death in the family

this June 16, it will be a year that my brother Bernard, died. After suffering two strokes, pneumonia ended it all. I could not believe it. That death was the closest I had ever experienced. Now it is me on that sinking ship, alone to face the world. We went throught WWII together. He is the one who went to find Father Bruno Reynders, who came over to get me and snatch me to a safe haven, from the hands of the Nazis.
Bernard's wife died a month later after being taken to the hospital.
Still processing all this.

I started again to write a book, an autobiography, a set of anecdotes and I am thinking of perhaps serializing it here....not sure what to do ....yet

Israel and Palestine, what is going on?

a friend of mine, Monique Weston, still in Israel explains it her way in the following passage. I will reply afterwards.:

Charles: Yes. I never once felt afraid. But I was lucky. A few days after visiting contacts in Nablus someone murdered an Israeli settler family. Of course it was immediately assumed to have been committed by a Palestinian. In reaction settlers attacked Palestinians in various areas. The eternal cycle of revenge. Israel then imposed a lock down. I suppose if I had been in Nablus when this occurred, I would have been delayed in getting hoe,The last I read, the killer may have been a man from Thailand who worked for the Israeli settlers. The Palestinians with whom I met in Nablus (who had studied at McGill) are committed to human rights and non-violence and to listening to concerns of Israelis. The Israelis I met with - who studied at McGill with the Palestinians are also committed to human rights and to non-violence and to listening to the concerns of Palestinians. Sadly, incidents such as I mentioned, make it hard for the human rights, no-violence advocates. I also visited a formr student of mine from the University of Maryland. She married an Israeli. She takes the position that Israel has every right to take over th West Bank, or at least a good part of it. This is probably a very common view in Israel--at least on the right. The left has been demoralized since the second intifada.

I went to the Central bus station in Jerusalem many times. That's where a bomb went off killing a British tourist. One of the things I learned about was the growing tension within Israel between Orthodox Jews and non-orthodox. The orthodox have many children and are a fast growing percent of the population. They are subsidized by the government and live in public housing. Most of the men do not work. They do not serve in the army, and they do not interact with other Israelis. (A sub-group does not even believe in the state of ISrael They study the Torah and pray. )The original idea, under Ben Gurian, was to recreate a corps of true talmud scholars. to replace those killed in he Holocaust. But matters developed far beyond that original idea re subsidies.

Now non-orthodox University students are protesting subsidies to Yeshivas when they do not get support. There are projections that Israel with be 29% orthodox by 2025. As their percentage grows there will no doubt be major disputes over what kind of state Israel is to be. Reportedly ultra orthodox openly plan to have the Halachic Republic of Israel when majority of voters are Orthodox Jews. SO, not surprisingly there is growing awareness that Israel cannot subsidize such a large segment of the population that does not work. It is a demographic time bomb. Also of interest is that the Arab population has pretty much stabilized--contrary to what I heard in 2005.

Monique

P.S. I also went to Yad Vashem. Forever mind bloggling.

my reply so far:

This conflict is very complicated. You mention the bus station explosion and you did not mention the injured, about 30 I believed some very serious. What does this mean? Losing a hand, an eye, limping for the rest of  you life. It is always a cowardly act to kill innocent people like that. Even though settlements may be wrong at this time, it is not murder. It does not deserve such an act. Did  you ever read Hamas or Hetzbollah statements? It does not want Israel to exist. What has that community contributed in the last 60 years except violence?
as far as the Rabbis are concerned, as Hitchens once said, Religion poisons everything. Even the first Zionist knew better than those Rabbis who believe that no one should go to Israel until the Messiah comes. Good luck with that.

this country is also founded on Christianity, it pervades everything, and the extremist are even worse, calling doctors murderers if they perform an abortion even to save a woman's life. Watching C-span and the Congress at work, it is all Christian movitvated right up to our Presidents.

Is there such a thing as a secular Christian? and can they run for president here?

Violence has to stop and to take just one side is not good enough. Both are guilty of violence.

Solution is talk. But how can you talk to Hamas when they take such extreme official stands?

that is all I have to say so far...

charles