A Plea For Iraqi Refugees
This is from an E-Mail sent to me from my good friend Idelle Datloff on Christmas morning.
Idelle is a fellow veteran from the battle for the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, wants all of us to help ease the plight of Iraqi refugees now living in Jordan. This is one small step we can all take to undo the damage the war has done to America’s reputation.
But enough from me; I’ll let Idelle’s own words tell you how to help:
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Dear Friends,
It’s Christmas day and some of you are enjoying the holiday while others of us are pleased to be ignoring it – as much as is possible. So it is with some awareness that this is either very good timing or quite the opposite that I am writing to ask you to consider purchasing one last gift:
Here’s the backstory:
As you may know, my daughter Liana is in Amman Jordan since September, the proud recipient of a Rotary Club Intl. Scholarship, which she is using to study Arabic. (This after four years of Arabic study at Brown from which she was graduated this past spring.)
While volunteering for an international aid organization called The International Organization For Migration she has become involved and interested in the plight of Iraqi refugee families who have fled to Jordan; the estimates are that there are approx. 800,000 refugees there; more are in Syria. These families are often made up mostly of women and children; their financial resources are being depleted because Jordan will not allow them to be employed.
Liana - and a colleague who is interviewing some of the families for a film/book felt that they wanted to actually do something to help these families. They found that many families are living in unheated apartments and are unable to purchase a heater for the winter. (Apparently it does get quite cold there during the winter months.) Kerosene heaters are the norm, and Liana and her small group are raising money - locally – to purchase a heater for as many families as possible. They buy it and deliver it; each heater costs $23 USD There are no “overhead” or “administrative” costs. (Also no tax deduction.)
If you would like to participate and play a small – but significant - role in ameliorating one family’s situation this winter, please send me a check for $23 or any multiple thereof, in my name – and I will email her and she will advance the money until I can deposit the funds in her personal account. The heaters will be delivered within days. In fact, to speed up the process, please email me of your intention to send funds, so I won’t have to wait for the USPO and delay in forwarding the info to Liana.
So if this plea from a Jewish mother on a Christian holiday to help Moslem families touches you – you have my gratitude and appreciation.
Joyeux Noel, Salaam Aleikum, Oy!
Idelle Datlof
6833 Springcrest Circle
Cincinnati, OH 45243
P. S. To find out more about her intercultural collisions you can read Liana’s blog, just click here (www.fromparistoamman.blogspot.com).
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Comments
my check won't get there in time
and I can't afford all five heaters so I bought what I could. The warmth of my heart will have to do the rest.
By the way, this is a most outstanding project, send praises to the young women who are doing it, and to the others like you who are helping so much.
Do it again!
As Long As It Gets There
Just sending what you can, when you can matters the most.
A Compassionate Challenge 2 U All
May the Spirit of the Lord be upon you and may 2008 be a year acceptable to the Lord.
This challenge won't cost you more than sending an email and a few FAXES.
This charitable work of compassion is also an opportunity for X-Left Christians to put into practice liberation theology as we demand JUSTICE for a 21st century Jeremiah.
Background:
Mordechai Vanunu was born a Moroccan Jew in 1954.
In 1986 he was baptized a Christian.
A few weeks later he was clubbed, drugged, roped, bound and kidnapped from Rome by the Mossad and transported back to Israel just as the London Sunday Times published the photos Vanunu had obtained proving Israel had gone nuclear while working in the underground Dimona WMD Program in the Negev.
After a closed door trial he was convicted of treason and spent 18 years in jail-most all of it in solitary.
Israel has never suffered a breach of security and continues to practice nuclear ambiguity.
Israel has never allowed international inspectors into the leaking Dimona and has not signed the NPT.
Vanunu was released in April 2004 under severe house restrictions which among other things forbid him from speaking to any foreigners or leaving Israel which is all he wants to do.
On Christmas Eve 2004 he was arrested for attempting to go to Bethlehem and celebrate his first Christmas mass at the Church of the Nativity. Instead he spent the night in jail.
Vanunu was sentenced to 6 more months in jail for 'attempting to leave the country' [Bethlehem is walking distance from Jerusalem] and because he gave foreign media a few interviews after his release from Ashkelon Prison.
His appeal begins January 8, 2008.
On Christmas Eve 2007 Vanunu was arrested while having dinner at the American Colony with a foreigner.
This foreign civilian journalist has been streaming 2005 and 2006 video interviews of Vanunu on WAWA, which the governments of Israel and USA know all about.
MY email and Fax follow. I hope you all will rise to this compassionate challenge and cut and paste from it and become another voice for justice and freedom.
December 27, 2007
Dear President George W. Bush, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Minister of Foreign Affairs Ms. Tsipi Livni, and Minister of Justice Prof. Daniel Friedman,
Enormously positive PR for Israel and America can be reaped by releasing Mordechai Vanunu to freedom from captivity to coincide with President Bush's upcoming visit to the Holy Land and Vanunu's January 8, 2008 freedom of speech appeal.
I am a firm supporter of what the state of Israel was founded upon: the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its very own words:
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the establishment of Israel
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. -Article 19, UN UDHR
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom…to manifest his religion or belief in worship and observance.- Article 18, UN UDHR
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.- Article 9, UN UDHR
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. -Article 12, UN UDHR
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.- Article 13, UN UDHR
In my second book, MEMOIRS OF A NICE IRISH- AMERICAN 'GIRL'S' LIFE IN OCCUPIED TERRITORY, I likened Vanunu to the prophet Jeremiah, who also endured years of house arrest in Jerusalem for speaking truth to power. Prophets do not necessarily predict the future, but they do point out impending doom and are not appreciated or accepted by their own.
If Israel insists on sending Vanunu back to jail, I will not be silent. I will turn Vanunu into a martyr for freedom of thought, speech and religious apartheid.
In Solidarity with Micah 6:8 and in the words of the IDF to me at every checkpoint:
"Have a nice day."
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu"
[I included my home and email address and phone number]
WHITE HOUSE FAX: 202-456-2461
Mr. Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister of Israel:
Fax: 972-2-6513955, Email: pmo.heb@it.gov.il ,
Ms. Tsipi Livni, Minister of Foreign Affairs Fax: 972-2-5303704 Email: sar@mofa.gov.il
Prof. Daniel Friedman, Minister of Justice Fax: 972-2-6287757 Email: sar@justice.gov.il
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu"
Please Maintain the Focus
Eileen, this post was about Iraqi refugees, not about Israel. For once, can we just keep the focus on the specific question at hand?
i thought the focus was about challenges+compassion
Dear NYGarabladi,
Your challenge to do something for the Iraqi refugees touched my heart as i have had a heart for refugees since i learned about the nearly one million Palestinians who become refugees in 1948.
i also see all things are connected.
i had hope in your compassion for the Iraqi refugees that the actions of America have created, and imagined you as a vessel of compassion that would provoke our sisters and brothers onto good works, as St. Paul told us to do.
When i woke up this AM, the first thing that popped in my mind was to offer X-Left readers another compassionate challenge to put into practice without spending much money and do what we preach;
And isn't that compassion and love for the least?
Happy New Year 2 U and i pray that the spirit of compassion over-fill you and next year will be a year acceptable to the Lord.
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu"
I've Come to a Conclusion
If your local PTA were having a bake sale to raise money for a field trip for a class of first graders you would somehow go out of your way to tie it to Palestinians.
You make me LOL NYGarabaldi
I would not go out of my way-but if the opportunity would arise; i would certainly seize it!
I cannot help what God has put in my heart to do something about and justice for Palestinians, my brother V and the USS LIBERTY are what God has put in my heart!
I also have friends in high places that mentor/encourage me;
Dorothy Day, Brigit of Ireland who had a fire in her belly for the poor, oppressed and voiceless and the Persistent Widow are all my constant companions:
Once upon a time, there was an old widow, who lived in a certain town with a judge who cared nothing about justice, people or God. But an old widowed crone kept coming to him with her plea, "Grant me justice against my adversary."
The judge ignored her until she became such a PIA [pain in the ass] he finally muttered to himself, "Even though I don't fear God or care a hoot about this old crone, she has become such a pain in my ass, I will give into her, just to get her to leave me alone!" [Paraphrased from a story Jesus told in Luke 18 1-5]
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. ... Genius will not. ... Education will not. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."- Calvin Coolidge
All Good 2 U + i will persist to pray that many X-Left readers will help provide some warmth for Iraqi refugees and seek freedom for Vanunu our brother in Christ who is the 21st century Jeremiah.
e
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu"
challenge accepted
Eileen, I can find enough for a few postage stamps by cleaning out the change out of the sofa... I accept this challenge, with emails sent immediately today and stamped mail follow up.
By the way, Bush's email is president@whitehouse.gov
I'm pessimistic. To release Mordechai Vanunu, Israel would also have to admit arresting him, holding him and the realistic nature of their laws that allow this, and I don't see how that will happen. I pray it does happen daily, though. And I've certainly sent letters for causes with less hope than this. I do have hope. I do have hope. This will happen in our lifetimes, Vanunu released out of Israel. I believe I pray so hard.
They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. — Isaiah 2:4 & Micah 4:3
Janet: A Voice of Wisdom + Compassion
I am so grateful to God that Janet has showed up on this site and that she got the point i was making;
i wonder if it maybe just a feminine thing?
The Feminine Divinity in Judaism is Holy WISDOM and from everything i have read that Janet has said; she has it and compassion over flowing.
*Wisdom has built her house and SHE calls to all; "Come, eat my food and drink my wine and you will live abundant life and walk in the ways of understanding." [*Proverbs 9: 4-6]
WISDOM 7:22-8:1
In Wisdom is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique.
Manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain.
Not baneful, but loving the good,
Keen, unhampered, beneficent, kind,
Firm, secure, all-powerful, all-seeing
And pervading all spirits.
Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion and SHE penetrates and pervades all things by reason
SHE is the aura of the might of God and a pure effusion of the glory of The Almighty
SHE is the refulgence of eternal Light, a spotless mirror of the power of God
And SHE who is one, can do all things and renews everything
And passing into holy souls from age to age,
SHE produces friends of God and prophets.
xox,
e
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu"
challenge accepted
do i understand a check for $115.00 = 5 heaters?
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer of "30 Minutes with Vanunu"
Acceptance Acknowledged!
And thank you for your generosity.
Anybody else willing to step up to the plate?
Here's My Challenge To You All
I sent a donation for five (5) heaters to Idelle. If anyone matches me by next Friday, January 4, 2008 I'll donate five more!
But remember: Idelle will have to have your donation in hand by then.
So, who'll match me?
I can't meet that challenge but...
...I've sent what I could.
Bill
That's Good Enough
One who gives and sacrifices by doing so is far more generous than my contribution.