Dunking Rachael: Proud To Be an American

Friday, June 5, 2009

Proud To Be an American

For the first time in many many years,

I am proud to be an American.Thank you President Obama

"Obama at Buchenwald: a ‘rebuke’ to deniers
June 5, 2009
BERLIN (JTA) -- President Barack Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp site, calling it "the ultimate rebuke" to Holocaust deniers.
Obama joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust memoirist who was a Buchenwald inmate, on the tour on Friday, a day after Obama called on the Muslim world to reject Holocaust denial.
"To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened," Obama said at a news conference at the gates of the camp. Such statements are "ignorant, baseless and hateful."
For more than an hour, Obama and Merkel walked the grounds of Buchenwald. Out of sight of cameras, they entered the crematorium building where camp victims were turned to ash. They placed white roses, a symbol of German resistance, at several sites.
Obama said he had wanted to visit this particular camp because his great-uncle, Charles Payne, was among the U.S. soldiers in Infantry Division 89 who liberated the Buchenwald sub-camp of Ohrdruf in early April 1945. Ohrdruf was the first camp liberated by American soldiers. The gruesome sights of burned victims haunted his uncle for a long time, Obama said.
"It is understandable that someone who witnessed what had taken place here would be in a state of shock," he said.
Wiesel, a Nobel Peace laureate whose father died at Buchenwald, said, "Memory must bring people together rather than set them apart."
After visiting Germany, Obama was scheduled to fly to France and take part in ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy.
In an interview with NBC, Obama expressed frustration with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who questions the story of the Holocaust.
“He should make his own visit," Obama said in Germany. "I have no patience for people who would deny history. And the history of the Holocaust is not something speculative."
Should he visit Germany, Ahmadinejad could face arrest as a Holocaust denier."

here is a link to the speech made in Egypt...see it for your self and make up your own mind about it.

http://www.youtube.com/whitehouse

2 comments:

Mighty Garnel Ironheart said...: Here's the hypocrisy of Obama. The leader of the Palestinian Authority has a PhD. His thesis was an essay proving the Holocaust didn't happen. I wonder, if Obama meets him will he tell him he's wrong or will he present him as a statesman and a real leader?; June 7, 2009 at 1:38 PM
Karen Zampa Katz said...: Perhaps to reframe your point...it is the Hypocrisy of the world...find me a human being who has not contradicted themselves at point or another, or one who has never strayed, who is perfect in all ways….
Politics are difficult and full of quicksand…The middle east sands shift and blow and can engulf at a moments notice….
I do not pretend to know the answers to the complicated emotionally charged problems in the world. My husband often calls m e naïve. If wanting there to peace for all in the world is naïve, so be it. I am keenly aware of the evil, the suffer and the pain. I know peace is a hard road…..
What do you suggest?; June 9, 2009 at 11:53 AM

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Beit Din test Question #22 "If you were to join the Jewish people......."

22) If you were to join the Jewish people, what considerations would guide you to that decision? How did your course help you to recognize some meaningful ideas to Judaism? Are there some things you have learned in the course that you find difficult to accept into your life?

I have been a thinker and a seeker for most of my life. I have explored many faiths, been involved in and have a keen interest in philosophy and psychology. I was raised in an Irish/Italian Catholic home. I lived as a Buddhist/Unitarian Universalist for most of my adult life and previously was married for 20 years to a Jewish man who did not practice his faith of origin. At the birth of my child, now 19, I sought to learn as much as I could about Judaism in order to expose this child to the faith of part of her ancestors. So I come to this new point in my life with all my experiences, knowledge and aspirations.

But the question remains how did I come to consider conversion? It is though love that the door of conversion was opened. I fell in love with a Jewish man who participates in his religion, yet he did not require me to convert, pressure me, or in any way attempt to persuade or force me. This exploration of faith was of my choosing, my volition, nurtured by love.

Clearly I am not dogmatically tied to my faith of origin, seeing that the religious expressions which dominated my adult life have been mostly non-theistic. The major change/challenge for me is in the consideration/acceptance of a theistic understanding of existence. Through explorations with my sponsoring Rabbi, reading, (lots of reading!) and the Hillel class I have come to an understanding of the divine, a place of relationship with a theistic point of view that resonates within me.

To help to articulate this I refer to the work of existentialist thinker and Jewish educator Franz Rosenzweig.

“The function of religion, according to Rosenzweig, is not to erect theological systems or establish universal truths, but to lead to experience of God, starting from one's own personal existence. He "commends 'the Pharisees of the Talmud and the saints of the Church' for knowing that 'man's understanding extends only so far as his doing.' Religious observance is, in effect, the doing of one's religious convictions; the two cannot be separated."
“(Time Magizine Monday, Jan. 01, 1951 , http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,814185,00.html)

For Rosenzweig the written word was to be less important than the living exchange, for it is in the doing that the relationship to God will manifest. This idea blends well with my own mindfulness practices. These practices express that it is in the awareness of the moment, the only moment we truly have, where peace and divinity can be experienced.
Through my answers on this exam, my participation in the class and my meetings with my sponsoring Rabbi, I believe I clearly present that I am coming to know, and hopefully I am beginning to understand the meaningful ideas in relationship to Judaism. Clearly there is so much to learn, and experience.

I am most taken by the direct experience of the divine associated with taking on the laws and practices of this ancient faith. I have aspirations to practice in this tradition, but once again they can be best articulated through Rosenzweig:
“Rosenzweig’s approach was subjective also in connection with the mitzvot, Jewish observances. He did think that he would one day become a fully observant Jew, but believed in the gradual approach in which the observances slowly made their impact by “ringing a bell” for him. Typical of this approach is Rosenzweig’s answer to someone who asked him whether he wore tefillin [phylacteries]: “Not yet,” he replied.”
(My Jewish Learning.com http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/Modern/IntellectualTO/Rosenzweig.htm)

Like the bell of mindfulness practice, the mitzvot, the mindfulness practice of Judaism, will take time to incorporated and to resonate within. Like the ringing of the mindfulness bell, or the sounding of the Shofar, the act of doing Judaic practices pierces the daily, the mundane and hopefully will help to awaken me to an even richer and more connective relationship with the Jewish people and the divine.