This is a list Leviathan’s Winter 2011 staff. Read the rest of this entry »
Posts Tagged ‘alexandria vickery’
Circumcision: From Covenant to Cure?
In Essays, Jewish Culture, Winter 2011 Issue on May 20, 2011 at 10:06 pmBy Alexandria Vickery
In Genesis 17:11, God commands Abraham: “You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.” Ritual circumcision symbolizes a commitment to the participation in and perpetuation of the Jewish faith. Jewish law states that Jewish-born males and uncircumcised male Jewish converts must undergo circumcision, or removal of the foreskin, in order to fulfill the contract necessary to be a Jew. Those who are circumcised are thought to have undergone a mitzvah aseh, or “positive commandment,” and have therefore created a personal connection to a divine source and the Jewish nation. On the eighth day after the birth of a Jewish male, he undergoes a Brit milah ceremony, or “covenant of circumcision,” presided over by a rabbi and performed by a mohel, a Jewish person specifically trained for the procedure. Read the rest of this entry »
Addressing Israel’s Water Crisis
In Essays, Israel, Winter 2011 Issue on May 16, 2011 at 6:10 am
By Alexandria Vickery
The more man develops and the more his emotions and awareness become deeper and broader, and his knowledge becomes richer, he is in greater need of direct attachment inside of nature. To suckle directly from this vast global experience.
– A.D. Gordon, 1951
On February 7, Alon Tal, a Ben Gurion University Desert Ecology professor, founder of the Israeli Green Party, and author of “Pollution in a Promised Land,” visited UC Santa Cruz to give a talk on the environmental consequences of limited water resources in Israel, a crisis compounded by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and potentially the subject of future dispute1. He described Israel as possessing environmental assets well worth preserving, and suggested that the land and its preservation could be the source of harmony in the midst of the conflict. Ecology and environmentalism are binding ties not only of the people to the land, but also of the people to each other—it creates a common natural history and remarkable heritage, and in taking care of it, the peace process can start. In a situation where improved environmental conditions are reliant on a State’s neighbors as much as the State itself, the collective and communal efforts of everyone in the region are necessary for progress. The current water shortage in Israel is an example of an issue beyond personal politics and affiliation: it is a common, human, environmental problem in which the people need the land and the land needs the people, a situation where pragmatism and cooperation are more effective than dissension and strife.