Monthly Archives: April 2021

Behind the Israeli Blockade: Reflections on a Medical Delegation to Gaza by Thomas H. Foster

Articles
Our medical delegation and staff at the Wi’am Palestinian Conflict Transformation Center in Bethlehem.

In early March 2020, I was privileged to join a ten-person medical delegation to Gaza organized by the Washington state chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Several among our group have long histories and deep personal ties with Gaza, which has been subjected to a harsh Israeli blockade for fourteen years. The staff of our host organization, the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, worked tirelessly to tailor our daily schedules to our specialties and interests. We were provided with personal interpreters and transportation. In my capacity as a medical physicist, I visited six hospitals, where I left behind textbooks and electronic files of my medical imaging teaching materials. I met and spoke with hospital administrators, medical directors, radiologists, radiology technologists, and other medical professionals. read more

YOM HASHOAH SPEECH AT TEMPLE B’RITH KODESH 4/9/21 by Warren H. Heilbronner

Articles, Events

PARAPHRASING A QUOTE FROM THE SPANISH WRITER SANTAYANA, “THOSE WHO FORGET HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO LIVE IT AGAIN”.

TONIGHT, WE COMMEMORATE YOM HASHOAH—HOLOCAUST REMEMBERANCE DAY, AND SO FOR THE LAST 76 YEARS, ALL AROUND THE WORLD JEWS HAVE CRIED “NEVER AGAIN”, YET ARE WE BEGINNING TO FORGET?

AS MANY OF YOU KNOW ALREADY, ALTHOUGH I WAS NEVER IN A CONCENTRATION CAMP,  I AM A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR, BORN IN STUTTGART, GERMANY, ON NOVEMBER 7, 1932; AND ALTHOUGH I MAY NOT REMEMBER MUCH FROM MY EARLY YEARS, THERE IS SEARED IN MY MEMORY, THE MORNING OF NOVEMBER 9, 1938, KRISTALLNACHT, THE START OF THE HOLOCAUST, WHEN AT 5:00 AM MY BROTHER AND I PEEKING DOWN FROM THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, WATCH AS MY MOTHER OPENS THE FRONT DOOR TO A LOUD KNOCK TO SEE TWO GESTAPO COMING TO ARREST MY FATHER. LIKE MY GRANDFATHER WHO HAD BEEN ARRESTED EARLIER, HE WAS SENT TO THE DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP.  ALTHOUGH HE WAS LATER RELEASED SINCE THE NAZIS HAD NOT YET BEGUN THE SYSTEMATIC KILLING OF JEWS, THEY JUST WANTED THEM GONE SO THEY COULD MAKE GERMANY “JUDENREIN”—A COUNTRY WITHOUT JEWS, WHICH ALLOWED US TO ESCAPE TO THIS COUNTRY. SO TONIGHT I SPEAK, AS I DO OFTEN, FOR THE 6 MILLION JEWS, WHO WERE BEATEN, TORTURED AND MURDERED, WHO CAN NO LONGER SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. read more

Howard Thurman in Israel By Peter Eisenstadt

Articles

On 3 December, 1963, the African American minister and religious thinker, Howard Thurman (1899–1981) and his wife, Sue Bailey Thurman (1903–1993) arrived in Israel for a stay of several weeks. They had wanted to visit Israel during a previous, round-the-world trip, in 1960, when they visited Lebanon—where he had talks with Palestinian refugees—and Egypt, but the ongoing Arab boycott had made this impossible. They arrived in Israel after an extended stay in Nigeria, where Howard Thurman had been teaching at the University of Ibadan. read more