On Life After Zionist Summer Camp
@MikeBarthel Oh dude. People are going to tell you how to raise your kids, period. The only way to not hear it is, as you suggest, just skip the whole kid thing all together. It's worth it, but man are stupid people a pain in my ass.
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On Life After Zionist Summer Camp
I have a feeling that this piece will draw a lot of attention, both because it's excellent and because it says out loud something that few people are willing to talk about in public.
Some of those who come to read this might be looking advocacy resources - here's a short list I compiled: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/israelpalestine-peace-advocacy-places-to-start/
If you poke around on the blog, you'll find links in the blogrolls to a wide variety of sources both inside Israel/Palestine and outside of it (as well as my own writing, of course).
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On Life After Zionist Summer Camp
@MikeBarthel Possibly the most important thing to do, to my mind, is to talk with your kids about what really matters to you. We're active members of a Conservative shul, and my kids go to various camps, sleep-away and non-, as well as Hebrew school, and we just make sure we know what they're hearing, and that they know what we think about it. (I left a lengthy comment below, but it boils down to: I'm American-Israeli, husband is from Jerusalem, and we live outside Chicago because we don't want our Israeli Jewish children to grow up in Israel).
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On Life After Zionist Summer Camp
I'm an American-Israeli Jew who spent 14 years in Tel Aviv and am now raising my children (with my Jerusalem born-and-bred husband) in the US because we cannot bear the notion of sacrificing their lives on the alter of the occupation and settlement project.
I've been writing about the issues you raise, in one way or another, for years and one of the things that never fails to slay me is how utterly blind the institutional American Jewish community and those who identify with it are to the fact that the Israeli-policy-do-or-die approach is driving American Jews away, not just from Israel, but from Judaism.
I still call myself a Zionist (for reasons that I won't go into here but if you really want to, you can read why in this post: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/why-i-still-call-myself-a-zionist/ ), but I cannot blame any American Jew raised on the values of pluralism and democracy and human rights who simply cannot accept that label anymore.
In a side note: We're active members of a Conservative shul. We constantly talk to our kids about why they're growing up here, and they've already attended anti-occupation protests, both here and in Jerusalem, and one of the results is that by the time he was 10, my American-Israeli son had already begun to argue with his Hebrew school teachers about the maps on the walls of their classroom. I'm glad they're growing up aware -- I just wish I had any kind of faith left that they will see something like peace and justice in their lifetime.
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On Message In A Bottle Received, Responded To, 24 Years Later
Thank you, The Awl, for inspiring to listen to my entire Police collection.
You are awesome in many ways, but this might be the awesomest. Today, at any rate.
(And the story's cool too. I am, in fact, jealous).
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On A List Of Things President Obama Has Thrown “Under the Bus”
You forgot me. I'm a verifiable member of the Democratic base, and I hear he threw the base under the bus within his first week in office.