How long, O Lord, will You always forget me?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long shall I cast about for counsel,
sorrow in my heart all day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
Look at me, answer me, O Lord, my God
Restore the luster to my eyes
lest I sleep the sleep of death
lest my enemies say, “ I have overcome him”
my foes exult when I totter.

I have been reading the Book of Psalms in recent weeks. This, cobbled together from two translations, is most of psalm 13. (I will leave the last verse until later.) It describes a person who keeps on looking for God, and keeps on finding that God has left the premises. It describes a person who wants to be vindicated, who has been repeatedly defeated by numerous enemies, and who expects God to help. But God doesn’t. God apparently doesn’t care. The psalmist is humiliated and tormented. read more

The ploy worked, and unless Israeli President Reuven Rivlin throws a curve ball, Benjamin Netanyahu will be the Israeli Prime Minister for another term. It is almost a foregone conclusion that Netanyahu will staff the new government with a cast of characters culled from Israel’s hard right-wing that won him the election. Despite Netanyahu’s politicking over recent news cycles to roll back his Monday disavowal of a two-state solution – as of Thursday, a two-state solution is back on the table, and was never really off the table in the first place – people aren’t buying it, and international forces are already mobilizing to force the issue: Israel must work towards a Palestinian state in actual fact, or international recognition of a Palestinian state will be an actual fact. read more

Yesterday, seeking nationalist right-wing support to clinch re-election in Israel’s March 17, 2015 elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will say no to a Palestinian state if Likud is re-elected. In essence, a Likud win means that a two-state solution, where a Jewish state coexists with a Palestinian state, is dead.

On one level, this tells us nothing new. Netanyahu’s refusal to heed international pressure to cease construction and settlement activities clearly meant to obstruct the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank is clear enough evidence that this was his intention all along. But Netanyahu’s announcement puts other forces into play, forces whose potency was limited so long as a one-state agenda remained hearsay and not policy, forces whose legitimacy is now tied to the outcome of elections now bootstrapped to a public referendum. read more

I am a citizen with no public microphone but I believe in civic responsibility and I try to do what I can to bring a peaceful message to the streets of my town. I carry in my car a large poster of Combatants for Peace ’73 that says: “Bibi You Failed, Go Home.” I park my car for several hours in different places around town. The most remarkable and encouraging sign that I take from my action is that no one has vandalized my car. In the last elections if I had done it, some right-wing zealots would have smashed my windows and destroyed my car. The fact that my car is intact is a promising sign of the time, that the violence of the right has lost some of its legitimacy and appeal. It is no longer so cool. There are more voices for change and peace that have gained ground in the public domain and that is very encouraging. read more

The Jewish Federation of Rochester sponsored an Israeli trip in February 2015. We had 67 people, half of us being first-timers. The following is my attempt to begin to understand.

It rained all but one day of the trip. Not steady, but enough to keep things damp. From Tel Aviv to Bahad Echad, where IDF officers are trained, then early evening spent in a Bedouin camp, minus camel rides (thank goodness) but yet again eating piles of delicious food. Well after dark, in the pouring rain, we arrived at the hotel at Mitzpe Ramon. We saw nothing but the hotel room that night. read more

Just wanted to write to let you know how things are here in South Texas Family Residential Center, Dilley Texas. In a word: depressing. There are about 300 mothers here, all with young children. The mothers range from late teens to early twenties, and are from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Some of them speak indigenous languages, and only marginal Spanish, and all of them have suffered terribly. Many of them are fleeing terrible domestic violence, and report that the police in their home countries will not protect them, and even collude with their batterers. Many of them report that gangs threatened them or their children, including forcing them to pay large sums of money to prevent their children being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery, and being threatened with their children’s murder if they fail to pay enough money. read more