Israeli-Palestinian Collision

By Elana Levy and Carole Resnick for Syracuse Jews for Peace (April, 2009)

The material in this hagada is in part taken from the hagada by this name, written by Rabbi Arthur Waskow. Material from many other sources has also been included.

SEDER PLATE
A traditional seder plate includes five items:
- zeroa, a roasted shank bone representing the Paschal lamb, the holiday offering
made in Temple days (vegetarians today often use a roasted beet for its bloodred
color, or a roasted sweet potato for the pun of calling it the Paschal Yam;)
- beitzah, a roasted egg (with various symbolism; many see it as a symbol of

By Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey - Voice of Reason

Keeping It Real While Feeling the Hope: A Response to President Barack Obama's Historic June 4, 2009 Speech at Cairo University

Posted: 04 Jun 2009 11:07 AM PDT

By Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey

Like many people who trade in the world of political commentary, I was prepared to write a response to President Obama's speech from the perspective of content analysis and criticism of not only what he communicated, but what, from my perspective, he left unsaid.

And I will still do that because there are areas of concern that many, including Muslim Americans have about the status of the relationship between the broader Islamic world, the Muslim American community and the policies and practices of the United States government.

The June 4 Lines

(June 5th, 2009)

By Gershom Gorenberg*

Barack Obama likes to change what history means, and that’s a very good thing.

Today, for instance, marks 42 years since the Six-Day War began. Ever since then, the term “June 4 lines” has referred to the on-the-ground border between Israel and its Arab neighbors on the eve of the war - not the lines marked on maps, but the lines marked by forward military positions. On the Syrian front, for instance, the actual positions lined up with neither the pre-1948 international border between Palestine and Syria, nor with the 1949 armistice agreements. The small distances on the ground make for big problems in peace negotiations.

If the US Insists on M. E. Peace --
Will There Be a Crisis over Values & Identity
Within American Jewish Life?

Is the American Jewish community headed for a deep internal split over our values and commitments if the US and Israeli governments collide over whether to be serious about a two-state peace settlement?

The Israeli-Palestinian collision, since Hamas rocket attacks on parts of Israel and the Israeli bombing and invasion of Gaza, has now reached a crisis point. It has become both a special case of the collision between some elements of Islam and some elements of the West -- – and a burning source of anger on both sides that makes harder any peaceful resolution of issues between the West (especially the US) and some Muslim states and organizations.

BY ANDREW O’HEHIR

Salon, Sunday, May 3, 2009 06:29 EDT

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Simone Bitton's documentary "Rachel," which premiered this week at the Tribeca Film Festival, is what's not in it. Bitton, a Moroccan-born Jewish filmmaker who spent many years in Israel and now lives in France, conducts a philosophical and cinematic inquiry into the death of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American activist who was killed under ambiguous circumstances in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip in March 2003. But the political firestorm that followed Corrie's death, which saw her beatified as a martyr for peace by some on the left and demonized as a terrorist enabler by some on the right, is virtually absent from the film.

By Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey
Director, Human and Civil Rights Division
MAS Freedom (Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation)

A Note for the Serious: Anti-Racism is Not “Theater”

Comments on the “Ahmadinejad Show” at the Durban II Conference in Geneva

Three years ago, I wrote an essay with critical comments about a gathering in Tehran that focused, in my opinion, on strong revisionist sentiments concerning the European Holocaust (Shoa) of the 1930’s and 1940’s. I noted that the genocide that engulfed European Jewry was truly a monstrous crime against humanity, and attempts by modern anti-Zionists (and also anti-Semites and racists of other stripes) must not be conflated into the legitimate criticism of the modern Jewish state of the support for Palestinian self-determination and freedom from Israeli occupation. I believed then, as I do now, that Muslims, and all people of morality, must never deny the reality of the historical suffering and oppression of any people.

by Arthur Waskow

[This article is extracted from Rabbi Waskow's remarks to a Peace Gathering of Christians convoked in January 2009 by the Historic Peace Churches (Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren), which also invited a small number of Jews and Muslims to act as participant-observers and commentators. This transcript of his talk is appearing in the Friends Journal. Copyright © 2009 by Arthur Waskow.]

I begin with a renewed version of the blessing traditionally offered before learning Torah—sharing wisdom—together:

Blessed are You, the Breath of Life, the Inter-breathing Spirit of the universe, who breathes into us the wisdom to know that we become holy by breathing together, by shaping our breath into words, and by shaping our words so that they aim towards wisdom.

By CHRIS HEDGES
NY Times, June 13, 2002

AS a young refugee, Henry Siegman found himself fleeing advancing German troops in Belgium early in World War II. He, his pregnant mother and younger brothers and sisters stumbled into one of the worst debacles of the war -- the frantic retreat of Allied troops at the Battle of Dunkirk. They huddled in a pitch-black cellar as the fighting raged overhead. In the morning, to the horror of the young boy, the door was kicked open by victorious German troops.

This scene, the subsequent months of hiding in Vichy France, the constant efforts to elude the roundups of Jews and the eventual flight to Casablanca and passage to America, come back to him now regularly. He says that what he went through as a child makes it easier to understand what it is like to be a Palestinian living under the ''fear and humiliation'' of Israeli occupation.

[Ed. NOTE] This statement by leaders of the three Abrahamic communities in Boston was issued January 13 and was published in the Boston Globe by a columnist who writes on religion.

Its thoughtfulness and the breadth and stature of its signers are extraordinary –-- representing the best version of our religious traditions and communities.

If in your own community, religious leaders are well on the way to adopting your own statement on the Gaza-Israel war and publicizing it, wonderful! --

If however you don't have such a statement ready, the existence of this one could be a great help. In that case, we strongly recommend that in your own community, you take this statement with its list of well-known signers to your own congregation for discussion and signing, and to interfaith leaders where you are. Then go to the local media and ask them to do a major news story about the statement's adoption in your locale.

VOTING OUR VALUES
Judaism & American Life
“To be is to stand for.”
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION:
A JEWISH CALL FOR JUSTICE

Judaism & American Life
Elections offer us the opportunity to reflect upon, and
to recommit ourselves to, our core values. This Jewish
non-partisan election guide is intended as catalyst for
thought and action during the 2008 election season.

The guide includes seven topics that the Righteous
Indignation staff has identified as key election issues
based on our research and in consultation with religious
and political leaders across the country. In addition, the