Being the Heritage Minister is not the summit of achievement in Israeli politics, but it is a cabinet position, and Amihai Eliyahu, the current occupant, really should watch what he says. When Radio Kol Berama asked him whether an atomic bomb should be dropped on Gaza, he should not have replied “This is one of the possibilities.”
Finishing the new book Annice Carter’s Life of Quaker Service, my first query was: What if Annice Carter had ever learned to make bagels? Could that have changed history in the Middle East?
She had the training and experience. With her college degree in Home Economics, cooking, including for large groups, was one of her many skills. And she was well aware of the implications of food for building community in diverse cultural settings.
Besides being a cook, Annice was a teacher, then Jill-of-(almost) all-trades, and later Principal of the Friends Girls School in Ramallah Palestine (started by New England Friends in the 1880s, and established as an elite school for Palestinian students).
Continue reading A Cautionary Tale and an Inspiration? The “Life of Quaker Service” of Annice carter
We’re still in the game, with a slim chance of holding global warming below a catastrophic level through the rest of the century, Gwynne Dyer writes.
By Gwynne Dyer –
Tuesday, October 31, 2023
You would think that all human energies would be focused on avoiding a potential climate calamity, including those of Russians, Ukrainians, Israelis and Palestinians. Especially the Israelis and Palestinians, whose disputed homeland would become uninhabitable by the end of the century in most “runaway” scenarios,
With practically all the media bandwidth for non-local news taken up by two tribal territorial struggles that would not have seemed out of place in the 15th century AD — or indeed the 15 century BC — you may have missed the latest release from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
That would be a pity, because it’s a lot more important than Gaza and Donetsk. The IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook is the best one-stop guide to where we are now in the attempt to keep global warming below a disastrous level.
Amid the upheavals, wars & rumors of war of the first weekend in October, 2023, there was a burst of light and fun and even joy, in one seemingly unlikely place — Alamance County, North Carolina. Let’s go visit it:
The occasion was as unlikely as the locale, by the historic railroad station in the city of Burlington, which was the scene of the ninth annual Alamance Pride Festival. It had the whole nine yards: tons of rainbow flags, stunning drag queens, and —yes, they went there— Drag Queen Story Hour— in fact more than one. (But, in truth, they didn’t really last an hour; too many other things to do — “Psst, hey: the Quakers have candy!”)
Continue reading For Quakers, Friends & Others – A Welcome & Colorful Break From The Weekend Madness
Gwynne Dyer — October 5, 2023
In 1973, 50 years ago today, Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, coincided with Ramadan, the Islamic lunar month of fasting. But nobody raised an alarm in Israel when it was reported, two days before the Arab attack, that the Egyptian army had ordered its soldiers to stop fasting.
After their overwhelming victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel smashed three Arab armies in a “pre-emptive” attack and expanded its territory fourfold, the Israelis were almost unanimous in their contempt for Arab military capabilities – indeed, for Arabs in general. Continue reading Two views: Recalling the Yom Kippur/Ramadan War- Half a Century Later