Jewish Reconstructionist Federation

Abie Nathan has died and the Jewish world has lost a truly original voice for peace.  He was and will remain one of my big, big heroes. Boy do we need him more than ever.

How do I even begin? Born in Persia; volunteers as a fighter pilot during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence; becomes a prominent Israeli peace activist in the 1960s, flys to Egypt in his plane (the “Shalom 1″) and asks to meet with Egyptian President Nasser (is arrested, deported to Israel, where he is arrested again…); begins a hunger strike in 1978 to protest Israeli settlements; meets with PLO officials long before it was fashionable…

Most of us, of course, know Abie as the founder of the great pirate radio station “Voice of Peace.” The VOP originated from his “Peace Ship” - reportedly bought with the help of John Lennon - broadcasting 24 hours a day from outside Israeli territorial waters. VOP sent out great music along with Nathan’s own unique commentary and reports of his peace activist exploits. For many Americans bumming about Israel in the 1970s and 1980s, Kol Shalom was the go-to radio station. Who among us will forget its famous opening tag-line: “From somewhere in the Mediterranean…” (I’m sure I still have my VOP T-shirt around somewhere…)

Did I mention we need Abie now more than ever? Read about him in this lovely Gideon Levy tribute from Ha’aretz. Zecher L’tzadik Livracha…

At a Jerusalem press conference in with Condoleeza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni yesterday, the very first questioner cut right to the chase:

The organization Peace Now reported today that Israeli settlement activity has nearly doubled in the past year, Foreign Minister Livni, how do you reconcile that with your stated goal of trying to reach a peace agreement?  And, Secretary Rice, how - what affect does this have? Does this harm or undermine the process?

I won’t bother to reprint Livni and Rice’s answers - feel free to read the transcript yourself. Suffice to say the question seemed to catch Livni flatfooted and Rice offered a tepid reiteration of the US opposition to Israel’s increased settlement activity.

What is there really to say except thank goodness for Peace Now, who has been indefatigably and faithfully documenting the growth of the settlements throughout East Jerusalem and the West Bank?  I encourage you to read the new Peace Now report carefully - it paints a profoundly troubling portrait of a dramatic settlement increase since the Annapolis peace process began.  Among its main findings:

- Over 1000 new buildings are being constructed in the settlements, in which approximately 2,600 housing units. Approximately 55% of the new structures are located to the east of the constructed Separation Barrier.

- According to figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics, construction in the settlements has increased by a factor of 1.8 by comparison to the same period last year. The Housing Ministry initiated 433 new housing units during the period of January – May 2008, compared to just 240 housing units during the period January – May 2007.

- 125 new structures have been added to the outposts, including 30 permanent houses. The number of tenders for construction in the settlements has increased by 550%. 417 housing units, compared to just 65 in 2007. The number of tenders in East Jerusalem has increased by a factor of 38 (1,761 housing units compared to 46 in 2007).

Most alarming, the report concludes:

In recent years the trend has accelerated to eliminate the Green Line through intensive construction intended to create a territorial connection between the blocks of settlements and isolated settlements in the heart of the West Bank.

Anyone who seeks a true and lasting peace between Israel and Palestine should be deeply alarmed by findings such as these. Whether Israel’s leaders are unwilling or simply unable to stem the settlements is moot at this point. The bottom line: the door is closing fast on a two-state solution.  (Indeed, when a Palestinian moderate such as Sari Nusseibeh publically inclines toward a one-state solution, I’d say the peace process is approaching a point of reckoning.)

One more piece of assigned reading then I’ll sign off. Brit Tzedek v’Shalom is circulating a Rabbinic High Holiday letter to Obama and McCain, urging the next President to make resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a top priority of the incoming administration. It’s already been signed by over 150 rabbis, cantors and rabbinical students - encourage yours to sign on…

Just read in Israelity Blog that the Jerusalem Beer Festival will be opening up the taps on August 27. Now this sounds like a little taste of paradise:

The Jerusalem Beer Festival will this year host premium producers, boutique producers and homemade beers in uncommon tastes of honey, coffee, herbs, and more. The festival caters to the beer connoisseur and the average Joe alike, as visitors will have the opportunity to taste the world’s traditional beers - though it seems like local American-style microbrew Dancing Camel - who make arguably the most interesting beer in Israel - is sadly not participating this year.

If you’re in J’lem at the moment, I’m thinking you should head over and hoist a few…

It’s been quite a while since I posted a pic of JRC’s new building. We’ve been settling in for about half a year now and are thoroughly enjoying our new home. Here’s a shot of the exterior with our new front garden, filled with local, drought-resistant species planted by our devoted Garden Havurah.

Our house is quickly becoming a spiritual home: it’s witnessed many, many celebrations, classes, meetings, etc. Also B’nai Mitzvah, two weddings, and sadly, too many funerals. It’s breathtaking how quickly you create memories…

We should be getting official word on our LEED rating from the US Green Building Council very, very soon. We are still hoping for Platinum - stay tuned!

The JTA reported today that for the second year in a row, PETA is calling for an investigation into the pre-Yom Kippur ritual of kapparot - the, shall we say, “quaint” rite in which the sins of a person are symbolically transferred to a chicken or rooster that is held over one’s head and swung in a circle three times before its throat is cut.

This isn’t the first time this practice has run afoul (sorry) of animal rights activists. Failed Messiah reported back in 2005 that the ASPCA seized more than 200 chickens from a Brooklyn kapparot lot:

The chickens were crammed into crates, stacked on top of one another and left out in the rain for days. These birds were encrusted with dried feces, urine and blood. Many suffered from severed toes, plucked out eyes and severe dehydration. ASPCA agents, sifted through the pile of discarded chickens and rescued the remaining live ones. An investigation into their death is underway.

In the more recent protest, PETA alleged in a letter to the New York State Agriculture Department that a lot in Brooklyn threw away thousands of dead chickens last year after they were slaughtered:

The letter singles out the kapporos center run in Crown Heights by Rabbi Shea Hecht, and asks the state to investigate whether consumer fraud occurred. Jews who bought chickens for the ritual expected the birds “to be processed for meat that would be distributed as tzedakah,” or charity, the letter states.

Beyond the animal cruelty politics of this issue, it should be noted that this practice has been criticized by important Jewish sages (e.g. the Rashba , Nachmanidies, and Rabbi Joseph Caro) for centuries. Many rabbinical authorities have long sanctioned giving the monetary value of the fowl as a proxy for kapparot, and yet somehow, the inexplicable attraction of this ritual endures. If someone can explain its appeal to me, I’m all ears. (It would seem to me that the sacred Jewish value of tza’ar ba’alei chayim - preventing cruelty to animals - would trump chicken fetishism by any reasonable standard).

No sooner does the world learn about the Jewish shame that is Agriprocessors, wouldn’t you know it there’s another shonde fur de goyim. I’d say that its time the Jewish community cried foul (sorry again) on this repulsive ritual once and for all…

Last week I noted that we are currently in the midst of reading the seven Haftarot of Consolation that follow the Jewish communal mourning of the Tisha B’Av festival. Our prophetic portion this week comes from Isaiah 49:14-51:3 - a prophetic address that begins with these powerful words of comfort:

Can a mother forget her babe, or stop loving the child of her womb?
Even these could forget, but I could not forget you!
Indeed, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your safety is continually in My thoughts.

It is not difficult at all to understand why these words were chosen to be among those that offer the Jewish people consolation in this seven week season. By specifically invoking the divine attribute of rachamim (”motherlove”), this week’s portion suggests that we never truly lose our childhood need for emotional attachment and safety. It also underscores the truth that children are among the most vulnerable members of society and it is thus our sacred duty to ensure their safety - particularly during times of conflict.

As last week, I’d like to take the lead from this season of our consolation and highlight the sacred work being done around the world to provide comfort and healing in the wake of trauma. Taking my cue from the opening words of this week’s portion, I want to introduce you to the good works of a joint Israeli-Palestinian effort called Project CHERISH (Child Rehabilitation Initiative for Safety and Hope.)

Project CHERISH is a multidisciplinary project that focuses on psychological and social rehabilitation created to address the trauma of Israeli and Palestinian children by helping them regain their confidence, their ability to function in daily life, and their hope for the future. (Project CHERISH is particularly notable for its unlikely project partners: the Israel Center for Treatment of Psychotrauma of Herzog Hospital, the Center for Development in Primary Health Care at Al Quds University and the Joint Distribution Committee.)

Wishing you Shabbat blessings of safety and hope…

Not sure which blessing to say over what foods? No need to live with the shame any more. Just download the new iBlessing application onto your iPhone and with the touch of a finger you’ll know exactly which bracha to utter over fish, meat, bread, fruit, etc. While you’re at it you might as well download the nifty Parve-O-Meter: a timer app that calculates exactly how long you need to wait to eat dairy after you’ve eaten meat (or vice versa).

What’s next, the iSefirah app for those who lose track of the Omer? (I shouldn’t laugh - I’m sure the Apple folks are working on it as we speak…)

If you’ve got iTunes, you can find the iBlessing and Parve-O-Meter here. If you’re blessing-challenged and don’t own an iPhone, don’t fear: check out the Say-a-Blessing Keychain (now offered with the handy LED flashlight feature!)

More great coexistence news from the sports world: according to a report in Ha’aretz, a “Peace Team ” made up of Israelis and Palestinians are slated to play in the upcoming Australian Football League International Cup. The effort was organized and funded by the Peres Center for Peace and the East Jerusalem-based Al-Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue. By all reports they have been practicing diligently in Tel Aviv (above) thanks to special travel permits facilitated by the Peres Center that have allowed team members from the West Bank to cross the Green Line.

The Peace Team has been coached by Australian football legend, Ron Barassi, who pointed out that this particular sport provides a unique opportunity to bring diverse peoples together:

It doesn’t matter where they come from, what their background is, it’s a level playing field… It’s the only game in the world (that) when the ball’s on the ground I can put my body over my teammate’s so he can get a kick, and hopefully he does that for me (too).

The uninitiated should know that this tournament is no small deal. Australian Football is played by over 30,000 participants in over 30 countries around the world. (Apparently it more closely resembles rugby or American football than soccer). This year the cup is hosting more countries than ever as Australia celebrates the 150th birthday of its indigenous game. The tournament will be played between August 27 and September 6 in Melbourne and the country town of Warrnambool.

Go Peace Team!

Run, don’t walk to grab Randy Newman new collection of tunes “Harps and Angels” - a snarky bunch of songs about the state of the post-9/11 union. If RN was crotchety as a young man, boy, just check out the middle-aged version. These are nasty songs designed to keep you sane.

One quibble: the album version of his version of the brilliant “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country” is inexplicably set to a goofy country-music orchestration that lightens it up way to much. I much prefer the simple, lacerating version he released on iTunes last year. (Check out his performance above).

The end of an empire is messy at best
This empire is ending, like all the rest
Like the Spanish Armada drifting on the sea
We’re drifting in the land of the brave and the home of the free
Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye…

This evening begins Shabbat Nachamu (”The Shabbat of Consolation”), the Sabbath immediately following the festival of Tisha B’Av. Last week we highlighted our collective experience of pain and loss; beginning this week we begin the road to recovery through the consoling themes of the Haftarah portions chanted during the next several Shabbat services. These reminders will lead us into the High Holidays themselves - the quintessential Jewish expression of healing and hope.

In the wake of Tisha B’Av, Shabbat Nachamu comes to remind us that healing from trauma is not only possible, but inevitable - as long as we become active participants in the healing process. In a sense, it is not enough to affirm healing in our lives and our world: we need to admit that healing from pain and loss involves very real work. Yes, it is painful work, but it if we devote ourselves to it with a faith and commitment, it is truly sacred work.

This Shabbat Nachamu, I’m suggesting we learn about and support the sacred work of healing that is currently being done around the world by organizations that aid those who are traumatized in the wake of violence and war. Though there are many important national and international centers doing this work, I’d like to spotlight the Center for Mind-Body Medicine’s Global Trauma Relief Mission. The CMBM Global Trauma Relief Mission has remarkable global reach, treating victims of psychotrauma in such diverse locales as Kosovo, Israel, Gaza, Macedonia, Bosnia, in post - 9/11 New York and the post- Hurricane Katrina Gulf Coast region.

This Shabbat Nachamu and beyond, may we do all we can to bring healing and hope to a too-often traumatized world…

For me, the first truly inspiring news from the Beijing Summer Olympics had nothing to do with athletic achievement. It occurred when David Blatt, the Israeli coach of the Russian basketball team made a point of shaking the hands with and embracing the captain of the Iranian team after a game.

The American-born Blatt later commented:

This is the beauty of sport: as soon as you start running you forget everything and remember that we are all the same. Unfortunately, politics is not in the hands of the regular people and the athletes.

Uzi Dann, writing in Ha’aretz, snarkily dismissed Blatt’s gesture, pointing out that an Iranian swimmer has already refused to compete against an Israeli and that certainly no Iranian would ever deign to shake Blatt’s hand if he was the coach of the Israeli team. Oh pleeeeze: is it possible to simply savor this exquisite moment without Scrooging it up with sour grapes? Given the often unbearable political tensions in our world, I’d say we should welcome every instance in which someone extends a hand in the spirit of simple humanity…

Just read of the death of the prominent Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish in Houston following heart surgery. An incalculable loss for the Palestinian people and the world.

Speaking as an American Jew, Darwish’s poetry gave me an invaluable entry point into the Palestinian cultural soul. I do believe that in addition to his importance as the unofficial Palestinian poet laureate (he grappled publicly with the experience of his people’s exile long before it made the world headlines) he was an artist who transcended his own unique historical time and circumstance. Darwish was truly an artist whose art made a difference in the world.

It’s also important to note that while Darwish was fiercely devoted to his homeland and his cause, his poetry also opened up a significant place of connection between Palestinian and Israeli culture. Darwish himself expressed appreciation, for example, for the poetry of Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai - and as recently as 2000, Israel’s then education minister, Yossi Sarid, proposed including some of Darwish’s poems in the Israeli high school curriculum.

Check out Global Voices for thoughts from the world blogosphere about Darwish’s legacy. Click here to read a sampling of his poetry.

One of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned about the holiday of Tisha B’Av came in Jerusalem during the summer of 1988. At a vigil sponsored by Shalom Achshav, one speaker (I wish I can remember who) compared Tisha B’Av to the Jewish High Holidays. During the latter, Jewish tradition requires Jews to do a Cheshbon Nefesh Prati (”personal moral accounting”); on Tisha B’Av, however, the Jewish people are commanded to undergo a Cheshbon Nefesh Leumi (”national/collective moral accounting”).

I’ve been thinking about that simple insight a great deal this year. Too often, I think, Tisha B’Av feels like a masochistic exercise in collective self pity - a numbing recitation of a long litany of woe that has befallen the Jewish people over the centuries. To a certain a extent this is certainly justified: more than any other holiday, Tisha B’Av puts the spiritual themes of grief and mourning firmly at the center. But I do believe we do the holiday - and ourselves - a great disservice if we only treat it exclusively as an expression of our communal Jewish pain and angst.

In the midst of the often overwhelming grief of this holiday, it is too easy to forget that Tisha B’Av also asks us to examine the collective responsibility we bear for the misfortunes that befall us. After all, the Rabbis hastened to remind us that the Jewish exile was mipnei chata’einu (”due to our sins”) and the destruction of the Second Temple was a result of the Jewish People’s sinat chinam (”baseless hatred”). In other words, the central question on Tisha B’Av is not “why do these horrible things always happen to us?” but rather, “how have we contributed to our misfortunes?”

Too many of us seem to feel that since we Jews have experienced more than our share of collective tragedy, that we are somehow given a free walk on this question. That to even suggest such a thing is tantamount to blaming the victim. Others choose to turn away from this question because of its troubling theological implications, rejecting outright the notion of a God who would punish in such a fashion.

Still, I believe that we ignore this question at our peril. At the end of the day, Tisha B’Av asks us to reject the notion that the Jewish People are only a victimized people; the passive recipients of injustices meted out against us from time immemorial. If anything, Tisha B’Av reminds us that we bear a collective moral responsibility - that what we do matters in the world, and that our actions have had very real consequences for us as a people. And so on Tisha B’Av we are asked to make a communal moral inventory so that we might better understand the part we play - wittingly or not - in our own history.

In this regard, there is no getting around the fact that there are important political implications to this holiday. Indeed, the questions we might ask about our collective responsibility are more than merely academic. Tisha B’Av demands this collective accounting: how have we contributed to the ongoing crises in our own country and around the world? How have we - as Jews, as Americans, as world citizens - sown the seeds of our own tragedy?

If we are truly able to find honest answers to questions such as these, I can’t help but believe that our collective mourning will eventually give way to a more hopeful future for us all.

I was at the Cubs game this past Monday, where midway thru the 5th inning Wrigley was evacuated due to heavily severe weather and a tornado warning. After huddling with the masses in the concourse, watching the wind howl down Addison, we dashed over the El and hightailed it home.

What should we make of this? As a Reconstructionist rabbi, I’m loath to suggest it, but could this be a sign from God, perhaps? The Cubs are indeed on a tear (altho they did lose the “tornado tournament” to the Astros) - if we dare suggest this could be their year, does this mean that Armageddon is close at hand?

The clip above should give you a great idea of Monday night’s fireworks…

Shortly before we left Uganda we learned that the August issue of Oprah Magazine would feature an article about Mirembe Kawomera coffee! It’s a wonderful, informative piece - so great to see the efforts of the coop spotlighted in such a major way.

Holly Moskowitz writes in the Mirembe blog that the new crop has just been released and sales so far have somewhat slow. Hopefully the Oprah article will help to give the coffee a boost. Forward it to your friends - and encourage them to stock up on the new batch.

(Please pardon me for the shameless posting of the pic above: my son Jonah picking Mirembe coffee on JJ Keki’s farm two weeks ago…)

But if you do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land, those whom you allow to remain shall be stings in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harrass you in the land in which you live; so that I will do to you what I planned to do to them. (Numbers 33:55-56)

These verses from this week’s Torah portion recalls a famous (some would say infamous) 2004 Ha’aretz interview with Israeli historian Benny Morris. Among other things, Morris adressed the disturbing nature of nation-building, which in the case of Israel “necessitated” the uprooting of the Palestinian population in 1948:

There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing.

And that was the situation in 1948?

That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.

The term “to cleanse” is terrible.

I know it doesn’t sound nice but that’s the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed.

What you are saying is hard to listen to and hard to digest. You sound hard-hearted.

I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv (pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine) was attacked by the Palestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war.

Though the Torah has religious cultic concerns that are centuries removed from the phenomenon of modern nationalism, I believe the intrinsic issue here is essentially the same. Is it truly possible for a people to create a state without dispossessing another? Though we may recoil from the kinds of attitudes expressed in the Bible - or by Morris - this central question remains, and it challenges us to the core.

I’ll add another while we’re at it: are ethnic cleansing or eternal state of war the only options available to nation builders? Might there be a “third way?” I’d love to hear some thoughts…

I just read in Ha’aretz that Israeli artist/writer Rutu Modan’s “Exit Wounds,” has won the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for best graphic novel, apparently the highest award a graphic novel can receive in the US.

I’d say it’s a richly deserved honor. It’s a wonderfully drawn and multi-layered book; the plot focuses on a young Israeli cab driver’s search for his long lost father, who may or may not have been killed in a terrorist suicide bombing. “Exit Wounds” simultaneously reads as a detective story, a portrait of deeply scarred Israeli society and a poignant family drama. I enjoyed it thoroughly when I first read it last year and recommend it highly.

I spent an incredible day yesterday in Postville, Iowa, where an interfaith mobilization of nearly 1,500 people prayed, marched, sang and testified in solidarity with the 390 immigrant Agriprocessor workers arrested in the May 12 raid. I’m still processing the experience the morning after - suffice to say this action provided a powerful ray of light in the midst of the ongoing tragedy that is Postville.

Some brief background for those who still need it: on May 12, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided the Agriprocessors kosher meat packing plant. It was the largest single-site workplace raid in US history, resulting in the detainment of 390 employees (out of a total of 968). Ninety were subsequently released (many with GPS ankle bracelets) - the remaining 300 have convicted as criminals on felony charges.

This is the first time that criminal charges were used as a deportation tactic in an immigrant raid. Most of the detained workers were sentenced to five months in prison for engaging in identity theft, in addition to being charged with committing a civil offense for living in the US illegally. According to the terms of their sentence, they are to be deported after serving their time. (Agriprocessors has not been charged, although there have been widespread and growing charges of worker abuse at the plant).

Yesterday’s demonstration was organized to show solidarity with the Agriprocessor workers and their families and to shine a bright light on our profoundly broken immigration policy. This action brought together an unprecedented coalition of activists and was organized by Postville’s St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, Jewish Community Action (St. Paul, MN), the Jewish Coucil on Urban Affairs (Chicago), and the Office for College Ministries at Luther College (Decorah, IA).

Marchers came from throughout the Midwest - largely from Iowa, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Chicago. I joined two full tour buses organized by JCUA for the five hour ride. As we arrived, the scale of the action quickly became evident - throngs were simply pouring into Postville from every direction. I was honored to participate in an interfaith service at St. Bridget’s (below) - the Catholic church that initially provided refuge for families of the detained and has been the base of operations for the crisis response team.

After the service, we began our march. (That’s me with JRC members Leon and Sue Fink and Gonzalo and Tina Escobar below). Our first stop was the Agriprocessor’s plant which was adorned, horrifyingly enough, with a menorah, a Jewish star, and a banner that read “Agriprocessors: A Great Place to Work!” Needless to say, I was heartened by the strong Jewish presence at the demonstration, which provided Postville with a very different face of the Jewish community.

Our march also stopped at large playground that has remained largely empty since the raid. (The Postville school system has been decimated since employee children have either moved away with their families or are living in fear in their homes). In one of the many emotional high points of the day, a group of employee children (below) recited this piece, which was inspired by the poem “I Am A Jew” (from the classic collection “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”):

We are Latinos and will be Latinos forever.
Even if they should try to separate our families
never will we submit.
We will always fight for our people
on our honor.
We will never be ashamed of them
we give our word.

We are proud of our people,
how dignified they are.
Even though we are supressed,
we will always come back to life.

Our march then took us into downtown Postville, where we encountered the inevitable counter demonstrators. As you can see from the pix below, their signs ranged from the more than mildly offensive to the outright repulsive. (We quickly learned, however, that these fine citizens were not locals. I want to take pains to note that we were largely received with respect and appreciation by the citizens of Postville).

During the final rally, the skies opened up with a thunderstorm, so we moved back into St. Bridget’s. By far, the most moving part of this gathering were the personal testimonies of Agriprocessor workers and their families. One young boy, whose mother is currently imprisoned in Leavenworth, KS, spoke eloquently about his family and their plight, while choking back tears.

As painful as it is, I believe it is so essential for us to bear witness to stories such as these. They are critical reminders that the immigration debate in our country is not about abstract policy, but real people whose lives are literally being torn apart by structural violence. At the end of the day, this really is the crux of the issue. All the rest, as the ubiquitous Rabbi Hillel once said, is mere commentary.

Still, yesterday was a proud day for us all. And I can’t help but hope that this newly emboldened coalition will now take the struggle to the next level.

I’ll close with the picture below. Take a close look - I think it says it all. (The mother with the ankle bracelet is Maria Garcia, an ex-Agriprocessor employee originally from San Luis Potasi, Mexico. That’s her son Anthony holding the American flag…)

On our final day in Africa, we visited the Nankusi and Namanyonyi primary schools, both of which are supported by the Peace Kawomera’s fair trade social premiums. Both schools are engaged in building projects to create more classrooms and more essential educational resources. In each school we saw overcrowded classes (many cramming in over 100 students) and most classrooms are not even equipped with a chalkboard. Similarly, in both schools these important construction projects are currently stalled out due to lack of funding, materials and workers. At Namanyonyi, we were told that they needed the equivalent of $2,000.00 to finish the project.

We’ve heard these kinds of appeals several times on our trip and they are challenging to the core. On the one hand, in the face of such direct need, it’s all you can do to not take out the money and just donate it on the spot. On the other hand, this would clearly raise more questions than it would solve: why is this school more deserving than the one down the road? What kinds of social tensions would you be exacerbating by privileging one one school over another? How would we ensure that the money would be used in the way we were told? What kind of unhealthy power dynamic are we reinforcing when we throw money around in this way? We’ve discussed these kinds of questions a great deal as a group and in the end we’ve resolved to live with the difficulties and complexities that attend the phenomenon of world poverty, arguably the most intractable issue facing the world today.

One important thing we do take away from these experiences is the resolve to support NGOs on the ground that we know are making a real difference in the lives of real people. We have been transformed by our relationships with organizations like WE-ACTx, the Foundation for the Development of Needy Communities and Peace Kawomera, who are leading the charge to create better futures for the communities they serve.

If we have learned anything on this trip, it is that we much redouble our resolve to support their efforts and to encourage others to do so as well. In a world that is so desperately in need of heroes and role models, these are the ones who truly inspire: people like Dr. Mardge Cohen, Samuel Watalatsu, JJ Keki, and so many, many others who work largely off the PR radar screen, but whose vision and drive are bringing hope and change in the areas of the world that need it most.

We’re coming home now, but our work is really just getting started…

We’ve learned a great deal about how coffee is grown and processed on this trip and one of the most indelible lessons we’ve taken away is how interconnected and interdependent each step is to the next. Unlike the major commercial producers, rural coffee farmers like those of the Peace Kawomera coop must depend upon one another to succeed. In other words (to adapt an oft-repeated axiom) it really does take a community to produce a cup of coffee. As I wrote in my earlier post, we did a bit of harvesting at JJ Keki’s coffee farm this past Sunday. We subsequently learned about the complex journey taken by the coffee berries once there are picked.

The first step – and in some ways the most crucial – is called “pulping.” This refers to the husking of the outer red shell of the coffee berry. For quality purposes, pulping must take place 24 hours or less after the coffee is picked. Like most rural farmers, the members of Peace Kawomera have been pulping their coffee by hand, with a manual turn-crank machine.

The pix below were taken at the farm of a coop member named Mohammed – the harvested berries are poured in the top, the crank is turned, and the inner white beans come out the bottom. The leftover red husks are then taken and mixed with manure to be used as organic fertilizer.

I mentioned in my earlier post that Peace Kawomera has recently been able to obtain a large, motorized machine to serve as the central pulper for the entire coop. Since every individual farmer does not own a own hand pulper, the coop leadership hopes that this acquisition will help the farmers expedite this critical initial process. The new pulper is an impressive and complex piece of machinery and has the capability of pulping 5000 five kilos a day. It runs on diesel fuel and requires water is pumped in from a nearby stream. It coop farmers will begin using the central pulper in August, as the coffee harvest goes into full swing

After pulping, the coffee beans are fermented and dried by the farmers themselves. They are then transported to Gumutindo, the location of a larger coop to which ten other farming coops also belong. This is where the coffee is warehoused and eventually inspected with the defective beans sorted out. The remaining beans are then milled in a huge machine (a process in which the thin inner skin is husked from the beans) before they are sampled for final quality control. The pix below show the various step of this process, from warehousing and milling to sample roasting and tasting.

After lunch we attended a gathering of Peace Kawomera farmers who were attending a tutorial on organic farming by agriculturist John Bosco (pix below). The interplay was fascinating and impressive. The level of commitment of the farmers to their work - as well as their desire to learn and succeed - runs quite deep.

For our final meeting of the day, we met with the board of Peace Kawomera (below). If we learned annything with our soujourn with the coop, it was how deeply these farmers are committed to one another and their community. Coffee farming can only succeed with in a powerful subsystem of relationships and social connections. For the members of Peace Kawomera, their devotion to interfaith cooperation and sustainable development is no less powerful. We are bringing home so many profound lessons as a result of our soujourn in Uganda.

One more post to go. I’ll report on a visit to two primary schools supported by the coop and offer some final thoughts.