Gilad Atzmon is a jazz & world music artist, a novelist and an author focusing on ID politics.
Welcome to Gilad Atzmon's webpage. This site provides information about Gilad's musical and intellectual activity.
http://visitpalestine.webs.com/treeplantingfeb2011.htm
For the registration form for this years olive tree planting in Palestine, please e mail visitpalestine@yahoo.co.uk as registration is now taking place.
The Road to Hope humanitarian aid convoy continues its role in the international community’s collective mission to break the illegal siege of Gaza and deliver desperately needed aid to the people of Palestine in Gaza. The convoy comprises 30 vehicles and 101 humanitarian aid workers. Among them are 8 survivors of the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla, 7 of them were aboard the Mavi Marmara, including Ken O’Keefe who was involved in disarming two Israeli commandos. The convoy has travelled four and a half thousand miles and is currently located at the Libyan / Egyptian border. As it stands the convoy finds itself at a standstill, with direct communication with the outside world being limited, and access to the internet very difficult.
It has always been a central aspect of the Road to Hope convoy that it acts in a non-political, non-confrontational manner. To work with and cooperate with every government in every country through which it travelled. Thus far this approach has rewarded it with exceptional receptions in every nation. All of the North African governments have been extremely accommodating and the people of each nation even more so. We must give special praise to the Libyan government for its constant support; when the convoy have had challenges, including breakdowns of vehicles, the authorities here have provided the means to repair those vehicles and continue our mission.
Ken O’Keefe: “Now we find ourselves in our third day at the Libyan / Egyptian border and we remain hopeful that the land route will be opened to us in the coming days”. The convoy departed from London with the understanding that the land crossing through Egypt had not been closed to it. Convoy leader, Kieran Turner: “One reason for our optimism that we will travel the land route is the fact that the Al Quds convoy, a Libyan convoy also delivering aid to Gaza, is set to travel the land route in the coming days. For several weeks we have hoped to join our convoys and travel together.” However, the convoy is awaiting permission from the Egyptian authorities to pass through Egypt in this way.
Mr. Turner understands that there is a possibility the Egyptian government will deny the convoy the land route, in which case they will have only two acceptable options —
1) To press on via the land border without permission, at which time our only chance of success will be by way of significant international pressure and a reversal of a policy which tacitly supports the illegal siege of Gaza.
2) If the land route is denied the only remaining option is to deliver our aid by sea. This option inherently requires significant increases in the cost of our mission, and importantly, to all subsequent aid missions. The end result of this policy is a reduction in the already limited resources that can be brought to bear for the people of Palestine.
The convoy leadership urge the Egyptian authorities to allow us safe passage to Gaza by land in the coming days, allow the convoy to join the Al Quds convoy, and ultimately increase the “easing” of the blockade which continues to collectively punish the people of Gaza.
Mr. Ken O’Keefe calls on all the supporters of Palestine “to support Road to Hope and the Al Quds convoys by spreading awareness of our missions and encouraging Egyptian cooperation”.
Contacts:
Primary contact: London – Eleanor Merton +44 777 037 6701
Libya / Egypt – Kieran Turner +44 779 22 66 111 (interviews in Libya available if the roaming costs are covered.)
The London JC reports today that Caterpillar is withholding the delivery of tens of D9 bulldozers—valued at $50 million—to the Israeli military.(1) These are weaponized bulldozers that are used to illegally destroy homes and orchards of Palestinian families. And they are the very same bulldozers as the one that killed a 23-year-old American peace activist named Rachel Corrie seven years ago when she tried to protect the home of the Nasrallah family in Gaza.
Is freedom of thought a myth?
I have spent the last ten years elaborating on Jewish national ideology and tribal politics. During my journey of grasping what Zionism and Israel stand for, I came to realize that it is actually the Jewish left -- and Jewish Marxists in particular -- that provide us with an adequate glimpse into contemporary Jewish identity, tribal supremacy, marginal politics and tribalism.
‘Jewish left’ is basically an oxymoron. It is a contradiction in terms, because ‘Jewishness’ is a tribal ideology, whilst ‘the left’ are traditionally understood as aspiring to universalism.
On the face of it, the ‘Jewish left’ is, at least categorically, no different from Israel or Zionism: after all, it is an attempt to form yet another ‘Jews only political club’. And as far as the Palestinian solidarity movement is concerned, its role is subject to a growing debate -- For on the one hand, one can see the political benefit of pointing at a very few ‘good Jews’, and emphasizing that there are Jews who ‘oppose Zionism as Jews’. Yet on the other hand, however, accepting the legitimacy of such a racially orientated political affair, is in itself, an acceptance of yet another form, or manifestation of Zionism, for Zionism claims that Jews are primarily Jewish, and had better operate politically as Jews(1).
Ken O'Keefe on the Mavi Marmara from pentos films on Vimeo.
An adorable man tells his story.
Gilad Atzmon: The following is an email that was sent to me by an American Jew a few days ago. This is a very interesting text that exposes the depth of the Jewish Diaspora's identity complex: Tribalism, shame, self hatred, pride and embarrassment...
You're free to share my story if it interests you, but please spare my name.
My father is a Cleveland-born Labor Zionist who immigrated to Israel with the aspiration of redeeming his secular Jewish soul by pioneering and cultivating the land of his forefathers. My mother is a Mumbai-born B'nei Israel Jew who grew up rather poor in the southern development town of Dimona but worked hard and eventually became a well-paid corporate executive, all while maintaining her traditional Jewish orientation.
I was born in the Holy Land but left when I was four. I lost my Hebrew within a few months of my exile and always considered it a personal tragedy. It was a burned bridge to that curious home away from home that I would visit every few years--the big JCC my synagogue honored, the always-running summer camp my youth group worshiped, the headquarters to which I owed my ethnic loyalty. To have such an Israeli name without the ability to speak Hebrew...chaval (pitty).
I grew up with all the common trappings of the nominal Jewish upbringing. I went to Hebrew school with kids I could barely tolerate. I murmured prayers I didn't understand. I read from a big scroll on my bar mitzvah--something about how the high priest is supposed to apply the blood from an animal sacrifice to various parts of his body.
It was always apparent to me that I was a bit different from my Jewish peers. It wasn't just that I was Israeli. No, I was even more exotic than that. I was a rare breed of Jew. I was half Indian. I was 50% special.
Of course, I had been told about protests and hunger strikes in Israel in the 1950s for recognition of the B'nei Israel as full Jews, but it never made much of an impression on me. My mother occasionally complained of being regarded as "not a real Jew" by her Ashkenazi acquaintances, but for some reason this did not merit my consideration. I was Jewish. My penis showed it. Simple as that.
And besides, my friends never questioned my Jewishness. I was smart, funny, and neurotic. I was Woody Allen with a tan. A full helping of Yid with a bit of spice to make things interesting.
I arrived at your conclusion (though with less of a vengeance) about Jewishness at the age of 23. I recognized that my essentially secular Judaic identity was frivolous at best and dishonest at worst. However, rather than abandon Jewishness altogether (not feasible at the time), I decided to consider the alternative. I went to yeshiva--an ultra-orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem.
I tried desperately to bring consistency to my Jewish identity. I read ancient Babylonian ruminations on property rights. I tied leather straps and black boxes to my tired body every morning while thanking my creator for not making me a gentile, a woman, or a slave. I even kept the Sabbath.
But my skepticism got the best of me. I left yeshiva and returned to Jewish limbo--an unhappy Jew with an insecure Jewish identity.
To be fair, it wasn't just the skepticism that drove me away; it was also the troubling discovery that many Haredi officials of Jewish law question my legal status as a Jew. What I had once carried as an ethnic badge of honor was now a mark of shame. I hated being around people who looked down on me. At first they would think I was Moroccan or Syrian ("Isn't that cute? An oriental Jew."), but upon discovering that half of my blood comes from the subcontinent, there would be a very apparent change of expression ("pagan"). I truly hated it. I would never question members of my tribe, why would they question me?
The vast majority of people who identify as Jewish accept me as Jewish, but the knowledge that hundreds of thousands of the most pious of my tribe do not consider me a member is slowly devouring my identification as one of the chosen.
Mr. Atzmon, your diagnosis of my identity is correct, and my very difficult "de-Judaization" is underway. As for your politics, I can take issue. I think there is more nuance to the situation than what you're letting on, and I think the realization of it involves the application of your critique to non-Jewish tribal identities, as well.
That aside, I write to you as someone who hates it when Jews marry non-Jews, but also as someone who hates that hatred. I write to you as someone who feels personal embarrassment about Israel being so pitifully small, but also as someone who is embarrassed by that embarrassment. I write to you as someone who is suspicious of converts to conservative, reform and reconstructionist Judaism, but also as someone who is suspicious of that suspicion. I also write to you as someone who wonders at how much more difficult it must be to come to this realization without a mother of questionable halachic Jewish status.
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How would you feel about a Radio show specialising in Aryan classical music? How would you feel about a radio show that features mainly, or only Aryan composers and performers? I guess that I know the answer: you would feel disturbed, and you may even want to protest. However, Mike Gerber, a writer for the ‘Jewish Socialist Magazine’ and a member of the ‘Jewish Socialist Group’ has a very similar agenda -- he is about to launch a ‘Jews only’ jazz radio show. Here is an extract from his press release, which he circulated this morning: “I'm Mike Gerber, author of the book “Jazz Jews”, as a result of which I've been asked to host a regular Jazz Jews show on the internet station UK Jazz Radio.…… My Jazz Jews show will feature: Jewish/jazz fusions of every kind; rootsy Jewish music such as klezmer; Israeli jazz; and there will also be a focus on Jewish Great American Songbook composers. I will play tracks by some of the many Jewish musicians who have contributed to jazz more generally...” I assume that we wouldn’t accept an Aryan classical music radio show, yet a ‘Jewish Jazz show’ must be somehow kosher. At least kosher enough for www.jazzradio.com to host it. I met Mike Gerber ten years ago. He came to my house to interview me about Jews and Jazz. He sat with me for many hours, desperately trying to squeeze out of me an insight into the inherent bond between Jazz and Jews |
Hello Everybody
You do not want to miss this one.
This is our Orient House Ensemble mini jazz festival.
We will celebrate ten years of the Orient House Ensemble, with a special three set performance. featuring special guests Asaf Sirkis, Guillermo Rozenthuler, Tali Atzmon, Romanno Viazaani and the Sigamos Quartet. Materials from our early albums, will be followed by our acclaimed In Loving Memory of America tribute to Charlie Parker. We will also play some materials from our new collaboration album with Robert Wyatt and Ros Stephen For The Ghost Within. We will conclude with new music from the band’s new release The Tide Has Changed.
October 19, 2010Mr. Abraham Foxman
Dear Mr. Foxman:
We were quite disappointed to have not qualified for your so-called Top Ten Anti-Israel Groups in America
Surely our annual commemorations since 1995 of the Deir Yassin massacre by Jewish terrorists on April 9, 1948 should have warranted inclusion in your top ten. Some of our commemorations have even taken place at Deir Yassin in clear sight of the Children’s Museum at Yad Vashem. You may like to review footage of one of them at http://video.google.com
In case the Goyim cannot find a purpose in their life, Israeli senior Sephardi Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is there to help them out. In his Saturday sermon Rabbi Yosef revealed that the sole purpose of Gentiles is to serve Jews.
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world.” The Rabbi was also kind enough to provide the Goyim with some precise tasks. “Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.
That is why gentiles were created.”
I guess that it is about time the friends of Israel in Western politics started to fully comprehend their role in our Judified universe -- AIPAC and the Conservatives’ Friends of Israel do indeed, have a crucial function : They are there to ‘help’ our politicians grasp why they ‘were created’.
If you missed the Jazza Music Festival on Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th October, you just missed what turned into the most exciting musical event of 2010 in London.
The two day Jazza Festival's aim was to raise awareness of the plight of the Palestinian people, and particularly so in Gaza, and hopefully to raise funds for humanitarian causes. In the just under four hours of the show each night, this was undertaken with barely a hint of rhetoric but rather, through an incredibly varied programme of music and through the often tender, sometimes sad, occasionally anguished and even angry, often joyful, sometimes humourous, emotions purveyed by the music, and above all its genuine compassion.
To read more: www.rainloresworldofmusic.net
Amnesty International and the Negev Coexistence Forum are pleased to invite you to 'UNRECOGNISED': an event about the dispossessed Bedouin minority of the Negev, Israel
Opening night: November 3rd from 6 to 9 pm - with drinks after the talk (see below)
