Tikkun Olam

I know this is old-ish news; you've probably seen it already on Jameel's blog. But the truth is, I intended to post this last week (do intentions count?). I intended to post lots of things last week, but being true to my title as Queen of the Procrastinators, I procrastinated. This video of the interview of Bar-Ilan University's lecturer in Arabic Dr. Mordechai Kedar on Al-Jazeera just warmed the cockles of my heart, and gave me strength to hope. Would that our 'fearless' leaders (doesn't matter which country-you name it) had the courage to speak with such conviction, about such a Truth: May we go from strength to strength.

I loved flying in my youth (no, I don't mean drugs). It was so rare that I did it, and such an adventure. Not the long hours constricted on a plane, the lack of leg room, the recirculating bacteria-laden, canned air, nor the(current) boredom - none of it bothered me. I wasn't bored, I was thrilled! Now, flying to me is an ordeal; and this was a short trip (relatively speaking), approximately four hours to New York, " deh oldt cahntree" - my hometown. We took the red-eye, taking off after midnight and landing at 6 a.m. I was exhausted, and had developed a sinus post-nasal drip two days before and hadn't slept the night before our flight. But at least I thought that I would be able to sleep a bit. No such luck-hey, are those seats getting narrower, or am I getting wider? (-that's a rhetorical question, buddy.) But then, we finally arrived in New Yawk City: The sights! The smells! The wet cold insinuating itself into one's bones! The dull gray monochromatic...