“There is none so blind as he who will not see.” That, I think, applies nowadays to very many people. Seeing is not just looking. It also means to understand. And to understand requires one to try to see things from different angles and perspectives. To see another point of view. Perhaps this is why blindness sometimes lends itself to…
General Topics
Kurds
The Kurds have been treated disgustingly. Like Israel, they are both a religious and secular ethnic group which stands outside the official Christian or Muslim world. They are neither Sunni nor Shia. They are sandwiched between Turkey or Iran, who cannot abide the fiercely independent Kurds. And like the Israelis, they are divided, fractious and argumentative. Ever since the British…
Shame
When I do or say something I regret, I feel shame. I am aware that I have let myself down and that I should have done better. Shame, regret are good emotions. So long as they encourage one to do better. Not if they lead to one becoming depressed. Shame is a condition of a healthy relationship with other people…
Hatred
Isn’t it true that the whole of the Muslim world hates Jews? The newly elected congresswoman for Minnesota tweeted in 2012 “Israel has hypnotized the world; may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” She is joined by several others now in Congress who have expressed similar hatred. I too would call on Allah to get his…
Ulysses
Judaism has engaged and locked horns with Greek culture for thousands of years. Alexander the Great was welcomed in 332 BCE. He permitted the Judeans to worship their way freely. But then the rival successor dynasties of the Ptolemies in Egypt and Seleucids in Damascus began to interfere in Judean affairs. This culminated in the Maccabee revolt against Antiochus in…
Boycott & Hanukah
Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott was a protestant land agent in Ireland in the second half of the eighteenth century. The British rulers imposed harsh conditions on the Irish and were hated for it. In 1880, the Irish Land League initiated a protest when Captain Boycott tried to evict poor tenants. They withdrew workers from his lands and refused to serve…