Month: July 2009

Israel is at war again

by adminin Politics, Writing

9

 Israel is at war again

Zeek at Jewcy.com, July 20, 2009

Israel is at war again. This time, the frontline is deep within the country’s borders—South Tel Aviv.

Home to African refugees, foreign workers, and economically disadvantaged Israelis, South Tel Aviv was once a picture of pluralism and coexistence. Indian, Nepali, Chinese, and Filipino workers gathered in tight clusters, chattering in their mother tongues. Refugees from Darfur, Sudan, and Eritrea lined South Tel Aviv’s parks, their children sharing brightly colored swings and slides with Hebrew-speaking Filipino kids, many of whom were born and raised in Israel.

And then came Operation Oz.

On July 1, hundreds of refugees and foreign workers were detained in a massive South Tel Aviv raid that marked the beginning of Operation Oz. Waves of arrests continued in the following days. Legal foreign workers and asylum seekers were not immune—they were rounded up and warned to keep out of Tel Aviv. The next time they were caught, the police cautioned them, they would be imprisoned—with their papers in hand.

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Clothes like days

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

michalbassad1

 Clothes like days

The Jerusalem Post, July 17, 2009

“It’s a kind of a dance,” says Michal Bassad. The designer is perched on a table next to her sewing machine. Her studio, which also serves as her store, has only a few racks of clothing, reflective of her artistic approach to fashion.

Though the space is minimal, it’s energetic—loud music streams though an old radio, and the teal walls serve as an impromptu chalkboard. “Anger is energy” is scrawled in white beside the makeshift dressing room of little more than a corner partitioned by paper patterns hanging from a steel rack. Her clothes are as dynamic as the environment they are created in.

“My clothes are very organic in that manner, they are not planned, they are intuitive,” Bassad says. This approach explains why no two pieces are identical.

“Each is one. It’s like days,” says Michal, “no day is the same, no day repeats itself.” While each piece is distinct, they are all reflective of Bassad’s unique vision— part punk rock, part recycled, entirely fanciful.

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The bigger picture

by adminin Middle East, Politics, Writing

iranprotest

 The bigger picture

The Jerusalem Post, July 10, 2009

At night, cries of dissent like “Allahu akbar!” and “Death to the dictator!” rise from the rooftops of Tehran. The protesters’ calls are punctuated by shattering glass as Basiji smash car windows in retribution on the streets below. But the people persist, turning their voices to the sky, an Iranian-American in Tehran, who asked to be called Reza, reports to The Jerusalem Post.

“The scare tactics, like killing protesters, have worked,” Reza says, “When there were thousands of people out, [the protesters] felt safe. But because the crowds have thinned, it’s not like it was before.”

But in many ways, Iran is as it was before—for this now-simmering resistance was a long time coming. And many, like Reza, anticipate that there is still more to come.

Despite the fact that the protests were focused on the election results, Reza is certain that the election was merely the spark in the powder box, igniting years of frustration and disillusionment. “Last time I was here, in 2007, literally everyone—from taxi drivers to my family—was very angry and was openly cursing the president and the government, mostly because of the economic situation.” Reza explains that though Iranians readily aired their discontent to one another, no one did so in public and never in the streets.

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Body and Jewish souls

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

 

jewishbodymelvinkonner1

Body and Jewish souls: review of Melvin Konner’s The Jewish Body

The Jerusalem Post, July 10, 2009

Who knew that Dr. Ruth, the grandmotherly sex expert, was a Haganah fighter in Israel’s War of Independence? How often the Nazis’ considered the “final solution” a public health program? And when we think of the nose job do we categorize it as a form of therapy, as some did in the 19th century?

Surprises such as these are sprinkled throughout Melvin Konner’s The Jewish Body. Konner, who earned both his PhD and MD at Harvard and is a professor at Emory University, is a well-known and well-published scholar. And it is in Konner’s able hands that the Jewish body comes to life, representing the individual and collective, the literal and metaphorical, the corporeal and spiritual, and the historical and contemporary. The result is a dense, entertaining text comprised of a variety of topics that ordinarily might not appear between the covers of the same book—from religious law to golem to Jewish boxers to Kafka to current genetic research. Though Konner’s rich and provocative study is at times a bit scattered and occasionally over-simplistic, it ultimately pushes readers to consider the Jewish people, past and present, in a new light.

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