My father told me that as a small child, the first sound he heard in the mornings was the family cow, Rosanna, mooing and moseying her way down to the pasture. That's a pleasant sound; more pleasant than the first sounds I heard, shouts telling me to "get up for school" (we didn't have a cow).
My Dad heard different, less pleasant sounds, in the small Romanian village of his childhood – especially around Easter time. For me as a little kid, Easter meant a bunny and eggs, which although confusing – because I didn't think that bunnies laid eggs (what did we know in those pre-Internet days?) – wasn't particularly unpleasant. But for Dad – the church bells chiming on Easter told the faithful to scream: "Death to the Jews, the Christ-Killers!" It was the time of throwing stones at the Jewish houses. Had my father seen a poster, then or later in
Today – people don't paste posters on a billboard anymore, preferring instead to "post" on the internet. Those who "post" on their FB page are "posters", but if their "post" is impossible to believe as true and moral – they should be called "imposters".
I recently saw an "imposterous" (an improper and preposterous "post" posted by an "imposter") calling on all humanity to "Support Ramadan!"
HUH??
Why should non-Muslims "support" a month of fasting by day and feasting by night? Although any reverent person would be pleased with the idea of a month of reflection and striving to be a better person – but in what way should I, as an Israeli Jew, "support" Ramadan? Not only do I not believe in it – but there are also incidents of violence, albeit scattered, that come along as a side effect. If my Muslim neighbors wish to fast for a month – they can do it fine without my support. It seemed to me a gratuitous and patronizing post, possibly inspired by an irrational yet commonly more widespread phenomenon of Islamaphobia-phobia.
Perplexed – I went to sleep the first night of Ramadan, pondering the ways that I could or should "support" Ramadan. The answer came to me in a dream – or more correctly: in a piercing sound that interrupted my dreams. At three in the morning I heard the loudspeakers calling the submissive faithful to arise and partake of the "suhur", the meal before dawn, before the fast begins. At four fifteen I hear further calls, for the first prayers about an hour and a half before sunrise.
I thought: "Gee whiz! Can't we get them to pipe down and be quiet? It's two and a half hours before sunrise!"
It was then that I realized how I – as a "settler" living close to my Arab cousins – actually already do "support" Ramadan: by not forcing them to turn off the loudspeakers!
You often read in the media about the "oppression" that Arabs in the