As for "Spero" news/forum, please refer to my previous posting (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20141017). I have received a kind invitation by Mr. Martin Barillas, a former American diplomat, to write something for his website in 2008. (Lily)
1. Spero Forum (http://www.speroforum.com)
(1) Israel: archaeologists' find confirms presence of Roman occupation army, 21 October 2014
A 2,000 year old commemorative inscription dedicated to the Emperor Hadrian was uncovered in Jerusalem that according to archaeologist Dr. Rina Avner 'is an extraordinary find of enormous historical importance'.
by Martin Barillas
A find of "tremendous historical significance," was announced today in Jerusalem by the Israeli Antiquities Authority. A stone fragment bearing an official inscription in Latin dedicated to Roman emperor Hadrian was found during excavations north of the Damascus Gate. Dr. Rina Avner and Roie Greenwald of the IAA told the press that the inscription's importance is in the naming of Hadrian and his titles. The stone provides a clear date, and thus a tangible confirmation that the Tenth Legion of the Roman army was present in Jerusalem during two important revolts of the Jewish against Roman rule. The archaeologists said that it may be "the most important Latin inscriptions ever discovered in Jerusalem."
“We found the inscription incorporated in secondary use around the opening of a deep cistern," said Avner and Greenwald, in a statement. "In antiquity, as today, it was customary to recycle building materials and the official inscription was evidently removed from its original location and integrated in a floor for the practical purpose of building the cistern."
"Furthermore, in order to fit it with the capstone, the bottom part of the inscription was sawed round."
The inscriptions consist of six lines of Latin text chiseled on limestone. The text was clear and legible. Translated by Avner Ecker and Hannah Cotton of Hebrew University, the text said "To the Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, son of the deified Traianus Parthicus, grandson of the deified Nerva, high priest, invested with tribunician power for the 14th time, consul for the third time, father of the country (dedicated by) the 10th legion Fretensis Antoniniana."
The two experts concluded "This inscription was dedicated by Legio X Fretensis to the emperor Hadrian in the year 129/130 CE." They added that it represents just one half a single inscription.
The other half was discovered in the 1800s by French archaeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau. That half, which was found not far from the modern excavation, is now on display at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Museum - also known as the the Faculty of Biblical Sciences and Archaeology of the Pontificia Universitas Antonianum - in Rome.
Official Latin inscriptions are rare in the Holy Land, especially in Jerusalem.
The discovery of the second half of the inscription not only confirms the presence of the Roman Tenth Legion during the revolts of Jewish patriots against tyranny, but it may also confirm the location of the legion’s military camp in the city of Jerusalem, which was one of the reasons for the outbreak of the Bar Kokhba revolt between 132 and 136 AD. Led by Simon bar Kokhba, the revolt was the last of three rebellions of Jews against Roman rule. The Emperor Hadrian was especially reviled by Jews because of his persecution of the Jews and the imposition of onerous dictates that forced conversions of Jews. These became known as 'Hadrianic decrees.' Hadrian himself visited Jerusalem in 129 AD.
The revolt was eventually crushed by the Romans, who annihilated thousands of Jews and members of the early Christian Church, even while the Romans themselves sustained heavy losses. Among the legions involved in the slaughter were the Fifth Macedonian Legion, Eleventh Claudian Legion, and the Ninth Spanish Legion. Among the atrocities committed by the Romans was the execution of ten revered rabbis, as well as Simon bar Kokhba himself.
・Spero News editor Martin Barillas is a former US diplomat, who also worked as a democracy advocate and election observer in Latin America. He is also a freelance translator.
(2)Alinskyian agitators stir discontent in Ferguson MO, 19 October 2014
by Stephanie Block
Rev. Tracey Blackman, speaking on “webinar video” about the Gamaliel Foundations’s activism in Ferguson,[i] said that the Gamaliel-involved clergy must be “protectors of the narrative” and that they would be the ones to tell what really happened in Ferguson.
In an era when media regularly “shape” the news for their own political ends, we understand what Rev. Blackman means by a “narrative.” The facts – that a young Missouri man, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by a policeman or that “communities of color” suffer disenfranchizement, disproportionate unemployment, and substandard education – are rarely presented in unadorned form. They are “embroidered” with unsubstantiated claims. One hears from one source that “Michael Brown was weaponless and unresisting” and from another that “Michael Brown had gunpowder on his hands.” Eyewitnesses say he was shot despite having his hands in the air; eyewitness say he didn’t have his hands in the air.
Gamaliel wants to be sure that its “narrative” is the one broadcast across the country – that Michael Brown was a victim of police brutality and a racist system that targets young black men. This narrative counters another that would dismiss Michael Brown’s neighborhood as violent, crime-riddled, disrespectful of the law, and trying to blame the police for its problems.
In between these two “narratives” sits a frightened, long-suffering community with far more of its share of problems than anyone deserves.
In true Alinskyian fashion, the Gamaliel Foundation is “rubbing raw the sores of discontent” to further its own ends. On the webinar, Rev. Blackman says that violence not coming from the men of Michael Brown’s neighborhood but from outsiders. That’s an important point to her – an example, she says, of what she means by “controlling the narrative.”
Organizing the people of Michael Brown’s neighborhood for non-violent protest is also coming from “outsiders,” however. The Gamaliel local in St. Louis, Metropolitan Congeregations United (MCU), staged a Call to Action – an “organized resistence” of people joining “those already standing in Ferguson” – during October 10-13, calling it a “Weekend of Resistence.”
People from around the country were asked to travel to Ferguson for an October 10 training in nonviolent resistence, in preparation for a march the following day. Gamaliel’s National Campaign Director wrote after the event that: “Luminaries, old guard civil rights leaders, and out-of-state activists poured into St. Louis for the Mass Mobilization on Oct 11-13, wanting to participate in, or organize, what they may be deem to be the latest incarnation of the civil rights movement.”[ii]
Sunday, October 12 was designated as “Hands Up Sabbath.” The clergy of “faith communities” were asked to address speak about the issues of police brutality and racism, using materials specially prepared by a coalition of groups that include another Alinskyian organzing network, PICO. The “Hands Up Sabbath Toolkit” contains “reflections” and prayers for congregational use, such as a liberationist “Prayer Patterned after the Lord’s Prayer” with the stunningly twisted and telling petition: “May our will be done on earth and in heaven and in the church in the United States.” [emphasis added.][iii]
Then, on Monday, Gamaliel called for clergy-led civil disobedience, with the plan being that many would go to jail, presumably gaining national media coverage by the act.
Lastly, protestors encouraged the signing of a national petition directed at local county executive candidates. [iv] MCU’s – and Gamaliel’s – demands are that, whoever wins the election, will “within 30 days of taking office… hold a summit for the 90+ mayors of St. Louis County municipalities and all heads of law enforcement divisions. MCU wants the summit to focus on commitments from each mayor and police chief to implement community policing procedures, reform excessive traffic fines and abolishing the unjust debtor prison system, so that traffic violators, especially those of low income, are not being exploited to boost city coffers.”[v]
Debtor prison? Boost city coffers? Really?
Gamaliel rhetoric is inflammatory and rousing. One speaker on the webinar called the shooting of Michael Brown an act of genocide and that “Jesus was martryed in same manner as a lot of our black men… we have churches that are ready to get out there on the front line but other churches are ready to retreat and close their doors…as an organizer, I have to navigate that tension between those that are ready to be there.”
Another, Rev. John Welch, chair of Gamaliel’s board of directors, said in response to a pointed question that it was not the role of clergy to be “peacemakers” but “developers of disturbance.”
Is this a “narrative” that best serves a beleagured people or is there, perhaps, still another, yet to be explored? Is there “good news” that clergy might carry, petitioning God’s will rather than Gamaliel’s? Are there ways to help hurting people that don’t perpetuate structures of injustice?
If Gamaliel were a purely secular political organization, such questions would make no sense. As an organization with clergy among its leadship and that is funded by religious institutions,[vi] these questions are not merely reasonable – they are long overdue.
・Spero columnist Stephanie Block also edits Los Pequenos - a newspaper based in New Mexico - and is the author of the four-volume 'Change Agents: Alinskyian Organizing Among Religious Bodies', which is available at Amazon.
Note:
[i] Gamaliel webinar video, ““MCU and Gamaliel's October Push for Ferguson” October 7, 2014: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgGE3gfJwcM&feature=youtu.be (accessed 10-15-14). Link to the video appeared on the Gamaliel Foundation homepage: www.gamaliel.org (also accessed 10-15-14).
[ii] Laura Barrett, “A Generational Divide Between Organizers in Ferguson,” Rooflines (Shelterforce blog), 10-15-14.
[iii] “Hands Up Sabbath Toolkit:” www.gamaliel.org/Portals/0/Documents/Hands-Up-Sabbath-Toolkit.pdf
[iv] Gamaliel petition, “After Ferguson, We Must Change Police and Court Practices in St. Louis County, To: County Executive Candidates Rick Stream and Steve Stenger:”
action.groundswell-mvmt.org/petitions/change-police-and-court-practices-in-st-louis-county
[v] Laura Barrett, “A Generational Divide Between Organizers in Ferguson,” Rooflines (Shelterforce blog), 10-15-14.
[vi] To give an example, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has given MCU the following national grants: $25,000 (2007-2008); $30,000 (2008-2009); $30,000 (2009-2010); $40,000 (2010-2011); $45,000 (2011-2012); $55,000 (2012-2013).
(3)Why we published 'The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel', 12 October 2014
by Cary Nelson
Early this year my colleague Gabriel Brahm and I approached a series of academics with an usual request. Higher education was facing an increasing number of struggles over the pressure to boycott Israeli universities. Academic freedom had long supported the notion that dialogue with our peers throughout the world was a fundamental value to be promoted no matter what policies their governments adopted. Indeed faculty members have traditionally seen that as one of higher education’s founding principles. But this core belief was in the process of being eroded. The movement to Boycott, Sanction, and Divest from Israel (BDS) was waging campaigns on campuses and in professional associations to make Israeli faculty, students, and their universities the one exception to a principle that had been universally honored.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the BDS movement—from Omar Barghouti to Judith Butler—were issuing a number of books in support of their cause. Yet there was not a single book supporters of universal academic freedom could turn to for help in analyzing the boycott issue and defending their beliefs. There was no lack of resources online reflecting both sides of the debate, but there was no one convenient comprehensive package for boycott opponents to use and recommend.
So we decided on something like a Hail Mary anti-boycott pass into the academic freedom zone. We also knew time was short. In was even shorter than we realized, since July events in Gaza were not yet on anyone’s horizon. But we expected a new round of aggressive boycott promotions in the 2014-2015 academic year in any case. Rumors were already afoot about new boycott drives in faculty associations, and campus BDS provocations gave no sign of letting up. We put together a potential list of contributors to a new book, The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel, and sent each a somewhat outrageous request. If you agree that this issue is important, we wrote, are you willing to drop whatever you are doing and write us a new essay over the next few months?
We also had a few pieces we wanted to reprint, including now classic essays by Martha Nussbaum and Mitchell Cohen, but mostly we wanted essays addressing the current state of conflict. Several people of course wished us luck, but said they were completely committed to other projects. But a surprising number of people shared our sense of urgency and agreed. Some predictably promised to do their best but warned the 3-month time frame might well prove impossible. As it turned out, everyone came through in time for fall 2014 book distribution by Wayne State University Press.
I suspect many colleagues assume a paragraph for or against academic boycotts would suffice.
2.Algemeiner (http://www.algemeiner.com)
Israel’s Emerging Muslim-Majority Ally , 24 October 2014
by David Bernstein
Beginning in the early 1990s, Turkey became the one Muslim-majority country that maintained a robust strategic relationship with Israel. The two countries developed strong trade ties. Israel helped update the Turkish air force and Turkey allowed the Israeli air force to train in its airspace. There were major plans underway to further upgrade strategic ties.
In an unfortunate turn of events, Turkey’s elected prime minister (and now president), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, decided to take the once highly secular country in a very different direction and re-aligned Turkey’s foreign policy with other interests in the Middle East. Not long into his tenure, Erdoğan became a public critic of Israel, driving a wedge between Turkey and Israel in the wake of the 2010 Gaza flotilla crisis. Relations between the two countries remain strained.
Israel and its supporters have never fully recovered from the loss of the country’s Muslim ally and the potential it had to transform Israel’s broader relationships in the region.
But now, along comes Azerbaijan—the world’s first Muslim-majority democracy, which is fast taking the place of Turkey in becoming a crucial ally of Israel in the Muslim world. It’s no surprise that of all Muslim-majority countries, Azerbaijan would fill the void. Like Turkey before Erdoğan, Azerbaijan has proudly and sometimes aggressively reinforced its secular society, banning the hijab (veil) in schools.
In a gathering with the Jewish community held in the Washington, D.C. area last month, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the United States, Elin Suleymanov, recoiled from the criticism his country received from the U.S. and others for its tough line on maintaining its secularism. “We are criticized because our girls are not forced to wear the hijab, and this is the worst problem in the Middle East?” he said.
The U.S. should keep in mind that while suppressing traditional religious practices violates American notions of religious freedom, it’s meant to keep radical religious forces in check and to prevent Azerbaijan from going down the same path as Turkey. Unfortunately, in that culturally conservative part of the world, Jeffersonian democracy is not yet on the menu, and trying to impose our cultural ideals may make these countries less, not more free. Let us not forget that France, a well-established liberal democracy, has also banned the hijab.
To date, Israel’s relationship with Azerbaijan has taken an almost identical trajectory as its early ties to Turkey. As it had with Ankara, Israel has steadily ratcheted up defense ties with Baku. Last month, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon visited Azerbaijan, one of a number of such recent defense-oriented visits.
As it had with Turkey, Israel has established a vital economic lifeline to Azerbaijan, which provides the Jewish state with 40 percent of its imported oil.
As with Israeli-Turkish relations, bilateral ties between the two countries signal Azerbaijan’s desire to strengthen its connections to the U.S. and the West. The country has become an invaluable NATO supply line to Afghanistan and has joined NATO war efforts.
When much of the rest of the world interrupted flights to Israel during the conflict with Hamas last summer, Azerbaijan continued flying.
According to one recent report, an Israeli spy drone shot down while doing reconnaissance over Iranian nuclear sites originated from an air base in Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan enclave. If this report is true, they suggest that Israel’s ties to Azerbaijan are much further along than originally understood.
Undoubtedly, Israel sees the tremendous potential in its relationship with Azerbaijan, as does Azerbaijan with Israel. American supporters of Israel must do their part to reinforce that relationship in Washington. As was discovered with Turkey, Muslim-majority allies don’t grow on trees.
・David Bernstein is the former executive director of The David Project and a former senior official at the American Jewish Committee.
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