Month: January 2015

• January 26, 2015

  Minority Lens

  When I grew up in America,
  I wore a minority lens,
  And it corrected,
  For Legal blindness,
  To injustice.
  They are trifocals,
  So that I can see the close,
  and the near,
  and the far.
  For I was orthodox,
  a minority within the minority Jewish, within the majority Christian,
  and white.
  It has taken a long time,
  But now when I travel,
  to the Holy Land,
  I stay with the minority,
  I sleep with the minority,
  I dance with the minority,
  and I dream with the minority. Because it is only
  with that lens,
  that I can see the close,
  And the near,
  And the far,
  and the golden light,
  of the setting sun
  over the sea,
  and the rising sun
  over the desert,
  And the light that removes,
  The blinding desert storms,
  Or human ones.…

• January 1, 2015

  Zionists and Islamists

  At a minimum a Zionist is one who loves Zion, often a Jew, but sometimes a Christian. At a minimum, an Islamist is someone who loves Islam, usually a Muslim. I see no reason to use either term in pejorative or hateful way, as a curse or as a condemnation. Associated with Zionism has been all manner of crimes against the native Palestinian people for over a hundred years, associated with Islamism has been tens of thousands of victims of crimes across the world, mostly Muslim victims. But it is an empirical fact that thousands of Zionists and millions of Islamists repudiate the crimes associated with these respective labels. They claim this is not true Zionism or true Islamism. We should agree as a global community to recognize the existence of these people, in fact to honor them. We can disagree with their philosophy but we should not label and …