the electronic leaflet

from prayerbook to leaflet

I have been involved in writ­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing leaflets at least since 1966 when our fam­i­ly com­posed a leaflet [text] we dis­trib­uted in front of our con­gre­ga­tion’s Yom Kip­pur obser­vance call­ing atten­tion to the war in Vietnam.

Dur­ing the late 1960s and ear­ly 1970s I must have put thou­sands of 8.5 x 11 (and a few 14) inch pieces of paper in the hands of passers­by. For a while, when peo­ple would avoid me, know­ing that I had some­thing that might chal­lenge their think­ing, I would offer: “free scratch paper” as I extend­ed my hand with the leaflet. This would catch their atten­tion and cause them to take what I pre­sent­ed. When I and my col­leagues became aware of all the paper we were using, we’d col­lect the sheets that got imme­di­ate­ly tossed in the trash (if they were not crum­pled or soiled) and use the flip side to print the next leaflet. I was self-con­scious enough of this activ­i­ty that I made a point of num­ber­ing and dat­ing each leaflet.

When I worked as a “Part Time Pro­gram Coor­di­na­tor of the Ombuds­man Project of the Jew­ish Youth and Young Adults Coun­cil of the Jew­ish Fed­er­a­tion-Coun­cil of Greater Los Ange­les” (phew!) I dis­trib­uted more lit­er­a­ture. It was at that time that I pre­pared the leaflet I men­tioned in a recent post (on April 10, 2010). I also dis­trib­uted a month­ly cal­en­dar of youth-ori­ent­ed events and direc­to­ry of Jew­ish orga­ni­za­tions around Los Ange­les. And, I pre­pared oth­er items in attempts to attract inter­est to the excite­ment begin­ning to devel­op in the com­mu­ni­ty. I had a few hun­dred of these bright yel­low cards print­ed (some­time around 1970) and tacked them up on phone poles and bul­letin boards around the Fair­fax neigh­bor­hood as a “con­scious­ness rais­ing” tool.

Of course, in those days it did not rotate auto­mat­i­cal­ly (thank you Isaac Bryn­je­gard-Bia­lik). I would put a thumb tack in the cen­ter and hope peo­ple would spin it to read it. The text:

The (green) text reads:
It is told: The sum­mits of the moun­tains on whose gen­tle slopes Israel ben Eliez­er lived are straight and steep. In hours of med­i­ta­tion he liked to climb these peaks and stay at the very top for a time. Once he was so deep in ecsta­sy, he failed to notice that he was at the edge of an abyss, and calm­ly lift­ed his feet to walk on. Instant­ly a neigh­bor­ing moun­tain leaped to the spot, pressed itself close to the oth­er and the Baal Shem pur­sued his way.

The (red) text says Sur­vival Sac­ri­fice (“Sur­vival means Sac­ri­fice” was the slo­gan of the UJA-Fed­er­a­tion at the time) and has the (then) phone num­ber and address of the Federation.

from leaflet to web

Many years lat­er, after a long hia­tus from pro­duc­ing pub­lic mate­ri­als for dis­tri­b­u­tion… due to the not-uncom­mon activ­i­ties of rais­ing a fam­i­ly, Avi­gail asked if I could help her explain some of the issues sur­round­ing Israel dur­ing the Sec­ond Intifa­da. in par­tic­u­lar, fol­low­ing the Passover Mas­sacre (which tru­ly was a mas­sacre) and the Bat­tle of Jenin (which def­i­nite­ly was not a mas­sacre) and the siege of the Church Of The Nativ­i­ty as well as back­ground infor­ma­tion about Zion­ism and the Jew­ish con­nec­tion to the Land of Israel.
And so I pro­duced a series of 21 leaflets… dis­trib­uted as PDF files, ready to down­load and print, and as text files avail­able for mod­i­fi­ca­tion, stored on my Web site. Col­leagues turn to them reg­u­lar­ly as an avail­able resource for their cours­es and to offer their young peo­ple away at college.

Resources for Jewish College Students (and others)

twenty-one down-loadable leaflets

from web to twitter

And now the world’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies have changed once again.

In Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Every­body (A book about orga­niz­ing with­out orga­ni­za­tions.) he writes, engag­ing­ly, about the pow­er­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies that we each have at our fin­ger­tips: our com­put­ers and cell phones. He describes a vari­ety of soci­ety-trans­form­ing events that uti­lize some of these tools. I have entered the fray. I do what I can to mas­ter the tech­niques to com­mu­ni­cate what is impor­tant to me and share that with oth­ers who I might nev­er meet face to face. On May 17, I wrote about tweeti­ing #torah to the top as we gath­er @ sinai. We did not come close to the top ten “trend­ing top­ics” (for the week, after all, we focused on only one day)! But you could sense the joy and excite­ment of Jews and oth­ers from all walks of life and reli­gious back­grounds shar­ing thoughts about Torah, bring­ing Torah to the world.

Then, on Mon­day, May 31, 2010, a flotil­la of ships orga­nized to break the block­ade of Gaza was inter­cept­ed by Israeli sea­men. The result­ing melee on one of those boats, the Mavi Mar­mara, brought on the inter­na­tion­al inci­dent the orga­niz­ers of the flotil­la hoped to achieve.

I have not sup­port­ed the block­ade, nor (of course) the flotil­la, nor the Israeli han­dling of the entire inci­dent. I don’t know that I could have done bet­ter. But, giv­en the vicious­ness of the anti-Israel invec­tive that has ensued I have “tak­en to the air­waves”. I have sent out hun­dreds of tweets and called on my col­leagues to join me.

On col­league wrote:

My only ques­tion is whether we, the Amer­i­can Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, have any recog­ni­tion at all that we have been — in the par­lance of the street — suck­er punched. And my sec­ond ques­tion, raised advis­ed­ly in this forum, is sim­ply … where is the out­rage from the reli­gious lead­er­ship of the Amer­i­can Jews? Where is the out­rage? Where?

I have been prepar­ing a more thought­ful response to share at davka.org, but Rab­bi X and col­league Y call me to action now.

Do you have a Twit­ter account? I have been post­ing, near­ly inces­sant­ly. In a sense “leaflet­ting” elec­tron­i­cal­ly, coun­ter­ing what­ev­er lies I encounter. Many of our col­leagues are doing the same, but not enough. Please join me. I pre­sume you also saw the post (for­ward­ed by col­league Y) by our Con­ser­v­a­tive col­league Rab­bi Z. He sup­plies a num­ber of “ready to release” “Tweets”. I’m sure you can think of more. We are being out­ma­neu­vered by many who have set up fake (fraud­u­lent?) Twit­ter accounts and send­ing hun­dreds of mes­sages a minute. We may be out­num­bered, but we can use what I pre­sume is still ours: Seichel and Yid­dishe Kop. I have (as I sug­gest­ed in advance of Shavuot) sched­uled some Tweets to go out while I am asleep. This enables my mes­sages to be read by peo­ple in oth­er parts of the world (they are awake and active while I am asleep). Some of these Tweets have been picked up and re-tweet­ed by peo­ple from India, Cyprus, Turkey.

There is much work to be done. You can also orga­nize your con­gre­gants to serve as “tweet banks”. Much pub­lic opin­ion is shaped Online. Don’t aban­don this medium.

fake twitter accounts

hate and vitriol

an exchange regarding the process

I have been stand­ing at a “street cor­ner” of hash­tag #Flotil­la on the inter­net super­high­way pass­ing out leaflets to all who go by. It is ugly out there. Most of the peo­ple I know dri­ve by. A few wave hel­lo. I go out at var­i­ous times of the day and night (thank you FutureTweets!). This has allowed me to share my pile of leaflets with a wider range of peo­ple in dif­fer­ent parts of the world. Mon­day (June 7, 2010), a young Recon­struc­tion­ist rab­bi, who I know hap­pens to share most of my val­ues wrote:

@rebmark How long will you be retweet­ing the same has­barah tweets over and over?

To which I replied:

I stand on the street cor­ner and offer leaflets to dif­fer­ent peo­ple who walk by.

I felt that pri­vate email between the two of us was bet­ter than dis­cussing this in pub­lic so I tracked down his address and wrote:

You know, as much as we don’t like the way this has been han­dled by Israel, there is a war going on. I believe we need to use what­ev­er tools we have avail­able to reach as many peo­ple pos­si­ble. We need to get our per­spec­tive out there and have it spread. Some tweet­ers have called for our death (yes, you and me) with rather unpleas­ant words. I’m a pret­ty nice guy. I sup­port Hazon and bike rid­ing, you know, all the right things. But I won’t stand by and let those who will twist the world against me to their own pur­pos­es (even using fraud­u­lent Twit­ter accounts). If that means that I stand on the street pass­ing out the same (and new leaflets) so be it. I seem to con­tin­ue to get new read­ers. Con­sid­er it a form of “car­pet bombing”.

I offered a cou­ple of pre­pared tweets that were absolute­ly fresh and I had not sent.

• Reuters brings Faux­tog­ra­phy to the #Gaza #Flotil­la #Israel #Pales­tine http://bit.ly/gzfltll14
• RT @BoBi47: Why is the U.N. not inves­ti­gat­ing “human­i­tar­i­an #flotil­la” pas­sen­ger list & method of board­ing pri­or to depart­ing for #Gaza?

He respond­ed, prov­ing Peter Beinart’s point:

But I’m also a left Zion­ist, and I don’t think it’s my respon­si­bil­i­ty to jus­ti­fy every stu­pid deci­sion made by bad Israeli governments.

He raised a good point:

• reb­mark And you think RT’ing RW non­sense like this is going to make ppl like us better?
• If you want to claim #flotil­la thing jus­ti­fied, gey gezunt. I don’t think claim­ing Pales­tine is south­ern Syr­ia is going to make the case.

And we end­ed with my telling him that I do not claim it was jus­ti­fied:
Do you see me write that? I write to counter ugly anti-Israel/Zion­ist/­Jew­ish com­ments & force thought.

He made valid argu­ments, but, I believe we have to do what­ev­er we can to cause “cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance”. Silence is assent. And, as my broth­er, Jay, writes:

What would you con­sid­er to be legit­i­mate means for Israel to defend herself?

electronic leaflets

I have pre­pared a num­ber of 140-char­ac­ter-or-less messages.

You might find them of some val­ue. I know from my own expe­ri­ence that many of them have caused passers­by in the “Twit­ter­sphere” to think twice… if not more. They are sort­ed into four sep­a­rate groups. Only the last two groups have a par­tic­u­lar sequence. Because the last two groups should be read in sequence I gen­er­al­ly send them out using FutureTweets at about 10–30 sec­ond intervals.

group one (general posts):

• I don’t agree with all that she writes, but she argues it clear­ly and well. http://bit.ly/cGYGOH #Gaza #Flotil­la #Israel

• All Amer­i­cans would defend actions of IDF if those beat­en wr their own sons/brothers/husbands/fathers. http://bit.ly/cGYGOH #Gaza #Flotil­la

• Police inspect­ing car f/ drugs… sur­round­ed by gng & beat­en w/ pipes: right > use gun, depend on part­ner http://bit.ly/cGYGOH #Gaza #Flotil­la

• More Pales­tini­ans Homes Demol­ished http://bit.ly/9Mle6n #Hamas #Gaza #Pales­tine #Israel

• Final Aban­don­ment of #Gaza — Rad­i­cals & ter­ror­ists have far more patience than inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. #Flotil­la http://bit.ly/gzfltll16

• RT @fmaidment: #Turkey divid­ed over #flotil­la vio­lence (@redstate) http://bit.ly/aTxwrf (@TMRNetwork) http://bit.ly/9Ws8Gx #Gaza #Israel

• Deep fear, trau­mat­ic residue: blownup bus­es, rock­ets, pound­ed into rhythm of grow­ing #Iran threat. http://bit.ly/gzfltll15 #Gaza #Flotil­la

• Reuters brings Faux­tog­ra­phy to the #Gaza #Flotil­la #Israel #Pales­tine http://bit.ly/gzfltll14

• RT @BoBi47: Why is the U.N. not inves­ti­gat­ing “human­i­tar­i­an #flotil­la” pas­sen­ger list & method of board­ing pri­or to depart­ing for #Gaza?

• #Turkey respon­si­ble for #Gaza #Flotil­la cri­sis, not #Israel http://tinyurl.com/39ql5ss

• Jonathon Nar­vey: Free oppressed #Kur­dis­tan, join the aid #flotil­la against crim­i­nal #Turkey regime http://tinyurl.com/23fz972 #Israel #Gaza

• #Turkey ’s out­rage over #flotil­la vio­lence is mis­di­rect­ed http://tinyurl.com/2uwarlu #Kur­dis­tan #Armen­ian #Geno­cide #Israel #Pales­tine #Gaza

• PM #Erdo­gan wants to vis­it #Gaza, how would he feel about PM #Netanyahu vis­it­ing #Kurds? #Turkey #Israel

• RT @shahriar: #flotil­la cap­tain who defied naval direc­tives is respon­si­ble > injuries+death of aid work­ers & Israeli sol­diers. #Gaza #Israel

• #Flotil­la cnfrms pro­found, near­ly unques­tioned prob: intel­lec­tu­al, moral #siege / #Israel by “Respectable World”. http://bit.ly/gzfltll6

• Youtube blocked in #Turkey. Addi­tions made for dis­abling acces­si­bil­i­ty of Youtube via DNSs http://bit.ly/gzfltll5 #Gaza #Israel #Flotil­la

• RT @mdp4202: Rachel Cor­rie Proves #Israel Doesn‘t Need Com­man­dos or Shoot­ings #Gaza #Flotil­la \ NO! 1^st 5 boats prove that!

• Sail Inter­net #flotil­la > #Turkey w/ wire­less routers pro­vide free Inter­net beyond ter­ri­to­r­i­al H2O http://bit.ly/gzfltll5 #Gaza #Israel

• #Turkey Web devel­op­er: clients’ sites crawl cause they have google ana­lyt­ics. must be joke? http://bit.ly/gzfltll5 #Gaza #Israel #Flotil­la

• don’t like block­ade, I admit #Gaza is under siege, but human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis? http://www.rootsclub.ps/ #Israel #Pales­tine #flotil­la

• ‘Peace con­voy’? This was an Islamist ter­ror ambush http://bit.ly/gzfltll7 #Gaza #Flotil­la #Israel

• RT @jstrevino: Remem­ber when #flotil­la peo­ple expressed deep con­cern for human­i­ty, were angry over Cop­tic per­se­cu­tion in #Egypt? No? #Gaza

• #Hamas, #Israel, & #Gaza #flotil­la: 7 facts you need to know http://bit.ly/gzfltll1 pls rt

• How would #Turkey react to a boat­load from #Israel attempt­ing to land aid to the PKK? http://bit.ly/gzfltll7 #Gaza #Flotil­la

• Why is #Pales­tine ‘ a sec­ond #Cyprus ’ for Turks? http://bit.ly/gzfltll2 #Gaza #Flotil­la #Israel #Turkey

• #Flotil­la “shahids” (mar­tyrs) sail frm N #Cyprus, UN calls occu­pied. Tell 1,000,000 #Arme­ni­ans re #Turk­ish jus­tice http://bit.ly/aWpTUk

• Pos­si­ble? #Turkey & #Iran engi­neered inci­dent to keep UNSC busy as new sanc­tions on Iran looms. #Gaza #Flotil­la #Israel #Pales­tine

• RT @iRevolt: Turkey nev­er for­give Israel (15,000 mourn @ funer­al of 8 dead #flotil­la) http://bit.ly/dhB3a5 & #Arme­nia? http://bit.ly/aWpTUk

• Just how hun­gry is #Gaza? http://bit.ly/gzfltll9 #Israel #Flotil­la

• #Turkey Erdo­gan bears respon­si­bil­i­ty in #flotil­la fias­co (Wash­ing­ton Post) http://bit.ly/gzfltll10 #Gaza #Israel #Pales­tine

• RT @thezub: Head of IHH, 1 of so-called “human­i­tar­i­an” orgs that orga­nized “Free­dom Flotil­la” at Hamas ral­ly in 2009. http://bit.ly/9nLUD9

• #Hamas pro­hibits vis­it Gilad Shalit, include Red Cross, vio­late Gene­va Con­ven­tion & intrntnl legal require­ments #Gaza http://bit.ly/gldshlt

• #TURKEY has BLOOD on its hands, NOT #Israel http://tinyurl.com/255ksq2 #Free­dom­Flotil­la #Flotil­la #Gaza

• #HAMAS respon­si­ble 4 suf­fer­ing of #Pales­tine & #Israel : RACIST CHARTER http://bit.ly/d2ta73 #Free­dom­Flotil­la #Flotil­la #Gaza

• B4 depar­ture: Activists chant INTIFADA songs, praise MARTYRDOM http://tinyurl.com/2bkseol #Free­dom­Flotil­la #Flotil­la #Gaza

• RT @Uplication: @dogdazed Nobody tried to kill peo­ple on ship. Oth­er ships where no lynch attempt was made on sol­diers are proof #Flotil­la

• RT @dominiofeminino: Where are #Israel ene­mies? 26 ppl To be exe­cut­ed in Tehran in 48 hrs http://tinyurl.com/3ynpa42 #Iran #Gaza #Flotil­la

• Eye­less in #Gaza? Maybe you, not him… http://bit.ly/gzfltll12 #Free­dom­Flotil­la #Flotil­la #Israel #Hamas

• World is tired… these trou­ble­some Jews, refus­ing every invi­ta­tion > nation­al sui­cide. http://bit.ly/gzfltll13 #Gaza #Flotil­la #Israel #Hamas

• http://www.arabianawareness.com/ refus­es to rec­og­nize a 2‑State solu­tion. See image on home page #Gaza #Israel #Pales­tine #Flotil­la

• war crimes WERE com­mit­ted by those who orga­nized & spon­sored #flotil­la http://tinyurl.com/327qp9s #Israel #Gaza

• RT @Martin_Kramer: Ras­mussen: 49% of U.S. Vot­ers Blame Activists > Flotil­la Deaths, 19% Blame Israel, Week­ly http://goo.gl/fb/d9SNq

group two (israel and palestine)

• Fall of Ottoman Emp in World War I Britain/France occu­py Kur­dis­tan. Now 30 mlln Kurds occu­pied by Turkey Syr­ia Iraq & Iran Who complains?

• From 1948 through 1967 #Egypt occu­pied #Gaza Who com­plained? #Flotil­la #Israel

• #Pales­tine = Syr­ia, nvr sep­a­rate frm… con­nect­ed / national/religious/lngstc/natural/economic/geographic bonds. http://bit.ly/bINUlQ Muhsein

• #Pales­tine ? Resolve: 1^st Con­gress: Mus­lim-Chris­t­ian Ass­ctns; Jerusalem, Feb, 1919 meet choose reps > Paris Peace Conf. http://bit.ly/bINUlQ

• No such coun­try! #Pales­tine = term Zion­ists invent­ed! Is no Pales­tine in Bible. Our coun­try > cen­turies part/ Syr­ia. Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi

• “There is no such thing as ‘Pales­tine’ in his­to­ry, absolute­ly not.” Arab-Amer hstrn, Prince­ton U Prof Philip Hit­ti 1946 http://bit.ly/duZbVC

• #Pales­tine part/ Province of Syr­ia… polit­i­cal­ly, Arabs of Pales­tine not inde­pen­dent in sense of form­ing sep­a­rate polit­i­cal enti­ty… #Zion­ism

• Arab High­er Com­mit­tee rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Nations at the Gen­er­al Assem­bly, May, 1947 http://bit.ly/a3P5zV #Pales­tine #Zion­ism

• Com­mon knowl­edge that #Pales­tine = noth­ing but south­ern Syr­ia. Ahmed Shuqeiri (1ce chair­man PLO) > Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil http://bit.ly/a3P5zV

• From 1948 — 1967 there were no Israelis in the “West Bank” or #Gaza. Arab states called all of #Israel “Occu­pied #Pales­tine”. #Zion­ism

• Who com­plained, call: West Bank “Occu­pied Ter­ri­to­ries” dur­ing 19 yrs after #Israel War/Independence 1948 as #Egypt occu­pied #Gaza?

• Who com­plained, call: West Bank “Occu­pied Ter­ri­to­ries” dur­ing 19 yrs after #Israel War/Independence 1948 as #Jor­dan occu­pied West Bank?

• Pales­tin­ian nation­al­ism now real, #Pales­tine peo­ple must rec­og­nize right of Jew­ish peo­ple to nation­al mvm­nt: #Zion­ism. http://bit.ly/whtznsm

group three (israel and the land)

based on leaflet #11 of Resources for Jewish College Students

• Israel and the Land (some high­lights) http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1020–1000 BC Saul becomes king of Hebrew tribes I Samuel 9:15–27, 10:1 http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1000–961 BC Reign of David II Samuel 5: 1–5 http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 961–922 BC Reign of Solomon I Kings 1: 32–40 http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 922 BC King­dom of Israel div> 2 king­doms Israel/Judah I Kings 11:29–43 http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 853 BC King Ahab fights the Arameans http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 722 BC Assyr­ia con­quers Israel II Kings 17:1–6 http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 701 BC King Hezeki­ah digs Siloam tunnl II Kings 20:20, Isa­iah 22:10–11 http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 586 BC Baby­lon con­quers Judah II Kings 25:1–12 http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 539 BC Exiles return from Baby­lon Ezra 1:1–11 http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 516 BC Ded­i­ca­tion of Sec­ond Tem­ple Ezra 4:23–24, 5:1–5 http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 332 BC Con­quest of Jerusalem by Alexan­der the Great http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 250 BC The Greek trans­la­tion of the Bible is pub­lished http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 168–165 BC Mac­cabean Revolt http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 63 BC Roman con­quest of Jerusalem (through 313 AD) http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 37–4 BC Reign of Herod the Great http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• ¹⁹⁄₂₀ BC Herod rebuilds Tem­ple in Jerusalem http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 66–73 Jew­ish rebel­lions against Romans http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 70 The Destruc­tion of the Tem­ple in Jerusalem http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 73 Fall of Masa­da http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 135 Bar Kokh­ba Rebel (Romans destroy rem­nants > Jew­ish sov­er­eign­ty) http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 200 Cod­i­fi­ca­tion of Jew­ish oral law (Mish­nah) com­plet­ed in Yavneh http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 313–616 Byzan­tine Rule http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 390 Com­men­tary on the Mish­nah (Jerusalem Tal­mud) com­plet­ed http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 614 Per­sian Inva­sion http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 636‑1099 Arab Rule http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 691 On site of First/Second Tem­ples in Jerusalem, Dome of Rock built http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1099–1291 Cru­sad­er Dom­i­na­tion (Latin King­dom of Jerusalem) http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1291–1516 Mam­luk Rule http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1517–1917 Ottoman Rule http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1564 Code of Jew­ish law (Shul­han Arukh) pub­lished http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1577 Hebrew print­ing start­ed in Safed. 1^st press in Ottoman Empire. http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1860 1^st neigh­bor­hood (Mishkenot Sha’ananim) built out Jerusalem walls http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1882–1903 1^st large-scale immi­gra­tion main­ly from Rus­sia http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1904–1914 2^nd large-scale immi­gra­tion main­ly from Rus­sia and Poland http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1909 1^st Kib­butz (Dega­nia) & 1^st mod­ern Jew­ish city (Tel Aviv) found­ed http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1918–1948 British Rule http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• 1948 State of Israel estab­lished (& Pales­tin­ian State)> Unit­ed Nations http://bit.ly/whtznsm [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

group four (what is zionism)

based on leaflet #18 of Resources for Jewish College Students

• What is #Zion­ism? [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Israel ] http://bit.ly/whtznsm

• #Zion­ism is the nation­al lib­er­a­tion move­ment of the #Jew­ish peo­ple. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Israel ]

• You may have always thought Jews were a reli­gion. They are that, and more. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Through long world his­to­ry many nation­al states arose & fell. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Among these: great empires: Sume­ria, Assyr­ia, Baby­lo­nia, Egypt, Greece, Per­sia and Rome. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Small­er states also exist­ed. Among them: Jebusites, Moabites, Ammonites & Judahites. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Back then when 1 defeat­ed anoth­er, defeat­ed peo­ple & its iden­ti­ty dis­ap­peared from his­to­ry. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Rare instances this didn’t occur & group con­tin­ued to play a role in con­tem­po­rary affairs. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• You will not meet a Jebusite, Moabite, nor an Ammonite in the mall… [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• …even though peo­ple now live in the area long-ago known as Jebus, Moab and Ammon. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• You will meet descen­dants the ancient Baby­lo­ni­ans, known today as Chaldeans, [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Per­sians destroyed Chaldeans’ empire & they nev­er again held polit­i­cal pow­er in their land. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Chaldeans live in Detroit, San Diego, & in their native land now known as Iraq. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Can also meet descen­dants of ancient Israelites & cousins Judahites, “Jews” (for short) [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Sim­i­lar to Amer­i­can peo­ple who car­ry ide­al of “life, lib­er­ty, & pur­suit of hap­pi­ness,” [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Jew­ish peo­ple car­ry set of ideas through long his­to­ry, these ideas called “Judaism”. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• This is why Jews are thought of as being a reli­gion. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Near­ly 2000 years ago, while suf­fer­ing under oppres­sive Roman Empire’s occu­pa­tion [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Jews rose up & fought for lib­er­a­tion. Fol­low­ing 2 major upris­ings, span­ning gen­er­a­tions… [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Rome destroyed near­ly all ves­tiges of Judaeans’ (Jews’) pres­ence in their land. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• West­ern retain­ing wall of their Tem­ple still stands as a reminder of their sov­er­eign­ty. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Ruins of meet­ing hous­es, known as syn­a­gogues are found through­out the land. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Dur­ing the fol­low­ing two mil­len­nia, Jews lived among oth­er peo­ples. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Jews with oth­ers’ sor­rows & shared in their suc­cess­es; often attacked for being “out­sider”. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• In the late 1800s Jews all over the world began return­ing to the land of their ori­gin. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• They orga­nized to make this pos­si­ble. Jews raised mon­ey and pur­chased land. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Jews trained selves to farm & work in indus­try; estab­lished infra­struc­ture of new soci­ety. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• This effort is called Zion­ism. The fruit of this effort is Israel. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• Jews: every color/race, every cor­ner of world are wel­comed to return rebuild this soci­ety… [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• The mod­ern State of Israel. Zion­ism is not racism. [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Zion­ism #Israel ]

• What is #Zion­ism? [ #Gaza #Pales­tine #Flotil­la #Israel ] http://bit.ly/whtznsm

Both the but­ton above and this one I fea­ture here date from approx­i­mate­ly the same peri­od, the late 1960s ear­ly 1970s. While I know that I have sac­ri­ficed a vari­ety of things for our sur­vival, I pre­fer, at this moment to stress my con­cern about stop­ping Arab ter­ror in its var­i­ous man­i­fes­ta­tions. When the but­ton was pro­duced, we thought in terms of “Arab” ter­ror orga­nized by sec­u­lar­ists. Now we are more like­ly to think in terms of “Mus­lim” ter­ror. My how the world shifts in sub­tle ways.

Date:	1974
Size:	3.8
Pin Form:	straight
Print Method:	cel­lu­loid
Text	STOP ARAB TERROR

your lapel buttons

Many peo­ple have lapel but­tons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jack­et you no longer wear, or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any lay­ing around that you do not feel emo­tion­al­ly attached to, please let me know. I pre­serve these for the Jew­ish peo­ple. At some point they will all go to an appro­pri­ate muse­um. You can see all the but­tons shared to date.