fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

July 22, 2013

Anti-Semitism incidents decline in 2012, ADL reports

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Lead Story, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, United States /

Last year saw fewer anti-Semitic incidents in California than in 2011, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual “Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents” issued Monday.

In 2012, 185 incidents took place in California, marking a 21-percent decline from the 235 incidents reported in 2011, the reports says.

“We are pleased to see a decline in anti-Semitic incidents around the country and happy to relinquish California’s standing as the state with the most overall incidents,” Amanda Susskind, regional director of the ADL Pacific Southwest office, told the Journal. This was the first time in three years that California fell from first to second in the ADL’s ranking of states where anti-Semitic incidents have taken place. New York state had the largest number.

California’s decline coincides with an overall decrease in the nationwide number of anti-Semitic incidents: In 2012, 927 anti-Semitic incidents occurred throughout the U.S., declining 14-percent from the 1,080 reported in 2011. This marks the third consecutive year that the national total has decreased.

Graphic courtesy ADL

Incidents included in the audit by the civil rights and human relations agency encompass  assaults, vandalism and harassment – both criminal and non-criminal – that were reported to the ADL in 35 states and Washington, D.C.

Nationwide, the 2012 total included 17 physical assaults, 470 cases of harassment, threats and events and 440 cases of vandalism.

The number of physical assaults — person-on-person violence — remained steady: 17 incidents were reported in 2012, a decrease of only 2 incidents compared with 2011. By contrast, cases of harassments, threats and events decreased sharply – from 470 incidents in 2012, down from 731 in 2011 – and vandalism increased by 33-percent, with 440 incidents reported in 2012, compared with 330 the previous year.

The data is compiled from reports to the ADL by victims, law enforcement and community leaders. ADL evaluates each incident and corroborates the account with law enforcement and media reports before counting it in the audit. The report only includes online events in which a specific individual or organization has been targeted.

While the nationwide number of incidents in the report are down, Susskind said, accounts of anti-Semitism on the Web – which is nearly impossible to quantify, she said – appears to be on the rise.

“As we track crimes and incidents, including assaults, vandalism and harassment, we are troubled by the increasingly insurmountable challenge of monitoring cyberspace, where hate can be anonymous and ubiquitous,” Susskind said.

Vandalism incidents in California increased 12-percent. Among the notable incidents was a highly publicized case in Northridge, in which a mother drove her 14-year-old daughter and two teenaged friends to the home of a classmate who is Jewish and waited in the car while the girls defaced the home with anti-Jewish symbols and smeared feces on the family’s property. The mother later pleaded guilty to several criminal charges and was ordered to complete community service, and the girls were ordered by a juvenile court to complete community service.

Anti-Semitism incidents decline in 2012, ADL reports Read More »

Mike Myers: He’s a ‘Supermensch’

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Hollywood, Is Featured?, Mobile /

Sadly, there is no 4th “Austin Powers” due out in the near future, although it has been labeled as “in development” on the film database website IMBD.

Austin, played by Mike Myers, will hopefully make a comeback, but for now we can look forward to the arrival of his directorial debut wonderfully titled, “Supermensch.”

The film will focus on the career of talent manager Shep Gordon. Gordon caught the interest of Myers while he was on the set of 90′s classic, Wayne’s World. After some begging and pleading to Shep, Myers got the rights to use Alice Cooper’s song, “Feed my Frankenstein” in the film, as well as an appearance by Cooper himself. Myers and Shep have been friends ever since.

Mike Myers told Deadline, “I met Shep Gordon in 1991 on the set of Wayne’s World. I thought he was a perfect combination of Brian Epstein, Marshall McLuhan and Mr Magoo. I’ve been trying to get Shep to agree to let me make a movie about him for 10 years,” Myers said in a statement. “Last year he finally he said yes. I loved him like a brother before we started making this film and now having sifted through his life and his legacy, I love him even more.”

Shep spearheaded the careers of ’70s and ’80s legends such as Alice Cooper, Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross, and Raquel Welch.

Schwing!

Mike Myers: He’s a ‘Supermensch’ Read More »

No Power for Flour

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

Understanding the Role of White Flour on our Immune Systems with Sally Kravich

Many of you are now hearing about gluten-free diets.  Although some of you may actually have a gluten allergy, others may experience an intolerance to wheat that you are unaware of.  Wheat is a culprit for many sensitivities and allergies. The more wheat-containing, pasty foods you eat the more you become susceptible to external allergies  (dust, animal hair, pollen), the more you may suffer from bronchial and sinus infections, and the more likely you are to develop high sensitivity to other foods. Lethargy, headaches, dark circles and general lack of vibrancy may also plague you.

This is because wheat creates mucus. And mucus creates an environment for growing disease. Bacteria, yeast (candida) and parasites all thrive in warm, moist environments. Mucus does not only exist in your respiratory system, it can congest your digestive system as well! In fact, the latter often causes the former.

Did you ever make glue when you were a child?  It’s simple, take white flour, add water and voila, you have instant paste. Gluey foods are just that.  GLUE! Can you imagine what this does to the inside of your colon?  If you eat a diet filled with bagels and cream cheese, bread baskets, pizza, pasta, pastries and sandwiches your body never has a chance to break down these gluey foods. They will stick to your insides, sealing in cracks and crevices of your intestines, which in turn will seal in bacteria.  This will lower your immune system.  The gluey foods get impacted in the colon and it's harder to absorb nutrients.  This will also cause you to put on weight.

Relatively minor congestion at first can become chronic. Your body becomes over-saturated, for there is more congestion coming in than going out. After a while the internal sensitivity takes over, and you become sensitive to your outer environment.This is how you can create allergies, bronchial and sinus problems, headaches, lethargy and more. Drugs or homeopathic remedies can help to relieve the effect or symptoms of congestion, but eventually your immune system will be compromised and will need medication for survival.

“When I was a child I was a severe asthmatic and allergic to most plants, weeds, dust and animals, says Sally. “I was quite sick regularly. This was in the early ‘60’s. The country was based on sliced white bread and casseroles and there was no alternative nutritional or medical curiosity. My mother was ahead of her time and in an attempt to cure me from my disabling asthmatic allergies and my constant bouts of illness she took me to Switzerland where naturopathic medicine was at a prime. The first thing I eliminated from my diet was wheat. (I also had to stop drinking milk as dairy is also a major maker of mucus.) Eventually the asthma disappeared and so did my sensitivity to my outer environment.”

People sometimes eliminate dairy products from their diets, and yet they will still experience head and lung congestion. Until wheat is eliminated or at least rotated with other whole grains, the congestion will continue to build. By eliminating that which is causing the congestion, over a period of time you can shed old mucus matter. Sinuses will drain. Lungs and bowels will expel mucus. Pounds will melt off. Energy levels will rise. Dark circles will lighten. Sore throats will lessen, ear canals can clear up, and allergies can be reduced. You will be less susceptible to getting colds and the flu. Eventually tissue can clear, strengthen, and rebuild.

The use of specific cleansing herbs along with the right dietary suggestions and juicing helps to speed up this process.

Sally suggests: Save white flour for a special occasion. “When raising my children I limited our intake of flour products to special occasions such as challah on Friday nights or for holidays and birthdays.  Otherwise white flour, and wheat in general, was not in our diet.”  Do not eat it day in and day out, you might as well eat paper.  Wheat is the lowest nutrient grain on the totem pole. It’s comparable to iceberg lettuce in it's minimal nutrient content.  Instead of wheat, look to wonderful grains such as quinoa, brown rice, rye, millet, buckwheat, oats, and even corn.  You can make baked goods from these flours and other delicious dishes with their whole grains. The grains themselves contain B vitamins as well as fiber.

Colon health depends upon fiber to fight the effects of gluey foods.  Always eat an abundance of fruits and vegetables along with fiber rich foods to keep your colon clean and happy.  If your colon is clean, your skin will reflect this and you will discover a body that fits and supports you.

So if I'm not going to eat flour, what am I going to eat?

No Power for Flour Read More »

At the Maccabiah, making mom, grandma and great-grandma proud

Leave a Comment / Israel, Mobile, News /

For a week before they started competing, many of the 1,100 U.S. athletes in this year’s Maccabiah Games toured Israel and learned about their Jewish heritage.

But when Yale Goldberg steps onto the tennis court this week, he’ll have another tradition to draw on. He’ll be representing the fourth generation of his family to compete in the games.

His parents played tennis and swam for the U.S. in 1997, the year a bridge collapsed during the games leading to the deaths of four athletes. His grandmother swam for Israel in 1953, the second games after Israel became a state. And his great-grandmother and great-grandfather played volleyball and sprinted, respectively, a generation earlier.

“They always wanted me to play in the Maccabiah Games,” Goldberg said of his parents. “I’m really excited to be here, to keep the tradition going. It feels like I should be here.”

His grandmother, Anita Deutsch, was the youngest athlete in the 1953 games, but being 12 years old didn’t stop her from taking silver in the 100m swim. She has memories of contestants from other countries taking out trinkets and kissing them for good luck before springing into the pool.

“At that stage in my life it was the high point of my life,” said Deutsch, who now lives in Manhattan. “There was camaraderie among the other kids who participated.”

Goldberg isn’t the only member of the American delegation with family history at the games. Maccabi USA General Chairman Jeffrey Bukantz, who’s leading this year’s delegation, spent his career chasing his father’s fencing achievements at the Maccabiah.

Bukantz’s father, Danny Bukantz, won fencing gold at the 1950 Maccabiah. In 1981, Jeffrey finished fourth. He cried, and resolved to do better next time. In 1985, he took bronze, cried again, and set his eyes on 1989.

During Jeffrey’s third Maccabiah, in 1989, he finally won gold.

“When I got the gold medal I flipped my mask in the air and jumped uncontrollably three times,” he said. “I was crying like a faucet.”

This time, they were tears of joy.

At the Maccabiah, making mom, grandma and great-grandma proud Read More »

Jews and Kate Middleton’s Royal Baby

Leave a Comment / Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, Worldwide /

When the news broke Monday that Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge and wife of Prince William, had gone into labor, it seemed that London could not have been more prepared.

For weeks, reporters and photographers had been camped out in front of the maternity ward at St. Mary’s Hospital. The choreography of how the royal baby’s name would be announced was well-known: A car would drive from the hospital to Buckingham Palace, where the new name would be posted on an easel.

Yes, some crucial elements were missing surrounding the world’s most highly anticipated birth since Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had their twins in 2008.

Kate, now known as Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, and William had said they wanted the baby’s gender to be a surprise, so nobody knew whether to expect a prince or princess. Prince Charles, heir to the throne and the expectant grandfather, did not rush to the hospital’s Jewish-funded wing when the news came that Kate had gone into labor. Instead, he stuck to his planned schedule with a visit to the National Railway Museum in York.

It was a restraint that seemed, well, Jewish.

Like the royals, Jews traditionally have shunned pre-birth celebrations, and many stick to traditions in which they try to say and reveal as little as possible about their pregnancy until the baby’s arrival.

In the haredi Orthodox world, most women don’t even announce their pregnancies at all out of a reluctance to trumpet good news — for reasons of modesty and superstition.

“Jewish women feel conflicted because it’s incredibly helpful to prepare for the baby’s birth, but they still feel strange and think it will invite the evil eye if they celebrate their pregnancy,” says Deborah Kolben, editor of the Jewish parenting website Kveller.com. “When you try to talk about superstitions rationally they seem ridiculous, but it’s something that has been passed along and makes you feel like you have control over something when in reality you don’t.”

Some women wear amulets during pregnancy to stave off the evil eye, or “ayin hara.” In Jewish medieval mythology, the figure most threatening to a woman, Lilith, is notorious for strangling babies, robbing mothers of their children.

Jewish folklorist Howard Schwartz says the day his mother found out she was pregnant with him 69 years ago, she and her husband were planning a trip to the zoo. Her grandmother, hearing of the zoo excursion, warned her daughter not to look at the monkeys.

“Whatever you see before you’re pregnant can affect the baby,” she told her daughter, according to Schwartz.

Rabbi Asher Lopatin, president of the liberal Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in New York, says the superstitions surrounding pregnancy and birth are not based in Jewish law and may even contravene them.

“As Jews, we are supposed to believe that God protects us, and sometimes these superstitious practices rely on forces other than God,” Lopatin said. “It’s almost in the category of magic.”

Historically, magic and superstitions were a way for expectant mothers to deal with the complicated, unpredictable and dangerous process of pregnancy.

While technology has eliminated some of those unknowns and dangers, pregnancy is still a fraught process, and superstitions have persisted, says Sylvia Barack Fishman, a professor of contemporary Jewish life at Brandeis University.

“Pregnancy superstitions remain a combination of fear of evil wishes and a very practical response to medical realities,” Fishman says.

Today, many Jewish women say superstitions have no place when it comes to pregnancy. Many plan full baby showers without concern about whether celebrating before the birth tempts fate. Others hold smaller celebrations, such as tea parties, that do not involve gifts.

Jewish educator Sarah Wilensky, a mother of two, said she did not want a baby shower when she was pregnant with her daughter, but her sister-in-law insisted on a party so she relented.

“But I told her no gifts for the baby — just casual brunch for friends and family — and that if people really wanted to bring gifts, maybe something small for me and my husband to enjoy while we were waiting for her arrival,” Wilensky said. “It ended up being lovely and I received many gifts.”

Connecticut-based Jewish blogger Cara Paiuk said she told her close friends and family immediately when she discovered she was pregnant with her first son. She did the same for her twins, who are nearly 3 months old.

“I firmly believe in sharing with your friends and family,” said Paiuk, who blogs for Kveller. “If, God forbid, something went wrong or was going wrong, it gives them the opportunity to love and support you rather than be in a vacuum where no one knows and you feel isolated and lonely.

“I had some complications with this pregnancy and I was very open about them. The community and friends rallied. They brought food, kept me company, looked after my son when I was in the hospital.”

Jordana Horn, a journalist, lawyer, blogger and mother of five, says she holds on to some superstitions.

“I would never buy things for the new baby before the baby was born and keep it in my house,” she said. “But I have five children, and I like to find out what the gender is when I can — in no small part to tell the older sister or brother what is coming to them. It’s fun to get excited.”

Jews and Kate Middleton’s Royal Baby Read More »

CBS vs Time Warner Cable vs You

Leave a Comment / Marty Kaplan, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, Opinion /

Here’s progress: Big media companies now think Americans are as gullible as politicians do.  It’s not just candidates who assume we’re nincompoops.  The cable operators and networks take us for pigeons, too.

Exhibit A is the current “>Another CBS ad, — showing clips of CBS Sports programming, “The Big Bang Theory” and “Under the Dome” playing on a TV set wrapped in chains — warns that “Time Warner Cable is holding your favorite shows hostage.”

Next thing you know, TWC will be taking away your guns.

You wouldn’t realize from these campaign-style ads that what’s really at stake is money.  Your money.  Both CBS and TWC want more of it.  They’re probably going to get it.  The only issue – which this battle is about – is how they’ll divvy up what they pick from our pockets.

The “>50 percent or more of the retransmission fees they get from cable operators.  Networks also have been gobbling up independent stations.  The more money that CBS’s six owned-and-operated stations in New York, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Los Angeles get from TWC in exchange for carrying their programming, the more money goes to CBS’s corporate bottom line.

That’s what’s at stake in this intra-titan dispute.  In those three markets, under a deal that’s expiring, CBS stations have been getting between 75 cents and $1 a subscriber per month.  In the new deal, according to “>nearly tripling between 2001 and 2011 – because the cable companies have been passing along to consumers the cost of the vigorish that the broadcast networks are extracting from them, especially for sports.  The result is that advertiser-supported networks like CBS have become de facto cable companies, concealing the subscription we pay to them within the subscription we pay for cable.   

And now they want us to be their stooges!  They want us to pressure TWC to give more money to CBS so that TWC can charge us more for the CBS programs we already get for “free.”

Forgotten in all this is the original rationale for permitting local stations to charge cable companies for carriage: ensuring budgets adequate for producing quality local news and public affairs programming.  But unless you consider scaring us witless with crime stories and medicating us silly with celebrity stories to be just the right ticket for good citizenship, if you actually watch local TV news you know how civically useless its content has turned out to be.

I run an awards program – the “>study that my colleague Matt Hale and I did of all stations in the Los Angeles media market found that in a typical half hour of local news, coverage of local government – including budgets, layoffs, education, law enforcement, prisons, lawsuits, new ordinances, voting procedures, government personnel changes, government actions on health care, transportation, immigration and so on – amounted to a grand total of 22 seconds out of 30 minutes.

I’m not surprised that the message of CBS’s anti-TWC campaign isn’t: They’re going to take away the news you need to be a good citizen!  But I am struck that CBS has the chutzpah to try to recruit us to raise our own cable bills.  On the other hand, if the Karl Roves of the world can get people to vote against their own self-interest, I guess networks have a shot at conning us, too.

Marty Kaplan won the LA Press Club’s 2013 Award for “>Norman Lear chair in entertainment, media and society at the martyk@jewishjournal.com.

CBS vs Time Warner Cable vs You Read More »

Plenty of unknowns as Kerry lures both sides back to peace negotiations

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Israel, Lead Story, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

We don’t know.

That’s the operative phrase of the new round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks announced July 19 and ostensibly set to begin in the coming days in Washington.

We don’t know their parameters, or if Israel will freeze settlements, release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners or agree to negotiate based on its pre-1967 borders.

We don’t know whether the Palestinian Authority (PA) has agreed to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. We don’t know how long PA President Mahmoud Abbas will hold off on taking Israel to the International Criminal Court.

Most of all, we don’t know whether they’ll lead anywhere.

The talks, according to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, will last six to nine months with the intended outcome of a two-state, final-status agreement between Israel and the PA.

For now they will involve the chief negotiators for both sides: Saeb Erekat for the Palestinians, and Tzipi Livni and Isaac Molho for the Israelis.

The rest of the details, as Kerry said in his Friday announcement, are “speculation” and “conjecture.”

“The agreement is still in the process of being formalized, so we are absolutely not going to talk about any of the elements now,” Kerry said, adding that “the people who know the facts are not talking about them. The parties have agreed that I will be the only one making further comments about this.”

Kerry’s dogged efforts to simply bring both sides to the table — including six trips to the region this year — have been characterized by their secrecy. During his months of shuttling between Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman, Kerry has praised progress toward negotiations but kept details under wraps.

Following Kerry’s July 19 announcement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hopes the talks will prevent the establishment of a binational state in Israel and the creation of an Iranian-sponsored terrorist entity in West Bank.

“These will not be easy negotiations, but we will enter into them with integrity, sincerity and the hope that this process will be conducted responsibly, seriously and substantively — and, I must say, at least in the opening stages, discreetly,” he told his Cabinet on July 21. “Throughout this process, I will strongly uphold, as I already have, the security needs of the State of Israel and other vital interests.”

Signs of the rocky road ahead were evident almost immediately, with Palestinian officials denying July 22 that any agreement had been reached to participate in final-status negotiations.

A Palestinian spokesperson said the upcoming meeting would only be a preliminary one; formal negotiations would take place only when Israel consented to freeze settlement expansion and negotiate based on the 1967 lines. Israeli ministers shot back that they would agree to none of those stipulations.

Israel is set to release 82 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture ahead of the talks, but Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio that “a settlement building freeze isn’t on the table.”

The biggest question that no one can answer, of course, is whether this round will succeed where so many others have failed. Israelis and Palestinians have been talking peace for more than 20 years, but the process has borne little fruit in the past decade.

The last attempt at talks, in 2010, ended after three weeks, when Israel rebuffed Abbas’ demand for the extension of a 10-month settlement building freeze.

Before that, lengthy negotiations in 2008 between then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas reportedly ended after Abbas rejected an Israeli proposal without presenting a counteroffer. Soon after, Olmert was indicted for corruption and resigned his post.

It’s far from clear whether the political will exists on either side to conclude a final-status agreement, which would likely include at least some evacuation of Israeli settlers from the West Bank and Palestinians abandoning claims for millions of refugees to return to Israel.

On the Palestinian side, Abbas has held power for eight years without elections and has no power in Gaza, which has been controlled by Hamas since 2006. Kerry has gained backing for the negotiations from the Arab League, but Hamas, deemed a terrorist group by Israel and the United States, has come out against the talks.

In Israel, Netanyahu supports the talks, but a majority of his coalition opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state. In January’s election, Jewish Home — a pro-settler party — won 12 of the Knesset’s 120 seats running on a platform of opposing a Palestinian state.

Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett, Israel’s economics minister, threatened Monday to vote against the coalition’s proposed budget unless Netanyahu advances a bill that would put any peace deal to a national referendum. Netanyahu said Sunday he would do that.

And in recent weeks, as Kerry was galvanizing support for the talks, prominent members of Netanyahu’s Likud Party — including Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon — came out against Palestinian statehood. On July 20, Danon said he trusts Netanyahu but opposes settlement evacuation or a release of Palestinian prisoners.

Should Netanyahu’s coalition turn on him, the prime minister could count on support from across the aisle. Labor Party Chairwoman Shelly Yachimovich, who leads the opposition, has said her party would support Netanyahu should a peace deal come to the table.

“I hope that Prime Minister Netanyahu, who declared loud and clear that he supports the two-state solution, will make the necessary decisions,” Yachimovich said, according to the Times of Israel. “We should not just settle for a renewal of negotiations but do everything possible to work toward real accords.”

Plenty of unknowns as Kerry lures both sides back to peace negotiations Read More »

Two Narratives – Two Truths

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Judaism, Mobile Sections, News /

Much will be said in the coming days and weeks about what negotiations mean, what Israel and the Palestinians are willing to do and give up, whether the gap is just too wide, and whether a two-state solution is possible given current thinking on both sides.

I have just begun reading an important new book published last year called Side By Side – Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine edited by Sami Adwan, Dan Bar-on (zal), and Eyal Naveh of the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME). Developed over the last 15 years by Palestinian and Israeli scholars and educators, this work represents a wholly new way of teaching the Middle East to Israeli and Palestinian High School students. Regardless of one’s identity, both sides likely will be surprised that, more often than not, each holds a one-dimensional view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will obstruct peace-making.

The two narratives and interpretations of the meaning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are set side by side in 400 pages. Clearly, we live in two worlds and our understanding of the same historical events are very different.

Each side's better understanding of the “narrative” of the other will hopefully result in a softening and opening of the heart to the other’s identity and experience.

No one in the Middle East wants to be a fry-ar (Israeli slang; “sucker”). Negotiations will be very difficult.

We here should be giving Secretary Kerry every benefit of the doubt in his efforts to facilitate negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians towards a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution of this conflict. Criticism of Kerry should be silenced. Mocking him, especially by Jewish media pundits, should be quelled. What is important now is to support this renewal of negotiations. The alternative to a two states for two peoples resolution is more war, more suffering and a darkening of the landscape to death and the destruction of dreams.

Two Narratives – Two Truths Read More »

Coincidence? Tel Aviv cops arrest Darfuri actor who played Tel Aviv cop in theatrical critique

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Israel, Mobile, Mobile Sections, News /

Tel Aviv police couldn't have driven home the message of Israeli refugee play “One Strong Black” any harder if they'd been in the cast themselves.

On Thursday evening, according to various refugee aid organizations in Israel, 30-year-old Darfuri asylum seeker Babaker “Babi” Ibrahim — ” target=”_blank”>the Garden Library, the group behind the play, said that before cops pinned the bicycle theft on Ibrahim, they first tried to nab him for possessing a stolen phone (he had the receipt) and an expired visa (he showed them his valid one). And when they finally landed on the bicycle charges, said Feder, police used his new status as a suspected criminal to then strip him of his visa at the Ministry of Interior and lock him up under Israel's infamous, year-old ” target=”_blank”>Jerusalem Post, Ibrahim also played a second role as a visa agent at the Ministry of Interior (and the irony grows):

In one of the opening scenes of the play, [actress Musa Salkoya], along with several others, waits patiently to apply for a visa at the Ministry of Interior. The visa agent, portrayed brilliantly by 29-year-old Babi Ibrahim, is more interested in having an obnoxious cell phone conversation with a friend than helping anyone waiting in line.

Just like that, the gap between the Israeli experience, and the Sudanese experience was suddenly bridged. Who among us hasn’t dealt with some frustrating form of Israeli bureaucracy, or a grocer who wouldn’t hang up the phone to assist us? Sudanese, Eritreans and Israelis found themselves laughing side by side—every member of the audience was decidedly in on the inside joke.

The play was conducted in Hebrew to reach a wider audience. And because Ibrahim “has such great Hebrew, he played all the roles in Israeli bureacracy,” said Feder.

“We really hope this has nothing to do with the show,” he said of Thursday's arrest. However, Feder and other activists are highly suspicious that police were aware of Ibrahim's role in the play, given the absurdly ironic, life-imitating art circumstances of the arrest — and the fact that, according to Feder, the policeman who arrested Ibrahim “called him by a nickname that we only use in the theater group.”

The suspect, though his bicycle charges have reportedly been dropped, now faces indefinite imprisonment in ” target=”_blank”>Human Rights Watch.

The Tel Aviv Police Department didn't answer calls for comment, but did release this statement to ” target=”_blank”>They rallied outside Attorney General Weinstein's mansion in Herzliya over the weekend, enraged that the recently expanded Anti-Infiltration Law had so soon been used to put away one of the most peace-loving, solution-oriented asylum seekers in Tel Aviv. “He's such a great person, with a will to start a dialogue,” said Feder.

A blazing Facebook campaign called “ Coincidence? Tel Aviv cops arrest Darfuri actor who played Tel Aviv cop in theatrical critique Read More »