these are encounters. All of these are portrayed to us through the breaking of bread. As we break that bread together, I just – I love the experience. As I sit there at the Lord’s Table, as my brother turns to me and he speaks words something like this, in our culture, our faith tradition, he will say: Beloved brother, this bread which we break is the body of Christ.” And I say, “Amen. The bread which we break is the body of Christ.” Have you met Jesus? Have you really met Jesus? I don’t mean some casual brush of encountering Jesus. I mean meeting Jesus, really meeting Jesus. Have you met Jesus? Are you walking tonight in Holy Spirit power and victory. Is that characterizing your life that the Holy Spirit power is infilling you, and you’re living in victory in Christ? “He causes us always to triumph in Christ,” the Bible says, if we allow him to do that. Are you living in Holy Spirit power and victory in Christ? As I said earlier, I recognize that there’s a variety of circumstances, different constitutions, personalities, experiences in life. I didn’t think I would do this, but I just want to speak to those on these seats tonight who are not born again. It would be folly for me to look out on a vast throng of people like this and assume that all of you are born again. I want to speak to you tonight. I want to plead with you. I want to speak softly and gently with you, and yet I want to speak clearly and boldly to you. I want you to know and encounter Jesus Christ in a way that you’ve never experienced him before. I plead with you that you would allow Jesus and his Spirit to just speak to your heart and just touch you, to just rest, rest here, and let God speak to you. If you knew this were your last day, I wonder what you’d do. Could you look up and smile and say “Come, Lord, I welcome you!” Or would you panic to and fro with painful haunting fear, Afraid to stay, afraid to go, yet summoned to appear? What of those shady things you’ve done, of gossip passed along, Or obscene literature you’ve read, each secret sin and wrong. Have you confessed each known sin, repented through and through, Unbarred your heart and let Christ in. Have you been born anew? Except a man be born again, he’s lost in endless night, But Christ transforms the heart of man to see the heavenly light. Are you transformed in heart and will? Is Christ your life today? He’s calling now, is waiting still, but this may be the day. Encountering Christ in the breaking of bread. Finny Kuruvilla offers closing thoughts: Thanks, brother Curt for that message. There were a few points that that struck me as you were speaking there. One of the points that I was eager to hear how you’re going to resolve that debate that’s existed in Acts 2 about “Is this about Communion?” “Is that about a meal,” and I think you did a great job of articulating that that’s really a false dichotomy, because the early Christians had a meal in the context of their Communion. One of the things that you alluded to – the caste system. I was in India several years ago, and I was eating breakfast. And this was in a Christian setting, and there was a man who was standing there, and I said “Come eat with me. I’m eating breakfast.” He said, “No, no, no. I don’t want to do that.” And I kept asking him again and again. “Come, just come sit down and come talk.” And several times he refused, and so I decided to try to pull some seniority. So I asked my mom, “Tell him to come, make him sit down with me. She says, “You don’t understand, Finny.” And I said, “What is it?” She said, he’s from a different caste system. And so I explored this a little bit more, and as it turns out in North India, there are literally thousands of people who will tolerate passing a plate of wafers or crackers, and little things of juice as their Communion, but they refuse to eat one with another because of the holdovers of the caste system. It’s actually very common in North India. And that’s because they’ve picked up this Western model of Communion, which is really divorced from the meal which, again, I think you did a great job of highlighting that. So I appreciate that story a lot. So these are not merely academic exercises when we think about the nature of what Communion and the Lord’s Supper should be. You know, Michael Sattler in his preface to the Schleitheim Confession talks about how the early Anabaptist had meals consistently in the context of their Communion. This is something that, unfortunately, as more and more Protestant influence has come in to our circles that has fallen away. But I hope to whatever extent you have influence in your groups, you can be part of reviving that. I would never have guessed that you were timid. I would never have guessed that you would have sat in the car waiting out of fear. Never would have crossed my mind, but what a tremendous story of transformation from encountering the Lord. And I sometimes think I do a fair bit of apologetics, and there’s a line that we use often which is that, A man with an argument is no match for a man with an experience. And it’s so true that when a person meets the Lord, there’s a new creation. And one of the things that I will urge you to do is (particularly in the context of your small groups), if you have not had that experience, if you don’t know what this was about, pray for that. And maybe Brother Curt would even – you could even talk to him, and he might spend some time praying with you as well. I think that’s something for all of us to seek after in addition to head knowledge. It’s a tremendous thing to meet the Lord directly through the breaking of bread, through prayer, through these experiences. So thank you brother Curt. There’s a lot of great challenges in that message; really appreciate that.

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March 12, 2012: Ice partially covers the surface of Jew Pond in Mont Vernon, N.H. Residents can vote at a town meeting Tuesday whether to petition to officially change the name, which appears on a 1968 map but not on any town signs. Some say the name is inappropriate and disrespectful. Others says it was never meant to be offensive and is part of the towns history.AP MONT VERNON, N.H. – Residents of a rural New Hampshire town will have a chance to vote Tuesday night on whether to rename a fishing and skating spot that's been called Jew Pond since the 1920s. Mont Vernon town health officer Rich Masters pushed for the vote after the name appeared in a news report about an algae bloom at the pond. "I, frankly, find it to be inappropriate, disrespectful to some people," he said, "and I feel it needs to be changed." But for many long-time residents, the effort is a lot of fuss over a small, manmade body of water that no one cares much about. Over the years, the pond, near the center of town, has been called by many names, including Carleton Pond. A nearby sign says Carleton Park Recreation Area, though that refers to the land rather than the pond itself. The pond originally was named Spring Pond, said Masters, because the owners of a hotel there created it by digging up a spring to irrigate their golf course. They made clear in a brochure that Jewish guests were not welcome. The rest of the story is a bit murky, but it's generally believed that the body of water became Jew Pond when two Jewish businessmen from Boston bought the hotel. They intended to make the pond bigger and rename it Lake Serene, town officials say. Mont Vernon Historical Society member Zoe Fimbel, who has lived in the town for 31 years, said there's nothing bigoted about the Jew Pond name. She said it was more about longtime residents in the 1920s being annoyed by out-of-towners trying to turn the pond into something it was not. "It's too bad it's gotten to be such an issue when it's never even referred to or portrayed in a negative way," she said. "It's more like, 'It's the Jew's Pond. The new man in town.'" Mont Vernon's approximately 2,400 residents will have a chance to vote at the town meeting on whether to ask the U.S. Board of Geographic Names to officially change the Jew Pond moniker, which appears on a 1968 map but not on any town signs. The town, about 35 miles southwest of the state capital, Concord, has Jewish residents, but census data don't indicate how many. The only synagogue Masters said he knew about is in Nashua, about 15 miles away. Proposed new names for the pond include Carleton Pond and the original Spring Pond.