As a traveler I also was not too choosy of my destinations. Israel…

As a traveler I also was not too choosy of my destinations. Israel was on my long list of places to visit. However for Matt Gross, Israel was on his list of places not to visit along with Iraq and Afghanistan.

Being Jewish he was expected to have the Jewish state on his list– an author of “Am I a Jew?–suggested he see Jerusalem. Matt Gross “ended spending six December days in the holiest place on the planet and surrounded by the Old City’s 500-year-old stone walls and legions of Christians, Jews and Moslems, I would be the lone unbeliever, walking a tightrope between belonging and individualism, observing not necessarily my faith but the faithful.”

“The Old city turned to be…,exactly the kind of place where I feel comfortable. A place I never thought I’d visit. Now I didn’t want to leave.”

Leave however I did with the intention to return for a longer sojourn. This time I will perhaps not book sight unseen a hotel on the eastern side of Jerusalem. My introduction to the segregation of Jerusalem into the east and western side was disquieting. With his hand forming a gun and his index the barrel, my riding companion on the bus told me he wouldn’t be caught in that side of the city. I wasn’t aware this was conquered land from Jordan.

New York Times, Sunday January 15 2012.
Lost in Jerusalem while flying at 38,000 feet enroute to Cali, Colombia via Miami.

Sent from my iPad

Israeli women and the Haredim. A controversy in the making that could get ugly.

Israeli women and the Haredim. A controversy in the making that could get ugly. From the New York Times an article….Israeli Women Core of Debate On Orthodoxy, by Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner. Jerusalem!

“A fool throws a stone into a well and 1000 sages can’t remove it,” says Rabbi Dror Moshe Cassouto, a 33-year-old Hasidic, whose goal is to spread the light. “God watches over the Jewish nation, as long as it studies Torah.”

He is horrified about the spitting incidents and Nazi talk. He claims hard liners have caused harm to the Haredim. When asked about this he said, a fool throws a stone…and sages can’t retrieve it from a well, quote.

31 hours in Jerusalem

Three months ago the Israeli Health Ministry awarded pediatric professor, Channa Maayan for her book on hereditary deceases common to Jews. She was forbidden to take the stage to receive her prize, she was separated from her husband, and she was instructed that a male colleague would have to accept the award on her behalf. She complied with everything and yet a controversy has arisen.

Other have not taken this affront to women quietly. Maayan’s story is “entering the pantheon of secular anger building as a battle rages in Israel for control of the public space between the strictly religious and everyone else.”

“The place of the ultra-Orthodox Jews, an issue that has been neglected, has erupted into a crisis.”

What follows in the article is about “hadarat nashim, the exclusion of women and the Haredim.

I find it ridiculous that society still pays attention to the ultra-anything. I think it’s time to set the balance so that all can share open spaces without feeling being violated.

“The coexistence between the two is breaking down,” said Arye Carmon, president of the Israeli Democracy Institute. “It is an extreme danger.”

Read more…while flying at 36k feet. Nice ride, a few bumps and a coughing man behind me. NYTimes INTERNATIONAL Sunday, January 15, 2012

And then there is the book review of Karl Marx! No I’m kidding. The Overman. How Friedrich Nietzsche inspired and provoked his American readers, by Alexander Star

Sent from my iPad with errors but corrected by iPad’s operator. He’s getting to know iPad!