Watching the suffering in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, we are waiting for President Biden, the one who on the evening before his inauguration spoke of suffering and healing. We are waiting for that leader who consoled a grieving nation in a remembrance ceremony honoring those who died of the Covid-19. We are waiting for the man who gave a clear message that night, “to heal, we must remember. It’s hard, sometimes, to remember. But that is how we heal.”

An exhausted people after four years of Trump, we were so moved when Joe Biden demonstrated the significance of compassion as a fundamental must for a leader. We have appreciated every time President Biden told someone in pain that he understood suffering and the difficult journey that humans take to get through tragedies. A mensch we called him. read more

We as Jews must not stand idly by when a grave injustice is done in a country and a city we love. We believe that Jews have a right to a state and so do Palestinians. We stand with Israeli organizations like Ir Amim that “envisions a city that ensures the dignity and welfare of all its residents and safeguards their holy places, historical and cultural heritages – today, as well as in the future. Ir Amim aspires to a sustainable political future for Jerusalem as the shared capital of two sovereign states – achievable only through a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace process.” read more

I saw the story of Timmia Williams on Wednesday, four days after I got the Sunday paper. During the week I read several newspapers on line. Sunday is different, I get the paper delivered to my front door bundled up and protected from snow or rain. In my hands I hold printed news of the nation and the world. I look forward to a leisurely breakfast, an extra cup of coffee and read my favorite sections. I start with the week in review, I love the letters to the ethicist that despite four year of big lies, people are still searching for moral clarity; I read about modern love, and work my way back to the first section of the New York Times. It takes me a couple of days to read the entire paper. read more

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

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