WOMEN'S LENS - Un coup d'oeil féminin

Moustaki l'Alexandrin

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:35:00 +0000

Georges Moustaki, dont l'entourage vient d'annoncer la mort à Nice à 79 ans, était né en 1934 à Alexandrie, dans cette Egypte cosmopolite dont sont issus tant d'artistes et d'écrivains français.
S'ils n'oublient ni l'injustice ni les fastes indécents et la corruption du roi Farouk (1920-1965), l'animatrice de France Inter Paula Jacques ou le journaliste du Monde Robert Solé, parmi d'autres, ont raconté avec truculence et nostalgie cette société exubérante et corsetée (La Mamelouka, Les femmes avec leur amour...).
Société si douce aux Européens, avant l'arrivée au pouvoir de Gamal Abdel Nasser, la crise du canal de Suez et le départ forcé des juifs d'Egypte après 1956 (il en reste 200, ils étaient 80.000). Parmi ces familles établies sous le soleil égyptien, celle de Joseph Mustacchi, futur Moustaki, dont les parents étaient originaires de l'île grecque de Corfou. suite>>

Mort de Georges Moustaki, le chanteur du "Métèque"

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:24:00 +0000

Georges Moustaki, en 1970. | AFP

C'était un homme en blanc, barbe assortie, longs cheveux idoines. Il faisait de lamoto et parlait avec une voix sucrée, comme il chantait. Masculin-féminin,Georges Moustaki était un homme à femmes, qui l'adoraient. Il en avait épousé une, Yannick, dont il eut une fille, Pia, née en 1956. Il en avait aimé certaines, il en avait adulé au moins deux : des femmes en noir, Piaf, le moineau, qui l'asservit pour mieux le révéler, et Barbara, l'exigeante, la "longue dame brune"raccompagnée tard dans la nuit à la sortie des cabarets.

Moustaki était à la fois profondément méditerranéen et superbement atlantique. Mais le secret était ailleurs : "Si je suis autant connu à l'étranger, c'est que je suis très français", disait l'inventeur d'une tour de Babel dont la clé de compréhension serait l'amour du voyage et de l'humanité. L'auteur-compositeur "à la gueule de pâtre grec" est mort le jeudi 23 mai, à Nice, des suites d'une longue maladie. Né le 3 mai 1934 à Alexandrie (Egypte), Yussef Mustacchi (Georges Moustaki) était âgé de 79 ans. suite>>

Fwd: Le harcèlement sexuel, la onzième plaie d'Egypte

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:25:00 +0000

Pharmacienne et romancière, Ghada Abdel Aal habite à Mahalla Al-Qobra, ville industrielle du delta égyptien. Pour se rendre au Caire, elle emprunte l'un des innombrables minibus qui sillonnent l'Egypte. "J'achète toujours deux places, pour être sûre de ne pas être harcelée par un voisin", dit cette femme de 35 ans. Auteure d'un roman savoureux (La Ronde des prétendants, Editions de l'Aube, 2012), Ghada Abdel Aal n'a pourtant rien d'une allumeuse. Elle porte le hijab, qui s'est quasiment généralisé dans son entourage, sans chercher à le "compenser" - comme tant d'autres - par un pantalon moulant ou un maquillage outrancier. "Le harcèlement sexuel, je l'ai intégré depuis l'enfance, précise-t-elle. Dès l'âge de 10 ou 11 ans, quand j'apercevais un groupe de garçons ou que je devais passerdevant un café, je changeais spontanément de trottoir."

Le harcèlement peut être qualifié de onzième plaie d'Egypte (regarder vers la 4^eminute de la vidéo). En effet, la situation prend une tournure inquiétante : les institutions sont discréditées, la police est absente, l'insécurité augmente, les agressions contre les chrétiens se multiplient, alors que la hausse du chômage, la hausse des prix et la pénurie de gaz ou d'essence provoquent des drames. suite>>

envoyé par Elie Mangoubi

Seth Frantzman,"Zionism: Of the Jews, or For the Jews?"

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:22:00 +0000

Throw Away That Rusty Key

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:06:00 +0000

by Lyn Julius

Dear Maysoon,

I was moved to read your piece commemorating the flight of your husband from a village near Jerusalem in 1948. He has kept the rusty iron key to his home. Yours was one of hundreds of articles in the global media, together with demonstrations and marches, marking your Nakba—the flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs in 1948.

A picture dated February 10, 2009 shows the entrance of an abandoned Jewish synagogue with a removed Star of David from the wall in Fallujah, west of Baghdad. (Saddam Hussein / AFP / Getty Images)

But let me tell you a little known-fact: as your husband's family was fleeing their village, a greater number of Jewish refugees were streaming out of the Arab world with one suitcase—in the opposite direction.

Over 800,000 Jewish refugees fled in the years immediately following 1948. This is the Jewish Nakba—a forgotten tragedy shrouded in silence. One of those refugee families was mine. We lived in a comfortable house in a riverside Jewish neighbourhood in Baghdad. continued>>

sent by David Shasha

who provided the following link for context

as some context for open zion and arab jews -

https://groups.google.com/group/Davidshasha/browse_thread/thread/33a4b6501ac20b4d/a13899ef1dd45af4?lnk=gst&q=arab+jews#a13899ef1dd45af4

The Grand Deception Excerpts

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:17:00 +0000

An extended sequence of excerpts from the 70-minute film produced by The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), "Jihad in America: The Grand Deception". This particular set of clips (almost 8 minutes in length, total) reflects key moments from the film, a film that everyone should see.

sent by Elie Mangoubi

Time has stood still in the workshops of old Cairo

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:06:00 +0000

Mohamed Zaki sits behind the machine that he has been using for the past 50 years
(Photo by Abdel-Rahman Sherief)

The winding, narrow streets of Old Cairo behind Khan El-Khalili have traditionally been bustling with an array of economic activity. Today, nestled among the ancient houses and mosques of the Fatimid era, many traditional workshops still remain, defying modern trends and contemporary production practices alike.

These little holes-in-the-wall, and the streets where they make their home, are filled with the rattling, clunking music of the work within, accompanied by recitation of the Quran from a nearby radio.

Known as the Khan Abo-Ta’ya or Haret El-Yahoud, (the Jewish Quarter), the area is among Khan El-Khalili’s primary providers of the glittering souvenirs (necklaces, pendants, etc.) which fill its boutiques and draw in tourists.

“We can work with any type of core material, be it gold, silver, copper or anything else,” said Mohamed Zaki, a 64 year old craftsman who has been in his profession for 50 years. “We even used to work with ivory imported from African countries before it was banned many years ago.”

Zaki and his fellow workers provide the bazaars with the little silver or painted parts which are integrated in ornaments and souvenirs. “These tiny objects cannot be manufactured by modern industrial devices; we are their only makers,” he said.

The work is always customised; traders come to Zaki’s workshop and provide him with an image of what they need or give him general guidelines so he can produce the item in question. more>>

Both Massad, and ‘Open Zion’, ignore the experience of Middle Eastern Jews

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:01:00 +0000

by David Shasha

The pro-Palestine blogosphere has been abuzz with the deletion of an article on Zionism by Columbia University professor Joseph Massad from the Al-Jazeerawebsite (you can read the Massad article here). What is interesting about the article is that it – as is usual – identifies Jews as Ashkenazim only.

For all that Massad has relationships with Mizrahi Jews, his thinking remains monocausal and racist. Jews never lived in the Middle East and all discussion of Jewish identity and Zionism must be tied exclusively to Europe.

Now there is no question that this is very much what the Ashkenazi Jews have demanded. They have usurped Jewish identity for themselves and made Jewish nationalism a matter of European provenance. The details of this discussion then become very contentious given the deep ambivalence and outright confusion of European Christian and Jewish identity and how that plays into Zionism as an exclusionary form of Jewish identity which seeks to isolate Jews from the Gentile world.

It is this view of Jewish identity that creates a bizarre linkage to Anti-Semites.

And yet the invisible Arab Jews with their roots in the ancient Near East, Medieval Iberia, and the polyglot Ottoman Empire do not match this Eurocentric pattern. Eliminated from Zionist history, the despised Sephardim are equally absent from pro-Palestinian discourse where their claims to Middle Eastern nativity would potentially serve to upset the neat categories that have been established by the Zionists.

It is therefore ironic that Massad, in seeking to counter Zionism, affirms its basic dogma that Jews are Europeans and not Middle Easterners. continued>>

Tel Aviv's mayoral race: Time for a Mizrahi candidate

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:58:00 +0000

The Mizrahi Jewish community is Israel’s largest ethnic group, and its historic links to the Middle East, along with its class position make it a critical component in any revolutionary coalition. Thus, running a Mizrahi candidate will be a clear sign to the residents of south Tel Aviv that they are a central priority.

By Matan Kaminer

MK Nitzan Horowitz. Horowitz recently announced his candidacy for mayor of Tel Aviv. (Jstreet CC BY NC SA 2.0)

Although municipal political party Ir LeKulanu is not considered “left” in Israeli terms, it embodies one of the greatest successes of the non-Zionist left in Israeli history. In national elections, the non-Zionist or “radical” left keeps slamming into the brick wall of privileges enjoyed by Israel’s Jewish citizens, including not only Mizrahi, Ethiopian and Russian citizens (whose Jewishness is the only thing separating them from the socio-economic abyss), but also the “liberal” Ashkenazi middle class.

However, the municipal arena is a bit different. Since most decisions pertaining to the state’s Jewish and colonial character are not made at the municipal level, it is possible to envision an alliance between victims of urban capitalism in the face of disagreement over so-called “national-political” issues. Under the aegis of Ir LeKulanu (“City for All”), radical activists whose opposition to Zionism is well known have been able to join forces not only with young middle-class people from the city center but also with an active, vocal group of south Tel Aviv residents. (At the same time, the movement has been only partially successful in connecting to the Palestinian residents of Jaffa, whose “Yafa” party ran separately but supported Ir LeKulanu mayoral candidate Dov Khenin.) more>>

Pollution Risks Worse for Developing World Women

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:54:00 +0000

Donna Vorhees and a colleague in Nigeria

(WOMENSENEWS)-- Standing ankle deep in black oil in a green field in Nigeria, Donna Vorhees was startled not by the pollutant inching up her boots, but by the two barefoot women inching past her.

"They were harvesting cassava root even though they were surrounded by oil puddles," says Vorhees, aBoston-based environmental scientist who spent part of 2011 studying the effects of poorly regulated oil drilling on Ogoniland, Nigeria. "Life here continued as if the drilling had never happened. But in an industrialized country, the area would have been evacuated and there would be no one left to work the fields."

Vorhees' experience illustrates the challenges that health advocates face as they work to protect women and families in the developing world from problems related to pollution. These ailments are more common in low-income countries where environmental protections are more lax.

Even so, women's advocates say that in the past five years, developing countries have made stronger efforts to literally clean up their act. International agencies are also stepping in, as the United Nations did by funding Vorhees' study, which recommended "emergency action" to help some Nigerian families who were drinking oil-slicked water contaminated with 900 times the accepted level of the carcinogen benzene. continued>>

Eurovision 2013: Emmelie De Forest - Only Teardrops

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:43:00 +0000

sent by Joe Rossano

Revisiting a Breast Cancer 'Previvor'

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:41:00 +0000

CultureBuzz's Ultimate Exhibition Guided Tour: Smadar Timor & Tal Eyal with....

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:37:00 +0000

Witness - Democracy Camp

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:35:00 +0000

In the summer of 2011, rebellion is in the air at a children's camp in Egypt. The film Democracy Camp centres on four teenagers in exploring the political and social awakening being experienced by millions of children across the Arab world.

Itzhak Perlman plays a tango by Carlos Gardel

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:31:00 +0000

sent by Jack Levi

The age-old tradition of West Bank soap-making

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:29:00 +0000

For the past millennium the Palestinian women had used the remains of olive oil for soap production. The local soaps of Nablus were already famous in the Middle East already in the 17 century. Today the local manufacturers hope that this excellent olive oil soap will go global.

Israel to return settlement's land to Palestinian owners

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Sun, 19 May 2013 13:20:00 +0000

JERUSALEM, May 19 (Xinhua) -- The state of Israel announced on court last week that it would return the lands of a settlement evacuated in 2005 back to its original Palestinian owners, local media reported on Sunday.

The announcement came after a petition filed by the Palestinian land owners in a Supreme Court.

Homesh, a 0.7 square km settlement, was established in 1980 on lands belonging to residents of the nearby Palestinian village of Burka. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have taken over the land for "military purposes" shortly before.

In 2005, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon executed the " disengagement" plan in which Israel evacuated settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Homesh was among the settlements that were evicted. However, the land was still in the hands of the Israeli military. more>>

Sectarian clashes in Alexandria leave one dead

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:55:00 +0000

People walk through debris outside a building that was burnt down during a night of sectarian clashes between Christians and Muslims in Al-Khusus, a poor area in Qalyubia governorate, north of Cairo on April 6, 2013
(AFP File Photo)

A fight between two families took a sectarian turn on Friday night, resulting in one dead and dozens injured in Alexandria. A feud between a Muslim and Copt in the neighbourhood of Dakhila in western Alexandria escalated into clashes on Al-Gaish Street, according to state-owned Al-Ahram.

The altercation reportedly started between a Christian and Muslim man when the Copt allegedly sexually harassed the Muslim’s sister. As relatives and friends of each of the men got involved in the fight, Molotov cocktails and automatic weapons were used. more>>

Cartographie: quels sont les pays les plus racistes?

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:52:00 +0000

Deux chercheurs suédois ont mené une enquête pour mesurer le niveau de tolérance raciale de 80 pays dans le monde, en demandant aux habitants si cela les ennuierait qu’une personne d’une autre « race » ne devienne leur voisine. Max Fischer, journaliste au « Washington Post », en a tiré une cartographie. Résultat : la France est l’un des pays les moins tolérants d'Europe.

Capture d'écran / Cartographie - Max Fischer / Washington Post

Le sondage effectué par deux chercheurs suédois cherchait à mesurer « l’opinion mondiale ». L’une des questions posées à l’échantillon visait à connaître le type de personnes que les sondés ne voudraient pas avoir comme voisins. Certains ont choisi « une personne d'une autre race ».

Un journaliste du Washington Post, Max Fischer, a compilé toutes les données qu’il a recueillies, et en a tiré une cartographie. Plus les pays sont rouge et foncés, plus le nombre de personnes ayant répondu qu’elles n’aimeraient pas avoir de voisins d’une autre « race » [au sens anglo-saxon du terme] est élevé.

suite>>

Russian Jews in Israel: Racist and War Mongers

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:49:00 +0000

By Uri Avnery

The Russians Came

WHEN THE huge immigration wave from the Soviet Union arrived in 1990, we were glad.

First of all, because we believe that all immigration is a good thing for the country. This, I believe, is generally the case.

Second, because we were convinced that this specific group of immigrants would push our country in the right direction.

These people, we told ourselves, have been educated for 70 years in an internationalist spirit. They have just overthrown a cruel dictatorial system, so they must be avid democrats. Many of them are not Jews, but only relatives (sometimes remote) of Jews. So here we have hundreds of thousands of secular, internationalist and non-nationalist new citizens, just what we need. They would add a positive element to the demographic cocktail that is Israel.

Moreover, since the pre-state Jewish community in the country (the so-called “yishuv”) was largely shaped by immigrants from Czarist and early revolutionary Russia, the new immigrants would surely mingle easily with the general population.

Or so we thought.

THE PRESENT situation is the very opposite.

The immigrants from the former Soviet Union – all bundled together as “the Russians” in common parlance – have not mingled at all. They are a separate community, living in a self-made ghetto.

They continue to speak Russian. They read their own Russian newspapers, all of them rabidly nationalist and racist. They vote for their own party, led by the Moldavian-born Evet (now Avigdor) Lieberman. They have practically no contact with other Israelis. more>>

Israeli Researcher Challenges Jewish DNA links to Israel, Calls Those Who Disagree 'Nazi Sympathizers'

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:47:00 +0000

The Genetic Literacy Project reports that the ongoing conflict between Israel and its neighbors over the origins of the “Jewish people” has surfaced again as an issue of great controversy—with science in the crosshairs.

It’s particularly troublesome when a scientist—in this case, an Israeli molecular geneticist whose motivations appear more personal and ideological than scientific—stokes the contretemps. The current brouhaha arises over a recent study by Eran Elhaik and is accompanied by his personal attacks on more mainstream scientists who have eviscerated his work. In the face of overwhelming evidence from dozens of studies over twenty years from geneticists and historians around the world, Elhaik is aggressively stumping on behalf of his belief that most Jews trace their seminal ancestry not to the Middle East but to the Caucuses and Eastern Europe.

Elhaik, who is now a post-doctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins, is recirculating the debunked “Khazarian hypothesis” promoted by journalist Arthur Koestler in his 1976 book, The Thirteenth Tribe, written before scientists had the tools to compare genomes and challenge his conclusion. more>>

More Traumatizing Than the Rape Itself

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:44:00 +0000



		A low number of recorded sexual assaults may seem like a positive indicator. But when Human Rights Watch researcher Sara Darehshori realized just how low the numbers were in Washington, DC, she saw a red flag and went to work. Sara suspected that to keep the number of unsolved cases low, police were not reporting assaults. When she looked closer she discovered a systematic mishandling of sexual assault cases, and a police culture of appalling negligence. Her tireless efforts uncovered shocking information. Read more...

Facebook rabbi voted in as Sephardi leader

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:43:00 +0000

By Simon Rocker, May 17, 2013

Rabbi Joseph Dweck, 37, of New York, was endorsed as the new rabbinic leader of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation by a massive majority of 270 votes to four in a ballot of its members last week.Britain’s oldest Orthodox community has at last found a senior rabbi after a search that began more than three years ago.

Adam Musikant, a member of the executive, said; “I doubt whether in the history of Anglo-Jewry any elected rabbi has had a 98.5 per cent vote.

“He is exceptionally dynamic and a breath of fresh air. He will be a great representative on the ambassadorial stage of our community.”

Rabbi Dweck, who was born in Los Angeles to parents of Syrian roots, has seen his Sephardi congregation, Shaare Shalom, increase from a few dozen members to some 800 over the past 14 years. more>>

Venezuela president claims Jewish roots

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:40:00 +0000

Nicolas Maduro scoffs at anti-Semitism accusations, says his grandparents were Sephardic Jews

Maduro says his government critical of Israeli policies rather than Jewish people Photo: AFP

VIDEO – Venezuela’s new President Nicolas Maduro has scoffed at accusations that the country’s leadership is hostile to Jews, explaining that he himself has roots in Judaism.

Maduro, who has succeeded the late Hugo Chavez, said that his grandparents were Sephardic Jews and that his government is critical of Israeli policy rather than the Jewish people. more on ynetnews>>

Queen Esther in Two Iberian Sacramental Acts

noreply@blogger.com (Aimee Kligman) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:33:00 +0000

Queen Esther in Two Iberian Sacramental Acts

Queen Esther stands out as an important figure and a symbol of transformation for subjects of the Iberian Empire in the Early Modern period. On both sides of the Atlantic, Esther bridged religious divisions in the context of institutionalized separation informed by the purity of blood laws and the Inquisition. She represented different ideas to varying groups, to conversos and crypto-Jews Esther was savior of the Jewish people. She was a female heroine and model for the men and women who passed as members of the majority while also living as othered citizens of Inquisitorial Spain. For Catholic Spaniards Esther who saved the Jews from Haman could be interpreted as a prefiguration of the Virgin Mary who saved the human race from the devil. Within the context of penitentiary worship that many female worshippers engaged in throughout this time period, Esther was also associated with the Christian figure of Mary Magdalene. In this paper I analyze two unpublished works composed in the popular genre of the auto sacramental (allegorical plays on biblical subjects); the Auto del Rey Asuero quando desconpuso a Basti and Auto del Rey Asuero quando ahorco a Aman. These texts resonate strongly with a contemporary Iberian public because in the post-Expulsion environment of Iberia many autos or acts were performed in an environment of increased religious tension and reform. More broadly, investigations of Esther allow one to wrestle with ideas of hybrid identity today.

CONTACT EMILY COLBERT CAIRNS (emily.colbertcairns@salve.edu) IF YOU THINK YOUR WORK CAN INCLUDE HERS FOR AN AJS PANEL.

--
Adriana M. Brodsky
Associate Professor
Department of History
St. Mary's College of Maryland