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| Last
uploaded : Sunday 14th Jul 2002 at 00:11 |
| Contributed
by : Sheila Raviv |
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What a week! Fidel Castro hates us! (surprise surprise) The pilot's announcement on an Air France flight from Paris, "Ladies and gentlemen our final destination is Jerusalem, Palestine" (nu? so what's new?); Robert Fisk wrote a vile article in the Independent (not new) and used foul language and apologist Jews to make his point. British academia has woken up enough to be incensed by the sacking of two Israeli scientists...because they were Israelis!
Amnesty International, after 2 years of hell, has finally brought out a report which denounces Palestinian terror attacks against civilians as crimes against humanity. Rather late but bravo nonetheless.
The great Eleanor Roosevelt said:
NO-ONE CAN MAKE YOU FEEL INFERIOR WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT
Of all the quotes, of all the wise words this is the most apt for today's situation. Antisemites have always vilified Jews and Israel; it is not new. They have become braver as our protests become weaker. They draw strength from our weakness; such is the profile of a bully. Are you willing to be weak? Do you have anything to be ashamed of?
We have everything to be proud of. Hundreds of Nobel Prizes in fields as diverse as literature, physics and medicine. We have risen from the ashes of the greatest of many waves of anti-Semitism to return to the land from whence we were dispersed. Jews have been a positive influence in all the countries of their dispersion, never imposing ourselves on those societies but rather absorbing the beauty of each society into our traditions. Jews have never called for the destruction of those whose faith differs from their own.
Israel is a society which encourages and enables freedom of prayer for the 42 Christian denominations, Jews and sometimes, to the detriment of Jewish rights, the Moslem right to free worship. Israel has blossomed because her energies were directed to building not destruction, to living not dying. We have produced the finest doctors, nurses, philosophers, musicians, architects, artists.....all the things that can only emerge from a country that honours civil liberties.
STAND UP, NEVER LOWER YOUR HEAD. STAND PROUDLY AS JEW OR CHRISTIAN, WHATEVER YOUR RELIGIOSITY AND CLASP THE HAND OF THE OTHER IN FRIENDSHIP.
Now, to something entirely different. Kinneret Chaya [Editor's Note: Kinneret was horribly injured in a March suicide bombing] has taken her first steps!!! She walked six feet. She is now eating food, breathing air, sitting in a chair and taking her first tentative steps. Please understand, she is still in danger, the burns are still terrible and this week she suffered another embolism in her lung and miraculously survived it.
Kinneret Chaya has a birthday at the end of this month, on the 29th of July. Can you imagine if each and every one of you thought of the best gift you could possibly send her, then instead of buying it, put the money in an envelope, with a birthday card and send it to her.
Kinneret Chaya has many months of operations, treatments, psychotherapy (post traumatic stress syndrome) and physiotherapy ahead of her. She cannot be left alone because of the nightmares, so her family cannot work. Your gift could make such a huge difference to her life. She can think about going back to her studies without having to face the horror of working in another coffee shop to raise the funds. She could think about being in the apartment her loving boyfriend Tal is trying to keep going for her return. She would have the possibility of having the reconstructive surgery that is not covered by the Israeli health service. She could think about getting well without the added burden of financial worries.
Kinneret Chaya has become special to us all. She has become daughter, sister, niece to so many of you who write and tell me you love her already. Just a birthday present for her 24th birthday.
Kinneret Chaya Boosani, Burns Unit, Department of Plastic Surgery, Tel Hashomer Hospital, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Shabbat Shalom to you all. May your family be safe and your friends true
With much love
Sheila
 
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