March 24, 2019--Queen Trump

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife were visiting Lebanon late last week during Purim season.

While there, in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, he was asked if "Mr. Trump was put on earth [by God] as a modern day Queen Esther, who saved the Jews from a Persian official [Haman] in ancient times."

Pompeo, who is an evangelical Christian said, "As a Christian, I certainly believe that's possible."

November 26, 2014--Sacred Spaces

I once had a colleague who for his doctoral dissertation wrote about scared spaces. Mainly those places that held special, spiritual meaning for native peoples. Places that they attempted to hide and if necessary defend against outsiders.

I asked him if there were equivalent places that were held to be scared by people in the so-called developed world. He smiled at me, as if to indicate how naive I was.

"Just look around you," he said.

"Even here in Midtown Manhattan?"

"Even here. During lunch let's walk over to Saint Patrick's Cathedral and look at the people worshipping there. Sense what that physical place means to them."

I didn't take up his offer but two years later, in Jerusalem, I understood all to well what a sacred space is and how those for whom it is sacred, who couldn't hide it from "outsiders," were willing, eager to defend it. Even to give up their lives to protect it from encroachment.

This was most emotionally vivid at the Western Wall. A sacred place to observant Jews who claim it is one of the walls of the Second Temple, which itself stood on the site of the even more sacred First Temple, constructed, it is believed, nearly 3,000 years ago by King Solomon. And it is at this very place where the Third and final temple will be built, the intra-orthodox fervently believe, when the Messiah appears.

They await him now and some are making preparations for his arrival, including moving in on the Al-Aqsa Mosque which sits on top of the Temple Mount, one of the most sacred places for Muslims, the place from which it is reported the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. All of this not very far from a number of sacred places for Christians--the Via Dolorosa, the road along which Christ was said to have  borne the cross as he proceeded toward Calvary and the Church of Holy Sepulchre, which was built to mark the sacred place where he was crucified, entombed, and resurrected.

All of these places--central in meaning to Jews, Christians, and Muslims--are located literally within a square kilometer of each other. Those who are skeptical, even non-believers (me included) when there feel overwhelmingly that this is a special place, charged with spiritual power.

A sacred space, a site where our search for meaning, truth, and divine inspiration commingles with religious beliefs and practices in the attempt to find the most fundamental of answers--just what my long-ago colleague was attempting to get me to understand.

How then, with so much at stake, in the world's most-contested piece of real estate can there ever be a resolution to the conflict between Israeli Jews and Muslim Palestinians, both claiming, in the flow of blood, that they have special rights and historical, divine, prerogatives for exclusive control of the place that one side calls the Temple Mount and the other the Dome of the Rock?

This is not a situation where compromise and splitting-the-difference has much chance of working.

October 29, 2104--Catching Up With the Times

Is it just me, or is it true that the news of the world these days is unusually, relentlessly grim?

Maybe it's always dire, but take the headiness from a couple of pages in last Saturday's New York Times--

"Islamist Party in Tunisia Appears Set to Rebound" It turns out that this in fact didn't happen but the Saturday piece saw a strong likelihood that the Islamist Ennahda Party, in the country where the Arab Spring began, would win a plurality of votes, defeating the more secular parties who now control the caretaker government.

"In French Port, 'Psychosis' Over Migrants From Middle East and Africa" Faced with ever-increasing numbers of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, the French government, in response to civic anxiety, is sending police reinforcements to the port of Calais to control the unruly situation.

"With Guile and Tiny Torah, Women Hold a Bat Mitzvah at the Western Wall" Calling for equal rights for women at the holy Western Wall of the biblical Jewish Temple, defying religious authorities and the police, women smuggled a miniature Torah to the Wall and conduced a Bat Mitzvah of a 13-year-old girl. The ceremony was broken up by the police and many participants were arrested. The orthodox insist that only men be allowed to conduct religious ceremonies there.

"Putin Lashes Out at U.S. for Backing 'Neo-Fascists' and 'Islamic Radicals'" In his strongest diatribe yet, Putin claimed that the United States fomented most of the world's recent crises. From Syria to Ukraine.

"31 Egyptian Soldiers Are Killed as Militants Attack in Sinai" Two coordinated attacks in the Sinai by followers of the Muslim Brotherhood led to the deaths of 31 and the wounding of at least 28 others.

"Hong Kong Stars Who Back Protests Are Losing Work and Fans in Mainland" Chinese actors, musicians, and other celebrities who have supported protests in support of more open government are being stigmatized and boycotted on the Mainland.

"Pro-Beijing Lawmaker Urges Hong Kong Leader to Consider Quitting" A pro-business party leader in Hong Kong is pressing the city's chief executive to resign.

"Ottawa Gunman's Islamic Radicalism Deepened as His Life Began to Crumble" The young man who ran over and killed a Canadian soldier last week in Montreal turned to militant Islam as he felt his life's chances diminishing.

"Sunni Militants Draw Iraqi Forces Into Intense Battles on Several Fronts" A report about ISIS or ISIL's progress in attacking Shia and Kurdish strongholds. Another article two days later revealed that ISIS fighters are now equipped with sophisticated Chinese shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles, making it difficult for the Iraqi and American air forces to attack their positions. I continue to wonder why ISIS militants are so adept at warfare while the Iraqi army, that we trained for years, can't shot straight.

"Poland Appeals Ruling on Transfer of Terror Suspects" The Polish government is appealing a court ruling that claims it transferred two terrorism suspects to "black sites" in northern Poland run by the CIA.

"Israeli Troops Kill Palestinian Teenagers in West Bank, the 2nd in 8 Days" Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian teenager who allegedly threw a fire-bomb onto a main road in the West Bank often used by Israeli soldiers.

All the News That's Fit to Print indeed.

May 15, 2013--Western Wall

Rabbi Israel Eichler said--

"If the state of Israel fights the Haredim [the ultra-Orthodox], it may win, but it will be erased from the face of the Earth."

He issued this apocalyptic warning--not unlike the kind of threats Israel is used to receiving from Iran and Hezbollah--because an organization of Jewish Israeli women has been attempting to pray at the Western Wall, the alleged site of the Second Temple and thus a holy site for the faithful. Or at least those faithful who Orthodox authorities deem worthy to worship there.

The reason Rabbi Eichler is so confident that the state of Israel (which, again like Islamists, the Haredim do not recognize, though they happily receive subsidies from it) will be erased is because, according to the New York Times, he claims that his "seminary girls . . . each one of them, will have 10 children. That is our victory."

This came to my attention the day after a dinner conversation with a worldly friend who is well known for his tolerance and sense of justice.

"Just between us," he whispered conspiratorially, "and, please, it should not to go any further than this." I was curious to know where he was headed. "Don't you think Islam is a violent religion?" Shocked, I looked at him skeptically. "And I don't just mean the Islamists who are in the headlines. In Boston and Syria and everywhere."

"But what about Indonesia?" I asked. "The country with more Muslims than any other place. And aren't they basically peaceful and democratic?"

"I'm not talking about Indonesia--I grant that what you say is true--I'm talking about Islam itself. Can you tell me one good thing about it as a religion?"

"I'm far from a scholar, but, yes, much of the Koran is as peaceful and generous as the Bible. I mean, the New Testament, since the Old is full of violence and bigotry; and, of course, relegates women to  . . ."

"I know all that," he interrupted me, "But today neither Judaism nor Christianity is perpetrating violence on a broad scale. I know they did in the past, but not now. And it's now that I'm talking about."

"I'm not sure I agree. There are violent fanatics who claim they are following the Bible. It's just that they don't have either the power or venue to express it."

He waived me off, thinking I was speaking rotely from politically correct talking points.

But just the same I think I'll send my friend the article from the Times about Rabbi Eichler.