2009-01-07T02:49:19Z No Author Copyright 2009, No Author SPHPBLOG









]]> http://www.abrahamsvision.org/visionfellowshipprogramweblog2006/index.php?entry=entry070504-125229 2007-05-04T00:00:00Z 2007-05-04T00:00:00Z
So my partner Rebecca and I collaborated on it in the week running up to the presentation, and it took a good deal of focus to finally formulate the assorted thoughts we had coming from our summer into a coherent presentation. We worked on addressing who we were, what brought us, etc., but then got into the serious matters of what has changed in us since then. She can address them [her changes] herself, but my thoughts ran in the direction of a newfound focus in my character. Gandhi's ubiquitous quote, "Be the change you wish to see in the world," is one big area-- I now go about my life and my relationships in a quest for pure character. This means I now check my own thoughts and feelings, and am starting to develop empathy, an automatic one, for all injustices. This includes, as I stated in my presentation, the empathy for the Jewish experience, a sudden realization in Belgrade that only later could I put into words, first for this presentation.

Being up in front of this crowd was new, and did have an 'otherness' feel to it at times. This was not my community, not my class, not my age. That is more disarming than one might imagine; I was a visitor, I did not feel the pressure of any judgment. Still, an unspoken dissonance could be felt at times; irrelevant questions about whether my family left our homeland willingly in 1948 or was forced out, the assessment of just how radical I still was.

All told though, the crowd seemed moved by our presentation. The small audience noticed the air of jest and informality between me and Rebecca; she and I traded off her notes, joked, and whispered to each other, giving the audience an idea of something that we often don't address when we discuss the experience: the interpersonal bonds we developed during the Fellowship.

When made to think about it, I see a variety of ways that the participants have changed. Some have refocused themselves onto global issues of peace and justice. Some are revisited by their own ghosts. Some are reinvigorated in their struggles. Some are still sorting their thoughts out even now. As for me, in typical esoteric fashion, I've taken a powerful interest in the peoples and the tragedy of the Balkans. There is still room for further growth for me, though; possibly there is an opportunity to take a leading stand on this in my campus. This campus seems to demand it.

[Elias Ibrahim] ]]> http://www.abrahamsvision.org/visionfellowshipprogramweblog2006/index.php?entry=entry070301-122923 2007-03-01T00:00:00Z 2007-03-01T00:00:00Z
We were afraid—some of us—that the trip wouldn’t change anything. We were afraid that we would come home and be impotent or disinterested or petrified. Or that we would talk and talk and talk about this trip until nobody wanted to hear another word and that all the talking that we did wouldn’t change a single mind—or forget minds—change a single life.

We have lost the connection we had in Belgrade. Then, if someone had stepped out of the fold, we would have pulled more tightly to compensate for her absence, and in so doing brought ourselves more closely together. Now we are distinct, and when Eman and I have gone to speak to high school students, the trip itself seems like a reflection of my and her thoughts about the trip.

Last week, Eman, Hannah and I went to see a performance of The Vagina Monologues on Columbia’s campus. Eve Ensler, the playwright, based one of the monologues on the story of a young Bosnian Muslim woman who was brutally raped by a group of Bosnian Serb men. When the topic of the monologue was announced, we exchanged a look and braced ourselves.

The actor, in braids and a sweater, spoke of summer in the hills of Bosnia, of life before the war, and of the contrast of that idyll to the brutishness of the men who had violated her. But we had heard this story more intimately told. And the actor’s words were misplaced, insufficient, horrifying in their content and flat in their delivery. The actor was well out of her element, but her failure was not that she was a bad actor, but that she was an actor. Her monologue was just a pinch on the arm, and not a slap in the face.

I am reading a lot of Israeli literature these days—Amos Oz, David Grossman—and these authors, both heavily political and pro-Palestinian rights, recount the words that they have heard used in their lives to describe Arabs: “bloodthirsty.” One pinch. One day, I attend a Shabbat service and consider the words of the siddur: Bring peace to all Israel. Another pinch. Another day, the newspaper reports that no progress has been made in recent peace talks. Pinch. My friend, in Israel this semester, tells me a bad joke. A pinch, a pinch. A thousand pinches. I’m bracing myself. But never a slap in the face.

[Shira Danan]
]]> http://www.abrahamsvision.org/visionfellowshipprogramweblog2006/index.php?entry=entry070224-022104 2007-02-24T00:00:00Z 2007-02-24T00:00:00Z
My campus involvements continually force me to reexamine my understanding of the relationship between Judaism and Zionism. Friday night services and dinner at Hillel are probably the most quintessential encounter your average Jewish student at the University of Michigan will have with the organized Jewish community in Ann Arbor. It is no surprise, then, that one of the thirty-nine Hillel affiliated student groups is invited to “sponsor” the evening through meretricious decorations and a short presentation about their group.

The largest pro-Israel student group on campus seized this very opportunity only a few weeks ago. Blue white ornaments bedizened the otherwise austere basement, where the masses of Jewish students on campus congregate to enjoy a scrumptious Shabbat dinner. A giant Israeli flag was posted in the middle of the room and small Israeli flags lay dispersed across the tables. “Fun facts” about Israel were also placed on the tables for Jewish students to read. Examples ranged from technological (e.g. “did you know that AOL instant messenger was created by Israeli scientists?) to political (e.g. did you know that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East?) half-truths. The leadership of the organization even delivered a somewhat lengthy and seemingly well-prepared ballad, romanticizing the connection between American Jews and the glorious Jewish state. The students who came for an evening of prayer and yummy Kosher food were encouraged to join the effort in safeguarding the status quo position of political and economic power enjoyed by Israelis and loathed by Palestinians.

Asking around, I seemed to be the only student uncomfortable with the Zionist symbols plastered around the fundamentally Jewish function (there is a Jewish commandment to make three Seudot, or meals, on Shabbat). Indeed, for many of my Palestinian peers, the Israeli flag is a symbol of state-sponsored violence, subjugation and occupation. The students I talked to at dinner were utter oblivious to this reality. But I’m pluralistic. I support the freedom of the other students to express their political viewpoints even at religious events. I simply ask that my political viewpoints be treated with the same respect.

So I met with three Hillel professionals to see if Hillel would sponsor a new student organization called “Jews Against Zionism.” Then I could “sponsor” a Shabbat, post Palestinian flags around the room and warn students of Zionism’s consequences. How would Jewish students on campus react to the intrusion of politics (only this time, politics with which they disagree) into a Shabbat dinner? How would they react to symbols through which they see suicide bombings and a “culture of hatred?”

I guess I will never know. The very Hillel professionals paid to serve the needs and interests of Jewish students on campus informed me that I was misguided. They kindly notified me that Hillel is a Zionist organization and that anti-Zionism has no place in this so-called pluralistic “home away from home” for Jewish students on campus.

Anti-Zionism is all-too-often regarded by the organized Jewish community as anti-Semitism. Just read Alan Dershowitz’s Case for Israel or the recent article by the American Jewish Committee called “'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism.” So why is it that opposition to Zionism is regarding as opposition to Judaism? Maybe because it is.

[Zach Foster]
]]> http://www.abrahamsvision.org/visionfellowshipprogramweblog2006/index.php?entry=entry070224-021841 2007-02-24T00:00:00Z 2007-02-24T00:00:00Z
It seems clear to me that campus activism is first and foremost a popularity contest, each group vying for the most positive public attention and more people to whom they can preach the real truth. However, I am so deeply embittered and pained by the desperate situation that actually exists in Israel-Palestine that I have no patience for these petty games and I am truly interested in figuring out what can we actually do to bring about some type of lasting positive change in the area. I waver back and forth between feeling useless, counterproductive, defeatist and hypocritical. Even my attempts to ignite dialogue and bring people together that share my initiatives, seem to be empty and always underappreciated when pinned next to events that glorify the army or attack the Palestinian education system.

Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy because I play the double agent so well. In fact, I am often the driving force behind many of the programs that frustrate me so much. After taking a class about the theory and practice of Nonviolence last semester, I feel very strongly about the necessity of Constructive Program as a compliment to Obstructive Program. This idea emphasizes the importance of working within the limitations of one’s own community to become self-sustaining and end oppression.

I believe that it is so important for Jews to recognize the key role that they play in bringing about peace, not through blame and punishment, but by looking inward and improving what is within our own power. I believe that this idea of constructive program is of great value to the Palestinian cause as well, but I’m just not sure that either group is really ready to make these adjustments to their campaign strategies. So, where does that leave me? Waiting? Forcing? Retreating? I guess I’m still processing.

[Avital Aboody]]]> http://www.abrahamsvision.org/visionfellowshipprogramweblog2006/index.php?entry=entry070212-034113 2007-02-12T00:00:00Z 2007-02-12T00:00:00Z
I hope you are well. I hope some semblance of the three weeks we shared has stayed with you, even if in some inexpressible way, as it seems with me. Time piles up and all of a sudden Sarajevo is six months in the past.

Last night, at a poetry reading I attended, I met a woman from Sarajevo. She asked me how I had found her city, and I said, “beautiful”. She looked somewhat shocked. And then I quickly added, “beautiful, but sad, there is still so much damage, still so many scars of war.”

Perhaps that sums up how I feel about this summer too, how I feel about us, but then again I am looking back six months later, from February.

[Hannah Assadi]]]> http://www.abrahamsvision.org/visionfellowshipprogramweblog2006/index.php?entry=entry070212-033251 2007-02-12T00:00:00Z 2007-02-12T00:00:00Z







]]> http://www.abrahamsvision.org/visionfellowshipprogramweblog2006/index.php?entry=entry061126-225652 2006-11-27T00:00:00Z 2006-11-27T00:00:00Z
I think it's a little simplistic to think that I've "lost my opinion," if not impossible in another sense. I think of it more as a complication of thoughts, and there are just so many positions that seem at odds with each other that have stipulations in them that shouldn't be. The only solution I can think of, the only way I can figure out exactly what I think is to keep learning and reading and seeing more, and not subscribe to a certain dogma.

That said, I'm not in the opinion that I don't have an opinion, but rather that my opinion is not concrete. That sentence sounds a little odd, but I hope you get the picture. I'm probably better off not having a concrete opinion, because that is what disallows one to learn. I do not think I would learn anything new with a set opinion, because everything I read and see and hear would be countered with skepticism. And that's not very productive at all. This weblog has used the word "opinion" a lot, and I don't know if that means I'm varied or indecisive. Or maybe just a tad confused.

[Matthew Barker-Benfield]]]> http://www.abrahamsvision.org/visionfellowshipprogramweblog2006/index.php?entry=entry061018-060838 2006-10-18T00:00:00Z 2006-10-18T00:00:00Z
That box is still sitting on top of my drawer. In the late hours, when I return from the library or a long day of classes, the hour or so that I actually have time to experience living in my room, I have often found my eyes guiltily resting their gaze on the box, but for some reason, I haven’t yet found the energy to walk over to the box and hang those pictures up. In fact, I have barely looked through the pictures, except maybe once, when one of the Vision Program participants came to my room so I could change my shoes before we went out. Only then did I allow myself to indulge in a few moments of nostalgia. But its not just our memories, I seem to have lost the initial passion I had upon leaving the program, to exert any energy on thinking about the Middle East and the current state of Middle East related affairs that play out on the Columbia campus. It’s as if, once I returned, I also returned to an environment that I had to painfully accept was not the one of warmth or closeness that we created as a group. I wasn’t only facing this campus, but a microcosm of the real antagonism that exists in the Middle East. For the past month I have found myself slipping into a lethargic apathy that I felt in the Spring after I had overwhelmed my myself with ruminating over the Middle East the previous Fall, only to end up in desperate tears of rage and hopelessness at the end of the night. But in the past couple of days some quiet voice has been making itself heard, during the endless hours of reading, or in the silent wanderings of my mind in the middle of classes, or in the few tranquil moments I have before bed. It is the voice of my passion, of my will to go to hear lectures on the Middle East, to read all of the literature I can get my hands on, and to really do something. And the voice is one of urgency because all of a sudden it has again dawned on me that time is moving too fast to be doing nothing, the reality outside of my own personal need to “shut off” is a reality of real suffering, and at the end of the day, I care too much to let this slip through my fingers. So maybe tonight, when I get to my room, I will hang some pictures up, and maybe tomorrow I’ll devote a couple of more minutes to reviving my passion, even if it is just reading some Darwish poetry. And maybe at some point this year, I will somehow find a way to tap into that hope I felt on the trip, and really commit myself to something that at least attempts to better the “status quo”, rather than let that will sit helplessly on the top of my drawer, jeering at my inaction as time passes me by.

[Hannah Assadi]]]> http://www.abrahamsvision.org/visionfellowshipprogramweblog2006/index.php?entry=entry061010-140917 2006-10-10T00:00:00Z 2006-10-10T00:00:00Z
The only part of those directions that I can possibly comprehend right now is: “Please keep it between 250 and 500 words.”

I am lucky that I’m one of the last of the Fellows to post and therefore I was able to not only watch the preview of the AV promotional film to help put me “in the mood,” but I have also had the privilege of already reading every one else’s postings. You have put it all so well. Why should I repeat what you’ve said so perfectly? I feel like in some ways I could a pick a quote from each of your posts and combine them to express exactly what I’m thinking and feeling. It is so comforting to know that my thoughts are being thought and my feelings are being felt by others across the country. Also, your postings have reminded me that you are all wonderful, thoughtful, committed and motivated people, and I wish I could go out for coffee with each of you and talk about what you wrote, and what you’ve actually been thinking...

To share a few things that have been on my mind these past 2 months (can you believe it has been that long, and yet that short?): We spoke a lot about our privilege in that we can sometimes walk away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just because we are American, and that has been unbelievably apparent to me in the month I spent in Israel during the war, and since I’ve been back in America. I have been thinking a lot about what comes next. I can’t feel guilty about it all the time, and I can’t make my life revolve around it 24/7.

Basically, in addition to the more conscious efforts I make to keep what we’ve been through together alive and progressing, I’ve come to notice that my experiences from this summer often find ways of filtering into my life in unexpected ways, at unexpected times.

I am trying to figure out how to integrate conflict resolution into my life in a more serious way, now and in my post-college life. Also, I have been thinking a lot about how I can help re-work Israel education within the Jewish communities of which I am apart, and beyond. It seems like a big project, but honestly, I think as the years go on, I can do it. If I take this population on, and everyone else takes on another population, it isn’t all that impossible…

Clearly, this only scratches the surface of what I have thought, dealt with, lived with, etc since the trip. But such is the nature of a public 250 – 500 word weblog post. Thank our assorted Gods and Goddesses for the retreat a month from now!

[Yael Hammerman]]]> http://www.abrahamsvision.org/visionfellowshipprogramweblog2006/index.php?entry=entry061010-094517 2006-10-10T00:00:00Z 2006-10-10T00:00:00Z