I really just want to post this article from the New York Times – or, as Beth keeps telling me. The Times – because the picture is so great. It just looks like a still from a very funny part of a Woody Allen movie.
It is a richer and more complicated article than I am going to summarize but, basically, the European Orthodox Jews – boy, I hate using Jew or Jews: I was brought up to use Jewish because Jew was derogatory – don't want their daughters going to school with the daughters of Arab and North African Orthodox Jews. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that that was racism and this is a protest against that ruling.
Glad the Israeli government got this one right. Your post a few weeks ago about your disappointment in some of Israel’s policies had me thinking about our heroes and what we demand of them. I find the yin-yang symbol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang) a compelling reflection of conditions on earth – no light without dark and no dark without light. Yet I demand my heroes to be all light.
I need to condemn that which I find dark but I also work (when I’m able) to find compassion for it.
In creating Israel the western powers created a situation from which it is pretty darn hard for light to emerge so this is a nice story.
Yea, Richard. The Israelis are no better than any other country in the same position and, like you, I want my heroes to be pure. But, what happens in the real world, over and over, dictatorship or democracy, is that those in power abuse it.
I am not so sure that we created Israel, more like we let it happen.
On the picture, itself, did the photographer direct, or, even pay, to have that dufus climb the pole or did he just do it on his own.