Sixty years after the establishment of the State of Israel, Anthony David contributes to the Z Word web site a profile of Sari Nusseibeh, arguably the most important Palestinian intellectual alive today, which concentrates on the moral and philosophical aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Archive for April, 2008
Even if it’s obvious that Engage is, without question, the best source for information about the latest academic boycott initiative in the UCU (as well as the initiatives in 2005, 2006 and 2007…), I still want to encourage readers of this blog to check out the latest offerings over there.
Elif Kayi, Z Word’s European press reviewer, reports on Gregor Gysi’s declaration of solidarity with Israel.
There is a common perception that the European left is uniformly hostile to Israel. In that respect, Germany appears to have bucked the trend.
Continue reading ‘German Leftists Declare Solidarity with Israel’
Here’s a fascinating letter written by Zipporah “Zippy” Porat, a young American student who spent the Passover holiday in 1948 in a Jerusalem under siege from Arab forces. An Ashkenazi Jew, she spent seder night with a Ladino-speaking Sephardic family.
Elif Kayi, Z Word’s European press reviewer, reports on how the “Train of Commemoration” is being greeted across Germany.
A mobile exhibition on a train which commemorates the thousands of Jewish children deported during the Holocaust pulled into Berlin’s Ostbahnhof station this past Sunday with large lines of visitors awaiting it - and a bitter political controversy in the background.
On The Atlantic magazine website, Jeffrey Goldberg introduces a fascinating set of archive articles about Palestine before it became Israel.
The fate of the thousands of Jews from Arab countries who fled their homes in the wake of the 1948 war has hardly been, it’s fair to say, one of the more prominent issues thrown up by the Israeli-Arab conflict. Even in the Jewish world, the story of the Mizrahi exodus has been barely visible and infrequently discussed.
Continue reading ‘Jews from Arab Countries: The Justice Debate’
Christian Zionism, so-called, arouses a good deal of curiosity and not a little bit of anger. Innumerable are those leftist publications which pin responsibility for the current mess on the Christian Zionists, as well as the neocons; innumerable, too, are those Jews of all denominations and none who scratch their heads trying to work out what, exactly, a liberally oriented, fin-de-siecle Jewish nationalist movement has in common with apocalyptic theology.
On Jewcy, Jessica Miller bemoans the birth of ad campaigns which, she says, “scare the crap out of you.” Examples cited are the MTV ads on the Holocaust and the American Jewish Committee’s latest radio spot highlighting the plight of Sderot.
On the Z Word web site, you’re all encouraged to read Terry Glavin’s incisive new essay on Canada’s anti-war movement. You can also listen to Terry - one of Canada’s leading left-wing commentators - talking to me on the Z Word podcast.
