We’re waiting to find out on Wed. morning Israel time if the skin graft for Ashira has taken root. If so, there’s a good chance that we’ll be back on the kibbutz for Friday night Shabbat Tu Bishvat and the seder there. 

Here’s the JTA article on the Babaganewz tu bishvat seder, Seeds of Hope. 

A seering hot metal wagon, just out of the oven, and a running 3 1/2 year old are not meant to ever meet.  Yet Shabbat lunch on kibbutz that’s just what happened.

I’m writing from a beautiful, small rented home 10 minutes walk from seroka hospital in be’er sheva, after two ambulance rides for Ashira, who suffered 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns and is now out of surgery and sleeping.  It’s another unexpected angle on our Peoplehood experience on so many levels.

We’re in the Children’s ward, bet, in room number three, sandwiched between a secular Israeli woman with an 8.5 month old with some breathing issues and a beduin woman with her one year old who suffered worse burns on his legs from boiling hot water.  The common language is, of course, Hebrew.  The connections forged in a short time between vastly different people is genuine. the food is all kosher, the mezuzuot are on each door. the first doctor we saw in beer sheva, after being transferred from eilat’s yoseftal hospital, was moslem, as are many on staff and among the patients. you know you’re not in a tourist area since the signs are all in hebrew and arabic without english.

The home i’m in is that of a friend’s friend and we’ve been reached out to by so many strangers who are somehow loosely connected. this one didn’t even know our name but was summoned to the hospital by some friends and told to look for americas in the children’s ward. this notion of quick to jump up and help others is deep within israeli society when it’s serious.

The most profound manifestation of this instinct, both tribal and so deeply human, can be seen the way the kibbutz has moblized on so many levels. we left our other four kids on the kibbutz, which is not simple thing. we’ve received dozens of phone calls. schedules have been organized. from the driver of the ambulance, to the cook who ran out quickly to cut an aloe branch and spread on her wounds immediately, to the people who arranged the hospital paperwork, picked up kids, fed kids, got them all to school on time (for the first time in a week!), cleaned our house, arranged for visitors, a car, a cell phone, sending new clothing for us, and so much more. it’s incredible and deeply humbling that somehow we have mystically marshalled such energetic, loving treatment. all we did was show up in the middle of the desert five months ago with some dreams, family ones and jewish ones.

We’re supposed to hopefully be home for shabbat but it all depends on how the skin graft takes and how shishi is doing.  a possible casualty in all this is the expose that I’ve done reporting but haven’t finished writing on Israel’s treatment of the Sudanese and I have some great, exclusive stuff. I will hopefully be able to focus and finish that within a week.  part of the goal of the article is to help Israel live up to her better self.  on a very deep level, we’ve seen a lot of that these past 24 hours, for which we’re deeply grateful. 

A seering hot metal wagon, just out of the oven, and a running 3 1/2 year old are not meant to ever meet.  Yet Shabbat lunch on kibbutz that’s just what happened.

I’m writing from a beautiful, small rented home 10 minutes walk from seroka hospital in be’er sheva, after two ambulance rides for Ashira, who suffered 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns and is now out of surgery and sleeping.  It’s another unexpected angle on our Peoplehood experience on so many levels.

We’re in the Children’s ward, bet, in room number three, sandwiched between a secular Israeli woman with an 8.5 month old with some breathing issues and a beduin woman with her one year old who suffered worse burns on his legs from boiling hot water.  The common language is, of course, Hebrew.  The connections forged in a short time between vastly different people is genuine. the food is all kosher, the mezuzuot are on each door. the first doctor we saw in beer sheva, after being transferred from eilat’s yoseftal hospital, was moslem, as are many on staff and among the patients. you know you’re not in a tourist area since the signs are all in hebrew and arabic without english.

The home i’m in is that of a friend’s friend and we’ve been reached out to by so many strangers who are somehow loosely connected. this one didn’t even know our name but was summoned to the hospital by some friends and told to look for americas in the children’s ward. this notion of quick to jump up and help others is deep within israeli society when it’s serious.

The most profound manifestation of this instinct, both tribal and so deeply human, can be seen the way the kibbutz has moblized on so many levels. we left our other four kids on the kibbutz, which is not simple thing. we’ve received dozens of phone calls. schedules have been organized. from the driver of the ambulance, to the cook who ran out quickly to cut an aloe branch and spread on her wounds immediately, to the people who arranged the hospital paperwork, picked up kids, fed kids, got them all to school on time (for the first time in a week!), cleaned our house, arranged for visitors, a car, a cell phone, sending new clothing for us, and so much more. it’s incredible and deeply humbling that somehow we have mystically marshalled such energetic, loving treatment. all we did was show up in the middle of the desert five months ago with some dreams, family ones and jewish ones.

we’re supposed to hopefully be home for shabbat but it all depends on how the skin graft takes and how shishi is doing.  a possible casualty in all this is the expose that I’ve done reporting but haven’t finished writing on Israel’s treatment of the Sudanese and I have some great, exclusive stuff. I will hopefully be able to focus and finish that within a week.  part of the goal of the article is to help Israel live up to her better self.  on a very deep level, we’ve seen a lot of that these past 24 hours, for which we’re deeply grateful. 

A seering hot metal wagon, just out of the oven, and a running 3 1/2 year old are not meant to ever meet.  Yet Shabbat lunch on kibbutz that’s just what happened.

I’m writing from a beautiful, small rented home 10 minutes walk from seroka hospital in be’er sheva, after two ambulance rides for Ashira, who suffered 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns and is now out of surgery and sleeping.  It’s another unexpected angle on our Peoplehood experience on so many levels.

We’re in the Children’s ward, bet, in room number three, sandwiched between a secular Israeli woman with an 8.5 month old with some breathing issues and a beduin woman with her one year old who suffered worse burns on his legs from boiling hot water.  The common language is, of course, Hebrew.  The connections forged in a short time between vastly different people is genuine. the food is all kosher, the mezuzuot are on each door. the first doctor we saw in beer sheva, after being transferred from eilat’s yoseftal hospital, was moslem, as are many on staff and among the patients. you know you’re not in a tourist area since the signs are all in hebrew and arabic without english.

The home i’m in is that of a friend’s friend and we’ve been reached out to by so many strangers who are somehow loosely connected. this one didn’t even know our name but was summoned to the hospital by some friends and told to look for americas in the children’s ward. this notion of quick to jump up and help others is deep within israeli society when it’s serious.

The most profound manifestation of this instinct, both tribal and so deeply human, can be seen the way the kibbutz has moblized on so many levels. we left our other four kids on the kibbutz, which is not simple thing. we’ve received dozens of phone calls. schedules have been organized. from the driver of the ambulance, to the cook who ran out quickly to cut an aloe branch and spread on her wounds immediately, to the people who arranged the hospital paperwork, picked up kids, fed kids, got them all to school on time (for the first time in a week!), cleaned our house, arranged for visitors, a car, a cell phone, sending new clothing for us, and so much more. it’s incredible and deeply humbling that somehow we have mystically marshalled such energetic, loving treatment. all we did was show up in the middle of the desert five months ago with some dreams, family ones and jewish ones.

we’re supposed to hopefully be home for shabbat but it all depends on how the skin graft takes and how shishi is doing.  a possible casualty in all this is the expose that I’ve done reporting but haven’t finished writing on Israel’s treatment of the Sudanese and I have some great, exclusive stuff. I will hopefully be able to focus and finish that within a week.  part of the goal of the article is to help Israel live up to her better self.  on a very deep level, we’ve seen a lot of that these past 24 hours, for which we’re deeply grateful. 

It is with a sense of awe and wonder, of gratitude and appreciation, that I can leak here that the Moscow Helsinki Group–the umbrella human rights group in Russia along with the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ), have been nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their historic work in preserving human and Jewish rights, balancing the particular and the universal, as Putin continues to clamp down creatively on NGOs.  Both NGOs, along with others, will also soon be announcing a new activist tool and strategy against xenaphobia, racism and antisemitism in Russia.  Balancing the particular and the universal is one of the key defining characterists of 21st century Jewish Peoplehood.

Contrasting the reception Ehud Olmert received at the GA in LA and the one he received tonight from Israel’s most influential conference and its participants is a constract in extremes.  Barely a polite applause when he entered, and he had to work the crowd for an unbearably long 3 minutes without applause, each second of silence a critique. 

The only applause line he received was at the beginning when he called for Israeli President Moshe Katzav to step down; Katzav tonight gave a nationally televised diatribe against the police and media that further dishonors the institution. 

Some pleasant surprises:  All three concluding speakers touched on the theme of the need for a sense of self and purpose by Israelis. (Hey, this Peoplehood thing is actually taking off)  Nobel prize winner Robert Aumann, former Minister of Education and fellow kibbutznik Aharon Yadlin (who, thanks to a little prodding from some blogger, has the distinction of being the first person in Israeli public life to announce that it is Ahad Ha’am’s 150th birthday), and right wing icon Geula Cohen. 

This search for purpose, and Katzav’s self-destruction, now sets the stage for Uzi Arad’s next Big Thing:  The World Jewish Forum. Akiva Tor today gave the conference an update and soon there will be some positive announcements about its progress and plans. 

http://mittromney.permissiontv.com/?showid=38209

It was very touching that Stanley Fisher, the governor of the bank of israel, delivered his address in Hebrew and also answered questions in Hebrew, even with some minor language mistakes.  If you didn’t follow it, he made Aliya to assume the position and is credited with helping the Israeli economy withstand so much and position it for growth in the future. 

Also Rabbi David Ellenson, prez of Hebrew Union College, addressed the crowd in Hebrew, breaking a stereotype about American Jewry and American Jewish leaders.

This gathering on the Mediterranian north of Tel Aviv is the annual power summit of Israeli life, with some American Jewish and other stragglers. Everyone here seems to be running for something.  We just heard from Sen. McCain, via satellite; Mitt Romney, my former governor, came in person and wowed the crowd.  Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister, gave a speech that extended past the relations of Israel with the world but also addressed internal issues. Matthew Bronfman appeared on a panel about future Jewish leadership and instead of addressing the topic, gave a well-written campaign speech for the Presidency of the World Jewish Congress, even though there isn’t a real election for the post his dad has held for quite some time. 

The focus and subtext for much of the conference is Iran. I’m feeling like they have the situation under control, understanding their options, believe that the U.S. will back them politically and militarily if needed, and have some tricks up their sleeves. 

There was an interesting session on identity and education. A pleasant surprise was the study of the impact of birthright israel on the Jewish identities of the Israeli soldiers who spend 5-10 days on the buses with the youth from around the world.  Shimshon Shoshani also hinted that Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas billionaire, is going to clear up the waiting list, meaning fund an extra 10,000-15,000 participants, which is extraordinary.  Too bad they really can’t figure out the follow up yet but it’s still good news.

more later.

JCPA and COEJL have announced how the big meeting they have in DC is going to have zero negative impact on the emissions of carbons, which cause global warming.  Carbon reduction is about to become the new cool Kosher(ish) trend in all things Jewish, as it should.