Day after day I read Mondoweiss, Philip Weiss’s blog, even though his main subject — Israeli treatment of Palestinians, how this is enabled by Jewish Americans, what a mistake that is — is not something I read about elsewhere or think about when I’m not reading Mondoweiss. It would be too self-congratulatory to say now I care more about it but it is undeniable that now I know a lot more about it. Without any effort at all.
It’s like a really great column in a newspaper or magazine except it’s much better than that: Weiss can write anything he wants at any length at any time, unlike any columnist. The whole thing has a raw and impassioned and narrow and personal aspect unlike any column I’ve ever read. And it’s so easy to read, even though it’s unfamiliar and complicated. Here’s an example why:
I heard a crushing story about Aaron David Miller. He’s from Cleveland and a big Jewish family. He went to a synagogue there recently and spoke from the pulpit and said, The problem’s simple, two peoples fighting for a disputed piece of land, there will have to be a compromise. There was dead silence in the synagogue and the rabbi came up and said, “ In Numbers 34, God promised the land of Israe l to Moses, from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean….”
What a chilling story.
I’m amazed this hasn’t drawn comments, one way or the other.
I’m going to make a comment about the situation Modoweiss blogs about.
Most Americans would be well served if every time a map of Israel was displayed it was superimposed over a major metropolitan area in the U.S.
People would understand a lot of things a good deal better if Californians realized that Israel and the West Bank are, together, smaller than Los Angeles County. Texans would be surprised that Israel is not as large as the complete Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Etc.
The entire scope and perspective of the conflict need to be better understood, I think, and a good start would be helping people to get just how small of an area we are talking about.