Sunday Mezze: An Easter Reflection + Sara Roy: Gaza: 'Can Anyone Hear Us?' + They Scream In Hunger + Mary Lou Teel + Palestinian Seeds + Naomi Klein: Zone of Interest [Gaza,Auschwitz] + Pickled Fish
Mezze - المزة - a wide selection of small dishes served as appetizers, including such delicacies as hummus, cheese, eggplant, brains, stuffed grape leaves, calamari, and much more
An Easter Reflection
Happy Easter to all who celebrating the Christian holy day; blessings to Muslims who continue their Ramadan fasts - good luck to the little ones on their Easter egg hunts.
Spring has been sprung for about a week. Sharp, pointy green shoots reaching for light, appear through earth cracks and promise that soon crocuses and daffodils will emerge. Hopefully, near the granite steps that lead from the driveway a purple hyacinth, given to my daughter years ago by a friend at an Easter service in upstate New York, will again reappear and bloom.
“And among his wonders is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your tongues and colors: for in this, behold, there are messages indeed for all who are possessed of (innate) knowledge!” Qur'an 30:22 (Asad).
Generally, Spring is a season of messages and promises, a harbinger of loves renewed, of scents, memories, promises, deliverance, and liberation. Most importantly it is a season that reminds us that to move forward we can’t ignore the lessons of Ramadan, Easter, and Passover; of Moses and Jesus and Muhammad; of Gandhi, Mandela, Malcolm X, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; of John Brown and Rosa Parks; of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner; of Jonathan Daniels who sacrificed himself to save a 17-year-old girl, Ruby Sales, who went on to become a legendary civil rights and social justice activist and public theologian: all were the 'Others' of their day who rose against authority and intolerance and helped deliver humanity into the light.
... for in this, behold, there are messages indeed for all who are possessed of (innate) knowledge ...
Today I've decided to share some thoughts - a pastiche, if you will, added to my Mezze - inspired by Christendom's Holy Week, all offered with love and respect: Forgive me, please, for any trespasses I might inadvertently express but these are thoughts that have been welling-up not just this week but for the past several months.
Welling-up in part after a long talk with a loved one who professes a life so secular that it's unlikely their school-age children - by their own admission - know anything about churches, mosques, or synagogues - even (fortunately) less about covens, cabals, and cults. When asked, they readily identify as atheist yet in my experience I have rarely met someone as committed to issues of liberation, justice, freedom, and equality, committed to the belief that all people are created equal - all without prejudice or favor.
I would remind them today - I should have done it when we were chatting - of Rumi's quest:
"I looked for God. I went to a temple and I didn’t find him there. Then I went to a church and I didn’t find him there. Then I went to a mosque and I didn’t find him there. Then finally I looked in my heart and there he was."
I looked in my heart.
It reminds me too today of another colleague, a Christian, once described by a Muslim brother of mine as " ... a better Muslim than most Muslims I know."
A Muslim who serves all of humanity as well as they serve God.
They serve from their heart.
... for in this, behold, there are messages indeed for all who are possessed of (innate) knowledge ...
I cannot write of this Easter without speaking of Gaza, without speaking of genocide and ethnic cleansing and the forced famine and starvation of our Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters under occupation in Palestine.
Gaza, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, My Lai, 9/11, October 7th, Srebrenica, Abu Ghraib ... all in my lifetime ... all came to mind this Holy Week as the Christian world celebrated from Palm Sunday through Jerusalem's gates to Mount Cavalry, crucifixion, and the Christian belief in Resurrection as Gaza's children were being sacrificed on altars of power. privilege, prejudice - and vengence.
Today, they say He is risen: What is it I ask that is risen?
Here's what I believe.
I believe that from Isaiah we are instructed, “To loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.” Isaiah 58:6 (NRSV).
I believe, to my simple unexegetically-schooled mind, that a humble Jesus, astride a donkey, entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday over 2,000 years ago not to empower privileged clergy and acolytes who would from Jerusalem for centuries forward distort scripture to legitimize colonialism and slavery ...No, I believe he entered on behalf of the people of Gaza, on behalf of Rohingya in Myanmar and Uyghur in China, on behalf of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ peoples and indigenous peoples everywhere.
I believe that Jesus entered Jerusalem on behalf of those Palestinian Christians who this weekend were forced to pray to a belief in Resurrection while fearfully huddling in a church destroyed by armaments supplied by President Biden to an Israeli government so bent on vengeance and evil that they are willing to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing.
“Fear and anger are a threat to justice," Bryan Stevenson wrote in Just Mercy. "They can infect a community, a state, or a nation, and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous.”
Let us stand in resistance to the blind and irrational.
I believe my friends and colleagues stand alongside me in resistance; from Sharpeville to Stonewall, from Ferguson to Gaza, from Rafah to Ramallah - from the River to the Sea - they are unflinching and unbending in their commitment to freedom and independence for all peoples.
I love that, and consider myself blessed to have such people in my life.
Would that we were all free to rise.
I believe that when Jesus is asked in Matthew, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" and he answered "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets," that he was addressing all of humanity - that the meaning of neighbors is universal, not parochial.
They serve from their heart.
This is hard. This is all so hard.
xo
Sara Roy: “Gaza:'Can Anyone Hear Us?'“
Dr. Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies specializing in the Palestinian economy - and a dear friend! She is perhaps America’s foremost authority on Gaza and she will be presenting the Emile Bustani Seminar at MIT on Tuesday, April 2nd, entitled Gaza: ‘Can Anyone Hear Us?’
Program description: https://calendar.mit.edu/event/bustani_spring_2024_sara_roy
If you only have time to do one thing forget about reading my column today and save your time to listen to Sara on Tuesday from 16:30 to 18:00 EDT. Sara’s lecture ,and the Q&A, will be live-streamed at: https://mit.zoom.us/j/98996528135 password: bustani
Gaza: They Scream In Hunger
“Israel has repeatedly blocked the delivery of aid supplies, including food, despite the International Court of Justice ruling in January that ordered Israel to “ensure the delivery of basic services and essential humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza”.
“According to a United Nations-backed report published last week, half of Gaza’s population – 1.1 million people – have completely exhausted their food supplies and coping capacities and are facing “catastrophic hunger”, the highest indicator of a famine.”
Mary Lou Teel Retires
I believe I first met Mary Lou when she came to Exeter as part of a CBS Sunday Morning Team to produce a segment on the Bosnian students who had come to America to escape the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina:
Mary Lou was on her home turf then, having graduated in the first class that included girls from Phillips Exeter Academy - she also started girl’s ice hockey as a varsity sport at Exeter and then at Dartmouth College.
Mary Lou’s coverage of the Bosnians in Exeter was instrumental in convincing the Academy to offer full scholarships to 3 of the Bosnian students.
We became good friends and have remained in touch, even occasionally meeting at the Roundabout Diner in Portsmouth as she drove between NYC and her home in Maine.
This week CBS Sunday Morning played a tribute to Mary Lou. It was touching and wonderful yet just a small window on her humor, intellect, creativity, and generosity.
Watch here: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/farewell-mary-lou-teel/
Could Saving Palestinian Seeds Also Save The World?
“The project feels particularly urgent against the backdrop of Israel’s continuing bombing of Gaza, the ‘man-made’ famine that aid groups warn is imminent there and the knowledge that last year was the hottest ever recorded. ‘The mission of the seed library is to revitalize and conserve a living archive of our heirloom seeds,’ said Sansour. ‘Not just for Palestine, but also for the world. The world is in a hospice state and we need all the different tools and biodiversity we can in order to adapt.’”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/mar/29/palestinian-seeds-conservation-climate-crisis
The Zone Of Interest Is About The Danger Of Ignoring Atrocities – Including In Gaza: Naomi Klein
“ …And he went further: “We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of 7 October in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.” For Glazer, Israel does not get a pass, nor is it ethical to use intergenerational Jewish trauma from the Holocaust as justification or cover for atrocities committed by the Israeli state today.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/14/the-zone-of-interest-auschwitz-gaza-genocide
The Pickled Fish Dish That Unites Christians And Muslims At Easter
“I grew up eating pickled fish and so do all of us in Cape Town,” says Muslim chef Anwar Abduallatief. “Whether you’re black or coloured or white, at this time of year you eat pickled fish. I know it’s a Christian thing. But my mom, my gran, my aunt … They all love pickled fish and they all make pickled fish.”
Thank you to all who generously made donations last week to help Palestinians trapped in Gaza - it’s a blessing to have such friends.
Salamaat,
Robert
theother.azzi@gmail.com
Thank you, as always for your powerful writing. I am also especially moved by Naomi Klein's piece about Zone of Interest and as it relates to Gaza. It is so frustrating to know that our dollars and weapons continue to fuel the killing and devastation and that we seem to be helpless in finding a way to end this immediately.