It’s been observed that people are avoiding the Gaza conversation because they are afraid that the dinner party will explode. I’ve seen it in my friends, walking on eggshells for fear that an Israel supporter will get upset. “[M]any of my Jewish friends cannot debate this… without extreme emotional investment in it, and that’s a very hard thing to deal with,” Andrew Sullivan says.
Last weekend, three rabbis from St. Louis’s leading liberal synagogue, the Central Reform Congregation (including Susan Talve, pictured), invited their congregants to attend two “important events.”
At the first event, congregants were urged to be outspoken about political issues: an NAACP march on Saturday for Mike Brown, “a youth-led march to end racial profiling, police brutality, and honor the life of Michael Brown Jr.”
But the second was a Muslim-Jewish gathering, and discretion was the order of the day:
2) Sunday, August 24, 12:30 pm – Yeatman Market, 4401 Athlone Ave, St. Louis 63115
Please come for a Celebration for local St. Louis Jews and Muslims to meet over food, music, poetry, prayer and some inspirational talks.
There will be NO DISCUSSION of Politics or Gaza.
It seems that the Muslim hosts were in on this etiquette. Writes a local journalist who helped plan the event:
The Muslim-Jewish Social tomorrow highlights the fact that in
#stl we can provide a universal model for friendship
They sang This Little Light of Mine there. And this video shows the crowd. A couple of dozen people, most of them middle-aged, playing music and eating. It used to be that “dialogue” groups were what Israel supporters offered instead of activism; let’s hear what the other community has to say. Well now it seems even dialogue is even too upsetting.
Imagine , if some German people desperate to show Jewish neighbours how really decent they are , invited them to dinner but put a sign on the front door!!.
Do not mention the H word.
I am not so sure , that raising the Gaza war is what bothers these people, but rather the inevitable slide into discussing the end of Zionism and with it, Israel .
I doubt that most of them give a hoot about the Gaza People.
Change is HARD.
This piece highlights for me just how difficult change is.
A few minutes ago, I opened up the new and improved MW site for the first time and found myself screaming inwardly ( with crossed arms and feet stamping), “This is awful! Change it back! It isn’t right! This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be! ‘X’ is wrong! ‘Y’ is wrong! I don’t like this! I’m never coming back to this site!”
Watching myself over the decades, I’ve realized with great dismay that I have an immediate negative (over)reaction to almost every change I encounter in my life. It’s irrational, it’s inconvenient, and it makes me crazy.
Eventually, however, I know I’ll also adjust, accept things, and even find tremendous benefits in whatever has been changed. Initially, though, I’m a complete mess.
I’m not a patient person but/and if this is how I react to a simple website design change how can I not have at least some empathy for those facing the change of a lifetime identity From that perspective, the changes that are going on all over the place are Herculean .
I almost forgot…
1. Can someone please, please, PLEASE recreate the EDIT button for replies.
2. Can someone create a “welcome to the new MW website” post so we can leave feedback about the new design in the comments section?
Thanks!
“There will be NO DISCUSSION of Politics or Gaza.”
Don’t mention the war!
“There will be NO DISCUSSION of Politics or Gaza.”
What’s the point? To stuff their faces and and the truth at the same time?
Hypocrisy on full display. You can’t work for justice here and ignore it there.
“a youth-led march to end racial profiling, police brutality, and honor the life of Michael Brown Jr.”
All well and good and necessary.
But to not recognize and try to stop US sponsored Israeli apartheid, Occupation, and massacres is only condoning it.
Thanks, Phil