Tarek Fahmy: Cultural Critic

EVENT HELD @: Congregation Ansche Chesed
Co-sponsored by Congregation Ansche Chesed and J Street NYC

I found out about the New Israel Fund (NIF) via an old college friend,
(Hillit Zwick, Associate Director - NIF).

I am on their mailing list and I have been getting invitations to interesting events that promote communication and understanding. I like their overall peaceful message that stresses coexistence with the ‘Other‘. Off-course, the ‘Other‘ is the archetypal other tribe, other ethnicity, other color, other religion, the other person that is not like me.

On their website’s About Page, the first paragraph reads:

The New Israel Fund (NIF) is the leading organization committed to democratic change within Israel. Since 1979, NIF has fought for social justice and equality for all Israelis.  We believe that Israel can live up to its founders’ vision of a state that ensures complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, without regard to religion, race or gender.

I like that message a lot and I truly hope that it’s for real and not just empty rhetoric. Whether the above applies to non-Israelis & non-Jews as well is an entirely different issue that I will not address here. I still love the fact that this organization is progressive and supports a two state solution.

I also understand that inside Israel there is a class system and a social hierarchy amongst Jews that needs to be addressed as much as the Palestinian question.  You see, there are a number of ethnic divisions amongst Israeli Jews. Some of these ethnicities are:

• Ashkenazi Jews: Eastern Europe, Hungary, Russia, Lithuania, Belarus (European Jews)
• Sephardi Jews: The Iberian peninsula Jews (Spaniards, Moroccans, Portuguese, Turks)
• Romaniotes Jews: Greeks
• Yemenite Jews: Separate from Ashkenazi & Sephardi
• African Jews: Amongst the African Jews there are many subsets and divisions.
• Chinese Jews: Kaifeng Jews is a prime example and an old example as well.
• Mizrahi Jews: Middle Eastern Jews. Similar to Sephardic but not exactly.
• Bene Ephraim & Cochin Jews & Bnei Menashe
  & Bene Israel & Baghdadi Jews & : Indian Jews
  (The above is taken from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ethnic_divisions)

There are many sects, subsets, and permutations of the jewish peoples living today in Israel. Within these ethnic divisions there exists this tribal mentality of Us Vs. Them and a social class hierarchy that cannot be ignored. I believe that the NIF’s main message is to work on these seeming inequalities, within the Israeli society, and not only the Palestinian issue.

Next time you hear the words Israeli Jew ask yourself which ethnicity are they referring to. Israel is such a complicated country occupied by a melting pot of different ethnicities situated in an even more complicated area of competing religions. No wonder, I feel, that we will probably never see peace in Palestine any time soon.

This Thursday July 1st at Congregation Ansche Chesed Mr. Avraham Burg will hold a talk about Israeli politics and a potential two state solution.

If you are in the New York area RSVP here. I will be there!!

Below are screen shots of the event’s invitation page taken from the NIF website.

Honestly, I stumbled on this interesting and fun of a parade in NYC. I’ve developed this ritual of going to Washington Square Park after work and/or during the weekends. I go there to read, people watch, and record street performances that always seem to take place at this iconic park.

This time when I got out of the subway I was in for a pleasant surprise. Scores of people were lined up behind police barricades off of Avenue of The Americas and the 9th street area. It was the Gay Pride Parade and I instinctually took out my phone video camera and started shooting anything and everything.

I missed out on the big floats but still captured some interesting stuff. I spliced, cut, and pasted some footage with Blur’s 1994 track, “Boys & Girls”.

I DO NOT NECESSARILY SUBSCRIBE TO THE FOLLOWING BELIEFS AND/OR IMAGES but I did find them interesting::::

Sitting in Starbucks @ Astor Place & Lafayette (The biggest Starbucks in NYC) and working on a project. I look to my left and I see a very interesting tattoo of a devil looking figure on a cross. I instinctually take out my camera and snap a couple of photographs without asking the person with the tattoos.

The PICS came out pretty badly so I started a conversation with this guy. It turns out that he has a special website dedicated to this tattoo and he is the owner of funny dress up Jesus magnets; an illustrator by trade.

Behind every sinner there’s a saint and vice versa

I think this simplistic statement holds true in everything in life. Black & White explanations are simply too rigid and unrealistic for us neurotic and complicated homosapiens.

What started out as taking pictures of a tattoo turned out to be a very interesting conversation with a very interesting guy. As a matter of fact, I know a couple of friends who bought his magnets. He has been around for 10 years (his magnets).

I have noticed recently that I have been taking pictures of pictures (still or moving). Whether the pictures that I take are from a computer screen (Youtube + Websites), a street billboard, or moving images (theatre + TV), It seems like I have been reproducing reproductions. I am taking a picture of a picture and making a new image.

At times I don’t even use a camera, I use my Apple’s screen capture feature to take pictures from Youtube videos and other video websites. I then import these images into Photoshop and tweak them to my liking. I crop, color correct, and at times totally change their ‘genetic’ make-up and make them my own.

With the Internet, Youtube, and the blogosphere (there are countless of images that saturate the web) it’s easy to appropriate other people’s images and make them your own. It’s the age of digital and algorithmic recycling. At the same time, i don’t mind when my images are appropriated and are used by others; as long as a profit is not being made from this borrowing/appropriating/stealing.

I am just a small piece of the grand puzzle because my reproduced reproductions eventually will be reproduced by someone else and then these reproductions of reproductions of reproductions will be reproduced again and again, ad infinitum.

Valhalla Rising is a pretty good film (2009) directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. It’s about a one eyed fighter and a boy’s journey to self actualization.

The cinematography is incredibly lush and surreal. A feast for the eyes as well as a feast for the mind, Valhalla will not disappoint.