Go Prudie!

I fully expected a PC response about how her boyfriend should open up to the wonders of a secular Christmas--the general line fed to us by the media. I was pleasantly surprised by her response. She gets it. Christmas is a Christian religious holiday. And if you want Jewish kids, you raise them in a Jewish house--celebrating Jewish religious holidays.

There is also the issue of disrespect to Christians. Having had a few devout Christian friends over the years, and having spent a year living with a very devout Christian, I cannot help but think that if I were Christian I would find this practice of non-Christians appropriating Christmas as a non-religious holiday a bit offensive. Think about it. Christmas is the the day in which believers celebrate the birth of Christ and the birth of their faith, a new era and so on. This is one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar, no? How can it possibly be respectful to effectively say "Yeah, well, I think your religion and your version of G-d is so much bullshit, but hey, I'll take the tree. And the gifts."

Something just seems....off....

Ray, If I Had A Vote, I Would Give It To You

I stumbled across Ray Hanania's campaign for a Two State Solution and the Presidency of the Palestinian State while on Facebook (where else?). Intrigued, I followed link after link until I finally arrived at the Source--the Yalla Peace Website. Where I found outlined, in orderly bullet-point form, Hanania's Platform. How to divide up the land. What to do with the Palestinian refugees and the refugee camps. What to do with the settlers and the settlements. The payment of reparations to Palestinian and Jewish refugees. Apologies...by both sides. Cooperation...by both sides.

Peace.

Do I agree with everything in the Platform? No. Do I believe the Platform to be feasible? For all that the remaining bit of optimist in me says "well, why not?", my more dominant cynical and pessimistic self says "f**k no--the ______ will never allow it". (The blank can be filled in with any number of Israeli and Palestinian groups I believe to be obstacles to peace).

Do I believe the Platform to to be a most sane and most reasonable starting point than anything I have read in years? A proposal that actually takes the needs of both sides and the current reality (we are here, they are here, no one is going to disappear any time soon) into account? Yes. Without a doubt.

Mr. Hanania, I suspect that an endorsement from me, a Jewish and proudly Zionist Israeli, will do you more harm than good. (Not so much harm, as neither I nor my blog are particularly important. But, whatever.) Nonetheless, kol ha kavod, more power to you. I hope you win, because if you do, we all do.