4 Comments
User's avatar
Yva's avatar

one example - the Samaritans do not consider themselves to be Jews, but "sons of Israel". What does that mean? Is that acknowledged? Do we hear their point of view? What influence do Christians (i am speaking of ancient Christians, not the modern evangelical version) have? are their points of view recognised or taken into consideration? the Druze? the Sephardic Jews? We hear about the Haredim all the time - but not of the other ancient inhabitants of that land - not to even speak of the Arabic peoples.... And so on. The media in the US is simplistic in their understanding or, perhaps, their desire to blot out the multiplicities of viewpoints and cultures in that land.

Expand full comment
Jeremiah's avatar

I'm probably not going to get too far beyond simplistic since Israel isn't the focus of this blog, but I appreciate deepening it a little bit. I'm a little bit familiar with Palestinian culture, having several friends who've spent time there with Christian Peacemaker Teams.

Do you have a sense for how any of those other groups would feed into the births per suicide metrics described here?

Expand full comment
Yva's avatar

interesting that you write exclusively about religion - a human construct - not about faith. Also, you completely ignore (in the blog about Israel) that it is a multi-cultural country that pretends not to be.

Expand full comment
Jeremiah's avatar

I'll write about faith eventually. So far I'm focusing on things that are measurable.

Do you want to say more about how Israel pretends not to be multicultural?

Expand full comment