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(Source: fuckyeahmarxismleninism)
Iran unveils a memorial honoring Jewish heroes
It’s a sign of the Islamic Republic’s embrace of the country’s much-diminished Jewish populationEarlier this week, authorities in Tehran unveiled a monument to slain Iranian Jewish soldiers who died during the country’s long and bitter war with Iraq between 1980 and 1988. Death tolls for the hideous conflict differ, but casualty counts usually reach more than 1 million for both countries.
A public ceremony marked the memorial’s opening on Monday, with speeches that took place at a dais flanked by the Iranian flag and a menorah. Banners showed the images of fallen soldiers, hailed as “martyrs” in Farsi and Hebrew inscriptions.
Iran’s officials inaugurated a memorial for the Jews who fought & died in 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. pic.twitter.com/st0yLmvkXM
— IranTalks (@IranTalks) December 16, 2014
The commemoration may surprise those who think of the Islamic Republic’s routine, angry rhetoric directed toward Israel, a “Zionist regime” the mullahs in Tehran refuse to recognize. But after Israel, Iran has the Middle East’s second-largest community of Jews — with its current population estimated between 20,000 and 30,000. (Many more live in other countries such as the United States and Israel, where a former president, Moshe Katsav, was born in Iran.)
The Iranian government points to the continued population of Iranian Jews in the country as a sign of Iran’s diverse traditions and the government’s own respect for the country’s rich history. The Old Testament Book of Esther is based in ancient Persia and is the foundation for the Jewish festival of Purim.
At the ceremony on Monday, Mohammad Hassan Aboutorabi-Fard, the vice-speaker of the Iranian parliament, made these somewhat underwhelming remarks: “The explicit stances of the Jewish community in supporting the Islamic Republic’s establishment and their obedience to the Supreme Leader of the Revolution demonstrate the bonds originating from the teachings of the divine religions.” He went on to denounce the “violent and inhumane” behavior of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As my colleague Jason Rezaian reported last year, the country’s Jewish community has benefited from the new administration of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who cut a more conciliatory figure compared to his predecessor, the Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Rezaian, unfortunately, has been in Iranian detention for almost five months, arrested on unspecified charges.)
Last year, Rouhani was accompanied by Iran’s sole Jewish parliamentarian on a trip to the United States. A Twitter account associated with him also offered wishes for the Jewish new year.
As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah. pic.twitter.com/tmaf84x7UR
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) September 4, 2013
“We are not tenants in this country. We are Iranians, and we have been for 30 centuries,” Ciamak Morsadegh, the Iranian Jewish parliamentarian, told Rezaian last year.
"There is a distinction between us as Jews and Israel,” added a shopkeeper in the historic city of Isfahan. "We consider ourselves Iranian Jews, and it has nothing to do with Israel whatsoever. This is the country we love.”
CultureHISTORY: #WhiteCoatsForBlackLives - #Ferguson #EricGarner Protests - December 2014
An incredible day of protests from medical students across the nation. The story and more photos here.
- USC, Los Angeles, CA
- Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
- Boston University, Boston, MA
- Morehouse, Atlanta, GA
- University of California, San Francisco
- Harvard Medical Students, Boston, MA
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(Source: fergusonresponse, via owning-my-truth)
The Urbance official trailer!
Pledge your support here.
Guys there’s 57 hours left, this needs to happen!!!!
Pledge if you can!! if not then signal boost the crap outta this!!!!!!!! We can still help!!! It’s not over till it’s over（▼へ▼メ）
This may not be Sailor Moon, but if you love its animation and its power, please consider backing this. It has 50 hours to go. If all of you guys backed $2, this would pass. So if half of you backed $4, it would pass. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Please, please consider.
(Source: crimefighter-bae-b, via stopwhitewashing)
Ridley Scott Addresses Whitewashing In Exodus: Gods and Kings
“I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such. I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.”
I’m done with Ridley Scott forever. What a piece of shit how do you go from blade runner to this?? Smh
(via stopwhitewashing)
Japanese woodworker making geta, a Japanese wooden shoe. I spot a couple of planes, but no sign of a fire shovel chisel.
(Photo by T. Enami (Nobukuni Enami), from T-Enami.org.)
(Source: giantcypress)
In case you needed proof that Peta is literal scum.
Not to mention that in a 2010 inspection conducted by a VDACS veterinarian, it was discovered that 84 percent of the animals Peta took in were killed within 24 hours. [source]
A quick reminder that PETA is literal scum of the earth.
PETA is crap.
(via nitoriaiichirou)
1:10 scale model of a timber frame I’m planning on building next summer in the south of France.
80sanime.tumblr.com
Since I wrote my post about white and non black POC “allies” at Mike Brown rallies in DC last night, my inbox has been flooded by white people especially. Many of these white folks have called me “racist” and “as bad as the KKK,” and they have demanded that I be “grateful”…
(Source: owning-my-truth, via 80sanime)
[…]
In 1969, then 21-year-old Odeh was living in the West Bank city of Ramallah as a refugee from her home village of Lifta when she was arrested by Israeli soldiers and held for 25 days. During her detention, Israeli interrogators elicited what Odeh says is a false confession obtained through torture—including beatings, sexual assault, and death threats. Odeh soon after retracted the confession, but nonetheless she was convicted in an Israeli military court of participating in a series of bombings that led to the deaths of two civilians. She denies any involvement in the acts of which she was convicted.
Israeli military tribunals convict Palestinians at a rate of 99.74 percent, according to the National Lawyers Guild. Torture of Palestinians under Israeli detention, including children, is well documented.
After ten years incarcerated by Israel, Odeh was released as part of a prisoner exchange. She moved to Jordan and eventually relocated to the United States—first to Detroit and later to Chicago. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2004.
Since her release from Israeli prison, Odeh has been an active and prominent campaigner for Palestinian rights and has testified to the United Nations in Geneva, human rights organizations, and media outlets about her torture and its ongoing impacts, for which she has since been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Odeh has been active for years in Chicago’s Arab American Action Network, leading its Arab Women’s Committee, which focuses on empowering Arab immigrant women. In 2013, she was granted the Mosaic Award for Outstanding Community Leadership from the Chicago Cultural Alliance.
But last October, Odeh was arrested from her home in the Chicago suburbs by Department of Homeland Security agents and indicted for allegedly failing to disclose on her visa and naturalization applications her conviction in Israeli military courts.
Odeh’s legal defense attorney says that she did not intentionally provide false answers, but rather, believed the questions only pertained to convictions in the United States.
Critics charge that Odeh’s arrest and subsequent trial was part of a broad crackdown on Palestinian rights campaigners across the midwestern United States. “The immigration charge is really nothing but a pretext,” Hatem Abudayyeh, spokesperson for the Rasmea Defense Committee and member of the United States Palestinian Community Network, told Common Dreams. “The long arm of law enforcement goes after social justice movements doing effective and impactful work.”
(via owning-my-truth)