False Dichotomies

“Puff told me like, the key to this joint/The key to staying, on top of things/is treat everything like it’s your first project/knahmsayin?/Like it’s your first day like back when you was an intern/Like, that’s how you try to treat things like, just stay hungry” Notorious B.I.G.

This is the final false dichotomies email. With my stint in the IDF rapidly approaching, I’ve realised that I won’t be able to give the blog the attention it deserves over the next few months. And, as Kurt Cobain said, it’s better to burn out than to fade away. But the decision to end falsedi goes deeper than just a lack of time. Even without the army, I think now is an appropriate time for falsedi to fade to black. Allow me to explain…. Continue Reading »

A new prize for journalists has been announced, and is open to the public until the end of October. Significant prize money is available for the winners of both sections (’published journalist’ and ‘aspiring journalist’) as well as the chance to receive the prestigious award named in honour of the late, great Chaim Bermant.

See here for more details on entry.

Alex, Josh and Seth are all expected to enter - and William Hill have already closed the book on a FalseDi clean sweep…

One of the abiding memories of my pre-aliyah trips to Israel is the first time I went to the Cave of Machpela in Hebron. Buried there are the three patriarchs and four matriarchs of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, and as such the site is of enormous spiritual importance. I travelled there during the relative lull between the first and second intifadas, and the journey from Jerusalem was a far simpler exercise than the average tourist would face today.

As I prayed at one of the tombs with my father I glanced through a metal grille over to the other side of the chamber, where Palestinian worshippers were praying with equal fervour. So near, yet so far - a shared ancient history, indeed, yet a recent past that had divided the two sides almost irreconcilably, to the point that they could not even pray together in peace.

And what a difference an intifada makes. The infamous security wall, the equally notorious maze of checkpoints, the tortuous inquisitions as you try to get from A to B, have all but destroyed the once-burgeoning tourism industry in the West Bank, as well as slammed the brakes on any interaction between the natives on either side of the divide. Hebron, as the more moderate Israelis and Palestinians love to reminisce, used to be one of several meeting points between the two peoples. Israelis on weekend trips would throng the bustling markets over the Green Line, buying up Palestinian goods and interacting with their neighbours in a way that seems almost incomprehensible to today’s battle-hardened generation.

Kipling’s famous phrase - “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” - sounds apt for a region oft described as the fault line between the Arab world and the west, yet it doesn’t quite tell the whole story. More at Comment is Free…

Rabbi Bayfield’s piece Never Forget attracted several critical responses - among them this one, from Mexicola:

“Does anyone, honestly, believe that all of this looking backwards is benefiting anyone? It smacks of “wallowing”. All we can do is keep telling the kids about these atrocities, keep showing them round museums which document them, but what else?

I’d have to agree with the “what else?” part of Mexicola’s argument. As I wrote in my last piece, Zionist youth groups regularly take their charges to Poland for tours of the Nazi death camps - but, as I also explained, they do more than just “wallow” in the misery of 60 years ago: they learn from history’s mistakes and come back to their home towns determined not to let racism, bigotry or prejudice blight their own particular worlds.

But that doesn’t mean that there is not still plenty of Holocaust-wallowing out there. The following story happened to me recently, and left me disgusted with the status quo in some quarters of the Jewish community regarding the “untouchable” side of the Holocaust. Read on at Comment is Free…

You can treat the latest offering at the Museum on the Seam as just another art exhibition – or you can walk round it as though at Yad Vashem (Israeli Holocaust Museum). Such is the power of “Equal and Less Equal”, which explores the relationship between the exploited and the exploiters, in the sphere of global labour.

Artists from around the world have collaborated on this unique project, which spans three floors of the museum, and evokes in the viewer a sense of shame, guilt and horror every bit as powerful as a walk through the haunting corridors of Yad Vashem. Continue Reading »

Whilst I was in London for Passover, commemorating the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient times, my best friend Nic was in Poland on a trip marking the Jews’ near extermination in the first half of the last century.

He is the leader of a group of eighteen year-old gap-year students from Britain, who are spending nine months on an organised programme in Israel, under the auspices of one of England’s many Zionist youth movements.

In the second term of the programme, there is a break from regular activities and the group flies from Israel to Warsaw, in order to visit the death camps and destroyed villages where many of the students’ ancestors either escaped from or perished. Speaking to Nic when they were midway through the trip, I asked him to describe what they’d seen and learned. “It’s beyond words, mate”, he told me. “You could write about it for the rest of your life, and you still wouldn’t have enough time to say it all.”

I turned down a place on a similar excursion when I was at school, believing that I wasn’t emotionally ready to deal with such an experience - and I’m still yet to make the journey to the scene of our near-destruction. However, the point of these trips is not just to mourn and wallow in the horror that took place sixty odd years ago. Rather, in order to honour the victims and learn from history’s mistakes, there are valuable lessons to be discovered, and a sense of morality to be instilled in the kids, which might otherwise be overlooked in their formative years. And Nic’s group proved this point perfectly during their time in Poland. More at Comment is Free…

Imagine the following scenario:

“Jeremy Bowen’s arrest and detention by masked men from IDF special forces a fortnight ago has provoked a storm of media interest, with makeshift camps of journalists outside the Israeli army headquarters, from which they cover the ongoing story round the clock. World leaders have roundly condemned Bowen’s capture, calling on the Israeli government to intervene and release the newsman - threatening all kinds of draconian sanctions if the army fails to comply. The usual suspects are out in force in the broadsheets and tabloids, citing Bowen’s plight as further proof of the above-the-law attitude of Israel’s top brass, and using the incident to reinforce their views of Israel as an unruly partner for peace.

Hypothetical or not, you can be sure that an almost carbon copy of the above would take place if, God forbid, Jeremy Bowen - or any other journalist - were so detained by the IDF. Condemnations and censures would ring out of every quarter, and the world’s ire would not abate until he was returned, unharmed, to the bosom of the BBC. The ramifications would be felt for weeks, if not months, and the cause of the Zionist entity would be dealt a hammer blow as a result.

Fine. So, whither art thou, O fair and balanced leaders and media, whilst Alan Johnston remains hostage in Gaza’s fair city? The silence is deafening.” Read on at Comment is Free

“When I was a child and our large family used to gather at my grandparents’ house in London for the Seder meal, I would always wonder why, at the point when we opened the front door to the needy, nobody ever entered. We kids would protest that of course there were going to be no starving homeless in our grandparents’ quiet cul-de-sac. We needed to head to nearby Finchley Road or Kilburn if we really wanted to find those in need. But our parents would urge us to come inside, “Let’s finish the Seder,” they’d say, “There’s nobody there.”

Well last night, with a diminished crowd and aging grandparents breaking matzo in a smaller flat, I am pleased to say that when we opened the door, there was indeed somebody there. A 90-year-old woman had apparently got lost on her way home from hospital and was confused about where she was. She told us that she had known that here was a Jewish home and that she didn’t want to be alone on this special night.

Finally, it seemed, we had a chance to act in the true spirit of the occasion and we invited her in to spend the evening with us. (Though, as it turned out, she soon announced that she was exhausted and after a bit of a process we managed to locate her house and keys and escort her safely back home.) Nevertheless, for the first time it seemed that as a family we had directly heeded the call to bring people in from the streets and share our wealth with them in celebration of the Jewish people’s freedom from slavery.” Read on at Comment is Free.

To confirm, in case the second half of the comments didn’t make it clear - Exiled was indeed an April Fools. It caused quite a stir. The number of people who fell for it was quite extraordinary. It amused some, angered others (we’ve even lost some readers over it), and generally did the job that an April Fools is meant to do - go close to the bone with cutting edge satire. Big shout out to Seth for putting it together. And, for an alternate take on what happened, head over to Simply Jews.

“Third, the professed respect for criticism is a sham when it is not permitted “to condemn Israeli actions and, at the same time, to forego any realistic historical and political frameworks that might account for such actions.” As presented by Rosenfeld, this formula implies that Israel’s actions have to be justified, right or wrong. The appeal to a “realistic framework” aims to rationalize the Israeli position. Criticism ought to be considered on its merits and not by any other yardstick. Suppressing criticism when it is deemed to be unpatriotic has been immensely harmful both in the case of Israel and the United States. It has allowed the Bush administration and the Sharon/ Olmert government to pursue disastrous policies.” Read on here.