Another Friday, another day of rioting. But not what you think - it's not between jews and arabs. This time it's jews against jews, ultra-orthodox versus liberals. It took place at the Wailing Wall at 7am when the Women of the Wall, a group of mostly american jewish women who hold equality of worship with men, gathered to pray as they usually do every month. But by insisting on wearing the prayer shawl, phylacteries and carrying the Torah Scroll - all which conservative Judaism allows only to men - they drew the ire of the ultra-orthodox crowd. The High Court upheld the women's case and this morning eve a group of progressive jewish men came to support them. But urged by rabbis, thousands of ultra-orthodox school girls left school to gather and block the women from reaching the Wailing Wall. Ultra-orthodox men threw rocks, stones, chairs, bottles at the women. Police had to protect the women. What a scene!
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/protesters-hurl-rocks-in-clashes-over-women-of-the-wall-prayer-service-at-kotel.premium-1.523333 Now reform and conservative leaders are urging the Attorney General to investigate if the rabbis had instigated this rioting at the Wall.
On the academic side of Israel, there's alot of fuming because reknown scientist Stephen Hawking has decided to boycott the President's Conference in Jerusalem ... the highest profile boycott yet. Jewish calls of hypocrisy and other accusations against him however are having an opposite effect - it only proves how nasty the bite and bully can be if you do not do Israel's bidding ... and hence justifying the boycott. Read the article ... there were calls from academic and technology circles to end Hawking's life because of his boycott. How very very awful and sad that these intellectuals feel so threatened by a boycott; it only shows that there's truth behind it.
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/targeting-stephen-hawking-and-dustin-hoffman-right-wing-pro-israel-advocacy-as-hate-speech.premium-1.523189
 |
Village women selling
mint, sage, mulberries
and vine leaves |
So the last worry the military had today was the arabs. It was so hot, no one was in the mood to carry out trouble. The heat just made everyone sluggish ... at least on our eastern side of the City. Being a market day, bedouin and village women came by the droves to sell the produce of the land. Vine leaves are in abundance. But also the first mulberries, peaches and apricots are out on sale. Mint and other herbs are also in abundance. I found it very delightful to walk down Damascus Gate and see the wares being hawked. I even went to Rami's animal "shop" - actually a couple of makeshift tables on his truck where he sells pet food and accessories. He sells the stuff cheap so I got canary food and nesting material. It was good chatting with him and he was very happy as well to catch up with me.
_et_Rahil_Halim_2.jpg)
