Just back from a short trip to Maryland’s eastern shore. During our stay, Josh, Jonah, Nancy and I took a delightful stroll around Burton Island, about a 2 mile trail thru typical wetlands and forest. Of the photos I took, here’s a collection I’ve named “Patterns.” I hope you enjoy it.
One of the great museums in Turkiye is the Turk ve Islam, featuring Turkish and Islamic arts. Below you can view a slideshow of some of my favorite exhibits, primarily manuscripts, plus some carpets. Enjoy.
Here’s a slideshow of some pictures I took while visiting Istanbul in February, 2024.
For my whole writing career I have pursued the belief that words are malleable and language is as much a barrier to knowledge as a means of developing knowledge. Words, like knowledge, can evolve and expand in breadth and depth of meaning and implication, and we can begin to hear undertones and after-tones as our sensitivity to each word expands.
So, remember back when you were learning a new language. At first, you equated words in your known language, 1 to 1 with new words in the foreign language. But if your learning gained any depth, you soon saw that the relationships were not 1 to 1 at all. They were hazy, with only partial overlaps, and often with layers or facets of a word in one language, that in the second language were entirely unrelated.
Now, some time ago I began to believe that the Torah had a depth to it that was beyond human. I came to this belief from the opposite direction of traditional orthodoxy that has always maintained that ‘Torah is the word of God.’ Well, there is much in Torah that I believe is all too human, which is to say, deeply flawed, or at least prone to being understood in a deeply flawed way. But I also began to see layers of causality and fore-knowledge that appeared well beyond the capability of mere humans.
I began to wonder: are we translating the Hebrew incorrectly? Are the meanings we’ve applied to words based on ancient or medieval misconceptions, or on the limited knowledge of our forebears? So, here’s a thought experiment. It’s very simple and yet I’ve found it transformative:
Instead of thinking the word ‘melekh’ means ‘king,’ imagine it means ‘consciousness.’ Simple. But watch what that does to your understanding as you say any standard blessing:
Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, Consciousness of the Universe...
Suddenly, your consciousness is bound up with the Divine, directly, palpably. Your consciousness is part of the Melekh of the Olam.
Oh, oh. What does ‘Olam’ really mean?
On Sept. 23, 2023 I posted the first impressions of a poem that was emerging thru my mind. The poem didn’t even have a name at the time, but I knew it was a powerful energy that would compel me for a long while. Since then I’ve been working assiduously on it, letting it speak, letting it rearrange my thinking, letting it come alive. It now has a name, maybe not a final name, but a first name: Remembrensenz a Tiemz tu Kum, or in standard (old) English: Remembrances of Times to Come.
It is a poem with at least two focuses:
1. preparing for the journey after death, and
2. attempting to reveal the infinite nature of all things, an infinite nature well-hidden not just by the limitation of our 5 senses and our body-focused thinking, but by language itself.
What follows is a short excerpt, first in my evolving English, and then in old English, that is, the English that people are speaking in this era.
Wen I wuz nine I koud fienlee heer
the kwesten that bin asken me:
wy am I in this boddee-shel?
An wen I wuz twennee five I koud heer
the Lor Hem kawlen, ‘hu iz heer?’
an I began an anser, ‘henunnee*’ ………. see Gen. 22:1; Isaiah 6:8
with my broken leeng, awl limmitten krude,
awl mis-derrekten an mis-kunstruez,
awl fragmentes an fule a noiz.
A kors, I didden relize it;
I thot my iyz bin akyuret,
my leeng persise, reflekten tru.
Wen I wuz fortee nine I lern
the Torruh iz but a seengel werd
six hunnert thowzen letterz long.
An me, my werdz ar shatter glas,
three, five, sevven letterz long,
sumtime maybee a fyue mor,
my leeng a meerlee shatter glas.
But a lieftime a riten, shapen a werd,
kunstrukten fraze an parugraf,
bilden grammerz tu ullow mor liets
an ennerjeez tu emmannate,
an awl my rit, life-seel long,
tho porlee spoke an innakyuret,
an wut my ukkomplish?
I am spoke a werd or tu2,
not dissarraed babbel but Godwerd spoeks.
A kawlen respons, a Barrukhu*, ……… * a call to prayer
a breethen owt, a lissen in,
a kawl tu prae, a life-seel long.
A fyue werdbreths I wil breeng with me,
now breth-bown intu my jennek koedz.
And here, the Old English version:
When I was nine I could finally hear
the question that I’d been trying to ask:
why am I in this body-shell?
And when I was tweny five I could hear
the Lor calling, ‘who is hear*?’ …….. * others say: here
and I began an answer, ‘hineni*’…….. * Hebrew for ‘here I am’
with my broken language, all limited and crude,
all misdirected and misconstrued,
all fragmented and full of noise.
Of course, I didn’t realize it;
I thought my eyes were accurate,
my language precise, reflecting truth.
When I was forty nine I learned
the Torah is but a single word
six hundred thousand letters long.
And me, my words are shattered glass,
three, five, seven letters long,
sometimes maybe a few more,
my language merely shattered glass.
But a lifetime of writing, shaping words,
constructing phrases and paragraphs,
building grammars to allow more light
and energy to emanate,
and all my writing, a life-soul long,
tho poorly spoken and inaccurate,
and what have I accomplished?
I have spoken a word or two,
not disarrayed babble but Godward spokes.
A call and response, a Bar’khu*, …….. * literally, ‘we praise’
a breathing out, a listening in,
a call to pray, a life-soul long.
A few word-breaths I will bring with me,
now breath-bound into my genetic code.
I’ve completed the calligraphy of this, the first of a series of illuminated manuscripts of my Homeric poem, The Atternen Juez Talen, recounting the thoughts and journeys of the Eternal Jew. This manuscript is 156 pages, which seems long, but it’s only the opening scenes of the poem.
I am now working on the illustrations and illuminations that decorate the text. The first illustrations I’ve completed are portraits in the border. There are 21 in all. Below I present a slideshow of a few of them.
The following short essay was published first on my blog at The Times of Israel, here:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/eternal-jew-in-israel-today/
Einsatzgruppen murder and nazi murderers, Photo credit: Library of Congress, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives
In the past most analyses of the origins and history of the conflict between indigenous non-Jewish Palestinians and Jewish-Zionist emigres have focused primarily on two matters:
1. the politics of national identity, and
2. the right of Jews to claim Israel/Palestine as a homeland.
This latter argument often frames Zionism as a colonial enterprise.
However, neither of these two analytical/ideological approaches hold any water. The first postulates a pre-existing Palestinian national identity. This is merely an illusion, and whether that illusion is a product of inept historicity, projecting the historical present onto the past, or mendacious propaganda, it remains a false basis of analysis. This conflict is NOT the product of two national identities vying for the land. Palestinian identity had NO nationalistic basis until the early 20th century, and even then only by a very few ideologues. Real national identity takes centuries to develop, and it did not begin to emerge in the Palestinian population until after the founding of Israel and the rise in the 1960's of the PLO, led by Yasser Arafat. And even today, twenty years after Arafat’s death, Palestinians still do not have a meaningful national identity. In short, the Palestinians were, and still are an indigenous people, but not a nation.
* Request my Identity Addendum on some necessary markers of national identity.
As for the assertion that Jews have no historical claim to the land, and that Zionism is colonialism, this is nothing but mendacious propaganda. I need not reference the vast number of historical texts and the abundance of archeological evidence that prove three millennia of Jewish life in the land of Israel. Rather, one text is sufficient. The whole Hebrew Bible is a text about Jewish identity, an identity co-existent with the Land of Israel. And this text is universally acknowledged by Jews, Christians, and Muslims (and thus virtually the whole population of the region) as holy and canonical. Further, chapters 13-23 of the Book of Joshua is a verbal geographical mapping of ancient Israel, with a large number of descriptions that are incontrovertibly associated with locations in Israel today. It is an indisputable deed. So let me simply say, Zionism is a national liberation movement meant to reclaim the historic homeland of the Jewish people from the real colonialists, Muslims.
Therefore, we need to rethink the causes of Palestinian fury. An accurate and honest analysis of this historical conflict will assess it as a conflict of
1. status and privilege, coupled with
2. religious ideology.
National identity and the political canards that buttress such arguments are largely diversionary matters. I am not saying this in a void. Quoting the words of Imam Karim Abu Zaid, the imam of CMCC of Aurora, Colorado and the director of Salahuddin Future Academy:
“Brothers, Palestine... is not a national territorial issue, it is an issue of belief and disbelief. This is a religious issue in the depth of theology. ... Allah decreed only the believers to live there.... Only Muslims must be in control of this land....”
This is mainstream Islamic belief.
Long before the U.N. voted in 1947 to create Israel and Palestine, Arabs (they did not yet think of themselves as “Palestinians”) began their pogroms. It was not because of “the occupation” or “the settlements” or the “blockade of Gaza.” It was because suddenly Jews, not Muslims, were becoming the moving economic and political force in Palestine. In 1919 local Muslims and Christians saw their Ottoman government crumbling. And like their empire, the status of local Muslims was crumbling too. Their response was not a pursuit of unity, not economic initiatives, not dialog and a pursuit of re-education. Their response was violence promoted by religious leaders.
1919 marked the beginning of Arab terrorism against Jews in Palestine. Another wave of terrorism began in 1929, then 1936-1939, and then continually up to the present moment, with periods of relative quiet morphing into periods of intifada and war.
By late 1947, while Jews were actively consolidating and uniting their resources and action-plans preparing for nationhood, Palestinians continued to squabble without effective leadership and without any kind of self-directed vision of their future. They largely threw their hopes and their lot to the Arab nations around them, especially Egypt and Transjordan. In May of 1948, after Israel declared its independence, Egypt and Transjordan, among others, attacked the nascent nation intending to absorb it into their own borders. They had no intention of establishing a Palestinian nation, and for the most part the Palestinians seemed satisfied with that solution. Even well into the 1970's and beyond, many Palestinian warlord-leaders simply hoped to confederate with Jordan and take on Jordanian nationality. For example, consider this quote by Zahir Muhsein, PLO executive committee member in a 1977 interview:
“…The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel…”
Or this by Walid Shoebat:
“Why is it that on June 4th, 1967, I went to bed as a Jordanian and woke up as a Palestinian? We considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then, all of a sudden, we were Palestinians.”
And it wasn’t until 1994 that Jordan itself relinquished its territorial claims to the West Bank, then, and only then acknowledging an independent Palestinian claim to this disputed territory. As for Gaza, it was held as Egyptian territory until the 1979 peace deal with Israel (again, with no acknowledgment of any independent Palestinian national claim), when they insisted on transferring control to Israel in spite of Israel’s deep reluctance.
In sum, Palestinian hatred and violence long pre-existed Israel and even rudimentary Palestinian national identity. Nor is that hatred founded in “unfair treatment.” Rather, it is about status and Islamic ideology. It is about reducing upstart Jews to their proper place in the Islamic order.
Often this hatred is “justified” by accusing Israel of apartheid and colonialism. This is profoundly ironic, since it is the Muslim world that is truly apartheid and colonialist. These values are institutionalized thru three fundamental Islamic principles: jihad, dar al Islam/dar al Harb, and dhimma. Jihad is the colonialist act of conquest. Dar al Islam/Harb is the colonialist ideology justifying jihad. The terms mean respectively “region of peace” and “region of war.” Islam divides the world into two regions: the Muslim nations and the non-Muslim nations, with the non-Muslim regions being subject to jihad. Consider: currently 17 African countries have active jihadist insurgencies against moderate Islamic or non-Islamic governments! This is well documented by the Geneva Academy,
https://geneva-academy.ch/galleries/today-s-armed-conflicts
And dhimma is that aspect of Islamic law that deals with non-Muslims. Euphemized as “protection,” it really represents the medieval exclusion of non-Muslims from full and equal legal rights and protections. It is quite literally Islamic apartheid, and it is an integral part of Islamic dogma and ideology. These principles are the real underpinnings to Palestinian terrorism.
Still, we must ask: why did so many members of Hamas’ military commit such blatant atrocities? And why did so many civilians on Gaza’s streets celebrate the atrocities as acts of bravery and glory, and not with horror and revulsion? The answer must include understanding that these acts are the result of decades of a Palestinian program of teaching hatred on a societal level. In schools, thru all forms of media, in the mosque and at home hatred is taught, and those who promote hatred the most are rewarded the most. This is precisely like the nazi program of demonizing Jews in every sector of society thru every means of indoctrination.
And yet, the world turns a blind eye to this constant inundation of hate-teach, preferring to focus on simplistic and vapid political causes, refusing to acknowledge that many, if not most Muslim-majority nations pursue the same kind of hate-indoctrination with similar ferocity. From Algeria in the west to Indonesia and Malaysia in the east, we see the vilification of Israel thru politics, media, and educational policy. And this helps explain why Muslims around the world celebrated and continue to celebrate the atrocities.
The viciousness the world has witnessed in the Simchat Torah massacres is a product of unbridled hatred that has been taught and promoted aggressively across the Muslim world. Where hatred is institutionalized there can be no hope of peace. This not a conflict founded in politics. This is a conflict generated by the institutionalized demonization of the Jewish people thru religion and government.
Beginning the illustration and other decorative work on my Atternen Juez Talen manuscript, having completed the calligraphic work.
Here’s the title page with illustrations about 2/3 done:
Saadia and Batkol, the Atternen Ju and his wife
I began working on The Atternen Juez Talen (The Eternal Jew’s Tale) back in 2009. Those days seem like something of another life now. That tale, that literary history, began in 30 CE in Judean Jerusalem, and proceeded to about 1510 CE in the Ottoman Empire’s capital, Istanbul, where it stands now. It is a compendium of tales of Jewish life, real and imagined, tales personal and lived told from a first-person p.o.v. It also includes letters, dreams, and books produced by the characters in the story; stories within stories and books within books.
In the last year I broke my tale out of its chronological trajectory. I began telling the episodes as a montage of interrelated events and ideas. I wrote a Passover montage composed of 8 Passovers in 8 different locations from 150 BCE in Hasmonean Judea to 1950 CE on an Israeli kibbutz. After that I worked on a Messiah Montage about the many and varied failed messiahs in history.
Less than a month ago I realized I had finished the Messiah Montage, or should I say, I was finished with it. And I realized I was done with The Atternen Juez Talen, too. I had begun to leave that story and that life behind already in 2020. But now, wonder of wonders, after months of transitional agony, I could feel a new energy emerging from my depths, a different story that wanted to be told.
Now the world may behold these first images of that newly emerging tale….
Remembrensenz an Deth Jurneez,
thats ware weel start.
Yu say, 'o wo,' 'o dreeree,' 'not me...'
But jes kunsidder.
We ar tole we kum tu this werl
emtee, fresh, a kleen slate.
But that iz an utter fals.
We kum swoddeld in jennettek vaelz,
vast librareez uv knowenz kumpield
uv expereyenz az arktipe us,
embedden, unkonshes intu us:
insteenkt an tallents,
emoeshenz an skilz,
vizhenz an etheks
that nacherlee unfoel
tu respon tu this werl.
Kunsidder:
How eezee an nacherrel
tu lern tu reed.
An yet not a seengel speseez els
kan reed. Not a seengel hyumen
beffor 5000 yeerz uggo
(but a momen in evvolueshennaree time)
evver haz a tex tu reed,
evver red a seengel werd.
An yet az a speseez weer obsest tu reed.
This skil, an mennee unnuther az wel --
sum we kno:
myuzek, arts, fillossuffee, maths;
an sum yet tu diskuvver,
wuz laen intu the thredz uv us,
reddee wen weer reddee fer it.
We kum heer reddee.
We kum heer perpaerd.
We kum heer with a perpessen goel.
An so it mus be
wen we leev this werl
we wil awlso go perpaerd,
tho we kno not how,
tho it seem we hav no knowenz at awl.
But weel go on that jernee wel perpaerd.
So let us kunsidder wut we kno,
wut we wil karee wen we leev this shel.
Wut ar gatherz tu serv ar needz
wen we leev behien ar sensez five,
wen ar werl iz not shaept by nerv?
Wut uv us iz oenlee mien?
Uv kors!
Ar essens iz immajjinnes...
Below you can view a few alternate versions of the images I have produced to illustrate my weekly Eternal Jew blog post at The Times of Israel (TOI). As of this week, I have posted 105 episodes. If you want to see these images in their literary context, here’s a link to my blog at TOI:
Some months ago I began a project to produce an illuminated manuscript of the poetry version of the Atternen Juez Talen. A prose, standard English version is being published in a weekly episodic format at the Times of Israel [https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/stephen-berer/], but the original poetry version remains largely inaccessible to the public. It seems the world is not yet ready for my visionary talen.
Therefore, I decided to produce an enduring and perhaps even elegant version as a stand-alone work of art. When completed, this illuminated manuscript will still only be about 1/3 to 1/4 of the whole poem, but I hope to illuminate the rest of the poem in further volumes. God Willing.
Below you can see page 103, which I penned today.
Calligraphic version, yet to be illuminated and illustrated
Here is another slideshow of images I produced for my weekly Eternal Jew blog at The Times of Israel (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/stephen-berer/), images that don’t quite make the cut, but of which I’m particularly fond. I begin each set in this slideshow with the original image, almost always a black and white engraving or photo, and then show the end result of various transformations. Enjoy!
Each week to go along with my Eternal Jew postings at The Times of Israel (TOI), I produce an image related to the story. Generally, those images come from some very old books I own that are now in the public domain, including Picturesque Palestine and Picturesque Egypt, but I also scour Wikimedia Commons for useful images I can transform. Usually those images are black and white engravings, which I then “colorize” in various ways, merge with other images, and/or redraw using a collection of electronic tools.
Nancy usually helps me pick a favorite from the 10 to 20 alternatives I produce, but often the competition is pretty close. Below is a slideshow of some of my favorite runners-up preceded by the original images.
As I experimented with a famous 1848 photo of Edgar Allen Poe, now in the public domain, to come up with an image for the 61st episode of the Eternal Jew’s Tale (found at the Times of Israel, at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-eternal-jews-tale-61-a-raven/) my “darkroom work” produced the following collection of images. For your edification…
During Covid I began transforming a storage shed into a tiny house. The goal was to build a super-insulated small space using as much recycled and repurposed building material as possible. Unfortunately, the rigid insulation (Thermax), the sheathing (1/4” plywood), and the wrap (Tyvek) were not available as recyled material, but most everything else was, including the windows and door, the paneling, and the flooring.
Below I present a slideshow of the project as it proceeded. In the first steps I was joined by my son and his partner, who you will see in a couple of pix, but after they blew off the west wall and framed the small addition to the shed, the rest of the work was done by yours truly.
I have begun the research and writing to create a new, modern Pesach (Passover) haggadah, with a new order, new structure, new histories and midrashim, new questions, new questions to answer questions, new portraits of personality types, while still embedding much of the traditional haggadah. This one will be a looking back, a looking forward, a looking at the turbulence and clarities within. Here granular, there sweeping vistas. Now personal, now transitional, now transformational. Thus…
(translated back to old English from my poetic voice…)
Here. The Crystal Haggadah begins. Hear. The seder, its orders retold.
For something like three thousand years or more this tradition, this ritual has been observed yearly in Yisroyel. This, and Shabbat, continuously remembered and observed longer than any other ritual in any other religion or culture in the world.
Observed and honored, festively (or furtively where hate prevails, where laws are writ, where knives are drawn, afraid of us, afraid of our God)…
in Sinai’s shadow; in Judea’s fields; in hovels and mansions in Babylon; in Elephantine ‘way down the Nile, and far up the Euphrates in Pumbedit; in Athens, Rome, and Byzantium; in Medina, Baghdad, Tashkent, Kabul; in Cochin, Calcutta, and Kaifeng; in Kathmandu and Timbuktu; in Algiers, Tangiers, and Tripoli; in Aden, Addis Ababa, and Muscat; in Europe, every shtetl and stadt; in Australia, Sydney to the arid outback; and across the oceans to the New World, in the Caribbean, on every isle, and from Patagonia and Concepcion to Goose Bay and White Horse and Denali Park.
Pesach, the call to liberation; the path to revelation.
My wife and I are visiting NYC, staying in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood in Brooklyn (F train to Carroll St).. I’d call this one of New York’s best “Little Italys” with some completely fabulous shops (Caputo’s Fine Foods is a Mich 3 market in my book, and Monteleone’s Bakery is right up there too, including perfect espresso).
When we arrived at Carroll St station for the first time and walked the 5 or so blocks to our 4 day apartment rental, we were bemused by the many religious shrines in the yards. I’d never seen anything like it. Sure, we’ve seen religious shrines in lots of yards, but here, every 2nd or 3rd house had a shrine. I loved it!! Today is our last day here. I decided I just had to make a photo record of some of the shrines, and here it is. Mind you, these photos were all taken along just 2 1/2 blocks, and on 1 1/2 of those blocks I only took photos on ONE side of the street, not both sides!!
As I was taking one of these photos (#4), the owner of the house came out, clearly pleased that I was photographing his Madonna. He apologized for the algae growing on it, but I told him it looked like it had been painted to bring out the shadows. Nature as artist. Our conversation lasted hardly more than a minute or two, but I think we both walked away elevated, feeling like we’d made a meaningful connection. Well, it was meaningful to me, at least.
Oh, I should mention that the last 5 slides aren’t really shrines, but like the shrines they ARE public-private statements that are an active part of the neighborhood’s personality. And there are a couple of slides in which the “shrine” is just a beautifully gardened yard.
What a great place to stay while visiting NYC. What a great place to live.
Here’s my Carroll Gardens Shrines slideshow:
Amnesty International’s latest Jew-bashing polemic has unconditionally verified what morally responsible people have been saying for years: Amnesty is a mouthpiece for anti-Jewish and anti-western hate mongers. This has been obvious to me for well over a decade, but perhaps this time their egregious distortions and lies (claiming that Israel is “apartheid”) will convince even some of the “liberal” news outlets to stop re-posting Amnesty’s bigotry and endorsing Amnesty’s Jew-hatred. By the way, you may wonder why I put ‘liberal’ in quotes above. It’s because organizations like the BBC, New York Times, and NPR are indeed often liberal in their views. However, when it comes to Israel they do a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde flip, letting their ugly anti-Jewish animus escape unfiltered and uncontrolled.
I won’t recreate the wheel here with my own analysis of Amnesty’s latest abusive attack on Israel. Of the many reports that have already thoroughly dismantled and discredited the apartheid claims, here’s the place I think you should start if you’re not clear how much of a train-wreck the Amnesty report really is:
https://mailchi.mp/americanrabbi/weekly-talking-points-brief-september-27-13581230?e=25c819a369
Perhaps Amnesty should rename themselves Amnazi International. At least they would then be coming clean about their problem with Jews and Israel.
Continuing from the story begun in podcast #6, the ancient sheikh completes his tale of local deities and their battles against Adonai.
You can find the textual version of this particular episode at the Times of Israel website:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-eternal-jews-tale-07-in-search-of-the-garden-2/
Or go to:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/tales-of-the-eternal-jew/
where you can find all the published episodes (currently {18} of them). They are displayed in reverse order, so you’ll have to scroll down to the bottom to read them sequentially.
The ancient story-telling sheikh
The date is about 190CE. The place is east of Damascus. In this episode the Eternal Jew, searching for the Garden of Aden, meets an ancient sheikh.
You can find the textual version of this particular episode at the Times of Israel website:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-eternal-jews-tale-06-in-search-of-the-garden/
Or go to:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/tales-of-the-eternal-jew/
where you can find all the published episodes (currently 17 of them). They are displayed in reverse order, so you’ll have to scroll down to the bottom to read them sequentially.
Camping outside of Palmyra, hearing strange tales.
