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Total number of comments: 17 (since 2010-07-20 17:50:02)

unverified__42829j75

Website: http://audreyruth.wordpress.com

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  • The earlier me
  • 'Time' features generational divide over Israel-- when will 92d St Y stage this family affair?
    • Audrey September 29, 2011 at 10:41 pm

      The importance of the article is not that her views are particularly groundbreaking (they're not) or progressive (they're not), but that they are more progressive and more groundbreaking that the views attributed to Jews by the majority of real Americans, not coastal academic liberals: that is, those who actually read TIME. A white American who has never met a Jew doesn't know that there are Jews who criticize Israel. Then they read this article in TIME in the dentist's office in, say, Wyoming, and realize that there is something amiss.

      Then maybe they change their views (little by little), then they vote for new people (little by little), and eventually the US-Israel bludger bully duo is weakened (little by little).

      It must be the excess of raisin challah that has made me an optimist today.

  • It’s not propaganda if the lenses are blue and tinged with green
    • Audrey September 29, 2011 at 10:28 pm

      (The comment was becoming longer than the post.)

      So it was at some anti-racism event in Tel Aviv that I attended with friends from the Mossawa Center, and to be quite honest I remember very little, until an elderly woman in the audience stood up and starting ranting in Hebrew and Arabic. She was inconsolable; she went on and on about how as a Mizrahi Jew in Israel, she was made to learn Hebrew, has been discriminated against her whole life, that Arab Jews face inequality in Israel just like Arab non-Jews in Israel, but no one pays attention to their struggles because they're Jewish.

      This woman, who theoretically should have been as much a part of the Jewish state as the Ashkenazis who run the country, spent her whole life as very much a second class citizen; because of her skin color, because of her accent, because of her heritage.

      This piece in 972 (link to 972mag.com
      reminds me of this old woman, and I think she and they make an incredibly compelling point, as part of a group whose struggles so often get lost in the shuffle.

    • Audrey September 28, 2011 at 4:55 pm

      I think the replacing of Judaism with Zionism certainly ties in.

      To piggyback on the discussion on Mizrahi and Sephardi communities in Israel, and modern Israel's treatment of Middle Eastern cultural symbols, it seems evident yet again that Israel, despite being a home to large numbers of non-white Jews, is still a white, European, colonial entity. The appropriation of Mizrahi and Sephardi cultural symbols means these symbols now stand for Zionism, but it does not mean that Mizrahi and Sephardi communities are accepted as equal in Israeli society. Granted, they are better off than, say, Ethiopians or any and all non-Jews, but at various points in their history as it relates to Israel the State, they have been forced to give up their language, their customs, in this case their symbols, positions of power (except Shas, but perhaps in this case the exception proves the rule?), the good Army stations, and so on and so forth. I have an interesting anecdote about racism against Mizrahi Jews in Israel, but I'll save it for another time.

      Then, by drowning the Mizrahi and Sephardi cultures in Eastern European white-ish supremacy and "modern" nation-state colonialism, the adorably "primitive" aspects of the soon-to-be-lost-forever cultures that characterized Eastern and Middle Eastern Jewry, like these pagan symbols, become both adopted as symbols of the power of Zionism and a reminder to would-be detractors of the so-called all-inclusiveness of a Jewish and/or democratic country.

      Exhale.

      In an addendum, Walid brings up an interesting point which I couldn't fit into the post, which is that according to the tenets of Rabbinic Judaism as I understand them, idolatry isn't exactly everyone's favorite... so it seems a human-esque shape wouldn't and shouldn't be a religious symbol in any case.

  • Be careful when you play that Jewish card
    • Audrey August 10, 2011 at 1:09 pm with 11 replies

      What makes someone Jewish? Is being "an American of Jewish ancestry who has become more and more attached to Jews and Judaism through [his] work with JVP" not enough? To my knowledge, having or claiming Jewish ancestry is enough "Jewishness" to qualify you for a Birthright trip and in general for entry into Israel, the alleged land of Jews, but apparently not enough for, well, the general public to consider you so. So when does the rabbi's opinion count, and when does the border patrol's opinion count? When does a person's opinion count, and when does an outside observer count?

      If he thinks he's Jewish, he's Jewish. That should be all that matters.

  • A representation of Israeli soldiers
    • Audrey August 1, 2011 at 2:11 pm with 16 replies

      eee:

      1. I never said these were IDF soldiers; simply soldiers. Define: link to wordnik.com
      Also, as a small history lesson, the Border Guard USED to be a subsidiary of the IDF and they since split, probably due to the impossible largesse of the forces. Also, since service in the Border Guard counts as the mandatory Army service required of eligible Israeli citizens, for all intents and purposes I will consider them soldiers.

      2. I don't know if you saw the young man lying on the ground, but a tear gas canister is a projectile when the gun is fired directly at a person, which happened, and which is, as I understand it, contrary to Border Police and Army regulations.

      3. I appreciate your fervent defense of heavily-protected soldiers (including face masks) against the mortal threat of adolescents, but the soldiers/policemen were blocking the roads, not the protesters. And, I know many have a distaste for accurate chronology, but the tear gas firing occurred BEFORE the rock throwing. Please re-read captions.

      (Also, on the police vs. soldier note, remember when Vietnam was called a "police action?")

      eee, have you ever been to a protest, violent or otherwise, in the West Bank? I would like you to go to one someday.

      OH and, if you'd like a full account of my experience in Nabi Saleh (which included, in fact, the soldiers telling me I was no longer allowed to take pictures because they had arbitrarily decided the ground surrounding them was a closed military zone -- I am imagining a force field the likes of Violet's in The Incredibles), it shouldn't be terribly difficult to find.

      and LanceThruster -- yes, he was checking to see if the boy was holding rocks.

  • Curb your racism
    • Audrey July 29, 2011 at 3:51 pm

      Okay I didn't even see this; but that's the first thing I thought of when I read this.

    • Audrey July 29, 2011 at 3:50 pm with 1 replies

      Does anyone remember the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode in which an Israeli buys the building next to the bar and it turns out part of the bar crosses the property line, so the Israeli decides he is going to take "what is rightfully his" and the gang ends up accidentally blowing up his building?

      Similarly distasteful, but hilarious.

  • Help MECA bring attention to children under threat of deportation from Israel
  • What really happened in Bil'in
    • Audrey January 2, 2011 at 5:39 pm

      I make a habit of ignoring everything Isabel Kershner says.

      But your order of events accurately reflects everything I've seen; marching, gassing, running, more gassing, and eventually the stones come out...

  • A (missed) opportunity for dialogue
  • Palestinians in Israel would prefer one secular democratic state (but who's asking them?)
    • Audrey December 13, 2010 at 4:11 pm with 2 replies

      Regarding the last, I think I acknowledge that the academic elite community is not a representative sample, but it is the only one that is vocal. They are, of course, the only ones that can talk about things like "solutions." Regarding political parties supporting a two-state solution, see Knesset basic law Amendment 9 (to section 7a), which bans all political participation in the Knesset of anyone who does not acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state, and any one-state parties are considered as not recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. Hence the essentially forced acceptance of two states.
      And regarding the first, that is the point of our grant proposal to the EU, to run these opinion polls. Anyway, my assessment was not based on opinion polls, only on my observations of 'conversations on the street' as it were, which is in many ways the most accurate assessment of true sentiment. You say a lot more at a coffee shop than you do on the phone to a surveyer, after all.

  • My meeting with Henry Waxman
    • Audrey November 11, 2010 at 4:21 am

      Brian, that was an amazing thing you did - if only more of us would have the courage to stand up to our elected representatives, not just through ballots but in the streets. Love it.

  • If a stranger spews hateful rhetoric in the woods in Maine, and no one's there to hear him...
    • Audrey November 3, 2010 at 9:23 am with 1 replies

      That's just the thing - the need to publish "pro-Israel" commentary in "response" to something neither pro- nor anti-. No one (them) wants to think about it critically.

      Funny story, do some googling about the publisher of the PPH (Connors), September 11, and Ramadan for some further insensitivity and ignorance emanating from my small corner of the world.

      And thanks for all the support, guys. :-)

  • Tibi: American unwillingness to challenge inequality in Israel has gravely damaged its moral authority
    • Audrey October 22, 2010 at 4:34 am

      Because:
      1. Japan does not denote a religion, so does not have the theocratic-democratic conflict that Israel as a Jewish state necessarily does. Also, Japan has traditionally been an ethnically, culturally, and nationally homogeneous place.
      2. Saudi Arabia does not pretend to be a democracy, as Israel claims it is, and never said that all its citizens have equal rights. While we may not agree with a theocracy in principle, at least they are not masquerading as a democracy.
      3. You are kidding yourself if you think people are not attacking Iran. Additionally, it can be argued that the reason for Iran's own problems are the fault of the US for - yet again - intervening where we had no business.

      And this is not attacking, it is constructive criticism from a group of people who want to see Israel live up to its purported democratic standards.

  • When is the 'Times' going to run a furious piece about Knesset bills that discriminate against Palestinians?
    • unverified__42829j75 July 20, 2010 at 1:30 pm

      As an American Jew currently working at a Palestinian think tank in Haifa, I see both sides. Certainly, there is a chronic blindness - intentional or otherwise - on the part of the rest of the world towards the injustices done the Palestinians on the part of the Israeli government.

      Yet as much as I fight for social justice (quote unquote), I can't help but feel utterly betrayed by this Knesset motion, as I do every day in my work reading and researching these injustices towards Palestinians. It is not an issue of who Israel and the rest of the world may or may not be ignoring. It's about questions of personal identity, questions that matter very deeply to a whole world of people. My own identity as a non-Orthodox Jew, the identity of Palestinian citizens of Israel as Palestinian, as Arab, as non-Jewish in a Jewish-only world: there is a similarity here.

      Certainly this wrong is not nearly as damaging - yet - as the abuses towards the Palestinians. These are completely incomparable situations. But they bother me, and I predict many others, on two completely different levels. The move to "accredit" only Orthodox conversions is an offense to who I am. Israel's daily policies against Palestinians are an offense to what I believe. These overlap but solicit different reactions. Fight or flight versus stay and play, so to speak.

      If anything at all, we can hope that what comes from this is a newborn sense of understanding on the part of American Jews for the hardships and discrimination Palestinians endure in their daily lives.

      Audrey

  • For 'Birthright' tourists, hill above Gaza is fun like the Grand Canyon

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