Connections and Possibilities
Tonight begins the 47th Day of the Omer (May 29-30, 2006), which is six weeks and five days of the omer. May that part of me that is broken in Hod in Malkhut be healed on this day.
Sproul Plaza, UC Berkeley, CA, May, 1981
Being a leftist and a Zionist on campus was a little unusual. There were about ten of us. Representing the "Socialist Zionist Alliance" I got my three minutes under the sun to speak at the Israel Independence Day rally.
Just before my turn to speak I went over to the "Liberate El Salvador" table and picked up a Salvadorian flag. I got up there waving Israeli and El Salvadorian flags and attempted to equate the two struggles.
Sometimes the imaginative echoing of Hod finds a voice in this world (Malkhut) to speak of connections and possibilities that break convention, thereby bringing us closer to wholeness.
Most people probably thought I was psychotic. I felt very good.
Comments
1 comment postedShai: A few years before you were at the Israel Independence Day Rally at Sproul Plaza, UC Berkeley, representing the "Socialist Zionist Alliance," I was one of the folks at a "Progressive ZIonist Information Table" in a building at Harur College, SUNY Binghamton.
Reading about your going over to the "Liberate El Salvador" table, picking up a Salvadorian flag, waving Israeli and El Salvadorian flags and attempting to equate the two struggles reminded me of the time when the Iranian Student s Association was having a hunger strike, that is, they were publicly fasting, in solidarity with their brothers and sisters being imprisoned by the Shah, and some of us did the same thing, and ... well, they didn't quite know what to make of it.
However, when the Jewish Student Union at the school was coming up for funding hearings at the Student Association, I can report that one of the folks who spoke up in our defense was Julio Martinez, of CALASU - the Caribbean and Latin American Student Union. He ... understood that we're all in it together.
Some of us who were involved in groups like your "Socialist ZIonist Alliance" - or are older or younger to have been in such groups in the '70s and '80s - are still involved as Progressive Zionists; some of us formed the Morcechai Anielewicz Circle of Americans for Progressive Israel in the late '70s, and some of us are still are involved ... via such groups as Meretz USA. You can find us "here" -- http://www.meretzusa.org/
I believe it was the famous Talmudist, Joe Hill who once said "we're in here for you, you're out there for us." Perusing the web, I've discovered a number of folks who were involved with Progressive Zionism or Socialist Zionism or Critical Zionism or ikh vayst nicht, but who are now ... unconnected. Let me just note that you're not alone ... drop us a line, and get in touch.
B'achva,
>> Arieh