Journeying for truth and action

Background on the arrest:

In what appears to be the culmination of a several year long case the state has been building against I-69 resistance, two Indiana residents, Tiga and Hugh, were arrested this afternoon. Although the charges against the two include individual acts, for the majority they are trumped up charges of conspiracy – fairly explicitly, conspiracy to collectively organize, to challenge environmental and social devastation perpetrated by the state and capital – leveled against any (not easily recuperative) movement against I-69. Although it appears that no other warrants have been issued, that for now no other individuals will be facing the severe penalties these charges carry, it must be noted that this brash move by the state is a most blatant affront to any initiative towards social organization.

………….. http://mostlyeverything.net/

Aside from this messyness and mindfuck, I attended an amazing workshop on multiculturalism and diversity within the Jewish Community lead by a close family friend who has both African and Ashkenazi heritage.   She ‘infiltrated’ my old jewish day school and facilited her dvar in front of the same teachers who put me on ritalin in elementary school.  ah!  what nachas she has, as a Person of Color, to speak about such an untouchable topic as racism and white supremacy, and linking this to how white Jews have privilege over Jews of color. The teachers were Completely responsive, and realized that they must shift things around in the school to be more inclusive.  why?  because our Torah teaches us to dismantle racism, silly!

I will soon give a similar presentation in a class which claims to cover Jewish culture in America, but really only covers white jewish culture.  My own sephardic heritage has been basically erased from memory.

Oh, how racism has really, truly hurt us all!

My grandmother was shocked to hear that young Jews are wanting to learn & revive Yiddish. It was great visiting her and discussing yiddish names, keeping yuntiv, and shomer shabbesness. I obviously have a long way to go to participate fully in the Yiddishkeit movement. but a bisele es gut.

I am alone for passover in Milwaukee, as the mishpocha is partly in the East Coast, and mostly in the land that is called Israel at this time. So I am conflicted about how to observe yuntiv while in milwaukee, and then get myself to chicago Before Shabbes, but unfortunately during yuntiv, so I can participate in one radical seder which includes current day liberation moves saturday night.

Birkat Hachama will be amazing, alone. I will awaken before dawn, and ride my bike to the lakefront to watch it rise over the lake @ this spot I used to go to as a young lad. then I will say the prayer& some chants, go clean old bee hives at Growing Power, and begin the holy passover.

So. Some nazi folks are commemorating their organization’s 30 years of existence under the St. Louis arch(which represents manifest destiny& occupation of this land) . It is taking place the same weekend as another Yiddish gathering which will be a mini klez-camp.

Participate in a movement of re-building and re-claiming an aspect of Jewish identity & language?

OR.

be another body supporting the Jewish and POC community who will be invaded by nazis wanting attention.

exhaust.

love & liberation.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=775_1235620684

i came across this on the Free Lakota Nation website.  This elder knows whats up!

Hello friends, You may have already heard about my friend Tristan Anderson, who was shot in the head by the Isreali Army’s new high tech teargas canisters this past friday. What you don’t know is how/why he arrived in the West Bank. Most articles are editing much of what my friend Gabby has said- as his partner and as a witness. She also just so happens to be a Jewish comrade who went over to Israel/Palestine to see what was going on. Every other news source I’ve come across has not included her voice or further information on the process of their landing in Ni’lin to protest the buliding of the Fence/Wall in solidarity with Palestinians.

Check out the link below, or scroll down to read this article. We must remember that this sort of this happens to Palestinians daily.

Thanks.

In continued solidarity and intentions for Tristan’s speedy recovery, Naomi ray.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=36435

Date: 14 / 03 / 2009 Time: 11:53 تكبير الخط تصغير الخط [Ma’anImages] Bethlehem – Ma’an – An American demonstrator shot in the head by the Israeli military Friday remains in life-threatening condition after undergoing surgery overnight. “His skull is fractured. Fragments of bone went into his brain,” said Anderson’s partner, 25-year-old Gabrielle Silverman, originally from Brooklyn, New York, speaking on the phone from Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv Saturday. Silverman said doctors had removed part of the right frontal lobe of Anderson’s brain and were working to “put his face back together,” to address trauma to his eye and forehead. The hospital is refusing to release further details, she said. “It’s unclear how well he’s going to recover. He could die. He could recover completely. He could be severely brain damaged,” said Silverman, adding that Anderson’s parents are on their way to Tel Aviv from San Francisco. Israeli soldiers shot 37-year-old Tristan Anderson, of Oakland California, in the forehead with a high-velocity teargas canister at a demonstration against the Israeli West Bank separation wall in the village of Ni’lin on Friday. Palestinians and their international supporters hold demonstrations at noon every Friday in Ni’lin and other villages against the Israeli wall, which, if completed, will snake 723 kilometers through the interior of the West Bank. Israel says the barrier is for its security, but Palestinians see it as one of many means to confiscate their land and further fragment their territory. The wall was ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. Silverman also corroborated reports that Israeli soldiers had shot Anderson without provocation. “I was only a few feet away when he was shot,” at about five in the afternoon, after the main demonstration had wound down. “He was standing on the grass; nothing was happening,” she said. It was, then, “a surprise” when Israeli soldiers fired the teargas canister from an adjacent hillside. A video released by the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement, shows a scene of panic, moments after the shooting. Anderson is pictured lying in a stretcher, his face covered in blood. When a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance evacuated Anderson, they were delayed at an Israeli military checkpoint for 15 minutes, waiting while Anderson bled from his forehead and nose. They also waited for an Israeli ambulance to transport Anderson to Tel Aviv. Silverman herself came to Israel in early February on the Taglit-Birthright program which offers free trips to Israel for young Jews from around the world. She stayed on after the program ended, planning to spend a month in Israel, a month in the West Bank, and a month travelling in Egypt and Jordan. Anderson later joined her. “They shot Tristan for one of two reasons; either because they believed he was a Palestinian, or because they were indiscriminately firing. Either way we need serious accountability from the Israeli government,” Silverman said. “As a Jew and as an American I’m very ashamed,” she added.

I feel like ripping the star that is choking my neck. Its six points tearing  my body..tugging at the fragile roots that had just started climbing deeper down into the earth….This star enslaving me into loving a people who ignores the cries of 930 souls ripped from their own bodies.  in defense.

the thousands of bodies clinging to the souls within, losing life from draining blood.  holes wripped into flesh.

JUdaism assimilated into Zionism. an imperialist colonialist redemption movement.  making land more valuable than the beings caring for it.

so people react.  “I hate jews” quoted from some anarchists in Santa Barbara.  my comrades?

GAZA!  i cry for you. i sob.  i see your wounds.   I have not grown numb to seeing bleedig palestinian bodies on the computer screen.  unlike so many “jews” who sheild their ignonring eyes.  I see you. i recognize the Nakba. I was witness to the occupation.  I KNOW this is genocide.

kadosh kadosh kadosh: adonai svaot m’lo kol ha aretz kvodo.

Holy, holy, holy, is the ONE of many colors: the whole earth is full of  their glory