Keren was born and bred in a fundamentalist Christian home, but at the age of 40 connected with her Jewish roots and converted Jesus from God back into his originally understood role of divine prophet.
I contend that a prophet can best be understood as one who points out impending doom and provokes those so inclined to think about God: to THINK!
In 2005, Keren spoke at Marquette
University, at "Jews of Conscience: Voices of Justice and Peace, Hope and
Obligation" conference, "I was forty when I converted and I can still recall,
sixteen years later, the feeling of finally having arrived at home, wondering
how and why I had been born into a Christian fundamentalist family when I had
obviously been Jewish from the beginning.
"I was drawn to Judaism because of its long tradition of justice, ethics, and
dissent; its emphasis on education, study, and questioning everything,
including God. The prophetic tradition of Judaism resonated deeply within me.
What do I mean by the prophetic tradition? I refer to the commands of the
prophets that we seek peace and pursue justice; that we stand for and with the
oppressed -- whoever and wherever they are; and that we not do to another
anything that we would not want done to ourselves.
"About six years ago I began to sense that I was not hearing the entire story
about the Israel/Palestine conflict from the Jewish community. So I set out to
study and read as much as I could. I read Jewish historians, sociologists,
linguists, political scientists, activists, rabbis, politicians, journalists,
and theologians -- and I regularly read Ha'aretz. It was also during this
initial phase that I discovered the writings of Marc Ellis, whose statement you
heard earlier. The more I read, the more disparity I saw between what I was
hearing from the mainstream Jewish community and our media and what I was
reading from those with first-hand knowledge. The more I read, the more I began
to question, to voice my questions, and eventually to speak out against the
abuses of the Israeli occupation. And then I discovered the lengths to which
the organized mainstream Jewish community would go in order to bully and
intimidate those who criticized Israel.
"I worked for a Jewish organization at the time and I was told to shut up about
the Israel-Palestine conflict; that if I continued to speak publicly about it,
I would lose my job. I have been called "self-hating" and "a deadly enemy of
the Jewish community"; I have had my Jewishness impugned; I have been asked if
I would have also supported Hitler; and I have been accused, in a letter to the
local rabbis and Jewish community leaders of the "crime" of hugging Muslim
women.
"According to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the prophets were also hated and
considered traitorous. In his book, The Prophets, Heschel says, "The striking
surprise is that the prophets of Israel were tolerated at all by their people.
To the patriots, they seemed pernicious; to the pious multitude, blasphemous;
to the men in authority, seditious." But what does it say about our
Jewish community, when justice is discarded for nationalism? What does it say
about our Jewish community when we, as Jews, are commanded to question
everything, including God -- in fact Israel means "God wrestler." So what does
it say about our Jewish community when we are commanded to question, and argue
with God, but we are forbidden to question or criticize Israel?
"Being a Jew of conscience also invites loneliness and isolation"My voice was
activated by a sense of justice, a deep commitment to the precepts of the
Judaism to which I had converted, an outrage that political Zionism was not
only attempting to hijack Judaism, it was oppressing another people. For
me, there was no choice -- I had to speak out.
"After several years of studying the conflict and doing some local activism, I
knew that as a Jew of conscience it was incumbent upon me to do more. The
studying and local activism continued, and does to this day, but I also knew
that it was time to physically stand in solidarity with the Palestinians in the
Occupied Territories. Despite the fact that Zionism is not Judaism and Judaism
is not Zionism, Palestinians know that it is Israelis who oppress and humiliate
them, and most Israelis are Jews. It was important to me to put a different
face on Judaism -- the face of justice and ethics -- the face that drew me to
Judaism in the first place.
"Because I am a pacifist I looked for groups that reflected that philosophy and
I eventually chose to work with the International Solidarity Movement, a
Palestinian-led group based on the non-violent action and resistance principles
of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. ISM was founded approximately four years ago
by Palestinians and is supported by Israeli and international activists. In
October, 2004 I journeyed to Palestine to work with ISM during the Olive
Harvest. I was stationed near Nablus at Balata Refugee Camp.
"Now I come to the point in my presentation where I have struggled mightily
with what to tell you. Because of time constraints there is no way I can give
you more than a thumbnail image of life on the West Bank. So what do I tell
you?
"Do I tell you about the 312 miles (and increasing) of Jewish-only roads?
Apart-ride, I call them. Do I tell you about the 500 checkpoints on the West Bank,
an area slightly smaller than Delaware? Do I tell you that 39 people died at
checkpoints in 2004 due to denial or delay? Do I tell you about the 360, 000
olive trees that have been uprooted and destroyed? Or do I tell you about the
4,100 homes that have been demolished during this Intifada alone?
"Do I tell you about the trenches that are dug -- some of them miles long, 16
feet wide and 9 feet deep -- to separate Palestinian farmers from their lands --
to make life increasingly difficult for Palestinians? Do I tell you how sewer
lines are severed when these trenches are dug, polluting Palestinian streams
and water supplies? We hear a great deal about "security;" that Israel only
acts from security needs -- so do I tell you about the 500 dumpsters that were
arbitrarily destroyed in Nablus?
"Do I tell you that Israelis consume six times as much water as Palestinians
are allowed? That while Israeli settlements, (settlements illegal under
international law), have no shortage of water for drinking, washing, maintenance
of swimming pools and irrigating freely, Palestinians frequently are without
water, some villages for several weeks at a time; that many children have
kidney problems due to the lack of water? Do I tell you that the water denied
the Palestinians comes from their aquifers on their land?
"Do I tell you about the olive trees that haven't been tended for three to four
years because Israel will not permit farmers to work their fields -- that trees
that used to bear 40-50 kilos per tree are now bearing 10 kilos? Do I tell you
that farmers must have a permit to harvest their crops and if they are lucky
enough to obtain a permit, they are granted only two to three days to bring in
their entire harvest? And do I tell you that even with the permit, there is no
guarantee that they will not be harassed or prevented from harvesting by
soldiers and/or settlers?
"Do I tell you about the day that our group was brutally attacked by Israeli
soldiers as we threw our bodies over our Palestinian coordinator, Mohamed, to
protect him from arrest? Do I tell you how the soldiers viciously beat and
kicked almost everyone on the human pile covering Mohamed -- that they only
withdrew after one of the soldiers pointed his gun at the head of an ISMer from
Sweden, who was beaten and on the ground; that it was only then that the
commanding officer yelled, "Dai, dai," (Enough, enough)? Should I
tell you how I sensed that Mohamed, until that incident, viewed me with
skepticism for I had made no secret of the fact that I was a Jew? Or perhaps I
should tell you that he came to me afterward and thanked me for covering his
body; that he extended his hand to me to shake -- and this was during Ramadan
when, among other proscriptions, contact with the opposite sex is prohibited.
"Do I tell you that there are almost 9,000 Palestinian political prisoners?
That many are arrested and held on administrative detention, meaning they can
be held for six months without charge? Do I tell you that at the end of six
months, another six months can be added? And another, and another; that some
Palestinians have been held for three and four years without ever a charge
brought against them? Do I tell you about the prisoners who are tortured; that
some men return to their communities sterile, as a result of the tortures?
"Should tell you that seven of Mohamed's friends, including his best friend,
have been murdered by the Israeli army; that I saw the pictures of his best
friend whose body was rendered like charred hamburger and his face blown away
-- by an Apache missile. Or maybe I should tell you that when
I asked Mohamed why he chose to work with ISM, a non-violent resistance group,
given the violent deaths of his friends at the hands of the Israeli army, he
quietly replied, "Because I have a hope for peace."
"Do I tell you that Israelis have killed almost four times as many Palestinians
as Palestinians have killed Israelis during this Intifada? That Palestinian
children represent 22% of the fatalities and 42% of the injuries? That Israeli
soldiers are ordered to kill unarmed civilians, including children? That half
of the child fatalities are from wounds, sniper wounds, to the chest or the
head? Do I tell you about fellow-ISMer Karen, from England, who when she saw
Israeli snipers on the roof in Balata Refugee Camp and saw that one of them had
his gun trained on her, held up her hands and cried "Stop, don't shoot --
Internationals"? Do I tell you that the sniper didn't shoot her, but moved his
gun and shot dead a 12-year old Palestinian boy near her?
"What do I tell you? And how do I even begin to tell you?
"Before leaving Palestine, I predicted that the hardest work would begin upon
my return home -- sharing my experience, exposing the ugliness of occupation,
and providing an alternative Jewish voice to that of mainstream American Jewish
mythmaking and denial. I also had promises to keep -- promises to the
Palestinians and to fellow-ISMers whom I left behind -- that I would tell their
stories; that I would send others to take my place"
"Yet, at the same moment I realized that I had no hope, simultaneously
obligation stepped in. It didn't matter how I felt, I was obligated to continue
standing for and with the Palestinians. In the absence of hope there is
obligation. Marc Ellis, in the final paragraph of his book, Toward A Jewish
Theology of Liberation, says "If we throw strategy to the wind and end our hope
for victory, then we are free to be faithful.'
"Free to be faithful -- I don't know that it could be conveyed more beautifully
--- we're not called to be effective, we're called to be faithful -- because
there are no guarantees of outcome -- because there will be times when hope is
hidden or lost or even destroyed. I'm sure the prophets knew the chances of
being heard and heeded were pretty slim. I'm not convinced they always had
hope, in fact I don't recall that God ever commanded us to have hope -- but we
are commanded over and over to pursue justice, to deal justly with every human
being. The prophets were faithful, constant -- they took their obligations to
speak truth to power very seriously. It wasn't, and isn't, about outcomes or
return-on-investment, it's about doing what is right and just only because it
is right and just. This is what it means to be a Jew of conscience, a person of
conscience. Hope is a luxury; obligation and faithfulness are essentials.
"In Marc Ellis' statement he spoke of the need for a reckoning with Jewish
history and a confession to the Palestinian people. I want to close with a
prayer that I wrote several years ago in anticipation of Yom Kippur, the
holiest day of the year for Jews -- a time when we seek forgiveness from God --
but only in first seeking the forgiveness of those whom we have wronged can we
presume to ask forgiveness from God. Perhaps one day Israel will make such a
confession.
T'shuvah* For A Nation
God forgive
us
for hostility toward those we perceive
to be not like ourselves;
for judging the powerless contemptible--
though it was we who rendered them so;
for believing that we are better, more deserving,
and even entitled, because our own suffering has been so great.
God forgive us
for turning our pain into a grisly weapon
with which we torment others;
for perpetuating the poisonous cycle--
from abused to abuser;
for despising the stranger, the refugee, the homeless--
for forgetting that we have been all of these.
God forgive us
for the thousands we have displaced and discounted;
for the land we have confiscated
and the homes we have demolished;
for the trees we have uprooted, and the water withheld;
for the hearts, and bones, and promises we have broken;
for the hatred we have engendered.
God forgive us
for invoking your name to justify revenge
and ethnic cleansing;
for citing Security to legitimize murder and torture;
for exploiting the Holocaust to defend doing to others
what has been done to us.
God forgive us
for the blinders we so carefully fabricate
to hide our eyes
from the humanity of the people we call enemy;
the same whom history records as kin.
God forgive us
for euphemisms, Orwellian doublespeak, and outright lies;
for hiring high-powered firms to sell myths
of innocence and righteousness;
for seeking a face lift for our image
instead of atonement for our soul.
May God forgive us.
May those we have so terribly wronged
forgive us.
*Repentance -Keren Batiyov
For many years the existence of free radicals was dismissed as non-existent or just a curiosity. This view has changed; and currently the role of free radicals in many unexplained disease phenomena such as rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's, hypertension, heart disease, liver cell injury and cancers, is being met with growing enthusiasm by scientists and physicians alike, who seek to not just treat symptoms, but heal.
Free Radicals live short intense lives are highly reactive with most molecules and that includes DNA, thus Free Radicals can potentially alter one's very core.
Free Radicals are all on a mission to
enter into another molecule in order to complete themselves by uniting with
another cells electron. This action sets up a chain reaction that once begun,
will cascade and result in changing a living cell.
I wondered if perhaps Jesus could be considered a free radical too.
Jesus was never a Christian; in fact that term was not even coined until three
decades later, in the days of Paul.
Jesus was a social justice, radical
revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish Road Warrior who challenged the job
security of the Temple authorities by teaching the people they did not need to
pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God-for
God LOVED them just as they were; "sinners', outcasts, diseased, cripples,
poor, oppressed, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all enduring under a
brutal Roman Military Occupation.
What got Jesus crucified was disturbing the status quo of the ROF/Roman
Occupying Forces by teaching such subversive concepts as God preferred the
"sinners', outcasts, diseased, cripples, poor, oppressed, widows, orphans,
refugees and prisoners above the elite and arrogant.
The early followers and lovers of Jesus were called members of THE WAY; being
THE WAY Jesus taught: You must forgive to be forgiven and pray, bless and love
your enemies-NOT bomb, torture or occupy any!
Jesus also said that his sisters and brothers, where those that DID the WILL of the Father.
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