False Dichotomies

“Tonight is the first night of Passover, when Jews across the world celebrate their ancestors’ freedom from the yoke of slavery in ancient Egypt. Sitting round the dinner table, we will recount the tale of liberation and the first aliyah in minute detail, with four glasses of wine to help us get into the festive spirit. We’ll move on to a lovingly-prepared feast midway through proceedings. Once Grace has been recited, the singing begins - including the traditional and rousing refrain of Next Year In Jerusalem.

For me, this is always a source of consternation - I already live in Jerusalem, yet every year I find myself flying back to my family in London for Seder night, in apparent contradiction of the song’s instructions. Thus, year after year, I try to imagine what it would take to get my nearest and dearest to actually up sticks and join me in the promised land - and I also wonder where the buck stops.

For, if I am sincere in wishing that my parents, grandparents, siblings and cousins would make the move to Israel, does it follow that I wish that my entire childhood community should do the same? If I extrapolate even further, am I saying that I wish that all of English Jewry - all of world Jewry, in fact - should take literally the commandment of “gathering in the exiles from all four corners of the Earth”? Read on at Comment is Free.

“I have always loved Fonthill Road. Not because of the shopping (I can’t remember the last time I wore pink spandex) but because of the place itself. Apart from late at night, when it becomes a long, desolate sweep of litter and blustering boxes, the walk from my house to Seven Sisters Road never fails to absorb me. And in this week’s hot sun the street was in fine form.

This is the place where all of London’s women bring their friends, daughters and daughters’ friends to scoop up the bargains that even Primark can’t provide. Large African women squeeze through narrow doorframes for curiously luminous dresses, while their daughters loiter loudly outside. Blonde women in matching tracksuits and glinting gold earrings bow to the floor under the weight of the world and the large shiny crosses that swing around their necks. As they open their mouths to scream to the small boys running behind them, it’s still a surprise to hear a bubbling, rounded Russian emanate from their mouths, rather than the sharper cut vowels of the English women they so resemble, and who appear now behind them, darting out of one shop only to disappear into another.” Read on at Comment is Free.

In late December, Alex and I were victims of a suspiciously professional robbery at his parents’ flat where we were both living. Earlier in the day I’d gone to Tel Aviv to see my girlfriend; then Alex had popped out for twenty minutes to grab some food from the local high street. In the tiny window of opportunity available, the intruders prised open the steel grille on the kitchen window, stole inside and grabbed both of our laptops, before making off into the darkening Jerusalem night. They ignored the considerable array of valuables on display – electronic goods, jewellery, watches and the like. It seemed to us, as well as the police, that they’d only had eyes for the computers, and the files contained therein. Continue Reading »

“For months now, the diplomatic chatter has been bubbling under. And now, the Saudi initiative, premiered inauspiciously during Operation Defensive Shield, is being re-launched. It offers Israel normal ties with Arab countries in exchange for full withdrawal from all land captured during the Six-Day War, as well as a solution to the refugee question based on UN general assembly resolution 194. It formally accepts the international consensus - embodied in security council resolution 242 - on the desired solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is the only show in town. But what are the chances of its success?” Read on at Comment is Free.

The Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement. Check it out here.

“If you go down to the souk today, you’re in for a big surprise - especially if you thought the concept of slave labour to be nothing more than a shameful, distant memory. Because, in and amongst the colourful stalls selling everything from in-season sabra fruits to knocked-off electrical goods, a silent army of pre-pubescent ghosts hover, earning a pittance by hauling customer’s purchases to their cars for up to 15 hours a day.

These are the Basket Children - so named for the trade they ply, making less than a pound an hour carting heavy loads on the orders of uncompromisingly stern shopkeepers. None of the kids are Jewish, and all of them hail from poor communities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Their work is made doubly difficult by the fact that they are illegally employed, making them both liable to arrest and also not covered by anti-exploitation legislation. Their bosses know this, and have no qualms about taking advantage of their predicament. Many of the boys I interviewed spoke of being unceremoniously ripped off by their employers, who frequently withhold their wages or dispute the amount of hours worked by the children.” Read on at Comment is Free.

“Normalisation is the desire to be a country like any other. Israelis are fiends for it. Whatever the circumstances, they see it as their birthright - the final piece in the Zionist jigsaw. Israel’s most virulent critics take the opposite view. Whatever the circumstances, they wish Israel to be made into the exception. And last weekend’s festivities in Tel Aviv, in which the drab goalless draw in Ramat Gan was only a sub-plot, provided the perfect opportunity to further assess Israel’s place in the world.

The match was an unequivocal hasbara success for Israel. For England, this was just another tiresome away game. For Israel, this was one of the biggest games in the country’s history, and a chance to welcome the mythical England supporter - tattooed and bevvied-up, but cheerful and decent all the same. Despite this, most countries tend to greet English fans with fear. The Israeli authorities, however, preferred to adopt Jay-Z’s dictum that sensitive thugs need hugs. English flags were paraded throughout Tel Aviv, supplies of beer were increased dramatically, and free transport was laid on. A special one-day festival was held in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park, with fun and frolics, including a chance for some of England’s fans to see if their beer bellies could defeat their leaner Israeli counterparts in some friendly wrestling.” Read on at Comment is Free.

“Al-Rafah Microfinance Bank, one of the major financial institutions in the Palestinian Authority, is seeking to open branches in Israel, thus becoming the first Arab bank in the world to do so.

Yedioth Ahronoth has learned that the bank’s shareholders have recently appointed Attorney Eitan Liraz to represent the bank in Israel and lead this venture into the Israeli capital market.” Read on here.

Liberty is, to live upon one’s own Terms; Slavery is, to live at the mere Mercy of another and a Life of Slavery is, to those who can bear it, a continual state of Uncertainty and Wretchedness, often an Apprehension of Violence, often the lingering Dread of a violent Death. (Cato’s Letters)

As Passover approaches, Jews ought to think intensively about slavery and liberation. My trip last week to Bethlehem in the company of rabbinical and yeshiva students certainly prompted uncomfortable reflection on these themes. The sojourn was organised by the Encounter Program and included tours of the Separation Wall and villages and farms under threat of confiscation. We saw demolished homes, and the disruption to the economic life of Bethlehem. As a group we were addressed by a local professor of Islam at Bethlehem University, by a Fatah member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) for Bethlehem, and by the Christian deputy mayor of Beit Sahour, whose daughter was killed by the IDF in a botched hit on Hamas gunmen. The picture we were given was one-sided, but not unreasonably so: it comprised an eloquent demonstration of what one might call the moderate Palestinian case against Israel. Continue Reading »

“The Massachusetts Institute of Technology hopes to mobilize the world’s brainpower to solve one of its most troubling problems: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

MIT officials are inviting individuals or teams from any country to participate in its “Just Jerusalem” competition. The contest aims to find a way to make Jerusalem just, peaceful and sustainable by 2050 so that Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side in a city both consider their capital.

The school will accept entries between March 31 and Dec. 31, The Boston Globe reported. MIT will announce the winners next March.” Read on here.