Yay Jen!

As a vorshpeis ("abrebocas") for my post about women and Judaism I would like you to meet my good friend Jen Taylor-Friedman. Jen is one of the most knowleadgeable Jewish women I know, and she is an awesome soferet (Jewish scribe) and as Mrs. Bloom can attest, also a wonderful Talmud study partner.

Video about the first woman writing a sefer Torah

Enjoy!

Kibbutz Hanaton

It may be because once you grow up you start to get weary from city life (which is why every adult I know eventually gets to the point in their life when they want to buy land and move to the countryside). It may be the socialist elements of my upbringing and youth. It may be the calling of the Land and the idealized image I tend to have of early Zionism. But lately I have been having fantasies of moving to a kibbutz and living there.

My first candidate would be Kibbutz Hanaton in the Lower Galilee. Kibbutz Hanaton is not only one of the most gorgeous places I have visited in Israel (It has an ordinary sort of breathtaking beauty) but also the only kibbutz associated with the Conservative Movement. Furthermore, Kibbutz Hanaton needs the people. They need volunteers and new members to realize their full potential which, from my naive perspective, is great. I would love to eat from the fruit of my labor. I would love to wake up to the song of the mountains of the Galilee. I would love to set up a yeshiva for Spanish speakers that would combine Torah learning with volunteer work in the Kibbutz. I would love to shepherd my eight children (future) through the grapefruit groves. I would love so many things. Who knows? If you willeth, it is no dream. After all, this is the country were dreams come true for nice little good Jewish boys like yours truly. We shall see.

This past weekend the Blooms visited Kibbutz Hanaton. On our way there we stopped on the Druze village of Dalyiat al-Karmel. The Druze are one of the minority communities that live in Israel, and I must confess that I know much less than I would like to. This is probably because their religion (an offshoot of Islam) is a mysteric religion whose secrets are not revealed to the uninitiated. From what I saw in my visit to this town, the men wear funny hats that look like pink fezes (as opposed to the flat funny hats we Jews wear) and the women wear beautiful white flowy hijabs. The other thing I know about the Druze is that, in distinction to most Arabs in Israel, they do serve -with flying distinction- in the Israeli Defense Forces. The origins for this exception may be in the natural loyalty of the Druze to the country where they live or because they have been persecuted by Muslim goverments in the area and are grateful for the religious freedom afforded to them by the State of Israel. Daliyat Al-Carmel is a quaint town. Part bazaar, part suburb, and part Druze sanctuary. We stopped for a while, bought some trinkets for our acquaintances and then proceeded to have Druze pita for lunch (a soft pita bread generously spread with fresh labaneh -creamy goat cheese- and sprinkled with za'atar-hyssop, Israeli mountain-oregano- and olive oil, toasted over an open fire oven- on the picture to the left).

Druze Funeral Procession (Daliyat al-Carmel)

After leaving Daliyat al-Carmel, we went straight to the Kibbutz. Kibbutz Hanaton stands on a Tel (a round hill) in a valley close to the city of Nazareth. Its name means in Egyptian "Glory of Athon". Four milennia ago, on the hill where the kibbutz stands today, stood an Egyptian garrison that controlled the traffic along the sensitive valley that connects the valley of the Sea of Galilee with the Royal Road which connected Egypt with Assyria and was, in a way, the most important road in the world at the time. The name stuck through the four milennia of uninterrupted inhabitation of the area. The kibbutz is, like most kibbutzim, a collective enterprise. The property of the kibbutz is owned by all the members collectivelly and even those members who work outside of the kibbutz must give their income to it to be distributed equally among the members. This kibbutz is unique in the sense that it embraces a religious ideology (i.e. that of the Conservative movement) and has several religious institutions inside the kibbutz (such as a synagogue and a mikvah-a ritual bath). In review, we had a lovely weekend at the kibbutz and were given, once again, like everytime we go there, a lot of dreaming material. I will now be quiet and let the beauty of the place speak for itself.

The National Water Carrier and the hills of Tzippori

The Mountains of Nazareth to the Northeast

The Kibbutz´s Neighbors: The Arab town of Kfar Manda

Haloscan is dead! Long live Haloscan!

So, it happened. I could not wake up today for school because I spent the best part of the night coughing my loungs up (sorry for the graphic description). I decided to spend a leisurely day recuperating and doing things that I needed to do a long time ago. Among them I updated this blog to the new Google Beta version which makes it easier for cyberilliterates like myself to manage their profiles and to edit the look of their blogs (mostly I did it for the tags). I did not think though that by doing so I would be required to abandon Haloscan as my comment provider and, oh spite, oh hell, that I would also loose all the comments made to this blog through Haloscan since its inception.

I am really really sorry! This is what I get for not listening to good advice! Alas! I was charmed by the siren song of new shiny technology and the possibility of tagging my posts (which I could probably do before anyway). My only consolation is that, given how the industry works, most of Blogger is going to be updated to Beta anyway sooner or later.

I hope you can cope with the "boring" and slow comment manager of Blogger (which will be open to anonymous comments also for those of you who do not yet own a piece of the web). Even if diáspera has suffered from a little bout of amnesia, Bloom has not. Bloom remembers and cherishes your comments. Bloom never forgets.

Saudade

I am sick. I have been coughing up my lungs for five days now. I had to give the sermon (devar Torah) at my community this Shabbat although my throat could barely muster a whimper. I am also sick of people not commenting on this blog. I think I have lost all of my Colombian readership with the notable exception of Adon Pronek. In the beginning I wanted to create in this blog a space where I could teach Judaism to a Spanish speaking audience given the paucity of learning of this kind in this language. Alas! We bloggers are creatures of vanity and we do need the little nudges to our overinflated cyberegos once in a while. Therefore, I will switch the language of this blog to English since my Israeli and American friends do seem to care if I live or die. I am sick and grumpy! So there!

Just a surprising song I found in the Jewish blogosphere. You can listen to it in Rua da Judaria (a very nice Portuguese blog about Judaism).

Neighborhood Bully
Bob Dylan

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man,
His enemies say he’s on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive.
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin,
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He’s always on trial for just being born.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.

In Bob Dylan: Infidels, 1983

11 años

Poco después de la destrucción del Templo de Jerusalén a mano de Nabucodonosor y los babilonios en el año 586 a.E.C. y del exilio de buena parte de la población de Judea de su tierra ancestral, la siguiente catástrofe sucedió:

“Al pueblo que quedó en la tierra de Judá y que había dejado Nabucodonosor, rey de Babilonia, le puso por gobernador a Guedaliá, hijo de Ajicam, hijo de Safán. Todos los jefes de tropas y sus hombres oyeron que el rey de Babilonia había puesto por gobernador a Guedaliá y fueron donde Guedaliá a Mispá: Ismael, hijo de Netanyá, Yojanán, hijo de Caréaj, Serayá, hijo de Tanjumet el netofita, Yaazanyá de los Maajatitas, ellos y sus hombres. Guedaliá les hizo un juramento, a ellos y a sus hombres, y les dijo: No temáis nada de los siervos de los caldeos, quedaos en el país y servid al rey de Babilonia, y os irá bien. Pero en el mes séptimo, Ismael, hijo de Netanyá, hijo de Elisamá, que era de linaje real, vino con diez hombres e hirieron de muerte a Guedaliá, así como a los judíos y caldeos que estaban con él, en Mispá. Entonces todo el pueblo, desde el más pequeño al más grande, y los jefes de tropas se levantaron y se fueron a Egipto, porque tuvieron miedo de los caldeos.” (Reyes II, 25.22-26)

“El ayuno del séptimo mes” (Zacarías 8.19) es el tercer día del mes de Tishrí, ya que en él fue muerto Gedaliah hijo de Ajicam. ¿Y quién le mató? Ismael hijo de Netanyá lo mató. Esto viene a enseñarnos que la muerte de los justos tiene el mismo peso que la destrucción de la casa de nuestro Dios (el Templo). (Talmud Bavlí, Rosh Hashaná 18b)

Primer Ministro Isaac Rabín z''l (Marzo 1, 1922-Nov. 4, 1995)
ראש ממשלת ישראל יצחק בן נחמיה ורוזה רבין ז''ל
י''ד במרחשון תשנ''ה

O Captain! My Captain!

Walt Whitman

1

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

2

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! Dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

3

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.