I walk the seashore
Waves splash against the rocks
Surf drags sand down to the depths
Crushing salt between my toes to dust
Grinding tiny worlds to ashes
Is this what You feel like?
Monthly Archives: March 2015
Netanyahu Stepped into a Perilous Republican Narrative –by Ayala Emmett
Since 2008, Republicans have taken every opportunity to portray President Obama as an alien Other who came from Africa without a birth certificate. In accepting Speaker Boehner’s invitation to speak before members of Congress, Prime Minister Netanyahu stepped into a Republican narrative dotted with racial innuendos intended to undermine and delegitimize President Obama. In the larger American context Netanyahu’s visit has become much more than a serious and legitimate disagreement with the president about Iran. In accepting Speaker Boehner’s invitation, Prime Minister Netanyahu has effectively joined the Republicans’ narrative and became part of their effort to undermine the president of the United States. By aligning himself with Republicans to undercut the president Netanyahu linked himself to Right wing media and politicians who are attacking Obama’s political decisions, domestic and foreign as un-American and disloyal. A political narrative that constructs the president of the United States as “un-American” is not where foreign leaders should situate themselves and few have done it until Netanyahu. Now Israel’s prime minister has linked himself with the Republican efforts to un-Americanize the president in a fashion that was displayed last week by Rudy Giuliani.
Self-Ownership—by Ayala Emmett
http://www.politico.com/wuerker/2014/06/june-2014/001868-027314.html
For the Moses Cartoon
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/r/reproductive_rights.asp
Self-Ownership—by Ayala Emmett
Republican leaders came to Washington last week to do the people’s business. They were rightly energized by the elections and animated by the fact that they now have a comfortable majority in both houses of congress. There are numerous issues facing the nation in 2015, such as endemic racism, immigration, growing economic disparities, soaring students loans, crumbling infrastructure, failing schools, and global warming.
Presence and Absence of Naming & Names in Torah—by Matia Kam
Presence and Absence of Naming & Names in Torah
Matia Kam
On Being a Levite
“These are the names of Lev’s sons according to their lineage” (6:16)
“Amram took for a wife his father’s sister Jochebed and she bore him Aaron and Moses”(6:20)
Torah begins chapter six with a list of names and lineages to place Aaron and Moses in the genealogy as the descendants of Kohath, one of Levi’s sons. The list of names starts with Reuben, the eldest, followed by Simeon, who was followed by Levi. This outlines the lineage and takes up the names Amram and Jochebed who were nameless in the previous Parsha (mentioned there only as a Levite man and a Levite woman, and as “the child’s mother”). In this Parsha, in chapter six we have a detailed four-generation family that includes names of Aaron’s wife, his children’s names and his grandson Phinehas. So who is absent from the list? Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron and most significantly Moses’ wife and children are absent. This is curious since the text states twice that the purpose of the list is to describe “Aaron and Moses” (6:26-27) yet it surely strikes us that Moses family is not mentioned.