Tag: consumer culture
What Can Interfaith Dialogue Really Do? Part 3 of 3
Read Part I here, and Part II here. When I ate lunch with the rabbi he inveighed against interfaith dialogue and its inability to reach or transform the minds of those who are closed to dialogue. He s... Read More
What Can Interfaith Dialogue Really Do? Part 2 of 3
Read Part I here. At lunch after Purim, I heard the rabbi criticize interfaith projects for being “just another religious group.” I reflected on the irony of a religious clergy person dismissing t... Read More
What Can Interfaith Dialogue Really Do? Part 1 of 3
After the most recent Purim morning service at my synagogue, I ate lunch with the rabbi. He told me he thinks interreligious dialogue is an in-group hobby, that interfaith groups become cliques. He fe... Read More
How Do We Tolerate the Intolerant?
What do tolerant people do with the intolerant? We tolerate them. We ignore them. We insult them. We try to change them: By explaining. By demonstrating. By oppressin... Read More
“There is no such thing as Palestine!”–Dispatch from Palestine
“You can’t teach me anything about Europeans,” once commented the deputy mayor of Jerusalem. Europeans had killed his father. “You can’t teach me anything about Palestinians.” Palestinians... Read More
“This is our life.”–Dispatch from Palestine
Dhesheh Refugee Camp houses 17,000 people in less than 1 square kilometer. It was established for two waves of refugees in 1948 and 1967 by the United Nations, which is still in charge of providing me... Read More
“You are an ambassador”–Dispatch from Palestine
We drive along the barbed electric fence that surrounds the Israeli settlement of Har Gilo. We are headed to the Walajah valley of the Palestinian territory. The valleys are deep and lush with pine ... Read More
The Beginning of a Settlement — Dispatch from Palestine
Mahmoud’s family lives one Palestinian hill over from a newly-forming illegal Jewish settlement. Six Jewish settlers arrived about a year ago with tents and made a primitive campsite. All year they ... Read More