Darfur and Human Rights October 30, 2008

By Lily Jasper, Grade 10

I want to examine some of the reasons the U.S. is committing our people and money to Iraq and Afghanistan instead of Darfur. Our lives and our country were forever changed by the events of September 11th, 2001. both Iraq and Afghanistan are in crisis, but so is Darfur. Here is a look at some of the differences.

The U.S. government might have a hidden agenda. On October 7th, 2001, the U.S. army invaded Afghanistan in response to the attack of 9/11 by a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda, led by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. It is composed of Muslim extremists and a literal version of Islam Wahhabi Sunni, called Tafkin, literally meaning, “one who discovers or destroys infidels.” The U.S. army invaded Iraq because the government thought Saddam Hussein had WMD (weapons of mass destruction). In 2002, Colin L. Powell presented evidence to the United nations that Saddam Hussein’s government possessed WMDs and was prepared to use them against the U.S. and our Allies. The U.S. did offer Saddam an ultimatum, which he didn’t accept so we invaded Iraq in March 2003. Another reason we invaded Iraq was because of the safe-haven Saddam provided for the terrorist groups Suedas Ansar-Al-Islam and Al-Qaeda. To sum it all up, we have spent a lot of money and resources on this problem.

On the other hand, Darfur is a southwestern region in Sudan. Currently, there is a civil war. There are two different sides. One side is the government of Sudan; the other side is the rebels. The reason both sides are in conflict is because the government wants land. Now the government had enlisted janjaweed. The janjaweed are bandits hired by the government to attack innocent civilians in Darfur and scare off people who might be in contact with the rebels. They will use methods such as rape and murder. This is categorized as genocide. Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, specifically those of a particular ethnic group or nation. The government is out to get the rebels and is ready to attack anyone connected to them. One of the major reasons this is going on in Darfur is because the Chinese purchase oil from Sudan and the Sudanese then use the money they receive from China to purchase weapons from Russia.

Now why are we in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting a war instead of saving people in Darfur, Sudan? The reason we are in Iraq and Afghanistan is because like the Chinese, we too need oil. Our population demands it. We are not in Sudan because if we try to stop the genocide, we won’t get anything out of it except the good feeling. We don’t get oil or money. To put it bluntly, there is no profit in saving Darfur. When George W. Bush found out that there were no WMDs in Iraq or Afghanistan, he decided out of money-minded reasons, that Iraq had more to offer to the United States than Darfur. If we tried to invade Sudan and take their oil, we might wind up in a war with China because we would be taking oil from Sudan that China pays for.

Halloween and the Jews October 20, 2008

By Joel M. Hoffman

When I was 11 years old, a grumpy Israeli teacher told me that good Jews don’t dress up for Halloween because it’s a Christian holiday when Christians persecuted Jews.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

First of all, Halloween began as a Pagan holiday, not Christian. The Celtic Pagan year was divided into two halves. The first half, roughly from spring to fall, was for the world of light, and the second half was for the world of darkness. Holidays marked the transitions from each half to other.

In spring, Beltane celebrated the spiritual beginning of light-filled summer days and the life-giving force of the sun.

By contrast, Samhain (pronounced “sow-an”), the precursor to Halloween, fell on November 1 and represented summer’s end, winter nights, and, in general, darkness. As is typical of gateways and transitions (which are known technically as “liminal” times), Samhain was regarded with suspicion and even reverence. It was seen as a bridge between two opposite worlds: the human world of light and good on one hand, and the netherworld of darkness and evil on the other. Samhain was the time when the inhabitants of the latter might cross over to the former.

The custom of masks and costumes probably comes from the holiday’s general celebratory character. Some people may have dressed up specifically as ghouls to chase away the real evil powers, perhaps hoping that the denizens of the netherworld would try to distribute themselves evenly, and, seeing an abundance in one place, would go elsewhere. Or they may have thought that even the goblins were afraid of other goblins.

The Catholic Church highlighted the theme of the dead on the holiday when it adapted Samhain for its own purposes, merging it into its existing day for saints. All Saints Day, as it was called, was a time for recognizing the power the saints have over the still living. In some traditions, people paid special homage to the newly dead or offered prayers on behalf of the souls stuck in purgatory, hoping to pave a way to heaven rather than hell. Some people carried candles in turnips to represent the souls stuck in purgatory. In America, these would become our jack o’lanterns.

Since Catholic mass was held on the day, All Saints Day was also called All Saints Mass, the Middle English for which is Alholowmesse, and the Modern English for which is Hallowmas. (Christmas similarly gets its name from the mass held for Christ.)

Because the Catholic Church at the time still followed the Jewish tradition of reckoning days from sundown to sundown, Alholowmesse actually began on the evening before November 1, that is, on the evening of October 31, which was called Alholowevening, or more colloquially Alholowe’en. That gave us our Modern English name Halloween.

In addition to offering words of prayer for the dead, some Christians prepared physical food for their departed loves ones. Once food was potentially available, the poor wanted in on the action, and before long, the holiday became, in part, a day for begging (leading to Shakespeare’s image of “a beggar at Hallowmas.”) Some poor people asked for food outright. Others combined two Hallowmas traditions and agreed to offer a prayer for a provider’s dead relatives in return for a little sustenance.

But the Puritans who largely founded America despised both the Pagan and Catholic aspects of Halloween, and in this country Halloween was never regarded as a sectarian celebration. It wasn’t even on most American calendars until the mid-nineteenth century. When it finally did take root, it was a mixture of pranks, dress up, jack o’lanterns, and candy, none of which is un-Jewish in any way. So my grumpy Israel teacher was wrong.

He was equally wrong when he told me that Halloween was created to persecute Jews. There were no Jews living among the Celts when Samhain arose, and the Jews had already been exiled from England by the time the Christians turned Samhain into All Saints Day there.

But he was most severely wrong in his general approach. He failed to distinguish the history of the holiday from the holiday itself. If we abandoned everything that had a disagreeable history, we’d have to give up many of our favorite Jewish rituals, too.

Whatever their non-Jewish roots, American holidays such as Thanksgiving and Halloween are now symbols of pluralism, yearly signposts advertising America’s freedom and tolerance. These holidays are an opportunity for Americans, regardless of background, to come together and share an experience. And they can even be an enormous amount of fun.

Pluralism, tolerance, community, and fun are all Jewish ideals, and I, for one, am looking forward once again to greeting bizarrely dressed children as they come to my door and ask for treats.