Sunday, June 29, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Don't stand idly by the blood of your neighbor horror
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 8, 2008
Our Towns
The Day the Traffic Did Not Stop in Hartford
By PETER APPLEBOME
HARTFORD
The video of a 78-year-old man being tossed in the air after being hit by a car and then left in the street like a discarded food wrapper would have been hideous whoever the victim.
... The least anonymous man on Park Street, who, thanks to one sickening video, became an unlikely symbol of the scary anonymity of the modern street.
.. “Everyone knows Ponce and everyone loves Ponce,” said Marisa Estrada, who tends bar at El Bohio. “He’s the one who’s always doing something for someone else, so how could anyone have done this to him?”
Mr. Torres, in critical condition and apparently paralyzed, would have been merely the subject of a local crime story if not for two things.
The first is the insatiable appetite for daily video of the Internet and the nightly news. This one came in the form of a police video from May 30 that shows two cars, what looked like a dark Honda chasing a tan Toyota. Traveling on the wrong side of the street, the first just misses Mr. Torres, who had just bought milk at the corner store. The second hits him, sending him flying over the windshield. Both cars speed off. As Mr. Torres lies on the pavement, nine cars go past without stopping, people walk by or stop and look, seemingly without doing anything to stop traffic or comfort him, until a police cruiser on its way to another call drives up.
On Friday, people were still trying to make sense of what had happened. Some, like David Myers, 29 and unemployed, who was on Park Street where Mr. Torres was hit, said the metaphor was simpler than the reality. Rather than being indifferent, four people did telephone 911, he and others said. It happened so fast that many did not quite know what to do. (The police arrived in just over a minute.) People knew that the worst thing they could do would be to try to move an accident victim.
Others tried to put what happened in the context of street sociology. The accident occurred on a frazzled block across from a vacant lot, an area favored by homeless people and, some say, by drug users. One block over, where El Bohio is, where there’s more commerce and a stronger sense of community, people would have reacted faster, would have been more likely to recognize who the victim was and render aid.
But, of course, that man lying on Park Street might have been a homeless person or a drug user, and he might be Ponce with a container of milk, but he was still a human being, said Mr. Torres’s son, Angel Arce. If we can’t all be heroes, any human being, in the most traumatic moment of his life, deserves someone to stop traffic, someone to hold his hand until help arrives, deserves someone who would have responded the way that Ponce almost certainly would have. And, Mr. Arce added, he certainly deserves someone to come forward with information about the drivers, both still unidentified.
And if Mr. Myers has a point on broader societal failings, surely the lesson isn’t to adjust responsibility down, it is to adjust compassion up, as the elderly man lying on the street did.
So if Mr. Arce takes some solace from calls of support and the cards from 100 children at a local elementary school, it’s hard to get past the image of his father alone on the street.
“It makes me angry and it leaves me hurt,” Mr. Arce said. “To think of him there and no one to grab his hand, to offer comfort. He was always there helping everyone in their time of need and in his time, no one was there for him.”
E-mail: peappl@nytimes.com
June 8, 2008
Our Towns
The Day the Traffic Did Not Stop in Hartford
By PETER APPLEBOME
HARTFORD
The video of a 78-year-old man being tossed in the air after being hit by a car and then left in the street like a discarded food wrapper would have been hideous whoever the victim.
... The least anonymous man on Park Street, who, thanks to one sickening video, became an unlikely symbol of the scary anonymity of the modern street.
.. “Everyone knows Ponce and everyone loves Ponce,” said Marisa Estrada, who tends bar at El Bohio. “He’s the one who’s always doing something for someone else, so how could anyone have done this to him?”
Mr. Torres, in critical condition and apparently paralyzed, would have been merely the subject of a local crime story if not for two things.
The first is the insatiable appetite for daily video of the Internet and the nightly news. This one came in the form of a police video from May 30 that shows two cars, what looked like a dark Honda chasing a tan Toyota. Traveling on the wrong side of the street, the first just misses Mr. Torres, who had just bought milk at the corner store. The second hits him, sending him flying over the windshield. Both cars speed off. As Mr. Torres lies on the pavement, nine cars go past without stopping, people walk by or stop and look, seemingly without doing anything to stop traffic or comfort him, until a police cruiser on its way to another call drives up.
On Friday, people were still trying to make sense of what had happened. Some, like David Myers, 29 and unemployed, who was on Park Street where Mr. Torres was hit, said the metaphor was simpler than the reality. Rather than being indifferent, four people did telephone 911, he and others said. It happened so fast that many did not quite know what to do. (The police arrived in just over a minute.) People knew that the worst thing they could do would be to try to move an accident victim.
Others tried to put what happened in the context of street sociology. The accident occurred on a frazzled block across from a vacant lot, an area favored by homeless people and, some say, by drug users. One block over, where El Bohio is, where there’s more commerce and a stronger sense of community, people would have reacted faster, would have been more likely to recognize who the victim was and render aid.
But, of course, that man lying on Park Street might have been a homeless person or a drug user, and he might be Ponce with a container of milk, but he was still a human being, said Mr. Torres’s son, Angel Arce. If we can’t all be heroes, any human being, in the most traumatic moment of his life, deserves someone to stop traffic, someone to hold his hand until help arrives, deserves someone who would have responded the way that Ponce almost certainly would have. And, Mr. Arce added, he certainly deserves someone to come forward with information about the drivers, both still unidentified.
And if Mr. Myers has a point on broader societal failings, surely the lesson isn’t to adjust responsibility down, it is to adjust compassion up, as the elderly man lying on the street did.
So if Mr. Arce takes some solace from calls of support and the cards from 100 children at a local elementary school, it’s hard to get past the image of his father alone on the street.
“It makes me angry and it leaves me hurt,” Mr. Arce said. “To think of him there and no one to grab his hand, to offer comfort. He was always there helping everyone in their time of need and in his time, no one was there for him.”
E-mail: peappl@nytimes.com
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
youtube videos related to Shavuot
Upcoming Jewish Holidays related videos
Ten Commandments JewU 22 (read on Shavuot)
Omer-the 49 day period between Passover and Shavuot JewU 36
The Festival of Shavuot First fruits Hag Habikorim JewU 64
Lag Baomer 33rd day Holiday in the midst of sadness JewU 85
Cicadas, Shavuot, Memorial day and Ruth's conversion JewU 93
Ten Commandments JewU 22 (read on Shavuot)
Omer-the 49 day period between Passover and Shavuot JewU 36
The Festival of Shavuot First fruits Hag Habikorim JewU 64
Lag Baomer 33rd day Holiday in the midst of sadness JewU 85
Cicadas, Shavuot, Memorial day and Ruth's conversion JewU 93
Friday, June 6, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Israel: Leading the Way to a Renewable Future
Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest
June 5, 2008
Israel: Leading the Way to a Renewable Future
UNEP World Environment Day 2008
"At this moment in history when, for the first time, all of the people of this earth have to make a clear, seemingly difficult but really quite simple moral judgment about our future, the people of Israel can lead the way to a renewable future."
- Al Gore, former US Vice President, Nobel Prize Laureate, and Environmental Leader
Not only is Israel the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, Israel and Israelis are...
Spearheading the development of electric vehicles
Developing the world's first suit made from recycled plastic bottles
Establishing the world's largest solar park in California's Mojave Desert
On the forefront of "Clean Technology"
Not only are Israeli companies on the forefront of technological advancements in environmental research, the State of Israel has an entire ministry devoted to environmental protection! This ministry works with the people of Israel in order to raise awareness of environmental protection. Click here to see what events Israel has planned in order to celebrate World Environment Day.
June 5, 2008
Israel: Leading the Way to a Renewable Future
UNEP World Environment Day 2008
"At this moment in history when, for the first time, all of the people of this earth have to make a clear, seemingly difficult but really quite simple moral judgment about our future, the people of Israel can lead the way to a renewable future."
- Al Gore, former US Vice President, Nobel Prize Laureate, and Environmental Leader
Not only is Israel the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, Israel and Israelis are...
Spearheading the development of electric vehicles
Developing the world's first suit made from recycled plastic bottles
Establishing the world's largest solar park in California's Mojave Desert
On the forefront of "Clean Technology"
Not only are Israeli companies on the forefront of technological advancements in environmental research, the State of Israel has an entire ministry devoted to environmental protection! This ministry works with the people of Israel in order to raise awareness of environmental protection. Click here to see what events Israel has planned in order to celebrate World Environment Day.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Get those intruders out
Outed after year truly in closet
Intruder's food thefts finally tipped resident
Associated Press
May 31, 2008
TOKYO—A homeless woman who sneaked into a man's house in Japan and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.
Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man's closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from the southern town of Kasuya said Friday.
The home's resident installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.
One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar. However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all windows closed.
"We searched the house ... checking everywhere someone could possibly hide," Itakura said. "When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side."
The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man's house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.
Police were investigating details of her life inside the closet. She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and apparently even took showers, Itakura said, describing the woman as "neat and clean."
POINT: we all have secret intruders taking up space in our minds. We may not notice them but they continue to use our resources. They can hide in tiny compartments. we need the thoroughness of Yom Kippur to help us realize they are there and find them and chase them out.
Intruder's food thefts finally tipped resident
Associated Press
May 31, 2008
TOKYO—A homeless woman who sneaked into a man's house in Japan and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.
Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man's closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from the southern town of Kasuya said Friday.
The home's resident installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.
One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar. However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all windows closed.
"We searched the house ... checking everywhere someone could possibly hide," Itakura said. "When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side."
The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man's house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.
Police were investigating details of her life inside the closet. She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and apparently even took showers, Itakura said, describing the woman as "neat and clean."
POINT: we all have secret intruders taking up space in our minds. We may not notice them but they continue to use our resources. They can hide in tiny compartments. we need the thoroughness of Yom Kippur to help us realize they are there and find them and chase them out.
Assimilation
Parade magazine a few weeks ago had an interview with Carrie of Sex and the City. Sara Jessica Parker. Turns out her Dad is Jewish and husband Mathew Brodrick's mother is Jewish. They are raising son as "cultural jew-"empathy white fish salad, etc but have Catholic nanny who sings Catholic songs to child and that's ok. Was asked will you take him to synagogue? "Heavens no-he'll probably end up being a Unitarian
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Hiding in the closet of our minds
Outed after year truly in closet
Intruder's food thefts finally tipped resident
Associated Press
May 31, 2008
TOKYO—A homeless woman who sneaked into a man's house in Japan and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.
Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man's closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from the southern town of Kasuya said Friday.
The home's resident installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.
One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar. However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all windows closed.
"We searched the house ... checking everywhere someone could possibly hide," Itakura said. "When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side."
The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man's house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.
Police were investigating details of her life inside the closet. She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and apparently even took showers, Itakura said, describing the woman as "neat and clean."
POINT: we all have secret intruders taking up space in our minds. We may not notice them but they continue to use our resources. They can hide in tiny compartments. we need the thoroughness of Yom Kippur to help us realize they are there and find them and chase them out.
Intruder's food thefts finally tipped resident
Associated Press
May 31, 2008
TOKYO—A homeless woman who sneaked into a man's house in Japan and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.
Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man's closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from the southern town of Kasuya said Friday.
The home's resident installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.
One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar. However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all windows closed.
"We searched the house ... checking everywhere someone could possibly hide," Itakura said. "When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side."
The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man's house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.
Police were investigating details of her life inside the closet. She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and apparently even took showers, Itakura said, describing the woman as "neat and clean."
POINT: we all have secret intruders taking up space in our minds. We may not notice them but they continue to use our resources. They can hide in tiny compartments. we need the thoroughness of Yom Kippur to help us realize they are there and find them and chase them out.
Gary Tobin on Outreach
Op-Ed: Stop keeping out non-Jews
Gary Tobin
A new study showing that Americans are switching religions more than ever proves that U.S. Jewry needs a new strategy, says Gary Tobin.
Published: 03/03/2008
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) -- A study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that Americans are switching religions more than ever. As many as one of every two adults does not practice the religion in which they were born or raised.
Evangelical and nondenominational Protestantism are the big winners. Catholicism and mainline Protestants are the big losers. As an aging religious group, it is time for Jews to take heed of the changes affecting religion in America because they are Americans, too, and no major trend passes them by.
Pew refers to the ”marketplace“ of religions in the United States, and that is exactly right. People shop around for the religious theologies, practices and communities that suit them. Some may try on a number of faiths until they find the one that fits.
This is one of the great benefits of the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment, freedom from the government sanctioning any particular religion and allowing many faiths to thrive. The result has been a healthy competition, a country relatively free from the religious strife that plagues so many societies.
Competition means that individuals are unshackled by theologies they may not believe or communities of faith that they may find spiritually or otherwise unfulfilling. How wonderful that there are so many choices available and people can find the religious home they seek -- or choose nothing at all if that is where they land.
At a time when other religious groups are seeking adherents and promoting their religious faiths, Jewish organizations and institutions generally are so afraid of decline and loss that they turn inwards. The result, however, is that these very insular approaches end up ensuring that decline and loss occur.
The reason is that Jews, like other Americans, crave free choice. We are more likely to retain more people because they feel they want to be Jews, not because they have to be.
The Jewish communal response to this expression of religious freedom is locked somewhere in another time or place -- Europe and North Africa in the 1700s, for example. We keep having the same tired discussions about “preventing intermarriage” or “strengthening Jewish identity” or saving the Jews from assimilation with the right kind of, or enough, Jewish education.
Again and again we respond with rhetoric, ideas and programs that circle round and round in the same orbit -- how do we keep Jews in? Hundreds of years of discrimination, violence and murder take a huge toll. They create a psychology of fear that results in Jewish isolation, a construct of us and them, insiders and outsiders, Jews and enemies. And with unabashed and straight-faced boldness, as if no one else is listening, we ask how do we keep strangers -- meaning all non-Jews -- out of our families, out of our synagogues. Out.
We don’t want to be part of the marketplace of religious ideas and practices, thank you, we just want to be left alone to marry each other and keep everybody inside, safe and secure.
This of course is an illusion.
Still, we fantasize that if we inoculate our young people with enough Jewish education, then they will reject the 98 percent of other Americans they might fall in love with or not be attracted to Zen Buddhism. What nonsense. We all have seen the numbers to prove that the head in the sand, return to the ghetto and hope the gentile will go away strategy is not going to work. No number of day schools or summer camps is going to turn back the clock on religious freedom and competition.
It is time for Jews to join every other group in America and quit obsessing about who is being lost and start acting on who might come in. Right now it is largely a one-way street because we cling to dangerously obsolete ideas, attitudes and practices about conversion. We do not welcome people with open arms but rather we stiff-arm. We still question people’s sincerity -- do they really want to be Jewish? We make people jump through hoops. Those who convert have to be persistent enough to batter down the barriers.
Yes, of course we need standards and procedures -- and to say that making Judaism more accessible means abandoning rules of admission is a straw argument to cover up how suspicious, off-putting and unfriendly we often are to those who want to be part of the Jewish people.
Openness and excitement do not mean that learning and ritual requirements to become a Jew should be abandoned. Just the opposite is the case. Spiritual seekers are looking for meaning, content and purpose. Becoming a Jew can be a deeply intellectual and emotional experience, and spiritual seekers are willing to engage in rigorous education about Jewish life, rituals of conversion and rites of passage to become a Jew.
Some rabbis do a great job in dealing with potential converts; many do not. Our synagogues often are less welcoming than we think. And our newspapers, sermons and sociological literature are filled with hysterical reprimands and dire predictions about the demise of the Jews that result from gentiles breaking through our traditional walls. How welcoming do we think it is when we say we wish our sons or daughters would have married someone else, but as long as you are here, we will try and be nice to you?
We have a theology that has no intermediary between the individual and God. That is appealing. We have a set of daily, monthly and yearly rituals that provide guidance and purpose. That is appealing. We have rich liturgy, beautiful prayers, deep roots in Israel, a strong communal system. All appealing. By being attractive to others, we will also be more attractive to born Jews. What are we afraid of?
We are checkmated by our own notion of ourselves that Jews don’t do that -- we don’t compete for newcomers. Maybe Jews in 18th century Poland did not -- and with good reason. It brought the wrath of the church and the state on them.
But this is 21st century America, not 18th century Poland or 20th century Germany. Pew tells us that Americans are switching religions like never before. Do we want to enter the competition armed with our wonderful 3,000-year-old history, or kvetch about assimilation, intermarriage and our dwindling numbers?
Those who choose to join the Jewish people will enrich us with their ideas, energy and passion. And born Jews who choose to embrace their Judaism in an open marketplace also will enrich Jewish life. It is time to embrace the America in which we live. We must abandon the paradigm that our children and grandchildren are potential gentiles and promote the new belief that America is filled with potential Jews.
Gary Tobin is the president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research in San Francisco and writes frequently about American and Jewish philanthropy
Gary Tobin
A new study showing that Americans are switching religions more than ever proves that U.S. Jewry needs a new strategy, says Gary Tobin.
Published: 03/03/2008
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) -- A study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that Americans are switching religions more than ever. As many as one of every two adults does not practice the religion in which they were born or raised.
Evangelical and nondenominational Protestantism are the big winners. Catholicism and mainline Protestants are the big losers. As an aging religious group, it is time for Jews to take heed of the changes affecting religion in America because they are Americans, too, and no major trend passes them by.
Pew refers to the ”marketplace“ of religions in the United States, and that is exactly right. People shop around for the religious theologies, practices and communities that suit them. Some may try on a number of faiths until they find the one that fits.
This is one of the great benefits of the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment, freedom from the government sanctioning any particular religion and allowing many faiths to thrive. The result has been a healthy competition, a country relatively free from the religious strife that plagues so many societies.
Competition means that individuals are unshackled by theologies they may not believe or communities of faith that they may find spiritually or otherwise unfulfilling. How wonderful that there are so many choices available and people can find the religious home they seek -- or choose nothing at all if that is where they land.
At a time when other religious groups are seeking adherents and promoting their religious faiths, Jewish organizations and institutions generally are so afraid of decline and loss that they turn inwards. The result, however, is that these very insular approaches end up ensuring that decline and loss occur.
The reason is that Jews, like other Americans, crave free choice. We are more likely to retain more people because they feel they want to be Jews, not because they have to be.
The Jewish communal response to this expression of religious freedom is locked somewhere in another time or place -- Europe and North Africa in the 1700s, for example. We keep having the same tired discussions about “preventing intermarriage” or “strengthening Jewish identity” or saving the Jews from assimilation with the right kind of, or enough, Jewish education.
Again and again we respond with rhetoric, ideas and programs that circle round and round in the same orbit -- how do we keep Jews in? Hundreds of years of discrimination, violence and murder take a huge toll. They create a psychology of fear that results in Jewish isolation, a construct of us and them, insiders and outsiders, Jews and enemies. And with unabashed and straight-faced boldness, as if no one else is listening, we ask how do we keep strangers -- meaning all non-Jews -- out of our families, out of our synagogues. Out.
We don’t want to be part of the marketplace of religious ideas and practices, thank you, we just want to be left alone to marry each other and keep everybody inside, safe and secure.
This of course is an illusion.
Still, we fantasize that if we inoculate our young people with enough Jewish education, then they will reject the 98 percent of other Americans they might fall in love with or not be attracted to Zen Buddhism. What nonsense. We all have seen the numbers to prove that the head in the sand, return to the ghetto and hope the gentile will go away strategy is not going to work. No number of day schools or summer camps is going to turn back the clock on religious freedom and competition.
It is time for Jews to join every other group in America and quit obsessing about who is being lost and start acting on who might come in. Right now it is largely a one-way street because we cling to dangerously obsolete ideas, attitudes and practices about conversion. We do not welcome people with open arms but rather we stiff-arm. We still question people’s sincerity -- do they really want to be Jewish? We make people jump through hoops. Those who convert have to be persistent enough to batter down the barriers.
Yes, of course we need standards and procedures -- and to say that making Judaism more accessible means abandoning rules of admission is a straw argument to cover up how suspicious, off-putting and unfriendly we often are to those who want to be part of the Jewish people.
Openness and excitement do not mean that learning and ritual requirements to become a Jew should be abandoned. Just the opposite is the case. Spiritual seekers are looking for meaning, content and purpose. Becoming a Jew can be a deeply intellectual and emotional experience, and spiritual seekers are willing to engage in rigorous education about Jewish life, rituals of conversion and rites of passage to become a Jew.
Some rabbis do a great job in dealing with potential converts; many do not. Our synagogues often are less welcoming than we think. And our newspapers, sermons and sociological literature are filled with hysterical reprimands and dire predictions about the demise of the Jews that result from gentiles breaking through our traditional walls. How welcoming do we think it is when we say we wish our sons or daughters would have married someone else, but as long as you are here, we will try and be nice to you?
We have a theology that has no intermediary between the individual and God. That is appealing. We have a set of daily, monthly and yearly rituals that provide guidance and purpose. That is appealing. We have rich liturgy, beautiful prayers, deep roots in Israel, a strong communal system. All appealing. By being attractive to others, we will also be more attractive to born Jews. What are we afraid of?
We are checkmated by our own notion of ourselves that Jews don’t do that -- we don’t compete for newcomers. Maybe Jews in 18th century Poland did not -- and with good reason. It brought the wrath of the church and the state on them.
But this is 21st century America, not 18th century Poland or 20th century Germany. Pew tells us that Americans are switching religions like never before. Do we want to enter the competition armed with our wonderful 3,000-year-old history, or kvetch about assimilation, intermarriage and our dwindling numbers?
Those who choose to join the Jewish people will enrich us with their ideas, energy and passion. And born Jews who choose to embrace their Judaism in an open marketplace also will enrich Jewish life. It is time to embrace the America in which we live. We must abandon the paradigm that our children and grandchildren are potential gentiles and promote the new belief that America is filled with potential Jews.
Gary Tobin is the president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research in San Francisco and writes frequently about American and Jewish philanthropy
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