Beautifully written through the eyes of women who have witnessed the injustices and human rights violations perpetrated against the Palestinians, the authors of Shifting Sands describe the facts behind the creation of Israel, the current situation in the occupied territories and their own painful realizations in facing these realities.  Through this ardent culmination of personal essays, sixteen Jewish women bravely share their epiphanies about Palestine and Israel, past and present.

The book’s editor and coauthor, Osie Gabriel Adelfang, began her awakening when her cousin, an Israeli soldier, refused to serve in the occupied territories.  He had written an open letter stating his reasons for refusal and wanted it translated into English.  Her translation of his letter began her own transformation.  Once regarding the Israeli military as a symbol of strength and integrity, she came to understand that the occupation of Palestinian lands had nothing to do with self-defense.  Adelfang, who spoke at Chicago’s Women and Children First bookstore, stated that upon learning the truth, she felt betrayed and lied to when it came to Israel and Palestine.  She felt like a “patsy.”

Co-writer, Linda Dittmar, who grew up in Tel Aviv from 1939-1960, wondered as a little girl why the lights had disappeared from a nearby Palestinian village called Lifta.  As a child, she didn’t dare ask such a question.  As an adult, she came to find that Lifta had been destroyed and ethnically cleansed of its inhabitants along with hundreds of other Palestinian villages that existed prior to the 1948 creation of Israel.  Her awareness of the situation came gradually.  As she states, “It crept and sidled towards me; it coaxed, bullied, and shamed me.”

In an especially poignant chapter by coauthor, Starhawk, reality is confronted with irrefutable candor.  This chapter combines both passion and logic for a result that stuns the reader and allows no room for denial.  She begins her chapter with the 2002 Israeli massacre at a Jenin refugee camp.  She describes the anguish of a father pulling the charred corpses of his two young daughters from the rubble.  Nothing is sugar coated.  The reality is stark discussing recent Israeli attacks as well as early Zionist European settlers who went to Palestine with a sense of religious and ethnic superiority seeing the native population only as an obstacle.  Starhawk’s bluntness, however, cannot mask her sense of loss and sadness over what has transpired in the name of Judaism.

Other contributors to this anthology include Hedy Epstein; a Jewish-American activist whose parents vanished in the holocaust, Emma Rosenthal; a Jewish-American human rights activist, Amira Hass; a columnist with Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper and Anna Baltzer; a Jewish-American author, lecturer and activist.  Each gifted co-writer tells of her own unique evolution through human tales of loss, sorrow, pain and hope.  The outcome is powerful and educational even for those who are well versed in the realities of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

Sifting through the one sided barrage of pro Israeli media coverage in the U.S. has left the population here in the dark with regard to Palestine, refugees, ethnic cleansing, settlement building and $7,000,000 per day of U.S. taxpayer money to Israel.  But the truth can no longer be hidden thanks to the courage and compassion of these women and others like them.  This book has no lobbyists behind it, no corporate interests and no hidden agendas.  It is very simply the truth rearing its ugly head through engaging, passionate and sometimes painful stories.  Shifting Sands presents an opportunity to learn what every human being has a right and an obligation to know, the truth.

Shifting Sands can be purchased on Amazon and also at Women and Children First in Andersonville here in Chicago.

        

In just over a week, I'll be hitting the road again to promote Shifting Sands. I'm very much looking forward to the different events and meeting people in Toronto, Rochester (NY), and Richmond (VA). There will be 5 gigs total:

July 29, 2010
Beit Zatoun
Toronto, ON, Canada
"The Work of Their Hands Shall Endure"
In this lecture hosted by Beit Zatoun (see below*), Shifting Sands editor Osie Gabriel Adelfang will talk about the Jewish women activists who contributed to the book. Keeping in mind that the true heroes of this struggle are the Palestinians who continue to live and resist an unbearable occupation, the evening will celebrate women activists and the unique perspective women, and each particular woman, brings to the discussion of Israel/Palestine and how she has separated her Jewish identity from the mainstream Jewish POV. Often subjected to hate mail, threats, isolation and even violence, each of these women still chooses (or believes there is no other moral choice than) to speak the truth against the immense pressure of her own community. Shifting Sands, the much-anticipated groundbreaking new anthology will be available along with contributor Anna Baltzer's video, "Life in Occupied Palestine."

* , which means House of Olive (beit means house in both Arabic andHebrew) is a culture and art venue providing gallery and performancespace for the justice and human rights community in Toronto. It aims toraise awareness and create greater understanding as the ultimate meansto peace, through art and culture, and by hosting exhibits, talks,screenings, plays, music, dance, workshops, and a resource centre.

August 3, 2010
Java's Books
Rochester, NY
"Which side are you on?"
"In all my years of political activism, I never broke the taboo against criticizing my own people, my Jewish family." Thus begins Shifting Sands contributor Sandra Butler's essay "My Feet Were Praying." She continues: "I have been armed to the teeth with both left and feminist analysis most of my political life. Which side are you on, the labor union song asks? I always thought I knew what side I was on and who was on it with me." Editor Osie Gabriel Adelfang will read Butler's essay as well as another, Maia Ettinger's "Okupacia," revealing the painful choice many Jewish activists for peace and justice face: Do I stand up for my long-suffering people no matter what, or do I live by Jewish principles of questioning, of taking the side of the oppressed, of speaking the truth and living a moral life. Question/Answer period and book signing to follow.

August 4, 2010
Temple Brith Kodesh
Rochester, NY
"Do Not Stand Idly By"
At age 14, Hedy Epstein said goodbye to her parents and boarded the Kindertransport to London. Later, in the United States, she became active in politics and the anti Vietnam war movement. It was not until 1982 when she was 68 that she gave much thought to Israel/Palestine. At a community meeting, she was shocked when  her fellow Jews cheered upon hearing of the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, she realized something was terribly wrong: "why were Jews supporting a massacre?" she asked herself. At 79, Hedy first went to Israel/Palestine to demonstrate against the separation wall. Her story is incredible and unforgettable, as she lives by the biblical principle "Do not stand idly by while your neighbor's blood is shed." It is also a very Jewish story: Jews have long been in the forefront of social and economic justice: the labor union movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa. Hedy and the other authors of the anthology carry on that tradition and encourage others to get involved and speak out for truth and justice, democracy and peace.

August 8, 2010
Unitarian Universalist Church of Glenns Falls
Glenns Falls, VA
"Heresies in Pursuit of Peace"
The Unitarian Universalist congregation seems like the appropriate venue for reading a complex Shifting Sands essay by a Jewish Pagan American about Israel and Palestine. "I understand quite well the wrenching emotional journey that many Jews must make to admit the reality of what Israel is," says Starhawk. And she describes both the journey and the reality in richly textured, lyrical prose, ending with a prayer—a small action—for peace. Shifting Sands editor Osie Adelfang will add to the piece by presenting other ideas for helping to end the occupation and bring justice and democracy to Israel/Palestine, including the five-year-old boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) campaign called for by Palestinian civil society.

August 11, 2010
Chop Suey Tuey bookstore
Richmond, VA
"Breaking Down Walls"
Shifting Sands editor Osie Gabriel Adelfang and cover artist Mim Golub Scalin will read some favorite selections from the anthology. The book is intended to open people's hearts and move them to action, because as contributor Anna Baltzer says, "the Palestinians don't need our sympathy, they need an end to the occupation." After the readings, we will briefly discuss some ideas for action and sign first editions of the book.

        

(thank you Raymond Deane for this review, which does a great job of describing the book and its convergent themes, and for providing analysis and a call to action)


Several of the essays in this remarkable book feature a characteristic "epiphany" (a moment when the hitherto concealed truth of a situation flashes forth). For Maia Ettinger this was a photo in the New York Times showing "a clean-shaven young Arab man" descending "the steps of a government building in Israel", " four uniformed Israeli soldiers... pushing him, tearing at his clothes, kicking his legs. And laughing." For Hedy Epstein it was the applause of "a mainstream Jewish community group" on hearing news of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982. For Sandra Butler it was the 13th International Women in Black Conference in Israel/Palestine that made her "eyes and ... heart fill with an altered reality..." For Osie Gabriel Adelfang, who has edited the collection, it was translating from Hebrew into English a letter from her refusenik cousin for publication in the UK Guardian (May 6, 2002) that taught her "a lesson in courage and hope."

Such moments are also familiar to many Gentiles whose path to the Palestinian cause was not necessarily a self-evident one. Jews, however, have a specific opportunity - and, perhaps, responsibility - to fight the propaganda ploy that maliciously equates Zionists and Jews, and anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Contributor Emma Rosenthal is refreshingly described as "affirmatively Jewish and assertively anti-Zionist", a combination that is slowly but inevitably changing public perceptions of the Palestine issue in the two countries that hitherto have been most unquestionably supportive of the Zionist project - the USA and Germany.

Rosenthal's prose piece Good Germans (somewhere between a poem and an essay) explores a risky option that is also more available to Jews than to Gentiles: the comparison with Nazi Germany. Starhawk, a global justice activist linked to the International Solidarity Movement, places such a reference in context: "If we don't like the Nazi parallel, we must refuse to become Nazis."

The texts in Shifting Sands do indeed display "a determined sense of justice and compassion" (Michael Parenti) and "a deep sense of love for humanity" (Sam Bahour), but they are also energizing and mobilising. The final Appendix, compiled by Anna Baltzer, is subtitled Get involved! and advocates, among other activities, joining solidarity campaigns, engaging in Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, monitoring the media, and travelling to Palestine - "It will change your life."

        

Publisher Laurieann Aladin interviews activist Hannah Mermelstein about her contribution to shifting sands, an essay titled "The Search for 1948" and about her activism. Hannah is co-founder of Birthright Unplugged and Birthright Replugged, alternative tours of Israel Palestine. Seattle talk radio 1150 AM KKNW

I didn't get a chance to download this to podcast when the interview was originally broadcast. A must-hear for those who haven't considered the original occupation—before 1967's occuapation of the West Bank and Gaza, almost a million Palestinians were displaced from their homes by Israeli and pre-Israeli forces. Many Palestinian towns and villages were razed, Jewish ones built in their place to erase signs of Al Nakbah (the catastrophe in Arabic, Israel's Independence Day. But in Jerusalem and elsewhere, many Israelis live in homes that belonged to Palestinian families, families that still often hold the deeds, even the keys, to the homes they never sold or voluntarily relinquished. Hannah goes on a search for one such home, a house that belonged to her friend and his family before they were forced to flee, a place they still remember and call 'home'.

Hannah's and other alternative tours give U.S. Jews and others an opportunity to see the reality of the Israeli occupation from the ground. Just yesterday (I"m sure a bot found all my mentions of Israel) I got tweets from an Israeli travel agency extolling the virtues of its tours. I tweeted back:

@israeltravelpro More #Israel travel fun! http://bit.ly/dk4XAg http://bit.ly/asCIJw-see demolished homes, #apatheid wall,refugee camps.

Hannah is doing incredibly important work. If you don't know which side to believe, if you think the pro-Palestinian side is only repeating propaganda, if you want to learn more about the occupation, don't believe anyone on any side—go see for yourself. then come back and tell the people back home. Read her essay about the search for her friend's home in Shifting Sands: Jewish Women Confront the Israeli Occuaption. As of this writing, Amazon.com has the book on sale for a limited time for only $11.52!

        

Even before publication, Shifting Sands: Jewish Women Confront the Israeli Occupation had already begun to attract the attention of those who disagree with (what they think is, as they hadnot read it) the book’s subject matter. It’s not that I’m surprised at this. In fact, I chose to edit an anthology of different Jewish women’s voices about the occupation specifically because I know this is a highly charged, very emotional topic that deserves to be treated with care and respect. In my experiences as a writer (and even more so as a reader), it is often (maybe always) easier to open your heart when faced with individual, human stories than with more statistics, more numbers, more information about a faceless problem “over there.”

Being a writer, I do love analogies, so here’s one: When my daughter went to Montessori school, she used math beads to do complex math she would not have been able to explain in theory. With the rows of 10 attached beads, she could count by 10s, create 10²—10 squared—by creating an actual square of beads and know how many beads were in the bead cube (10³). But at six, she couldn’t (and didn’t need to) explain what the theory behind squaring and cubing in math was, nor would she have known how to answer (without the beads), what is 5²? However, with this concrete information, as she gets older and understands things in a more complete an theoretical way, she will have a much easier time because she has already seen it proven (in 3D!).

With this idea in mind, I believed (and still do) that instead of expecting people to rationally and without bias sort through all the information, memory, emotion and propaganda they’ve accumulated over a lifetime regarding the Middle East, it makes more sense to start with the concrete, offer up some beads, then let the reader string them together into the beginnings of a theory that makes sense. And then, with that background, that person can take what he or she learned out into the world and test it against other ideas, thereby building a true knowledge based upon experience.

Part of the way kids learn about the world (and grown-ups, too) is to ask questions and offer up ideas for discussion. Why is the ocean blue? Do you think God poured paint in there to make it pretty—wait, you’re right, it is clear when  you put it in a pail, it just looks blue…” etc. (I mentioned I do like analogies, right?) So that’s the basis for the book, from my perspective. And my hope is that these stories enter people’s hearts in a new way, allow them to make room for new information and new ideas, that we ask questions and have discussions. Since I’ve begun working on the project, I’ve had many, many such conversations. In fact, several of my contributors’ essays (and discussions I have had with them and the many amazing activists I've met on this journey) have broadened or even eclipsed my assumptions about various aspects of the topic. I’ve learned a lot by handling these prose beads.

Which is why I find it not surprising but incredibly frustrating when people, rather than sharing the beads and working together so they make sense, completely refuse to play nice and immediately turn into bullies. In this case, without having even seen the “beads” yet (definitely buy the book first, people , these folks have begun to rage about the very idea that I’m presenting these particular beads, that I would dare to ask women for their personal stories and gather them into a book. What they are saying, in essence, is: I hate Montessori and you’re a bad person for promoting it, or: how dare you present these Montessori beads without ALSO explaining how to learn math theoretically, or by the New Math method, or some other way.

Because I have edited this book, I have been verbally abused and physically intimidated in person, insulted and threatened on social networking sites, and received hate mail at my home. For example, after a newspaper article and blog post about the book appeared in the local press, some kindhearted fellow Jews explained to me that I am a “self hating Jewish anti Semite” (sic) and that my name is “DRECK in the Jewish community” (I don’t speak Yiddish, so had to ask, but it means garbage). A lovely Israeli Facebook user called me an anti-Semitic whore (I do speak Hebrew, no translation needed). I’ve been informed that my name “will be spit upon any time it is mentioned.” I’ve had a large man stand over me (sort of spitting, but that was just the frothing in anger), wagging his finger as he screamed in my face: “Liar! Liar!” Someone who is apparently in charge of membership in the Jewish community has excommunicated me from “it,” (if I hang out  with other Jewish people, are we not a community? Not the “real” one, apparently). I've been informed that I can no longer be Jewish because of my views on peace. There’s more, of course. The details differ but they all have one thing in common: lots of wrath, zero facts. That’s not a discourse, it’s an attack. (One last analogy: when kids get angry, the primary emotion beneath it is usually fear. But the best way to dispel fear is to name it, bring it out into the light, examine it, embrace it, overcome it. Dealing with fear by reacting with anger may give the fearful child temporary relief, but the fear is still there, just waiting for tomorrow).

Imagine just mentioning Montessori math and being called anti-math, a math-hating whore, etc. You get the idea. I am happy to have a discussion about my book with anyone who is interested in peace, in learning. I am so willing to talk about this topic—it is close to my heart, I want to learn more and tell others what I know—and I love talking about the writing itself—the stories in this book are works of art. So those of us who are interested in opening ourselves up to new information, are curious or passionate or love to learn, for those who care about human rights, freedom, justice, there is so much we can talk about that these folks are missing out on:

Because one of the main fears (I think) is that “everyone hates us,” let’s talk about real anti-Semitism that is alive and well in the world today, and why this topic (the Israeli occupation) is such a sensitive one for even the most peaceful, progressive Jews. Let’s talk about what’s really happening now in Israel/Palestine, let’s truly understand the complexity and tragedy before we move on to what happened back then, what really happened and how it’s lead us to where we are. Let’s talk about U.S. aid to Israel, $3 billion a year to a government that continues to build illegal settlements with no regard to continued U.S. government opposition. Does the U.S. government really love the Jewish people? Otherwise, what’s the motivation and what happens when/if the U.S. switches allegiances? And please, let’s talk about these courageous Jewish women writers and why their stories are resonate so strongly.

Each story is as individual as its author. An essay titled “Lights Vanish in Lifta,” is written from the point of view of a young Jewish girl (Linda Dittmar, now a UMASS Boston Professor Emerita). In the story, she describes the apparent disappearance of a villageful of Palestinians during what the Israelis call “The War of Independence” and Palestinians call Al Nakbah (“the catastrophe”). Activist/writer Anna Baltzer’s essay “The Right to Exist,” describes Ms. Baltzer’s conversation with a young Palestinian peace worker. The man, born and raised in Balata refugee camp, shares his experience living under occupation and his intense commitment to peace despite tragic circumstances.

It’s easier to create peace when you see ‘the other’ as real, as a three-dimensional human being. And that is something incredible these writers have achieved; they show us the situation through each of their own experiences. I hope that before becoming rigid and defensive, people will take the time to actually read these amazing stories and absorb them. Maybe then we can begin a new conversation, one that can lead to a real and just and lasting peace. If you are interested in civil discourse, I am happy to have a discussion within this forum. You can also ask questions or post comments on the Shifting Sands Facebook page. The book has its own blog, with updates and information, feel free to subscribe and pass it on!

Shifting Sands is available at Amazon.com. The book is published by emerging green publishing cooperative Whole World Press.

        

(please stay tuned for a couple of great podcasts: interviews of Shifting Sands contributors on Seattle Talk Radio. I missed my chance to grab them but will post as soon as I get copies). Some notes:

• On Thursday, Shifting Sands reached#23 in Amazon's "War and Peace" category! Here's the link to order Shifting Sands: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0984512810   You can also use this link to read reviews (5 stars, thank you!) and write your own.
• Please follow Shifting Sands on twitter @shifting__sands (two underscores, not one) and add us to your lists.
• I've simplified the book's own website at www.shiftingsands-book.com
• Cindy Sheehan and Emma Rosenthal have been doing book events in L.A. this weekend, thank you both!
• The book's editor (me) will be doing some Southeast events in June/July, then heading up to Toronto, Rochester and Washington DC in August.
• Our first fundraiser contributed all proceeds to Free Gaza Movement! I'd like to continue to do fundraisers for future flotillas—and if your group is in line with the book's vision of peace, justice, human rights, democracy for all, please contact me re. fundraisers for your organization.
• The BDS movement is growing, I've been posting some updates on the Shifting Sands fan page on facebook.
• I highly recommend an incredibly disturbing, very moving article in Ha'aretz by Shifting Sands preface writer and award-winning journalist Amira Hass: Beatings, arrests, nighttime raids and dubious indictments www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/amira-hass-beatings-arrests-nighttime-raids-and-dubious-indictments-1.295998?localLinksEnabled=false
• Check back for more detailed and exciting blog entries soon—it's been a whirlwind!

        

Download | Duration: 00:27:49

        

I had the pleasure of hearing contributor Anna Baltzer speak in Nashville, TN, Tuesday night. The turnout for her presentation was great, no surprise considering how well Anna is able to present information about the occupation with strength and compassion. She spoke and answered questions about the occupation, the BDS movement, the conditions in Gaza and the West bank, the history that has led to the current situation, and her hopes for the future. The icing on the cake was amazing Middle Eastern food prepared by local Palestinian families. If you get a chance to see Anna on tour, do not miss it!  You can read more about her passion for peace in the Middle East, her compassion, and her projects at www.AnnaInTheMiddleEast.com. You can also purchase her book and video via the site, and both are incredible. And of course, you can read Anna's essay, "The Right to Exist," in Shifting Sands, to be published next Tuesday, May 4! Preorder the book today at amazon.com .

        

I had a great time with Cindy Sheehan talking about the book (and doing a little reading) on this week's edition of Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

www.cindysheehansoapbox.com   download, listen, distribute! THANKS!

        

This one has bothered me for a long time.

In college, I read an Ursula K. LeGuin short story called "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." I'm going to copy and paste Wiki's plot summary here, there is tons about this very well-read and obviously allegorical tale out there on the 'net:

Plot summary from Wiki:

In the story, Omelas is a utopian city of happiness and delight, whose inhabitants are smart and cultured. Everything about Omelas is pleasing, except for the secret of the city: the good fortune of Omelas requires that a single unfortunate child be kept in perpetual filth, darkness and misery, and that all her citizens should be told of this on coming of age.

After being exposed to the truth, most of the people of Omelas are initially shocked and disgusted, but are ultimately able to come to terms with the fact and resolve to live their lives in such a manner as to make the suffering of the unfortunate child worth it. However, some few of the citizens, young or old, silently walk away from the city, and no one knows where they go. The story ends with "The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."

I've read analysis of this piece that talks about Nazi Germany, the "Good Germans" of Emma's poem who know but pretend not to, who sacrificet their own moral compass for the comfort of belonging to a particular society. And there are the people of Omelas, who have learned to live with the knowledge of the misery their utopia causes to others, and then to silence that knowledge and develop a justification for their position so strong that the horror they have supressed must never be mentioned, and that those who mention it must be silenced or cast out in order for the others to continue to live in happiness.

I can see this story as an allegory for many things (Americans and the Iraq war, for one), but I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone analyze it in terms of Israel/Palestine. The story's description of the people, the way they learn to integrate the horrors that seem impossible to live with into their lives as a necessary part of things, the way mainstream Jewish society requires as part of belonging a willingness to be complicit in the silence, to push it down so deeply they forget it's even there, and that their happiness relies on it. All this creates a justification system so complex as to take anyone's mentioning of the horrors and turn it into anti-happiness, anti-self, to silence it as quickly as possible so as not to end the utopian fantasy of Israel as a safe haven for the Jews.

Here's my problem with the story, though. LeGuin explains it away by saying that the child in the basement can't be saved, that it's too late, that it is too damaged, that dissenters must bravely, if alone, walk away from Omelas. Walking away allows the complicit to continue, and the suffering of the child to be everlasting. Much more brave than to walk away from Omelas would be to stay where you are and speak the truth.

In my alternate ending, the truth chips away at the stories the Omelans have told themselves, the rationalizations, the lies. It strenghtens the young people still horrified. It pushes them to ask: Is it true, as we've always been told, that our utopia really rests on the shoulders of this child's suffering? Only one way to find out.

And when they go and rescue the child, is it too late to save him or her ("it" in the story, not seen as human)? Or might it be possible that the child has learned from tragedy, understands the Omelans better than they do themselves, is full of forgiveness, and—with the true regret of an awakened population, with peace and justice and reconciliation now  necessary to the newly morally awake people of Omelas—this child, and his/her children, and theirs thrive after all in a less exclusive, less visionary, more real, more honest society. A society of people living with eyes wide open.

Just sayin', Ursula!