Sex, Second Grade and Setting It Straight

You've made it your business to set people straight ever since second grade, when you discovered a bunch of kids more uninformed and much less behaved than you, namely the first graders. Today you are a blogger, amusing yourself with nothing more harmless than personality types and book reports, or getting in touch with your sensitive side reflecting on human suffering and social justice.
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Earlier on you posted "You May Say I Am A Dreamer", your take on the first blossoms of what has been dubbed "the Arab Spring", the Middle East fiasco that may well culminate in a nuclear winter. You made five declarations:

1. You are a Christian.

2. You are a woman.

3. You are an American.

4. You are an intellectual.

(I'll vouch for you on two of these, one is a matter of definition and we'll have to take your word for the fourth.)
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What struck me was item five of this résumé:
"I am optimistic……" and then you commenced to join the international spirit squad rooting for the 'young and determined' taking to the streets in my part of the world. While some of the western cyber spectators may have sincerely believed they were witnessing the budding of emerging democracies, most were cheering on the mob simply because it sounded good.
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It was sexy.
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And collectively, the voices from the west made a difference. It was the West's cue to cut their Middle East clients' lifeline, a green light to NATO commanders eager to try out their high-tech toys in the Saharan sandbox without censor or scolding. Muslim extremists manipulated the masses in Midan at-Tahrir , played as the trump card to win the jackpot in the decade's long struggle to turn Egypt into an Islamic theocracy on the Iranian model. Their take on democracy is the right of the (Islamic) majority to eradicate or expel everyone else, and dominate those who remain behind.
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 Spring and summer have past; it's the end of autumn. Lets see.....

Was it good for Christians?

Woman buried alive before being stoned for immorality

Is it better now for women living under Sharia Law?

Will the Middle East be peaceful and will America be safer?

Is today's bloody, burning, bigoted Middle East your dream?

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Revolutions don't always usher in freedom. In fact, they seldom do. Russian Bolshevists, Rwandan mass murderers, and the Iranian Mullah-archy all hitched a ride on popular uprisings. If you lived here, or even read up on the subject before you posted, you would have known where the winds of spring can blow.



Demonstrators protesting sectarian violence against Coptic Egyptians



 So, you are a Christian, you are a woman. So you are an American. You might even be an intellectual.
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So what?

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Did you try to paint a sexy mental picture for us of you waving the stars and stripes, leading the troops as they beat a hasty retreat from the Middle East?
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Or did you honestly and truly believe you are leading Christian soldiers onward, marching as to war, with the banner of democracy going on before?

If you appoint yourself defender of the faith, women and the American way of life, you owe it to us to know what you're talking about, to think a little. You're not in second grade anymore; before you set us straight, you have to do your homework.

Life Is Like a Bus

"Life is like a bus. People are getting on, and others getting off. And when some have to get off, it's sad to go on without them, but you have to try to enjoy the ride until your station arrives."

Rona Ramon, wife of Columbia astronaut  Elan Ramon (1954-2003) and mother of IAF pilot Asaf Ramon (1988-2009).

Introducing Golan

Meet Golan. She's one of our 11th graders. She's the one with kind eyes and the good nature.

Golan is a photographer.

When they started high school, I was the one with the camera. "Paparazzi" they called me. They protested and ducked at the glint of the lens, but not so much anymore, 3 years on.

They are all every one beautiful even if they don't believe me, in the spring almost summer of life. I want to capture the season for them, bottle their memories in film and preserve them for the day they will be gold.



I discovered Golan's work by chance while posting mine. She has something, is something I will never be. She's unobtrusive, inconspicuous, observing, has an eye for opportunity – innate qualities no less essential than expensive gear.

She has an eye for color and beauty in the ordinary and mundane details we mortals see and overlook.

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She catches a pregnant moment, tells an entire story at shutter speed.

Golan is a photographer, but she has taken the leap from craft to art. She is able to translate what she sees into ideas, and to give ideas and feelings visual, almost tangible expression.

Like loneliness……….

……….and eternity.

Our11th graders went to Poland this last winter. I didn't go with them, but Golan says without words how it feels as a young modern Israeli to return to the shadow lands of the Holocaust.

She steps into the shoes of new arrivals on the platform in Auschwitz, and she, and you, experience just a shade of uncertainty and finality of the doomed.

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About a year ago I completed "kissing the mirror" and needed to give it visual expression. A cover. Golan agreed to help me. I outlined the idea and let her run with it.

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She came back with this....

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Good, lovely, but too 'sexy'.


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This one was perfect. It said it all. The innocent, egoistic kiss.

But I decided I want something more subtle.So I saved it for a back cover cameo,
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and took this one...

...and cut it to get this for the front cover:

 

Viola'! ("behold" in French)

Walla! ("Wow!" in Arabic)

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"kissing the mirror" has the honor of being Golan's first professional job. Not her last.

Golan's working, and going places. No surprise here; I knew it already last year. The day is coming soon and Golan will be introducing me.

I was one the of teachers at Golan Levyathan's high school.

Yes, that's right, the Golan Levyathan, the photographer.

And thanks to Jeni for lending her beauty to "kissing the mirror".

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You can catch more of Golan's work at:

http://golan-ha.deviantart.com/

Playing on Passion

Somewhere along the line Mel Gibson evolved from talented actor to serious artist. His career crawled out of the organic matter of blood and guts in the Mad Max series to action/comedy in Lethal Weapon I-IV, and in the last decade or so made the leap to a new level of thought provoking work, directing "The Passion of the Christ" (2004) and "Apocalypto" (2006).

 

Gibson gambled in both The Passion and Apocalypto, presenting historical drama in contemporary languages to subtitle-illiterate Americans, counting on raw violence and a fast pace to retain their attention. The Passion of the Christ is almost docudrama, following Jesus on his Via Dolorosa ("way of sorrow") in the last hours before his crucifixion. Apocalypto takes place in the doomed Mayan civilization literally moments before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.

 

The Passion of the Christ isn't officially censored in Israel, but in tacit consent between the local distributors and the Israeli audience it isn't marketed here. (I was only able to see it on Utube.) It's just a modern version of Medieval passion plays once produced by the catholic church, more often than not the spark igniting drunken riffraff only too willing to exact revenge on the local Jewish community. At least that is how it's seen here. And besides, a crucifixion isn't going to move an Israeli crowd – in Second Temple Judea it was almost death by natural causes.

Objectively speaking, the telling of Jesus' crucifixion is certainly legitimate, even essential for Christians. Gibson's version isn't blatantly anti-Semitic, but he slips a latent bias in between the lines. He washes Roman hands of guilt; a reluctant Pilate who issues the death warrant, and the ignorant bullies who drive in the nails – Gibson forgives them for they know not what they do. He places the Christ's murder squarely on the Jews; if it's sanctimonious priests scheming and manipulating others to do their dirty work, or a lynch mob screaming for blood. But to be honest, Gibson's portrayal of Jews is accurate. The first century Jewish leadership was never accused of being 'nice' by their contemporaries, and Judeans weren't a gentle bunch, as Roman legions would discover time and again. Saying that, let me remind any Christians latching on to the above "admission of guilt" in order to browbeat present day Jews 2000 years removed from the crime, according the gospels it was first and foremost Jesus orchestrating the events that lead to his crucifixion – otherwise he isn't who he says he is and he was simply the sad victim of a case of mistaken identity. And as for Jewish kneejerk defensiveness at any mention of Jesus, we won't erase anti-Semitism by repainting the past.

In Apocalypto, an idyllic indigenous village in the jungle is raided and its inhabitants force-marched to a city belonging to a more advanced Mayan civilization. The story focuses on the captive Jaguar Paw, following him from his abduction on through the frenzied Mayan crowd. After the women are auctioned off, the men are painted blue and led up to a temple where one by one their beating hearts are to be cut out to ensure the pleasure of the gods and a good harvest. Jaguar Paw's life is spared by a total eclipse of the sun (a sign of the god's favor) and he exploits the opportunity to make a break for the jungle. He is doubly fortunate, for just as his pursuers catch up with him on the beach, they meet a landing party of armored Spaniards and priests who appear to them as gods, to Jaguar Paw (and Mel Gibson) as saviors.

It's not hard to decipher Gibson's agenda from his work; it's apologetics for the traditional catholic church, with one hand pointed at Christ killers, and the other twisting a positive spin on the Spanish crimes of conquest (and subsequent forced catholic conversion) of the native population of Central America. But it is in the parallels and contrasts between the two films one can find the fallacy in Gibson's portrayal of Jesus' crucifixion.

In Apocalypto, men are made gods to be sacrificed to save the Mayans from famine; in The Passion it is God made flesh to save men. Both films pivot on celestial signs, the solar eclipse vis-à-vis God darkening midday to night. In both the spectators - the Mayan crowd or modern theater audiences - are riveted to the drama of human sacrifice. And there's the rub.

Human sacrifice plays on passion. By our very nature, we can't help but be moved when observing the ritual murder of another person. So I have to agree with the verdict of the Jewish audience on this one, even if not with their polemics. Gibson's Passion is fueled by the same raw emotion that turned the wheels of idolatry and Papal violence, reducing Jesus' crucifixion to no more than another version of paganism. The Passion of the Christ is only a modern rendition of an ancient universal genre, one that has tugged at human hearts, sometimes literally, since the dawn of time.

Gibson could have featured the gory crucifixion of any one of thousands of Jews 2000 years ago and would have generated the same emotion. The cross doesn't make Jesus the Messiah.













In the last 60 seconds of the Passion, Gibson takes us to a tomb. The stone rolls away and the camera pans over to an empty shroud. Jesus comes into focus, stands and the last we see of him is a nail-pierced hand. An empty grave doesn't play on emotion and it won't generate box office hits, but it makes all the difference between victim and Messiah.

Time Stopped

(I posted 'Time Stopped', Karnit Goldwasser's eulogy to her husband Ehud last summer.
In honor of Ehud and all of our fallen we remember today.)

"July twelfth, two thousand and six, nine and three minutes. Time stopped."

"On the morning of July 12, 2006 at marker 105 on the northern border a journey began for the two of us. You and me. Us, the family and you. All of us, the nation and you. My love, they say that time does what it will, Heals and closes wounds, but does it?"

"For two years I have spoken in the name of two, Eldar and Udi. Regev and Goldwasser. The struggle to bring you home to us was a joint effort from day one. But today, for the first time, I allow myself to speak to you alone. Today I can't conceal, that my mouth and my heart are one. And the heart …. the heart, my love, weeps and pains."

"Forgive me, dearest, if I don't name here all of your wonderful qualities, your character, your inner beauty so rare; that were a light unto my feet and were at my side every step of the way in the struggle to bring you back to us. Please, my love, let this painful and intimate farewell, let me do in my own way, as you would if you could if only you could make yourself heard."

"During your long absence, as time passed on, your face belonged to one and all. Udi, the private person, my Udi, was suddenly our Udi. All of ours."

"July twelfth, two thousand and six, nine and three minutes, and time stopped for you. The morning of July 12, 2006 at marker 105 on the northern border, our journey began. For the two of us, you and me. For us, the family and you. For the nation and you."

"Today our journey is done and come to its end. We, just you and I, are now setting out on the next journey, the journey of my life. You will be part of it, silent but active, hidden but inspiring, concealed from all but before my eyes always. You will always be my second inner voice, forever young, that will be with me for as long as I live."

"July seventh, two thousand and eight, noon; and time has started anew."


(From Karnit Goldwasser's farewell to her husband Ehud, who was returned from Lebanon and buried yesterday.)

My Israel

Israel at 61.

I thought I would let her speak for herself.