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Once again the light dusting of snow wreaks havoc in London. Newspapers have been full of despairing comment pieces relating to public transport problems and the closure of schools. Thousands of schools have been closed for reasons which are not always totally comprehensible or transparent. How many times have we heard that schools need to be closed? One of the reasons often referred to is the fact that there are health and safety issues and that “it’s no good having all of the children turning up to school if some of the teachers can’t get there”. One wonders how determined are they to make that effort in order that they can be in their workplace to further the education of those in their charge?

I run a large care home of almost 200 residents. All of these people are old, vulnerable, frail and many are in need of 24 hour assistance. Unlike a school, I cannot close the care home and send all of the residents home because the staff might not be able to get to work! Staff do come to work. It’s not easy.It’s disruptive. It’s cold and unpleasant and it would be much easier to stay in bed! But people don’t. They make the effort because they have a sense of responsibility to those for whom they are caring.

They know the high degree of dependency which our residents have and if they, the staff, are not present, the consequences would be critical. One therefore wonders why in one sector of public life, staff are unable to get to work and in another sector, a sense of responsibility is shown and people do get to work.

http://cifwatch.com/2013/01/22/the-guardian-gets-it-wrong-exit-polls-ind...

And remember Jonathan Freedland's warning in the JC last Friday to those of us who opposed the Board's Oxfam tie-up:

On Tuesday Israel is set to elect what many believe will be the most right-wing government in the Jewish state’s history. That’s not just the view of usual suspect lefties. .... there are about to be many, many people opposed to the Israeli government... If we decide that we can only have contact with those who support the Israeli government ... we are about to become very lonely. For we will find that we have no one to talk to but ourselves.

Brandon this morning has raised issues for us about making a sacrifice in order to achieve a goal. In considering what a perfect sacrifice might be, he suggests that we should think about what we can do towards repairing or perfecting our world, a concept that is mystically termed tikkun olam. Coupled with a conversation with his sister, Saskia on Thursday concerning history and specifically that of American History, I had a few hours to consider the disproportionate involvement of American Jewry in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

I expected and found articles recounting the active participation of Jews marching alongside African Americans in their fight against discrimination. The depth of involvement was incredible. Thousands of Jewish students involved in sit-ins and marches. Over a third of the Freedom Riders were Jewish, those who challenged the ‘Jim Crow’ segregation laws on public transportation in the southern United States, a method today employed in Israel to confront the mehadrim bus routes in Charedi areas that segregate by gender. These rides were often met by mobs, often organised by Ku Klux Klansmen. Many were hospitalized and most infamously, there were the murders in Mississippi of Goodman, Scherner and Chaney, in 1964.

Many Rabbis took a lead in the Civil Rights Movement. Rabbi Joachim Prinz, a refugee from Nazi Germany and president of the American Jewish Congress was one of the speakers on the platform when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his ‘I have a dream’ speech. Rabbi Eugene Borowitz who I had the privilege to study with as a Student Rabbi in New York, was imprisoned in Florida with other rabbis seeking to end segregation. And most famously, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the generations leading thinkers, influenced by the ancient Hebrew Prophets and his own experience as a German refugee many of whose family members were murdered by the Nazis, walked arm-in-arm with Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, James Forman and other leading civil rights workers on the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, March 1964.

This is an edited version of the original, sent to Deputies - full links were appended. The motion to partner with Oxfam was carried 113 - 65, 15 abstentions

1. Why are you bringing this motion?

(a) Because the Oxfam project was initiated undemocratically

MEMO 336 A weekly overview of information of interest to minority ethnic communities in Scotland, including parliamentary activity at Holyrood and Westminster, new publications, consultations, forthcoming conferences and news reports.
http://www.scojec.org/memo/2013/memo_336_21_january_2013.pdf

“Vayechezak leiv Paroh v’lo shama aleihem.” Pharaoh’s heart strengthened and he did not listen to them.

The accounts of the plagues that God was said to have punished the Egyptians with, contain some subtle additions to the stock phrase that “Vayechezak leiv Paroh v’lo shama aleihem.” Pharaoh’s heart strengthened and he did not listen to them. These nuances are beautiful literary devices that I hope that we have the opportunity to study together but for now, let us address the general motif.

Pharaoh is caught in a vicious cycle. He will not listen – his heart is hardened so he will not listen. At first, this cycle is propagated because Pharaoh’s magicians are able to duplicate the wonder. His resistance is strengthened. So he does not listen. The plagues worsen and the magicians are not able to revoke the plagues and then are themselves afflicted by boils and in their pain or embarrassment do not even show-up. Pharaoh responds with silence. In the words of Aviva Gottleib Zornberg, “Fear freezes him in a catatonic silence (The Particulars of Rapture, p. 98).” The change from ‘Pharaoh’s heart hardened or Pharaoh hardened his heart’ to ‘God hardened Pharaoh’s heart’ in the final plagues, Zornberg suggests is an attempt to describe the utter helplessness of the man to act any differently – he seems to have been seized by a devil leading him to his own destruction.

MEMO 335 A weekly overview of information of interest to minority ethnic communities in Scotland, including parliamentary activity at Holyrood and Westminster, new publications, consultations, forthcoming conferences and news reports.
http://www.scojec.org/memo/2013/memo_335_14_january_2013.pdf

Find out what's going on around Scotland by reading SCoJeC's latest news update!
http://www.scojec.org/news/2013/update/13i.pdf